Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Thurber, C
• Zhang, H
• Waldhauser, F
• Michael, A
• Hardebeck, J
• Eberhart-Phillips, D

Titel

Three-Dimensional Compressional Wavespeed Model, Earthquake Relocations (1966- 2005), and Focal Mechanisms for the Parkfield, California, Region

Ist Teil von

• Eos (Washington, D.C.), 2006-12, Vol.87 (52)

Erscheinungsjahr

2006

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• We present a new three-dimensional (3D) compressional wavespeed (Vp) model for the Parkfield region, taking advantage of the recent seismicity associated with the 2003 San Simeon and 2004 Parkfield earthquake sequences to provide increased model resolution compared to the work of Eberhart-Phillips and Michael (1993) (EPM93). Taking the EPM93 3D model as our starting model, we invert the arrival-time data from about 2100 earthquakes and 250 shots recorded on both permanent network and temporary stations in a region 130 km NE- SW by 120 km NW-SE. We include catalog picks and cross-correlation and catalog differential times in the inversion, using the double-difference tomography method of Zhang and Thurber (2003). The principal Vp features reported by EPM93 and Michelini and McEvilly (1991) are recovered, but with locally improved resolution along the San Andreas fault (SAF) and near the active-source profiles. We image the previously identified strong wavespeed contrast (faster on the southwest side) across most of the length of the SAF, and we also improve the image of a high-Vp body on the northeast side of the fault reported by EPM93. This narrow body is at about 5 to 12 km depth and extends approximately from the locked section of the SAF to the town of Parkfield. The footwall of the thrust fault responsible for the 1983 Coalinga earthquake is imaged as a northeast-dipping high wavespeed body. In between, relatively low wavespeeds ( < 5 km/s) extend to as much as 10 km depth. We use this model to derive absolute locations for about 16,000 earthquakes from 1966 to 2005 and high-precision double-difference locations for 9,000 earthquakes from 1984 to 2005, and also to determine focal mechanisms for 446 earthquakes. These earthquake locations and mechanisms show that the seismogenic fault is a simple planar structure. The aftershock sequence of the 2004 mainshock concentrates into the same structures defined by the pre-2004 seismicity, confirming earlier observations (Waldhauser et al., 2004) that the seismicity pattern at Parkfield is long lived and persists through multiple cycles of mainshocks.