Abstract
The 1932 deep Fiji earthquake is studied from the point of view of comparing it to the recent large events in the transition zone. Spectral analysis and body-wave modeling suggest a moment of 3.4 × 1027 dyncm (within a multiplicative or divisive factor of 1.5), which makes it comparable to, but not significantly larger than, the great 1994 earthquake, 770 km to the north. Its seismic moment remains well below that of the largest deep shocks (1994 in Bolivia or 1970 in Colombia). Relocation efforts show that the earthquake took place on the front edge of the Wadati-Benioff Zone, in an area where the latter features a complex geometry involving significant warping. The mechanism of the earthquake involves down-dip compression and can be readily explained in terms of the prevailing large-scale stresses in the slabs.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 313-329 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Tectonophysics |
| Volume | 275 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 20 1997 |
Funding
I thankt hen umeroucso lleaguews ho openedfo r me their observatorieasn d archives;t hey are un-fortunateltyo o numerousto list individuallyD. ata for recente arthquakewse reo btainedfr omthe IRIS datac enterI. am gratefutl o SteveK irby for many discussionst,o Bob Engdahl for makinga vailable his hypocentrafill es in advanceo f publicationt,o Tim Clarke for the use of his reflectivitcyo de,a nd to Craig Bina for adaptingth el attert hroughc ount-less iterationsP. aul Lundgrena nd an anonymous reviewepr rovidedu sefulc ommentosn the original versiono f the paper.T his researchw as supported by the National ScienceF oundationu, ndergrant EAR-93-16396.
Keywords
- Deep earthquakes
- Earthquake sources
- Historical seismicity
- Tonga-Fiji Benioff Zone
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Geophysics
- Earth-Surface Processes
