Coseismic Rupture Geometry and Slip Rupture Process During the 2018 Mw 7.1 Anchorage, South‐Central Alaska Earthquake: Intraplate Normal Faulting by Slab Tear Constrained by Geodetic and Teleseismic Data

Abstract

Abstract The Mw 7.1 Anchorage earthquake on 30 November 2018 beneath the south‐central Alaska is a rare intermediate‐depth event larger than Mw 7 that occurred in a complex subduction region, where the young Yakutat oceanic terrane wedges in the continental‐oceanic plate collisional region between the Pacific oceanic plate and the North American plate. We use both ascending and descending Sentinel‐1 satellite Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) images to construct the coseismic displacement associated with this earthquake, which shows a nearly circular deformation pattern with a subsidence of ~4 cm in line of sight direction. Combining coseismic GPS data, we determine the focal mechanism of this event dominated by normal faulting with N‐S striking of 186° and westward dipping of 64° by using a uniform slip model. Then we find a preferred slip model with both geodetic data and teleseismic data, suggesting the main slips are concentrated on a depth of 55–75 km. The total released moment of our preferred slip model is 5.32 × 1019 N·m, equivalent to Mw 7.1. The rupture process includes two peaks terminating at about 18 s and indicates a unilateral rupture with its front propagating northwestward direction at an average speed of 2.5 km/s. In comparison with the detailed seismic image in this region, this event just occurred in the Yakutat terrane beneath a low velocity zone, suggesting it was caused by slab tear but not slab boundary breaking and determining the lower boundary of shallow thrust‐slip in the Alaska subduction zone.

Keywords

• Anchorage earthquake
• InSAR
• teleseismic data
• slip inversion
• subduction structure