Orogenic Collapse and Stress Adjustments Revealed by an Intense Seismic Swarm Following the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake in Nepal

The April 25, 2015 Mw 7.9 Gorkha earthquake in Nepal was characterized by a peak slip of several meters and persisting aftershocks. We report here that, in addition, a dense seismic swarm initiated abruptly in August 2017 at the western edge of the afterslip region, below the high Himalchuli-Manaslu range culminating at 8156 m, a region seismically inactive during the past 35 years. Over 6500 events were recorded by the Nepal National Seismological Network with local magnitude ranging between 1.8 and 3.7 until November 2017. This swarm was reactivated between April and July 2018, with about 10 times less events than in 2017, and in 2019 with only sporadic events. The relocation of swarm earthquakes using proximal temporary stations ascertains a shallow depth of hypocenters between the surface and 20 km depth in the High Himalayan Crystalline slab. This swarm reveals an intriguing localized interplay between orogenic collapse and stress adjustments, involving possibly CO2-rich fluid migration, more likely post-seismic slip and seasonal enhancements.

Systematic Investigation of Dynamic Earthquake Triggering in Japan

<p><strong>Introduction. </strong>Previous studies (e.g., Harrington and Brodsky, 2006) documented a relative scarcity of remote triggering in Japan, compared to other seismic regions. For example, in California, dynamic triggering is reported to occur at levels of stress as small as 0.1 kPa, while in Japan it was reported that levels of 30 kPa or more are required to trigger detectable events (van der Elst and Brodsky, 2010). However, the threshold dynamic triggering level following the 2016 M7.3 Kumamoto earthquake was of just a few kPa (Enescu et al., 2016). Enescu et al. (2016) proposed that one of the possibilities to explain this observation is a change of stress triggering threshold that may have taken place after the 2011 M9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake.</p><p><strong>Motivation.</strong> Given the above observations, this study investigates 1) the occurrence of dynamically triggered earthquakes in Japan after some large earthquakes from 2004, and 2) whether the threshold of dynamic triggering may have changed due to the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake and why this threshold might have changed.</p><p><strong>Analysis and Results.</strong> First, we investigated dynamic triggering throughout Japan, following some large earthquakes occurred after 2004. As a result, the  threshold appears to decrease following the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake, however the number of earthquakes we have investigated was relatively small, so we could not draw statistically significant conclusions. In the second part of the study, we have focused on a few specific areas within Japan to systematically investigate dynamic triggering, which reduced significantly the computational costs. Thus, we focused on some areas in Tohoku and Hida, where swarm earthquakes occurred after the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake. As a result, the change of the triggering level in an area close to the Yamagata-Fukushima border is considered to be statically significant at a 5% significance level. In other regions, the significance at a 5% level could not be established, however a decrease of this threshold is apparent, except for one region. We speculate that changes in the stress triggering threshold levels might be related to pore pressure changes in the crust following the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake.</p>

Analysis of swarm earthquakes around Mt. Agung Bali, Indonesia prior to November 2017 eruption using regional BMKG network

Mt. Agung, located in Karangasem-Bali, Indonesia, had a significant increase of swarm earthquakes from September 2017 until the recent eruption in November 2017. To analyze the seismic swarm and its correlation with the magmatic movement, we worked on the regional seismic data recorded by Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics of Indonesia (BMKG) between September 14 to October 20, 2017. P-and S-wave phases of the swarm events had been manually picked. In total, 804 events in the time period of September 14 to October 20, 2017 were successfully determined. To improve the location precision, the double-difference relocation method was performed. We identified most of the events as Volcano-Tectonic type A (VT-A) earthquakes and located between Mt. Batur and Mt. Agung. Those events form a cluster striking in NE-SW direction at a depth between 2 and 20 km. Focal mechanism solutions for selected events below Mt. Agung show a thrust and strike-slip faulting regime. Interestingly, a trend of event propagation toward the summit of Mt. Agung was observed. The frequency of VT-A event occurrences is significantly increased at the later stage of the swarms. We concluded that the increased seismic activity in Mt. Agung was due to the migration of magma from the deep chamber to the shallow reservoir.

Hypocenter relocation of the aftershocks of the Mw 7.5 Palu earthquake (September 28, 2018) and swarm earthquakes of Mamasa, Sulawesi, Indonesia, using the BMKG network data

On September 28, 2018, the Mw 7.5 earthquake occurred in Palu, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. This earthquake produced strong tremors, landslides, liquefaction and a tsunami and caused thousands of fatalities and damaged houses and infrastructure. We have relocated 386 of the 554 Palu aftershocks by using the double-difference relocation method (hypoDD) from September 28 to November 22, 2018. The aftershock pattern is consistent with the crustal deformation in the area and generally shows that the events have a NW–SE trending of ~ 200 km in length and ~ 50 km in width. Most of the aftershocks are located to the east of the Palu-Koro Fault Line. Since November 2, 2018, there have been hundreds of swarm earthquakes in the area of Mamasa, West Sulawesi, which is about 230 km south of the city of Palu. Some of these earthquakes were felt, and houses were even damaged. We have relocated 535 of the 556 swarm earthquakes having a magnitude of M 2 to M 5.4. Our results show that the seismicity pattern has a dip that becomes shallower to the west (dipping at a ~ 45° angle) and extends from north to south for a length of ~ 50 km. We also conducted a focal mechanism analysis to estimate the type of fault slip for selected events of an M > 4.5 magnitude. Most of the solutions of the focal mechanism analysis show a normal fault type. This swarm earthquake probably corresponds to the activity of the fault in the local area.