Seismicity and crustal structure in the Orozco fracture zone: Project ROSE Phase II.

Abstract

A total of 301 earthquakes were recorded in the vicinity of the Orozco fracture zone by seven Texas ocean bottom seismography stations during the 2-week period of the Rivera Ocean Seismic Experiment (ROSE) (phase II). Using data from the entire ROSE array, hypocenters of 50 earthquakes were determined. These revealed two distinct zones of seismic activity within the fracture zone. In addition to these earthquake families, many very small events were detected by a station located very close to the spreading center of the E Pacific Rise. The magnitudes of these earthquakes, defined by their duration times, were so small that most of them were recorded only at this station (station 14) in continual or swarmlike occurrences. The slope of the frequency-magnitude distribution of these events is significantly larger than those of other earthquake groups detected during the experiment, i.e. they appear to have an unusually high b value. These results suggest that this new population of earthquakes may be associated with volcanic activity or stress release within highly fractured crustal material. Refraction studies in the fracture zone reveal the presence of a rather high-velocity crustal layer (6.9-7.0km/s) beneath the experiment zone. The Moho velocity and the crustal thickness are estimated at 7.8km/s and 6.2km, respectively. -Authors