Source Investigation and Comparison of the 1939, 1946, 1949 and 1965 Earthquakes, Cascadia Subduction Zone, Western Washington
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Ó Birkha¨user Verlag, Basel, 2007 Pure appl. geophys. 164 (2007) 1905–1919 0033–4553/07/101905–15 Pure and Applied Geophysics DOI 10.1007/s00024-007-0255-y Source Investigation and Comparison of the 1939, 1946, 1949 and 1965 Earthquakes, Cascadia Subduction Zone, Western Washington 1,3 1 1 2 KATY R. WIEST, DIANE I. DOSER, AARON A. VELASCO, and JAMES ZOLLWEG Abstract—Over the past 65 years intraslab earthquakes have caused the most significant damage in the western Washington region. This study examines regional and teleseismic seismograms for four historic, suspected intraslab events of M > 5.5 occurring within the Cascadia Subduction zone in 1939 (South Seattle), 1946 (Puget Sound), 1949 (Olympia) and 1965 (Sea-Tac) to better determine the source locations, mechanisms and rupture histories of these events. Our study is aided by digital seismograms of post-1990 intraslab events with well-determined focal depths and focal mechanisms that were recorded in the same locations as the historic events. Thus the recent events were used as empirical Greens functions to study the historic events. Our results suggest that the 1946 earthquake is not an intraslab event, that the 1939 event closely resembles the 1965 event, and that the 1949 event is similar to the 2001 Nisqually earthquake, although the 1949 event appears to have ruptured toward the south, causing significantly more damage than the Nisqually event. These results suggest that earthquakes periodically rupture along the same or similarly oriented faults within the subducting slab. Key words: Historic earthquakes, Cascadia, Washington, Greens function analysis. Introduction The Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) (Fig. 1) is a highly complex, geologically diverse, and potentially hazardous region due to the collision of the Juan de Fuca, Gorda, and Explorer plates with North America. The CSZ extends from Cape Mendocino, California north to northern Vancouver Island. The subducting lithosphere of this region is young (<50 Ma), thin, and buoyant (KIRBY and WANG, 2002), creating a tectonically complex environment with the buildup of a thick accretionary prism in the forearc region and active compression in the backarc region. 1 Department of Geological Sciences, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968-0555. E-mail: [email protected] 2 Department of Geosciences, Boise State University, Mail Stop 1535, 1910 University Drive, Boise, ID 83725-1535, U.S.A. 3 Chevron North America Exploration and Production, 1500 Louisiana, Houston, TX 77002, U.S.A. 1906 K. R. Wiest et al. Pure appl. geophys., Figure 1 Map of the Cascadia subduction zone showing major plate boundaries. Squares denote locations of Seattle and Olympia, Washington. PS is Puget Sound, GS is southern Georgia Strait. The box outlined in gray is the study area shown in Figure 2. Seismicity within the CSZ occurs within the crust of North America, the subducting slab, and along the plate interface. Events along the interface have the potential to be very large, but are believed to occur only every 500 years (ATWATER et al., 2005), with the last known event occurring in 1700 (ATWATER and HEMPHILL- HALEY, 1997). Events within the crust have the capability to cause extensive damage due to their shallow depths beneath sedimentary basins, but appear to occur even less frequently than interface events (e.g., LUDWIN et al., 2005). Historically the greatest damage in the CSZ has been caused by intraslab events that appear to have recurrence intervals of 30 to 50 years. There appear to be two regions within the subducting Juan de Fuca plate where moderate to large (M > 5:0) intraslab events concentrate at depths of 40 to 60 km. One area is located beneath southern Puget Sound, and the other is located beneath the southern Georgia Strait near edges of a bend in the subducted slab (CASSIDY and ELLIS, 1993). There has been a notable lack of moderate to large intraslab Vol. 164, 2007 Historic Earthquakes of the Cascadia Subduction Zone 1907 Figure 2 Location of historic earthquakes and recent events used in this study. earthquakes beneath much of Oregon (e.g., MA et al., 1996); leading WONG (2005) to suggest this region may not be capable of producing large intraslab earthquakes. The occurrence of the 2001 Nisqually earthquake which was well recorded digitally at regional and teleseismic distances, gives us a unique opportunity to compare its seismograms to those of older, suspected intraslab earthquakes. We examine regional and teleseismic seismograms for four historic, suspected intraslab events of M > 5:5 occurring within the Cascadia Subduction zone in 1939 (South Seattle), 1946 (Puget Sound), 1949 (Olympia) and 1965 (Sea-Tac) to better determine the source locations, mechanisms and rupture histories of these events. A better understanding of the depth range and rupture extent of these older events will aid in determining the physical processes that control slab rupture and improve models for hazards expected in future similar type events. Previous Studies The earliest reported M > 5:5 intraslab event is the 1939 (M 53=4; GUTEN- BERG and RICHTER, 1954) South Puget Sound earthquake (Fig. 2, Table 1). Its seismograms have not been previously studied. The Puget Sound earthquake of 1946 (M 53=4; GUTENBERG and RICHTER, 1954) has been reported in some catalogs as an intraslab event, however STOVER and COFFMAN (1993) have proposed it was actually a crustal event (18-km depth) (Fig. 2, Table 1). The 1949 Olympia earthquake appears to have been the largest intraslab event (mb ¼ 6:9; ABE 1981) that has occurred in the region in the past 100 years (Table 1). BAKER and LANGSTON (1987) used long-period teleseismic body-wave seismograms and strong motion records to examine this earthquake. Their results suggest the event occurred at a depth of 54 km with a left-lateral strike-slip focal mechanism 1908 K. R. Wiest et al. Pure appl. geophys., Table 1 Earthquake information Date Time Latitude Longitude Magnitude* Depth*+ 3 11/13/1939 0745 47.5 À122:554 (S, GR) [63] 3 02/15/1946 0317 47.4 À122:754 (S, GR) 18 SC [26] 04/13/1949 1955 47.17 À122:62 6.9 (b, ABE), 6.8 (w, BL, I06) 54 BL [55] 04/29/1965 1528 47.38 À122:31 6.5 (S,U), 6.6 (w, I04) 63 LB [63] 07/03/1999 0143 47.08 À123:46 5.7 (w, I03) 40 I03 02/28/2001 1854 47.14 À122:72 6.7 (w, I04) 56 UW [55] * GR = GUTENBERG and RICHTER (1965), ABE = ABE (1981), BL = BAKER and LANGSTON (1987), I03 = ICHINOSE et al. (2003), I04 = ICHINOSE et al. (2004), I06 = ICHINOSE et al. (2006), LB = LANGSTON and BLUM (1977), SC = STOVER and COFFMAN (1993), UW = University of Washington, S = surface wave magnitude, b = body-wave magnitude, w = moment-magnitude, U = unknown magnitude, +brackets indicate focal depth estimated in this study. and eastward rupture propagation. They determined a rupture duration of 40 km and a moment-magnitude of 6.8. Further studies of seismograms and first motion data by ICHINOSE et al. (2006) suggest the 1949 event occurred on a steeply dipping normal fault with rupture to the south in at least two subevents. LANGSTON and BLUM (1977) modelled the source parameters of the 1965 Sea- Tac earthquake through inversion of teleseismic body waveforms to obtain a focal depth of 63 km, normal fault mechanism, and Mw of 6.7 (Fig. 2, Table 1). ICHINOSE et al. (2004) inverted teleseismic data for this earthquake using a segmented, multi-fault model. The model that best matched the waveforms was composed of two small asperities with dimensions of 12 and 16 km2 and maximum slips of 2 and 2.8 m, respectively. This model gave an Mw of 6.6. ICHINOSE et al. (2004) produced a shake-map for the Sea-Tac earthquake that gave a simulated pattern of shaking that was 2 times greater than that of the Nisqually earthquake, primarily due to the proximity of the Sea-Tac event to the Seattle and Tacoma sedimentary basins. Data and Analysis Techniques Over 150 historic paper copies and original seismograms recorded at regional and teleseismic distances for the four Puget Sound earthquakes were collected during this study. We also scanned 50+ seismograms from several U.S. archives. The scanned seismograms could be readily digitized using SeisDig (BROMIRSKI and CHUANG, 2003), an interactive digitizing tool. Analog paper records were digitized manually, due to a lack of a large bed scanner at the University of Texas at El Paso. Digital Vol. 164, 2007 Historic Earthquakes of the Cascadia Subduction Zone 1909 data for two recent intraslab events, the 1999 (Mw ¼ 5:8) Satsop and 2001 (Mw ¼ 6:7) Nisqually earthquakes (Fig. 2, Table 1), were acquired from the IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions in Seismology) electronic archives. These events were selected because they occurred in the vicinity of the four historic events of interest and were of large enough magnitude to be well recorded at regional and teleseismic distances. We collected digital seismograms for recent events only at stations that had recorded at least one historic event or were located close (<35 km) to a station that had recorded a historic event. This selection allowed us to assume similar path effects when carrying out the Greens function analysis. All seismograms were converted to Seismic Analysis Code (SAC2000) format (GOLDSTEIN, 2004) for the analysis process. Seismograms in this study were analyzed using the relative source time function technique (RSTF) similar to that described by VELASCO et al. (1994), but using a different deconvolution process. This technique requires the seismograms of two earthquakes occurring at similar locations and depths, with a similar focal mechanism recorded at the same station.