What can earthquake focal mechanisms tell us about slab tear? Maxwell Rudolph, Eh Tan, Jeniffer Masy, Iain Bailey, Rob Porritt Faculty Adviser: Alan Levander.

What can earthquake focal mechanisms tell us about slab tear?

Maxwell Rudolph, Eh Tan, Jeniffer Masy, Iain Bailey, Rob PorrittFaculty Adviser: Alan Levander

MotivationWhich modes of slab tear appear to be actively occurring?

Can we map slab tears using earthquake moment tensors?

Proposed Work1) Compare summed earthquake focal mechanisms with stresses predicted from highly idealized numerical models around tears of different modes and with velocity anomalies in tomographic models

2) Attempt to understand kinematics and dynamics of ongoing tear near Venezuela in context of focal mechanisms and tomography from Levander group

Bezada et al. 2010. Hale et al. Tectonophysics 2009

South America CMTs

Compute average CMT orientation in local slab coordinate system

Red show T-axes, blue show P-axes

Background is MIT tomography evaluated at the slab contours

Iain Bailey’s work

South America CMTs Rotation of CMTs

CIDER has provided funding for several days of face-to-face collaboration for the whole group in Houston next month.