[1] The Polochic-Motagua fault system is part of the sinistral transform boundary between the North American and Caribbean plates in Guatemala and the associated seismic activity poses a threat to $70% of the country's population. The aim of this study is to constrain the Late Quaternary activity of the Polochic fault by determining the active structure geometry and quantifying recent displacement rates as well as paleo-seismic events. Slip rates have been estimated from offsets of Quaternary volcanic markers and alluvial fan using in situ cosmogenic 36 Cl exposure dating. Holocene left-lateral slip rate and Mid-Pleistocene vertical slip rate have been estimated to 4.8 AE 2.3 mm/y and 0.3 AE 0.06 mm/y, respectively, on the central part of the Polochic fault. The horizontal slip rate is within the range of longer-term geological slip rates and short-term GPS-based estimates. In addition, the non-negligible vertical motion participates in the uplift of the block north of the fault and seems to be a manifestation of the regional, far-field stress regime. We excavated the first trench for paleo-seismological study on the Polochic fault in which we distinguish four large paleo-seismic events since 17 ky during which the Polochic fault ruptured the ground surface.

We use continuous and campaign measurements from 215 GPS sites in northern Central America and southern Mexico to estimate coseismic and afterslip solutions for the 2009 M w = 7.3 Swan Islands fault strike-slip earthquake and the 2012 M w = 7.3 El Salvador and M w = 7.4 Guatemala thrust-faulting earthquakes on the Middle America trench. Our simultaneous, time-dependent inversion of more than 350 000 daily GPS site positions gives the first jointly consistent estimates of the coseismic slips for all three earthquakes, their combined time-dependent post-seismic effects and secular station velocities corrected for both the coseismic and post-seismic deformation. Our geodetic slip solutions for all three earthquakes agree with previous estimates that were derived via static coseismic-offset modelling. Our time-dependent model, which attributes all transient post-seismic deformation to earthquake afterslip, fits nearly all of the continuous GPS site position time-series within their severalmillimetre position noise. Afterslip moments for the three earthquakes range from 35 to 140 per cent of the geodetic coseismic moments, with the largest afterslip estimated for the 2012 El Salvador earthquake along the weakly coupled El Salvador trench segment. Forward modelling of viscoelastic deformation triggered by all three earthquakes for a range of assumed mantle and lower crustal viscosities suggests that it accounts for under 20 per cent of the observed post-seismic deformation and possibly under 10 per cent. Our results thus point to afterslip as the primary and perhaps dominant mode of post-seismic deformation for these

The zone of interaction between the Cocos (CO), Caribbean (CA) and North America (NA) plates in Guatemala is defined by the sub-parallel Motagua and Polochic strike-slip faults, a series of north-south-trending extensional grabens immediately south of the Motagua Fault, the Middle America trench, and faults within the Middle America volcanic arc. Historical earthquakes associated with these faults include the destructive 1976 Mw 7.5 earthquake along the Motagua fault and the 2012 Mw 7.5 Champerico thrust earthquake. The latest published GPS-based present-day kinematic model of the region shows that about