A slow slip event along the northern Ecuadorian subduction zone

Rapid subduction of the Nazca plate beneath the Ecuador-Colombia margin (~58 mm/yr) has produced one of the largest megathrust earthquake sequence during the last century. The 500-km-long rupture zone of the 1906 (Mw = 8.8) event was partially reactivated by three thrust events; in 1942 (Mw = 7.8), 1958 (Mw = 7.7), and 1979 (Mw = 8.2), whose rupture zones abut one another. New continuously-recording GPS stations installed along the Ecuadorian coast, together with campaign sites observed since 1994 indicate that the current velocities results from the superimposition of a NNE motion the crustal North Andean Block occurring at ~8 mm/yr in Ecuador and the elastic deformation involved by partial locking of the subduction interface. We first estimate the long-term kinematics of the North Andean block in a joint inversion including GPS data, earthquake slip vectors and quaternary slip rates on major faults. The inversion provides a Euler pole located at long. -107.8°E, lat. 36.2°N, 0.091°/Ma and indicates little internal deformation of the North Andean Block (wrms=1.3 mm/yr). Residual velocities with respect to the North Andean Block are then modeled in terms of elastic locking along the subduction interface. Models indicate that the subduction interface is partially locked (50%) up to a depth of 40 km. Finally, we report a transient event that occurred in early 2008 near the Ecuador-Colombia border. The magnitude of the trenchward displacement is 13 mm, with uplift of similar magnitude. While the total duration of the slip event is 5 months, the horizontal time series clearly shows two sub-phases of slip with approximatively similar magnitud of displacement and duration, separated by 6 weeks. Modelling indicates that the slip occurs at 40 km depth, immediately below downdip extension of the locked zone.