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Near Islands Aleutian Earthquake with MW = 7.8 on July 17, 2017: I. Extended Rupture along the Commander Block of the Aleutian Island Arc from Observations in Kamchatka

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Abstract

The largest instrumentally recorded regional back-arc earthquake with MW = 7.8, MC = 8.2 occurred on July 17, 2017 on the Bering transform fault (the boundary between the Beringia minor lithospheric plate and the Komandorskii (Commander) block of the Aleutian island arc). This seismic event, called the Near Islands earthquake or Near Islands Aleutian earthquake, caused the ground to shake with intensity I = 5–6 on Bering Island and a small tsunami wave on the Near Islands. The specific aspects of the peculiarities of the pattern of seismicity of the northwestern segment of the Aleutian arc and the tectonic position of the Near Island Aleutian earthquake, the details of its prompt processing, macroseismic manifestations, analysis results of ground motion peak amplitudes, focal mechanisms, and earthquake source models are discussed. The coseismic displacements according to the GNSS data are presented. It is concluded that the source of the Near Islands Aleutian earthquake did not fill the seismic gap near the Commander Islands, and the possibility of the strongest earthquake hitting the northwestern part of the Aleutian arc remains.

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Notes

  1. GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) is the common name for satellite navigation systems.

  2. Kamchatka Branch of Federal Research Center Geophysical Survey of Russian Academy of Sciences, Seismological Data Information System, regional catalog of Kamchatka and Commander Islands. http://www.emsd.ru/sdis/earthquake/catalogue/ catalogue.php

  3. Information centers: MOS: Federal Research Center Geophysical Survey of Russian Academy of Sciences, Obninsk (www.gsras.ru); NEIС: National Earthquake Information Center, U.S. Geological Survey https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/search/; ISC: Bulletin of the International Seismological Centre. ftp://ftp.isc.ac.uk/pub/isf/catalogue/ ISC-GEM: Global Instrumental Earthquake Catalogue (1904–2014). http://www.isc.ac.uk/iscgem/index.php IDC: International Data Centre, Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), Vienna, Austria (www.ctbto.org).

  4. GCMT is the Global CMT Project (www.globalcmt.org).

  5. Broadband seismic station networks: IRIS: Global Seismograph Network GSN–IRIS/USGS (https://doi.org/10.7914/SN/IU); ARN: Alaska Regional Network (https://doi.org/10.7914/SN/AK); JP: Japan Meteorological Agency Seismic Network (http:// www.fdsn.org/networks/detail/JP/).

  6. http://ds.iris.edu/wilber3/

  7. USGS, Earthquake Hazards Program, 2004. M 9.1 off the west coast of northern Sumatra. https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/official20041226005853450_30#executive; https://earthquake.usgs.gov/archive/product/poster/20041226/ us/1457989040172/poster.pdf

  8. http://www.tsunami.gov/events/PAAQ/2017/07/17/ot9dh6/2/ WEAK51/WEAK51.txt

  9. http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/download_data.php?filename= 21415t2017.txt.gz&dir=data/historical/dart/

  10. https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us20009x 42#finite-fault

  11. http://rses.anu.edu.au/seismology/ak135/ak135f.html

  12. Lay et al. (2017) also used the GNSS data from the BRNG station pertaining to the KB GS RAS GNSS network.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kamchatka Branch, Federal Research Center Geophysical Survey of Russian Academy of Sciences, 683006, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskii, Russia

    D. V. Chebrov, Yu. A. Kugaenko, I. R. Abubakirov, A. A. Gusev, S. Ya. Droznina, S. V. Mityushkina, D. A. Ototyuk, V. M. Pavlov & N. N. Titkov

  2. Schmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, 123242, Moscow, Russia

    D. V. Chebrov

  3. Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 117997, Moscow, Russia

    A. V. Lander & A. A. Gusev

  4. Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, Far Eastern Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, 683006, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskii, Russia

    N. N. Titkov

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  1. D. V. Chebrov
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  2. Yu. A. Kugaenko
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Chebrov, D.V., Kugaenko, Y.A., Lander, A.V. et al. Near Islands Aleutian Earthquake with MW = 7.8 on July 17, 2017: I. Extended Rupture along the Commander Block of the Aleutian Island Arc from Observations in Kamchatka. Izv., Phys. Solid Earth 55, 576–599 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1069351319040037

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