Abstract
Most large earthquakes of magnitude ≥6.0 in California during 1852–1987 appear to show a southeast-to-northwest tendency of epicenter migration. This finding is consistent with earlier findings ofSavage (1971) for a relatively few large earthquakes along the west coast of North America, and ofWood andAllen (1973) for smaller events along the San Andreas fault in central California. The average speed of migration is approximately 130 km/yr, which is within the range of speeds observed for other major seismic zones in the world. The epicenter migration in California may be the result of some small but broad-scaled episodic strain changes associated with creep waves induced by magma injections at the East Pacific Rise and propagating northwestwardly along a broad transform boundary between the Pacific and North American plates at subseismogenic depths as proposed bySavage (1971).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bott, M. H. P. andDean, D. S. (1973),Stress Diffusion from Plate Boundaries. Nature243, 339–341.
Delsemme, J. andSmith, A. T. (1979),Spectral Analysis of Earthquake Migration in South America. PAGEOPH117, 1271–1285.
Dewey, J. W. (1976),Seismicity of Northern Anatolia. Bull. Seism. Soc. Am.66, 843–868.
Ellsworth, W. L., Lindh, A. G., Prescott, W. H., andHerd, D. G. (1981),The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and the Seismic Cycle in Earthquake Prediction: An International Review (Simpson, D. W. and Richards, P. G. eds.) Amer. Geophys. U., Ewing Series, 127–140.
Fedotov, S. A. (1965),Regularities of the Distribution of Strong Earthquakes in Kamchatka, the Kurile Islands, and Northeastern Japan. Tr. Inst. Phys. Earth Acad. Sci. USSR36, 66–93.
Geodynamics Program Office, NASA (1980),Annual Report for 1979, NASA Tech. Memo.81978, 15–16.
Gutenberg, B. andRichter, C. F.,Seismicity of the Earth and Associated Phenomena (Princeton Univ. Press, 1954), p. 34.
He, W. (1987),The Migration Characteristics of Moderate Earthquakes in South Qilienshan Mountain Area. Earthquake Research in China3 (2), 91–95 (in Chinese).
Ida, Y. (1974),Slow-moving Deformation Pulses along Tectonic Faults. Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors9, 328–337.
Jachens, R. C., Thatcher, W., Roberts, C. W. andStein, R. S. (1983),Correlation of Changes in Gravity, Elevation, and Strain in Southern California. Science219, 1215–1217.
Kelleher, J. A. (1970),Space-time Seismicity of the Alaska-Aleutian Seismic Zone. J. Geophys. Res.75, 5745–5756.
Kelleher, J. A. (1972),Rupture Zones of Large South American Earthquakes and Some Predictions. J. Geophys. Res.77, 2087–2103.
Kelleher, J. A. andIsacks, B. (1982),Directional Hypothesis: Late Stage Preearthquake Loading May often be Asymmetric. J. Geophys. Res.87, 1743–1756.
King, C.-Y., Nason, R. D. andTocher, D. (1973),Kinematics of Fault Creep. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London, Ser. A274, 355–360.
Lehner, F. K., Li, V. C. andRice, J. R. (1981),Stress Diffusion along Rupturing Plate Boundaries. J. Geophys. Res.86, 6155–6169.
Merifield, P. M. andLamar, D. L. (1981),Anomalous Water-level Changes and Possible Relation with Earthquakes. Geophys. Res. Lett.8, 437–440.
Mogi, K. (1968a),Sequential Occurrence of Recent Great Earthquakes. J. Phys. Earth16, 30–36.
Mogi, K. (1968b),Migration of Seismic Activity. Bull. Earthquake Res. Inst. Univ. Tokyo.46, 57–74.
Mogi, K. (1969),Some features of Recent Seismic Activity in and near Japan, 2. Activity before and after Great Earthquakes. Bull. Earthquake Res. Inst.47, 395–417.
Mogi, K. (1973),Relationship between Shallow and Deep Seismicity in the Western Pacific Region. Tectonophysics17, 1–22.
Mogi, K. (1974),Active Periods in the World's Chief Seismic Belts. Tectonophysics22, 265–282.
Neill, A. E. (1979),Further Monitoring of Pasadena, Goldstone, Owens Valley Baselines by VLBI Geodesy (abstract), Eos. Trans. Am. Geophys. Union60, 810.
Richter, C. F.,Elementary Seismology (W. H. Freeman, San Francisco, Calif. 1958).
Savage J. C. (1971),A Theory of Creep Waves Propagating along a Transform Fault, J. Geophys. Res.76, 1954–1966.
Savage, J. C. andGu, G. (1985),The 1979 Palmdale, California, Strain Event in Retrospect. J. Geophys. Res.90, 10,301–10,309.
Savage, J. C., Prescott, W. H., Lisowski, M. andKing, N. E. (1981),Strain Accumulation in Southern California, 1973–80, J. Geophys. Res.86, 6991–7001.
Savage, J. C., Prescott, W. H., andGu, G. (1986),Strain Accumulation in Southern California, 1973–1984. J. Geophys. Res.91, 7455–7473.
Scholz, C. H. (1977),A Physical Interpretation of the Haicheng Earthquake Prediction. Nature267, 121–124.
Silver, P. G. andValette-Silver, J. N. (1987),A Spreading Episode at the Southern End of the San Andreas Fault System. Nature326, 589–593.
Toksöz, M. N., Shakal, A. F. andMichael, A. J. (1979),Space-time Migration of Earthquakes along the North Anatonian Fault Zone and Seismic Gaps, PAGEOPH117, 1258–1270.
Toppozada, T. R., Real, C. R. andParke, D. L. (1986),Earthquake History of California. California Geology,Feb., 27–33.
Whitcomb, J. H. (1980),Regional Crustal Distortion Events in Southern California: A Confirmation of Jerky Plate Motions? (abstract). Eos. Trans. Am. Geophys. Union61, 368.
Wood, M. D. andAllen, S. S. (1973),Recurrence of Seismic Migrations along the Central California Segment of the San Andreas Fault System. Nature244, 213–215.
Yamada, J. (1973),A Water-tube Tiltmeter and its Applications to Crustal Movement Studies. Sokubo, Earthquake Res. Inst.10, 1–147 (in Japanese).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
King, CY., Ma, Z. Migration of historical earthquakes in California. PAGEOPH 127, 627–639 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00881748
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00881748