Collaborative Research: Revealing the Environment of Shallow Slow Slip

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Subduction zones, where one tectonic plate bends down beneath another tectonic plate, are important in the evolution of Earth's surface as well as being a major earthquake and tsunami hazard for society. In the last 15 years, dense Global Positioning System (GPS) and earthquake observations made at subduction zones have revealed a new style of fault slip. In addition to continuous slip and sudden earthquake motion, many faults experience slow slip. In some instances, a relationship between slow slip and damaging large earthquakes has been observed. Most observations of slow slip occur at 20-40 km depth below the seafloor. At the Hikurangi margin offshore of New Zealand, slow slip also occurs at shallow depths, but detailed investigation of shallow slow slip has been hampered by the lack of suitable seafloor observations. Understanding the extent, distribution, and range of physical conditions for shallow slow slip events is important, especially since the shallow fault interface is where tsunamis are generated by earthquakes. This project uses recently collected ocean bottom seismic and absolute pressure gauge data from the Hikurangi margin to investigate the relationship between earthquake and slow slip and the physical conditions that favor them. Results of this research will be incorporated into an earthquake science course for the California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science program for high school students at the University of California-Santa Cruz. This project involves the mentoring and training of three graduate students and two to four undergraduate interns, including at least one from an underrepresented group in the Earth Sciences. All students will benefit by receiving training from researchers at different institutions.A large shallow slow slip event occurred in October 2014, directly beneath the Hikurangi Ocean Bottom Investigation of Tremor and Slow Slip instrument array, a major U.S. led international experiment with Japanese and New Zealand researchers. The experiment was designed to investigate the physical environment that hosts shallow slow slip and its relationship to destructive, seismic slip on the Hikurangi subduction thrust. This project will build on the initial data analysis from this experiment to tackle four main objectives: 1) to improve initial tremor and earthquake detection and location using the PageRank technique and matched filtering cross correlation, 2) to investigate changes in coulomb failure stress imparted on the megathrust from the 2014 slow slip event and compare it to earthquake and tremor locations to test whether static stress changes can explain their location, 3) to determine earthquake source parameters and explore their spatial and temporal relationships with slow slip, geodetic coupling and physical properties of the plate interface and 4) to improve images of seismic velocity and attenuation structure using body wave velocity and attenuation tomography and ambient noise surface wave tomography. This project will complement similar efforts in Cascadia and Japan, allowing comparison of the properties and environment of shallow and deep slow slip and build a detailed picture of the relationship between seismic and aseismic slip and its dependence on the velocity and attenuation structure.