How exciting! This earthquake is on the other side of the Scotia plate from the earthquake swarm from last week.
This M7.0 earthquake appears to have slipped along a fault associated with the North Scotia Ridge (NSR). The NSR is mapped as a left-lateral transform fault (not a ridge, like it is named). There is not yet a moment tensor available, but I suspect this may be a left-lateral strike-slip earthquake.
Here is the USGS earthquake page.
Indeed, the moment tensor shows a possible left-lateral strike slip earthquake.
Here is a tectonic map of the region from here:
Here is a regional map with the epicenter in orange and historic earthquake epicenters in gray.
Here is a local map showing Modified Mercalli Intensity contours and historic earthquake epicenters.
Here is the USGS page showing the contributed moment tensors:
Monthly Archives: November 2013
M7.8 Scotia Sea
We just got another large earthquake in this region, of magnitude 7.8. There were some changes in magnitudes and epicentral locations early on. It is still early and may change more. Earlier there was a M6.8 earthquake nearby, along with a couple ~M5. These earthquakes are probably occurring on a transform fault system that is connected on the east to the oceanic Scotia subduction zone.
This USGS fault data set is at a global scale and so may not account for the latest structural relations on a local scale. The magnetic anomaly data for the plates in this region are pretty well mapped in some places, but the complexities arise near this earthquake series, south of the east-west transform fault. I have also plotted the historic seismicity with IRIS’ earthquake viewer. Their plate boundary faults are better located than the USGS fault locations, in places.
The moment tensor (an indicator of the type of earthquake and sense of motion during the earthquake) shows a similar sense of motion on this fault as the M6.8 recorded earlier. Based on the mapped plate boundary faults in this area, I interpret this to be a left-lateral strike-slip earthquake, with slightly oblique motion suggesting transtension. The bathymetry also may slightly support a n-s fault with right lateral motion. The transform fault here is stepping left, so left-lateral slip would generate transtension (extension). It is equivocal without a better fault map or high resolution bathymetry. There is a fault-parallel basin that may be related to a possible left step over. There are a couple lines of higher resolution bathymetry about 50-75 km due west of the epicenter that does show some ~”n20e” structures (see figure below).
Here is the USGS page.
Here is a map of the area. The epicenter is marked by a red star
Here is the same map with historic earthquakes plotted.
Here is the IRIS map with historic earthquakes plotted. IRIS puts together learning moment educational products for many larger earthquakes. Here is the IRIS earthquake browser.
Here is a map scaled to the USGS Modified Mercalli intensity map.
Here is the USGS pager page, which helps us to rapidly evaluate potential infrastructure damages.
Here is a tide gage record from Paul Whitmore at the NOAA/NWS National Tsunami Warning Center. The tide gage is located on South Georgia Island.
Here is a figure from Lindeque et al., 2013 showing one tectonic model of this region (Marine Geology, V. 336, p 61-63). Their paper investigates the Cretaceous to Quaternary sedimentation history of the Weddel and Scotia seas. They use seismic stratigraphic profiles and sediment cores to evaluate the sources and timing of sedimentation. They interpret these sediments in terms of oceanographic circulation patterns that changed following the tectonic evolution of this margin. In the Cretaceous, the deep water gateway was closed and the subduction zone along southern Chile probably connected with the subduction zone off the Antarctic Peninsula. Here is a link to their paper.
Here is a map of the region from wiki commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scotia-sea.png.
Here is a map of the local area showing evidence for both e-w faulting (A) and ne-sw faulting (B).
Here is a video map showing seismic waves from this earthquake radiate through the seismic network in the US. (9.6 MB mp4)
Here is a great paper on the tectonic evolution of the western Scotia Sea.
Here is a great web page with tectonic reconstructions of this region.
Here is one of their maps:
M 6.8 Scotia Sea
Nice big one along the complex fault zone west of the Scotia subduction zone. The Scotia subduction zone is an interesting oceanic subduction zone that is possibly related tot he opening between South America and Antarctica. Today’s earthquake occurred in a fault system that involves both transform faults and oceanic spreading ridges. In the region of this earthquake, this system is mapped as a transform fault (“strike-slip,” similar to the San Andreas fault).
The moment tensor, which tells us about the type of earthquake that slipped (eg. strike slip, reverse/thrust, or normal), shows this earthquake to be primarily strike-slip. Based on the mapped plate boundary fault here, I would interpret this to be a left-lateral strike-slip earthquake.
Here is the USGS page.
Here is a map of this part of the southern hemisphere:
Here is a map of the tectonics of the region. USGS plate boundaries are shown as green (transform), magenta (ridges), and blue (subduction zones):
All the contributing moment tensor solutions generally agree with the interpretation that this is a strike-slip earthquake.
Another earthquake also just happened in this locality! This time a Mi 7.8.
Sumatra Coring Video
While we were at sea offshore Sumatra, there was a CBC (Canada) film maker aboard recording material for a film on Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes. This is a dity that he made for us.
Here are a couple videos completed by some of the science crew.
The Lost Multicore!