The 2015 Nepal Earthquake: When continents collide

<p>Presentation on the tectonic background to the Nepal earthquake and the remaining questions on seismic hazard in the Himalayas</p

Diversity of the 2014 Iquique’s foreshocks and aftershocks: clues about the complex rupture process of a Mw 8.1 earthquake

We study the foreshocks and aftershocks of the 1 April 2014 Iquique earthquake of Mw 8.1. Most of these events were recorded by a large digital seismic network that included the Northern Chile permanent network and up to 26 temporary broadband digital stations. We relocated and computed moment tensors for 151 events of magnitude Mw aeyen 4.5. Most of the foreshocks and aftershocks of the Iquique earthquake are distributed to the southwest of the rupture zone. These events are located in a band of about 50 km from the trench, an area where few earthquakes occur elsewhere in Chile. Another important group of aftershocks is located above the plate interface, similar to those observed during the foreshock sequence. The depths of these events were constrained by regional moment tensor (RMT) solutions obtained using the records of the dense broad band network. The majority of the foreshocks and aftershocks were associated to the interplate contact, with dip and strike angles in good agreement with the characteristics of horst and graben structures (> 2000 m offset) typical of the oceanic Nazca Plate at the trench and in the outer rise region. We propose that the spatial distribution of foreshocks and aftershocks, and its seismological characteristics were strongly controlled by the rheological and tectonics conditions of the extreme erosive margin of Northern Chile.Chilean National Science Foundation project FONDECYT 11130230 Programa Riesgo Sismico (AIN, Universidad de Chile) project FONDECYT 315016

The Constitución earthquake of 25 March 2012: A large aftershock of the Maule earthquake near the bottom of the seismogenic zone

Artículo de publicación ISIThe Mw 7.0 Constitución earthquake of March 2012 is one of the largest interplate aftershocks of the Maule 2010 Mw 8.8 mega-thrust earthquake. This event was recorded by high-rate GPS stations, local seismometers and accelerometers, the Global Seismographic Network and SAR acquisitions by the ENVISAT satellite. We have used these data to perform a kinematic inversion and back projection to identify the principal characteristics of this event. The Constitución earthquake nucleated at 39 km depth and then propagated up-dip at subshear speed towards its centroid, with an unusually long initiation phase that lasted almost 6 s. The largest slip of this event was located in the deeper part of the subduction interface, between the region of maximum co-seismic slip of the 2010 Maule earthquake, and the area where rapid afterslip occurred following that event. Features of the Constitución earthquake may suggest that larger interplate aftershocks of the Maule event preferentially occur in the deeper part of the plate interface where ruptures are complex, produce high frequencies and involve numerous asperities