Updated concepts of seismic gaps and asperities to assess great earthquake hazard along South America.

ABSTRACT: So far in this century, six very large-magnitude earthquakes (M_W ≥ 7.8) have ruptured separate portions of the subduction zone plate boundary of western South America along Ecuador, Peru, and Chile. Each source region had last experienced a very large earthquake from 74 to 261 y earlier. This history led to their designation in advance as seismic gaps with potential to host future large earthquakes. Deployments of geodetic and seismic monitoring instruments in several of the seismic gaps enhanced resolution of the subsequent faulting processes, revealing preevent patterns of geodetic slip deficit accumulation and heterogeneous coseismic slip on the megathrust fault. Localized regions of large slip, or asperities, appear to have influenced variability in how each source re

SUBMITTER: Lay T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9907104 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature