Publication Date:
2018-07-16
Description:
We examine the effects of topography and material heterogeneity on geodetic inversions of shallow slow slip at the Hikurangi Subduction Margin, New Zealand. Offshore vertical data from absolute pressure gauges constrain our results. Using a finite element code to generate our Green's functions, we find that topography has a relatively small effect, reducing the seismic potency by only about 5% when compared to a flat model. When material heterogeneity from a New Zealand-wide seismic velocity model is taken into account, we find an extremely large effect, with the seismic potency increasing by 58% or more. In previous work, we found the opposite effect for deeper slip events, where models including elastic property variations result in ~20% more slip than when they are neglected. Our previous results for deeper events are consistent with a simplified model that considers the elastic property contrasts between a strong subducting slab and a weaker overriding plate. To understand the opposite behavior of our shallower models, we use synthetic forward models and view material property gradients in terms of additional body forces. We find that gradients in elastic properties can produce very different surface displacements near the source than simple contrasts, thus explaining the contrasting results for shallow slip events. Combined with our previous results for deeper events, this implies that neglecting material heterogeneity in slow slip inversions may result in overestimates in the amount of slip for deeper events and underestimates for shallow events. ©2018. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
Print ISSN:
0094-8276
Electronic ISSN:
1944-8007
Topics:
Geosciences
,
Physics
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