HR: 1340h
AN: S23A-0288    [Abstracts]
TI: Coulomb Stress Distribution Along the Fairweather and Queen Charlotte Transform Fault System
AU: * Bufe, C G
EM: cbufe@usgs.gov
AF: U. S. Geological Survey, Central Region Geol. Haz. Team P. O. Box 25046, MS 966 , Denver, CO 80225 United States
AB: Tectonic loading and Coulomb stress transfer are modeled along the right-lateral Fairweather and Queen Charlotte transform fault system using a three-dimensional boundary element program. The loading model includes slip below 12 km along the transform as well as motion of the Pacific plate and is consistent with most available GPS displacement rate data. Coulomb stress transfer from adjacent fault segments is shown to be a weak contributing factor to the failure of the southeastern (Sitka) segment of the Fairweather fault (M 7.6, 1972), advancing the clock by only about 8 months. Failure resulted from a combination of loading from below (99 percent) by slip of nearly 5 cm/yr since before1900, and of stress transfer (1 percent) from major earthquakes on adjoining segments of the Queen Charlotte fault to the southeast (M 8.1 in 1949) and the Fairweather fault to the northwest (M 7.8 on Lituya segment in 1958). Combined Coulomb stress increases exceeded 4 MPa at a depth of 8 km prior to the Sitka earthquake. Coulomb stress transferred from the nearby M 9.2 Alaska earthquake of 1964 also may have advanced the clock for the 1972 event, but only by a month or two. Minimum recurrence times, based on average co-seismic displacements estimated from seismic moments and fault dimensions, range from about 80 years for the 1958 and 1972 events to 160 years for the 1949 earthquake. This implies stresses of 5 to 10 MPa at 8 km depth at failure, assuming total stress drops. Continued tectonic loading over the last half century and stress transfer from the M 7.6 Sitka event has resulted in re-stressing the adjacent segments by about 3 MPa at 8 km depth, as evidenced by the occurrence of a M 6.8 earthquake on the northwestern part of the Queen Charlotte fault on June 28, 2004, the largest since 1949. The segment of the Queen Charlotte fault immediately southeast of the 1949 rupture has accumulated about 6 MPa at 8 km through loading since 1900 and stress transfer in 1949. A continued rise in earthquake hazard is indicated for the Alaska panhandle and Queen Charlotte Islands region in the decades ahead as the potential for damaging earthquakes increases.
DE: 7223 Seismic hazard assessment and prediction
DE: 7230 Seismicity and seismotectonics
DE: 8123 Dynamics, seismotectonics
DE: 8150 Plate boundary--general (3040)
DE: 8164 Stresses--crust and lithosphere
SC: Seismology [S]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting