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Extent, duration and speed of the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman earthquake imaged by the Hi-Net array

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Abstract

The disastrous Sumatra–Andaman earthquake of 26 December 2004 was one of the largest ever recorded. The damage potential of such earthquakes depends on the extent and magnitude of fault slip. The first reliable moment magnitude estimate1 of 9.0 was obtained several hours after the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, but more recent, longer-period, normal-mode analyses have indicated that it had a moment magnitude of 9.3, about 2.5 times larger2. Here we introduce a method for directly imaging earthquake rupture that uses the first-arriving compressional wave and is potentially able to produce detailed images within 30 min of rupture initiation. We used the Hi-Net seismic array in Japan as an antenna to map the progression of slip by monitoring the direction of high-frequency radiation. We find that the rupture spread over the entire 1,300-km-long aftershock zone by propagating northward at roughly 2.8 km s-1 for approximately 8 minutes. Comparisons with the aftershock areas of other great earthquakes indicate that the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake did indeed have a moment magnitude of ∼9.3. Its rupture, in both duration and extent, is the longest ever recorded.

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Figure 1: Earthquake and station distribution.
Figure 2: Rupture progression.
Figure 3: Rupture speed and energy release.
Figure 4: Cumulative radiated energy.
Figure 5: Comparison of aftershock zones of great earthquakes.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention in Japan for making the Hi-Net data available on the Internet.

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Author notes

  1. Miaki Ishii and Peter M. Shearer: *These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, IGPP 0225, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, 92093, USA

    Miaki Ishii & Peter M. Shearer

  2. Department of Earth and Space Sciences, IGPP, University of California Los Angeles, 595 Charles Young Drive East, California, 90095, Los Angeles, USA

    Heidi Houston & John E. Vidale

Authors
  1. Miaki Ishii
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  2. Peter M. Shearer
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  3. Heidi Houston
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  4. John E. Vidale
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Correspondence to Miaki Ishii.

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Reprints and permissions information is available at npg.nature.com/reprintsandpermissions. The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Figure S1

Cumulative radiated energy (as in main text Figure 4), but using synthetic seismograms with point sources at six locations indicated by black stars and spaced at 100 s interval. (DOC 140 kb)

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Ishii, M., Shearer, P., Houston, H. et al. Extent, duration and speed of the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman earthquake imaged by the Hi-Net array. Nature 435, 933–936 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03675

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