The Lima-Peru seismic gap: a study of inter-seismic strain accumulation from a decade of GPS measurements
Abstract
The Peruvian subduction zone between the Mendaña Fracture zone and Arica, northern Chile, has been source of large megathrust earthquakes since historical to present times, The two last major events affecting the southern segment corresponds to Arequipa 2001 (Mw 8.3) and Pisco 2007 (Mw 8.1). A noteworthy event is the Lima 1746 earthquake with an assigned magnitude of Mw 8.5 and which is assumed to have broken several km of the seismogenic zone off Lima. The great shock was followed by a devastating tsunami that destroyed the main port of Callao, killing about 99 percent of its population. This extreme event was followed by quiescence of a few hundred years until the XX century when the Lima subduction zone was broken again by the earthquakes of May 1940 (Mw 8.0), October 1966 (Mw 8.0) and Lima 1974 (Mw 8.0). The broken areas overlap partially with the estimated area of the 1746 earthquake and put the region in a state of seismic gap representing a major hazard for Lima city - Peru's capital and its about 9 million of inhabitants. Our study reports the interseismic strain accumulation derived from a decade of GPS measurement at 11 geodetic monuments including one measurement in an island 80 km offshore and models variations of coupling along the plate interface.
- Publication:
-
AGU Spring Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- May 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013AGUSM.G32A..03N
- Keywords:
-
- 1209 GEODESY AND GRAVITY / Tectonic deformation;
- 1213 GEODESY AND GRAVITY / Earth's interior: dynamics