No Signifcant Efect of Coulomb Stress on the Gutenberg-Richter Law after the Landers Earthquake
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Nature Research
Fecha
2020-02-19Referencia bibliográfica
Navas-Portella, V., Jiménez, A., & Corral, Á. (2020). No significant effect of Coulomb stress on the Gutenberg-Richter Law after the Landers Earthquake. Scientific reports, 10(1), 1-13. [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59416-2]
Patrocinador
Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO, Spain), through the "Maria de Maeztu" Program for Units of Excellence in R D MDM-2014-0445; MINECO FIS2015-71851-P FIS-PGC2018-099629-B-I00 MAT2015-69777-REDT; MICIU FIS2015-71851-P FIS-PGC2018-099629-B-I00 MAT2015-69777-REDTResumen
Coulomb-stress theory has been used for years in seismology to understand how earthquakes trigger
each other. Whenever an earthquake occurs, the stress feld changes, and places with positive increases
are brought closer to failure. Earthquake models that relate earthquake rates and Coulomb stress
after a main event, such as the rate-and-state model, assume that the magnitude distribution of
earthquakes is not afected by the change in the Coulomb stress. By using diferent slip models, we
calculate the change in Coulomb stress in the fault plane for every aftershock after the Landers event
(California, USA, 1992, moment magnitude 7.3). Applying several statistical analyses to test whether
the distribution of magnitudes is sensitive to the sign of the Coulomb-stress increase, we are not
able to fnd any signifcant efect. Further, whereas the events with a positive increase of the stress
are characterized by a much larger proportion of strike-slip events in comparison with the seismicity
previous to the mainshock, the events happening despite a decrease in Coulomb stress show no
relevant diferences in focal-mechanism distribution with respect to previous seismicity.