The 25 October 2010 Sumatra tsunami earthquake: Slip in a slow patch

Various models for the generation of tsunami earthquakes have been proposed, including shallow earthquake slip through low strength materials. Because these physical fault conditions would likely affect other earthquakes in the same rupture zone, source properties of other events may provide a guide to locations of tsunami earthquakes. The 25 October 2010 M(w) = 7.8 Mentawai tsunami earthquake and surrounding events provide a test of this hypothesis. We determine slip patterns for the mainshock and relocate aftershocks, with the majority occurring in the near trench region. The two largest magnitude aftershocks occurred within the downdip end of the mainshock rupture area and have long moment-normalized rupture duration, likely related to fault zone conditions. Several older relocated earthquakes at the northern edge of the 2010 rupture area also have long duration character, suggesting both spatial and temporal consistency in the conditions needed to produce slow seismic processes along this margin. Citation: Bilek, S. L., E. R. Engdahl, H. R. DeShon, and M. El Hariri (2011), The 25 October 2010 Sumatra tsunami earthquake: Slip in a slow patch, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L14306, doi: 10.1029/2011GL047864.