What drives earthquake aftershocks?
Monday, December 2, 2013 - 11:00
in Earth & Climate
On 27 February 2010 an earthquake of magnitude 8.8 struck South-Central Chile near the town of Maule. The main shock displaced the subduction interface by up to 16 meters. Like usually after strong earthquakes a series of aftershocks occurred in the region with decreasing size over the next months. A surprising result came from an afterslip study: Up to 2 meters additional slip occurred along the plate interface within 420 days only, in a pulse like fashion and without associated seismicity. An international research group lead by GFZ analysed the main shock as well as the following postseismic phase with a dense network of instruments including more than 60 high-resolution GPS stations.