Journal article

Modeling earthquake moment magnitudes on imbricate reverse faults from paleoseismic data: Fox peak and forest creek faults, South Island, New Zealand

T Stahl, MC Quigley, A McGill, MS Bebbington

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America | SEISMOLOGICAL SOC AMER | Published : 2016

Abstract

Coeval rupture of imbricate reverse faults increases the moment magnitude (Mw) of the resulting earthquake. Detailed mapping and paleoseismic data can yield useful insights into the probability and Mw potential of multifault ruptures. We present a paleoseismic study of two active imbricate reverse faults, the Fox Peak and Forest Creek faults, in the central South Island of New Zealand. Both faults have recurrence intervals of ∼3000 years, most recent events with overlapping age distributions, and sole into the same structure at depth. Surface and subsurface data indicate average single event displacements of ∼2 m for the Fox Peak fault and 1 m for the Forest Creek fault. Monte Carlo simulati..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by National Science Foundation


Funding Acknowledgements

This work was funded by New Zealand Earthquake Commission and University of Canterbury Mason Trust grants. Stahl was partially supported by a Canterbury International Doctoral Scholarship and by National Science Foundation (NSF) EAR Postdoctoral Fellowship Grant EAR-1451466. Reviews by Chris DuRoss and Glenn Biasi improved the quality of this article. We would like to thank Simon Brocklehurst, Stefan Winkler, and Jarg Pettinga for useful discussion surrounding trench interpretation and modeling methods. The assistance of Tom Brookman, Sam McColl, Travis Horton, Duncan Noble, Narges Khajavi, and Sharon Hornblow was invaluable in the field.