Large numbers of small earthquakes recorded over
2 decades and analyzed with advanced techniques are used
to characterize the detailed kinematics, structure and
recurrence interval scaling properties of micro-seismicity
in a 4 4 km lateral and 6 km deep crustal volume
encompassing the region of the SAFOD deep drilling
experiment. The characterization reveals that the seismically
active San Andreas fault in the vicinity of SAFOD’s
repeating magnitude 2 target earthquakes is composed of
two sub-parallel fault strands that are creeping at
comparable rates and that one of the strands lies between
the SAFOD drilling platform and SAFOD’s target events. In
the region, 55% of the earthquakes are members of 52
characteristically repeating earthquake sequences. The
recurrence intervals of the repeating target events are
consistent with the interval scaling of the other sequences.
However this scaling is contrary to that expected from
standard constant stress-drop theory