Nucleation process and dynamic inversion of the Mw 6.9 Valparaíso 2017 earthquake in Central Chile

The Valparaiso 2017 sequence occurred in mega-thrust Central Chile, an active zone where the last mega-earthquake occurred in 1730. An intense seismicity occurred 2 days before of the Mw 6.9 main-shock. A slow trench ward movement observed in the coastal GPS antennas accompanied the foreshock seismicity. Following the Mw 6.9 earthquake the seismicity migrated 30 Km to South-East. This sequence was well recorded by multi-parametric stations composed by GPS, Broad-Band and Strong Motion instruments. We built a seismic catalogue with 2329 events associated to Valparaiso sequence, with a magnitude completeness of Ml 2.8. We located all the seismicity considering a new 3D velocity model obtained for the Valparaiso zone, and compute the moment tensor for events with magnitude larger than Ml 3.5, and finally studied the presence of repeating earthquakes. The main-shock is studied by performing a dynamic inversion using the strong motion records and an elliptical patch approach to characterize the rupture process. During the two days nucleation stage, we observe a compact zone of repeater events. In the meantime a westward GPS movement was recorded in the coastal GPS stations. The aseismic moment estimated from GPS is larger than the foreshocks cumulative moment, suggesting the presence of a slow slip event, which potentially triggered the 6.9 mainshock. The Mw 6.9 earthquake is associated to rupture of an elliptical asperity of semi-axis of 10 km and 5 km, with a sub-shear rupture, stress drop of 11.71 MPa, yield stress of 17.21 MPa, slip weakening of 0.65 m and kappa value of 1.70. This sequence occurs close to, and with some similar characteristics that 1985 Valparaíso Mw 8.0 earthquake. The rupture of this asperity could stress more the highly locked Central Chile zone where a mega-thrust earthquake like 1730 is expected.