The 2006 Bahía Asunción Earthquake Swarm: Seismic Evidence of Active Deformation Along the Western Margin of Baja California Sur, Mexico

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• 作者：Luis Munguía ; Sergio Mayer ; Alfredo Aguirre ; Ignacio Méndez…
• 关键词：Pacific margin of Baja California Sur ; earthquake swarm in Bahía Asunción ; transtensional deformation ; high ground accelerations from moderate magnitude earthquakes
• 刊名：Pure and Applied Geophysics
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：October 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：173
• 期：10-11
• 页码：3615-3629
• 全文大小：2,060 KB
• 刊物类别：Earth and Environmental Science
• 刊物主题：Earth sciences
  Geophysics and Geodesy
  
• 出版者：Birkh盲user Basel
• ISSN：1420-9136
• 卷排序：173

文摘

The study of the Bahía Asunción earthquake swarm is important for two reasons. First, the earthquakes are clear evidence of present activity along the zone of deformation on the Pacific margin of Baja California. The swarm, with earthquakes of magnitude M_w of up to 5.0, occurred on the coastline of the peninsula, showing that the Tosco-Abreojos zone of deformation is wider than previously thought. Second, the larger earthquakes in the swarm caused some damage and much concern in Bahía Asunción, a small town located in the zone of epicenters. We relocated the larger earthquakes with regional and/or local seismic data. Our results put the earthquake sources below the urban area of Bahía Asunción, at 40–50 km to the north of the teleseismically determined epicenters. In addition, these new locations are in the area of epicenters of many smaller events that were located with data from local temporary stations. This area trends in an E–W direction and has dimensions of approximately 15 km by 10 km. Most earthquakes had sources at depths that are between 4 and 9 km. A composite focal mechanism for the smaller earthquakes indicated right-lateral strike–slip motion and pure-normal faulting occurred during this swarm. Interestingly, the ANSS earthquake catalog of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported each one of these faulting styles for two large events of the swarm, with one of these earthquakes occurring 2 days before the other one. We associate the earthquake with strike–slip mechanism with the San Roque Fault, and the earthquake with the normal faulting style with the Asunción Fault. However, there is need of further study to verify this possible relation between the faults and the earthquakes. In addition, we recorded peak accelerations of up to 0.63g with an accelerometer installed in Bahía Asunción. At this site, an earthquake of M_w 4.9 produced those high values at a distance of 4.1 km. We also used the acceleration dataset from this site to estimate the linear response of sediments lying beneath the station. The resulting average amplification function has a fundamental resonance frequency of about 5 Hz and shows amplification factors of 2–4 for motions at frequencies in the range 2–8 Hz. A comparison of this amplification function with the response of soils to shaking from larger events shows that above 20 Hz the amplification of motion in the larger events decreases relative to the weak-motion response.