The Syncopated pattern of the Parkfield tremors

By Deepa Mele Veedu, Earth Observatory of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Earthquakes usually occur after a fixed period. However, the seismic history at Parkfield shows a series of tremors at irregular intervals. The animation illustrates the simulation of ~400 cycles of tectonic tremors deep below the San Andreas Fault, near Parkfield. The colored dots are the maximum slip velocity of the modeled events. Cold colors like blue denote fast ruptures and warm colors like red represents slow ruptures. This is a collaborative work by Deepa Mele Veedu, a Ph.D. student, and Asst. Prof. Sylvain Barbot at Earth Observatory of Singapore.