Universal precursor seismicity pattern before locked-segment rupture Hongran Chena, b, Siqing Qina, b, c, Lei Xuea, b, Baicun Yanga, b, c and Ke Zhang a, b, c aKey Laboratory of Shale Gas and Geoengineering, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. bInnovation Academy for Earth Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. cCollege of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. *Siqing Qin Email:
[email protected] Keywords Precursor, locked segment, mechanical model, volume-expansion point, peak-stress point, characteristic earthquake Author Contributions S. Q. initiated the study. S. Q. and H. C. conceived the idea of this study. L. X., B. Y. and K. Z. analyzed the data. H. C. and L. X. interpreted the results. H. C. wrote the original manuscript. All authors discussed the results and revised the manuscript. This PDF file includes: Main Text Figures 1 to 6 Tables 1 to 2 1 Abstract Despite the enormous efforts towards searching for precursors, no precursors have exhibited real predictive power with respect to an earthquake thus far. Seismogenic locked segments that can accumulate adequate strain energy to cause major earthquakes are very heterogeneous and less brittle; progressive failures of the locked segments with these properties can produce an interesting seismic phenomenon: a characteristic earthquake and a sequence of smaller subsequent earthquakes (pre-shocks) always arise prior to another characteristic earthquake within a well-defined seismic zone and its current seismic period. Applying a mechanical model and magnitude constraint conditions, we show that two adjacent characteristic earthquakes reliably occur at the volume-expansion and peak-stress points of a locked segment.