Coseismic fault slip and afterslip associated with the M5.7 March 18, 2020 Magna, Utah, earthquake

Seismological Research Letters
By: , and 

Metrics

9
Crossref references
Web analytics dashboard Metrics definitions

Links

Abstract

The 2020 Magna, Utah, earthquake produced observable crustal deformation over a ∼ 100 km2 area around the southeast margin of Great Salt Lake, but it did not produce any surface rupture. To obtain a detailed picture of the fault slip, we combine strong motion seismic waveforms with GPS static offsets and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) observations to obtain kinematic and static slip models of the event. We sample the regional seismic wavefield with 3-component records from 68 stations of the University of Utah Seismograph Stations network. We find that coseismic slip and afterslip, with predominantly normal slip, distributed on a shallowly west-dipping plane, possibly augmented by afterslip on a steeply northeast-dipping plane, best fits the joint dataset. The west-dipping plane locates near previously inferred sources of interseismic creep at depth. Hence the earthquake may have occurred on the downdip ex-tension of the Wasatch fault and activated further slip (afterslip) at shallow depth east of the hypocenter. This inferred afterslip may have driven the vigorous aftershock activity that was concentrated east of the hypocenter.

Study Area

Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Coseismic fault slip and afterslip associated with the M5.7 March 18, 2020 Magna, Utah, earthquake
Series title Seismological Research Letters
DOI 10.1785/0220200312
Volume 92
Issue 2A
Publication Date January 13, 2021
Year Published 2021
Language English
Publisher GeoScienceWorld
Contributing office(s) Earthquake Science Center
Description 14 p.
First page 741
Last page 754
Country United States
State Utah
City Magna
Additional publication details