sign in sign up
<<
Home , Aleutian Trench

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR E -500 -400 -300 -200 -100 0 E' OPEN-FILE REPORT 2010–1083-B U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY Revised September, 2011 Seismicity of the Earth 1900–2010 AXIS 0 TECTONIC SUMMARY and Vicinity This map shows details of the Aleutian arc not visible in an earlier publication (Tarr and others, 2010).The Aleutian arc extends about 3,000 km from the Gulf of to the Kamchatka Compiled by Harley M. Benz,1 Richard L. Dart,1 Antonio Villaseñor,2 Gavin P. Hayes,1 Arthur C. Tarr,1 Kevin P. Furlong,3 and Susan Rhea1 Peninsula. It marks the region where the subducts into the mantle beneath the -100 North America plate. This is responsible for the generation of the Aleutian Islands 2011 and the deep offshore Aleutian Trench. Relative to a fixed North America plate, the Pacific 162° 164° 166° 168° 170° 172° 174° 176° 178° 180° 178° 176° 174° 172° 170° 168° 166° 164° 162° 160° 158° 156° 154° 152° 150° 148° 146° 144° 142° 140° plate is moving northwest at a rate that increases from about 55 mm per year at the arc's eastern 62° edge to 75 mm per year near its western terminus. In the east, the convergence of the plates is nearly perpendicular to the plate boundary. However, because of the boundary's curvature, as -200 1979 one travels westward along the arc, the subduction becomes more and more oblique to the 60° boundary until the relative plate motion becomes parallel to the arc at the Near Islands near its PROFILE E St. Lawrence I. western edge. (Alaska) R U -300 Subduction zones such as the Aleutian arc are geologically complex and produce numerous S S from multiple sources. Deformation of the overriding North America plate I A 1964 Hinchinbrook I. generates shallow crustal earthquakes, whereas slip at the interface of the plates generates

V interplate earthquakes that extend from near the base of the trench to depths of 40 to 60 km. At 2006 . I

i greater depths, Aleutian arc earthquakes occur within the subducting Pacific plate and can e t 1987 ) t 60° u y . reach depths of 300 km. Since 1900, six great earthquakes have occurred along the Aleutian g A e a . a S l Trench, , and Gulf of Alaska: M8.4 1906 Rat Islands (Okal, 2005); M8.6 t z . U n n 1938 Shumagin Islands (Estabrook and others, 1994); M8.6 1946 (Lopez and ( E o V A I M 58° Okal, 2006); M8.6 1957 (Johnson and Satake, 1993); M9.2 1964 Prince K a A S L k William Sound (Kanamori, 1970); and M8.7 1965 Rat Islands (Wu and Kanamori, 1973). l A l o e k a y o a s Several relevant tectonic elements (plate boundaries and active volcanoes) provide a context C l St. Matthew I. f A E' 1988 for the seismicity presented on the main map panel. The plate boundaries (Bird, 2003) are most (Alaska) o accurate along the axis of the Aleutian Trench and more diffuse or speculative in extreme u l f northeastern Russia. The active volcanoes (Siebert and Simkin, 2002) parallel the Aleutian Komandor Basin G Surveyor Channel Trench from the Gulf of Alaska to the Rat Islands. 58° Nunivak I. Afognak I. (Alaska) Pratt Guyot e DATA SOURCES

g

d The earthquakes portrayed on the main map and the depth profiles are taken from two sources: (a) the Centennial i 56°

R catalog (Engdahl and Villaseñor, 2002) and annual supplements for the interval 1900–2007, where the d Bering Sea magnitude floor is 5.5 globally, and (b) a catalog of earthquakes having high-quality depth determinations for the v n

o a period 1964–2002 and a magnitude range of 5.0≥M≤5.4 (Engdahl, personal commun., 2009.) h 1900 l Gap Surveyor MAP EXPLANATION s s r Bristol I The nucleation points of great earthquakes (M≥8.3) are designated with a label showing the year of occurrence. i 100 h Aleutian k Magnitude classes Nucleation points Their rupture areas are shown as pale reddish polygons. Major earthquakes (7.5≥M≤8.2) are labeled with the year of Bay 60 56° COMMANDER S a occurrence, while earthquakes (8.0≥M≤8.2) are labeled with the year of occurrence and also denoted by a white i 4–5.9 Rupture zones outline (Tarr and others, 2010). d 6–6.4 ISLANDS D o K 6.5–6.9 Active volcanoes The Seismic Hazard and Relative Plate Motion map displays the generalized seismic hazard of the region (Giardini (Russia) St. Paul I. 200 7–7.4 54° and others, 1999) and representative relative plate motion vectors of the Pacific plate relative to the adjacent North Mean slab depth O. Bering 7.5 America plate using the NUVEL–1A model (DeMets and others, 1994). Pribilof Islands (Alaska) P 50 km a 7.6 St. George I. t 100 Pre-instrumental seismicity for the Aleutian arc was obtained from the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center t 7.7 O. Mednyy o n 200 (2010) database of significant earthquakes; locations are approximate, based on macro-seismic reports and field n S 7.8 300 investigations. We selected earthquakes with associated reports of moderate to major damage, 10 or more deaths, an o 1938 s k e a o u n t y m 600 estimated magnitude of 7.5 or greater (if known), Modified Mercalli Intensity at least X, or generation. Basin n n 7.9 54° a a Plate boundaries C lov B 8.0 Base map data sources include GEBCO (2008), Volcanoes of the World dataset (Siebert and Simkin, 2002), plate riby S Subduction A Ulm P h u B m n boundaries (Bird, 2003), Digital Chart of the World (1992), and ESRI (2002). Slab contours are from Hayes and Wald Plateau Bo ri Unimak I. a g i 8.1 Transform w sto (2010). L er l C 1917 Divergent 1929 s an 8.2 52° REFERENCES R yon Sanak Convergent E id C N g Bank H Inferred Bird, Peter, 2003, An updated digital model of plate boundaries: Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems, A' Depth of focus . Stalemate B e Be v. 4, no. 3, 52 p. E o rin n C 0–69 km U w g Canyo DeMets, Charles, Gordon, R.G., Argus, D.F., and Stein, Seth, 1994, Effects of recent revisions to the geomagnetic time

Bank D' 70–299 km . A e N scale on estimates of current plate motions: Geophysical Research Letters, v. 21, p. 2191–2194. T Attu r s Plateau Davidson1946 Bank 300–700 km R E Guide Ridge Digital Chart of the World, 1992: http://earth-info.nga.mil/publications/specs/printed/89009/89009_DCW.pdf, last B . 52° a n ak Can R accessed Mar. 9, 1996. I s o n yo Unalaska I. i y m n T n n Engdahl, E.R., and Villaseñor, Antonio, 2002, Global seismicity 1900–1999, in Lee, W.H.K., Kanamori, Hiroo, I U . A a Umnak I. 100 Umnak Jennings, P.C., and Kisslinger, Carl, eds, International Handbook of Earthquake and Engineering Seismology, S 50 R RAT B C . Islands of N DD-400 -300 -200 -100 0 100 'International Association for Earthquake Engineering, v. 81(A), chap. 41, p. 1–26. N L Agattu ISLANDS ta Basin Detroit Rise A k ESRI, 2002, ESRI data and maps: Redlands, Calif., ESRI. Available at http://www.esri.com/data/data-maps/index.html. A u Four Mountains A 50° 200 m I Estabrook, C.H., Jacob, K.H., and Sykes, L.R., 1994, Body wave and surface wave analysis of large and great TahomaT A . N Kiska Petrel 100 earthquakes along the eastern Aleutian arc, 1923–1993, Implications for future events: Journal of Geophysical

Great . T Unalaska Basin T TRENCH AXIS D Reef Bank Atka I. Amlia Basin Yunaska I. Research, v. 99, no. B6, p. 11643–11662. Sitkin I. Saguam I. U R Tanaga I. Adak I. Amlia I. 50 0 GEBCO, 2008, The GEBCO_08_Grid, ver. 20091120: http://www.gebco.net/, last accessed January 8, 2010. S I Semisopochnoi E 1957 Giardini, D., Grünthal, G., Shedlock, K., Zhang, P., and Global Seismic Hazards Program, 1999, Global seismic A E Kiska KnollS . Amchitka 1965 1996 L hazards map: http://seismo.ethz.ch/GSHAP, last accessed January 9, 2007. L 1986 S . 50° N A N D A A I S L Hayes, Gavin, and Wald, David, 2010, Slab models for subduction zones: U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards C N n F Program, last accessed July, 22, 2010 at http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/data/slab/. 1965 2003 D i A N O Atka Basin -100 AA -100 0 100 200 'A H A N D R Es Johnson, J.M. and Satake, Kenji, 1993, Source parameters of the 1957 Aleutian earthquake from tsunami l S a Hawley Ridge C' . e 1906 K a n a g a B Rude Knoll waveforms: Geophysical Research Letters, v. 20, no. 14, p. 1487–1490. Tenji 1965 Ale 1929 TRENCH AXIS u utian ace 48° Kanamori, Hiroo, 1970, The Alaska earthquake of 1964: Radiation of long-period surface waves and source Terr . Guyot t mechanism: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 75, no. 26, p. 5029–5040. 0 i a ANDREANOF -200 Lopez, A.M., and Okal, E.A., 2006, A seismological reassessment of the source of the 1946 Aleutian ‘tsunami’ n ISLANDS . PROFILE D earthquake: Geophysical Journal International, v. 165, no. 3, p. 835–849. R NOAA, 2010, National Geophysical Data Center: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, i accessed on March 31, 2010 at http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazards. B -300 -200 -100 s 0 100 B' 48° -100 B Okal, E.A., 2005, A re-evaluation of the great Aleutian and Chilean earthquakes of 1906 August 17: Geophysical e . Journal International, v. 161, no. 2, p. 268–282. TRENCH AXIS B' PACIFIC OCEAN PROFILE A Siebert, Lee, and Simkin, Thomas, 2002, Volcanoes of the world: An illustrated catalog of Holocene volcanoes and their 0 . 1916 eruptions: Smithsonian Institution, Global Volcanism Program Digital Information series, GVP-3: . http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/, last accessed January 9, 2007. 46° Tarr, A.C., Villaseñor, Antonio, Furlong, K.P., Rhea, Susan, and Benz, H.M., 2010, Seismicity of the Earth 1900–2007:

. U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map 3064, scale 1:25,000,000. 170° 172° 174° 176° 178° 180° 178° 176° 174° 172° 170° 168° 166° 164° 162° 160° 158° 156° 154° 152° 150° Wu, F.T., and Kanamori, Hiroo, 1973, Source mechanism of February 4, 1965, Rat Island earthquake: Journal of -100 Geophysical Research, v. 78, no. 26, p. 6082–6092. Albers Equal Area Conic Projection Scale1:5,000,000 Digital map database and cartography by Susan Rhea and Arthur Tarr 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 C -300 -200 -100 0 100 C' Manuscript approved for publication Nov. 16, 2011 PROFILE B KILOMETERS SEISMIC HAZARD AND RELATIVE PLATE MOTION 160° 165° 170° 175° 180° 175° 170° 165° 160° 155° 150° 145° FIGURE EXPLANATION -200 TRENCH AXIS 1 U.S. Geological Survey 0 2Institute of Earth Sciences, CSIC, Barcelona, Spain PRE-INSTRUMENTAL SEISMICITY 1500–1899 Peak ground acceleration 3 Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, 0–0.2 m/s² State College, PA 16802 USA Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) ≥ 4 RUSSIA 60° 0.2–0.4 60° -300 UNITED STATES 0.4–0.8 -100 0.8–1.6 R U S S I A A L A S K A ( U S A ) 1.6–3.2 1897 3.2–6.4 . DEPTH PROFILE EXPLANATION Distance (km) 1899 1896 1899 56 6.4–9.8 Magnitude classes Depth of focus X -100 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 X' 1880 1867 1898 -200 4–5.9 0–69 km 1899 NORTH AMERICA PLATE Relative plate motion Profiles of earthquake and volcano TRENCH AXIS 1899 6–6.4 70–299 km locations are constructed from the mapped 0 1843 55° 11.0–19.9 mm/yr 300–700 km 6.5–6.9 data. Locations of the profile intersection 1786 60 PROFILE C 55° B e r i n g S e a 20.0–39.9 7–7.4 Nucleation points with the surface are drawn on the map and -100 1883 of M>8.3 events 7.5 labeled to coincide with the profile label. -300 40.0–59.9 -200 Box defines extent of earthquakes 1835 1880 H 7.6 Active volcanoes 63 C included in the profile. Length of the 1899 75 7.7 -300 A N 60.0–79.9 Earth structure profile graphic is the same as on the map. Any use of trade, product or firm names is for L For more information concerning this publication, contact: E 7.8 Distance in kilometers from the trench PROFILE X 1788 descriptive purposes only and does not imply E Air -400 1868 Center Director, USGS Geologic Hazards Science Center 66 R axis is indicated in the X direction, depth 1818 endorsement by the U.S. Government. U T Depth (km) 1826 1899 Box 25046, Mail Stop 966 7.9 Crust Although this information product, for the most part, T PACIFIC PLATE 80.0–100.0 in kilometers is indicated in the Y 1878 Denver, CO 80225 -500 1879 is in the public domain, it also contains copyrighted I 74 N Upper mantle direction. There is no vertical (303) 273-8579 A A Plate boundaries 8.0 1817 materials as noted in the text. Permission to 68 50° Or visit Geologic Hazards Science Center Web site at: N I Transition zone exaggeration. See Explanation at side for -600 reproduce copyrighted items for other than personal 71 T Subduction use must be secured from the copyright owner http://geohazards.cr.usgs.gov/ 50° T 73 A N 8.1 Lower mantle color key. Not all earth layers, earthquake U C E R O Transform depths or magnitude, are visible on every -700 This and other USGS information products are E E I F I C To learn about the USGS and its information products visit Suggested citation: P A C available at N L Divergent 8.2 profile. http://www.usgs.gov/. Benz, H.M., Tarr, A.C., Hayes, G.P., Villaseñor, Antonio, Hayes, G.P., C A -800 http://store.usgs.gov/. H U.S. Geological Survey 1-888-ASK-USGS. Furlong, K.P., Dart, R.L., and Rhea, Susan, 2011, Seismicity of the Earth Convergent Box 25286, Denver Federal Center 1900–2010 Aleutian arc and vicinity: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File This report is available at: Inferred Denver, CO 80225 http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1083/b Report 2010–1083-B, scale 1:5,000,000. 170° 175° 180° 175° 170° 165° 160° 155°