Slip rate and tremor genesis in Cascadia

• Published in: Geophysical research letters 2014-01, Vol.41 (2), p.392-398
• Main Authors: Wech, Aaron G., Bartlow, Noel M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Boundaries; Cascadia; Constraining; Earthquakes; episodic tremor and slip; Faults; Genesis; Plate boundaries; Rheology; Seismic activity; Seismic phenomena; Slip; slip rate; slow slip; subduction zones; tectonic tremor; Transition zone; Tremors
• ISSN: 0094-8276; 1944-8007
• DOI: 10.1002/2013GL058607

At many plate boundaries, conditions in the transition zone between seismogenic and stable slip produce slow earthquakes. In the Cascadia subduction zone, these events are consistently observed as slow, aseismic slip on the plate interface accompanied by persistent tectonic tremor. However, not all slow slip at other plate boundaries coincides spatially and temporally with tremor, leaving the physics of tremor genesis poorly understood. Here we analyze seismic, geodetic, and strainmeter data in Cascadia to observe for the first time a large, tremor‐generating slow earthquake change from tremor‐genic to silent and back again. The tremor falls silent at reduced slip speeds when the migrating slip front pauses as it loads the stronger adjacent fault segment to failure. The finding suggests that rheology and slip‐speed‐regulated stressing rate control tremor genesis, and the same section of fault can slip both with and without detectable tremor, limiting tremor's use as a proxy for slip. Key Points Slip speed regulates tremor Same event and same fault can slip with and without detected tremor Fault segmentation inhibits slow slip propagation