Now out in @weareseismica, our paper "Major California faults are smooth across multiple scales at seismogenic depth" https://seismica.library.mcgill.ca/article/view/324
Our relocated seismicity images faults at seismogenic depth as smooth, planar or arcuate surfaces across the sub-km to 10’s of km scales.
Multi-scale smooth, planar or arcuate faults slip without geometric impediment, which likely influences earthquake initiation, rupture, rupture direction, and arrest. Extensive, smooth fault segments may even be necessary for large earthquake to occur.
We use NLL-SSST-coherence (https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JB023190) an enhanced, absolute-timing earthquake location procedure which uses 1) spatially-varying station time corrections to improve multi-scale precision and 2) waveform similarity to improve fine-scale precision.
We would like to thank the editors at @weareseismica and the reviewers for a very agreeable and smooth (no pun intended) submission, review and copy-production process. Highly recommended!
@weareseismica While we image the Parkfield segment of the San Andreas Fault as a planar surface at seismogenic depth, we find the Central/Southern Calaveras fault is an arcuate surface which follows closely the circumference of a circle.