Seismicity, topography, and free-air gravity of the Aleutian-Alaska subduction zone

The Aleutian-Alaska subduction zone, extending 3400 km from the Queen Charlotte Fault to Kamchatka, has been the source of six great megathrust earthquakes in the 20th Century. Four earthquakes have ruptured the 2000-km-long Aleutian segment, where the Cenozoic Aleutian arc overlies the subducting Pacific plate. These include the 1946 M 8.6 earthquake off Unimak Is., the 1957 M 8.6 and 1986 M 8.0 earthquakes off the Andreanoff Is., and the 1965 M 8.7 Rat Is. earthquake. The source regions of these earthquakes inferred from waveform inversions underlie the well-defined Aleutian deep-sea terrace. The deep-sea terrace is about 4 km deep and is underlain by Eocene arc framework rocks, which extend nearly to the trench. It is bounded on its seaward and landward margins by strong topographic and fee-air gravity gradients. The main asperities (areas of largest slip) for the great earthquakes and nearly all of the Aleutian thrust CMT solutions lie beneath the Aleutian terrace, between the maximum gradients. Similar deep-sea terraces are characteristic of non-accretionary convergent margins globally (75% of subduction zones), and, where sampled by drilling (e.g., Japan, Peru, Tonga, Central America), are undergoing sustained subsidence. Sustained subsidence requires removal of arc crust beneath the terrace by basal subduction erosion (BSE). BSE is in part linked to the seismic cycle, as it occurs in the same location as the megathrust earthquakes. Along the eastern 1400 km of the Alaskan subduction zone, the Pacific plate subducts beneath the North American continent. The boundary between the Aleutian segment and the continent is well defined in free-air gravity, and the distinctive deep-sea terrace observed along the Aleutian segment is absent. Instead, the Alaskan margin consists of exhumed, underplated accretionary complexes forming outer arc gravity highs. Superimposed on them are broad topographic highs and lows forming forearc basins (Shumagin, Stevenson) and islands (Kodiak, Shumagin). Two great earthquakes ruptured much of this segment: the 1938 M 8.3 earthquake SW of Kodiak and the 1964 M 9.2 earthquake, which ruptured 800 km of the margin between Prince William Sound and Kodiak Island. Large slip during the 1938 event occurred under the Shumagin and Tugidak basins, but slip in 1964 is thought to have occurred on asperities under Prince William Sound and the outer arc highs off Kodiak. Seismic profiling and industry drilling indicates sustained subsidence has also occurred along the Alaska margin. BSE is probably occurring there, but the terrace structure is buried by the high sedimentation rate. At present, the inherited accretionary structures, the ongoing collision of the Yakutat terrane, and uncertainties in finite fault modeling obscure correlation of slip with topographic and gravity signatures in the 1964 source region.