Simulation-based impact of DESDynI mission duration and repeat time for postseismic processes

The DESDynI mission detailed observing scenario is influenced by the expected science return, balancing the needs of several disciplines. From the standpoint of bettering our understanding the earthquake cycle, a key advance will come from the ability to observe the postseismic period and discriminate among possible process models. Note that different models lead to different stress transfer calculations, that affect the changing picture of earthquake risk in the region. We generated 1600 synthetic earthquakes, in the form of a single sample composite measurement that has a line of sight coseismic displacement, followed by a linear combination of a logarithmic afterslip function and an exponential decay relaxation function. The coseismic slip, the ratio of coseismic to postseismic afterslip, the ratio of coseismic to the postseismic relaxation amplitude, and the time constants for the postseismic processes were generated from random distributions that were fit to a literature search of interesting earthquakes. A time series with parameter partials was generated for each synthetic event, and transformed into estimation error bars given that each view produced a measurement of motion with 1 cm error. An event is considered resolved only if the slip amplitudes of both afterslip and relaxation is estimated to a relative error of under 0.5. If we have six months of observations after an event, going from 8 to 14 day repeat means losing 18 per cent of the resolved events , going to 45 days means losing over 99 per cent. If we consider two years of observation after an event, going from an 8 day repeat to 45 days means losing 33 per cent of the resolved events.