High-resolution earthquake locations and structural inversions using body waves rely on precise delay-time measurements. Subsample accuracy can be realized for P waves using multichannel cross correlation (MCCC), as developed by VanDecar and Crosson (1990), which exploits redundancy in pairwise cross correlations to determine delays between similar waveforms in studies of mantle structure using teleseismic sources (common source and multiple stations) and regional studies of structure and seismicity (multiple sources and common station). For regional S waves, alignment is complicated by the additional degree of freedom in waveform polarity that is expressed for sources with different moment tensors. Here, we recast MCCC within a principal component framework and demonstrate the equivalence between maximizing waveform correlation and minimization of various singular value–based objective functions for P waves. The singular-value framework is more general and leads naturally to an MCCC linear system for S waves that possesses an order of magnitude greater redundancy than that for P waves. Robust L1 solution of the system provides an effective means of mitigating outliers at the expense of subsample precision. Residual time shifts associated with higher-order singular vectors are employed in an iterative adaptive alignment that achieves subsample resolution. We demonstrate application of the approach on a seismicity cluster within the northern Cascadia crustal fore-arc.
Summary We present a detailed study of two Mw 7.1 intraslab earthquakes that occurred in southern Alaska: the Iniskin earthquake of January 24th, 2016, and the Anchorage earthquake of November 30th, 2018. We have relocated and recovered moment tensors for hundreds of aftershocks following both events, and inverted for stress histories. The aftershock distribution of the Iniskin earthquake suggests that the rupture propagated updip along a fault dipping steeply into the Pacific Plate and terminated at a stratigraphic horizon, inferred to be either the interface or Moho of the subducting slab. In addition, four earthquakes ruptured the main fault in the preceding two years and had similar moment tensors to the mainshock. This evidence suggests that the mainshock likely reactivated a pre-existing, outer-rise fault. The Anchorage earthquake sequence is complex due to its location near the boundary of the subducting Yakutat and Pacific plates, as evidenced by the aftershock distribution. Aftershock hypocenters form two main clusters that appear to correspond to orthogonal, conjugate faults, consistent with the two nodal planes of the dominant focal mechanisms. Both geographic groups display many focal mechanisms similar to the mainshock, which could indicate simultaneous rupture on conjugate planes. The time dependence in stress ratio for the Iniskin sequence can be interpreted in terms of pore-pressure evolution within the mainshock fault zone. In particular, our observations are consistent with a dehydration-assisted transfer mechanism where fluids are produced during rupture through antigorite dehydration and raised to high pore pressures through matrix collapse and/or thermal pressurization. The Anchorage sequence exhibits a more complex stress ratio evolution that may be associated with stress adjustments within a distributed fault network, or reflect a strongly heterogeneous stress field.
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