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Updated: May 31, 2025

Kinematic History of a Salient-recess Junction Explored through a Combined Approach of Field Data and Analog Sandbox Modeling
Published on: August 5, 2016
Tracing the relationship between the upper plate earthquake cycle and megathrust slip, the Atacama fault system in
Gabriel Gonzalez1, Luis Astudillo-Sotomayor2,3, Ian Del Rio4
1National Research Center for Integrated Natural Disaster Management (CIGIDEN), Departamento de Ciencias Geológicas, Universidad Católica del Norte, Avenida Angamos 0610, Antofagasta, Chile. ggonzale@ucn.cl.
Abstract:
Inland-normal faulting is recognised as an important process following large subduction earthquakes. The lack of data limits the understanding of how normal fault reactivation relates to the subduction earthquake cycle. We characterised the palaeoseismology of the Atacama fault system (AFS) in the Chilean subduction zone. Our results showed that upper plate normal faulting earthquakes with Mw 7.0 and recurrence intervals of 35 ± 9 ky generated surface ruptures preserved as fault scarps. The average fault slip rate of 0.07 ± 0.01 m/kyr is three orders of magnitude slower than the convergence velocity, and the recurrence intervals of surface-rupturing earthquakes on the studied faults are much larger than the recurrence of great to giant (Mw > 8.5) subduction earthquakes in the Chilean margin. This demonstrates that the reactivation of an individual fault in the AFS is not always synchronised with this type of subduction earthquake.
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