Several major earthquakes (Mw>7) have occurred in this gap since 1850 (Fig. 1); the largest until now was the Mw 7.7 Tocopilla earthquake in 2007, which broke the southern rim of this segment beneath and north of Mejillones Peninsula along a total length of 150 km. Only the downdip end of the locked zone slipped in this event, and the total slip in the rupture area was less than 2.6 m 6,7 leaving most of the past slip deficit of c. 8-9 m accumulated since 1877 3 approaches. First, we performed waveform modelling of local strong motion seismograms and teleseismic body waves to constrain the kinematic development of the rupture towards the final displacement in a joint inversion with continuous GPS data of static displacements (Fig. 1, 2a). Second, we use the backprojection technique applied to stations in North America to map the radiation of high frequency seismic waves (HFSR; 1-4 Hz) 9,10 . The latter technique is not sensitive to absolute slip amplitudes, but rather to changes in slip and rupture velocity.During the first 35-40s the rupture propagated downdip with increasing velocity, nearly reaching the coastline (Fig. 2a,b). Surprisingly, towards the end of the rupture, the area near the epicenter was reactivated. In spite of the relatively complicated kinematic history of the rupture the cumulative slip shows a simple 'bull's eye' pattern with a peak coseismic slip of (Fig. 3a). The Iquique main shock nucleated at the 4 northwestern border of a locked patch and ruptured towards its center (Fig. 2a, 3a). The downdip end of the main shock as well as for the large Mw 7.6 aftershock rupture mapped both by the HFSR and co-seismic slip agrees quite accurately with the downdip end interseismic coupling (Fig. 2a,c 3a). The accelerated downdip rupture propagation for both earthquakes closely followed the gradient towards higher locking. Therefore, the Iquique event and its largest aftershock appear to have broken the central, only partly locked segment of the Northern Chile Southern Peru seismic gap releasing part of the slip deficit accumulated here since 1877 (cf. Fig. 1).The seismicity before the Iquique earthquake also concentrates in this zone of intermediate locking at the fringe of the highly locked -high slip patch (Fig. 3a). Starting in July 2013, three foreshock clusters with increasingly larger peak magnitudes and cumulative seismic moment occurred here (Fig. 2c, 3a,c). The mainshock rupture started at the northern end of the foreshock zone, inside the region of intermediate locking (Fig. 2c, 3a). Interestingly, the second foreshock cluster (January 2014) is associated with a weak transient deformation, whereas the third cluster (March 2014) shows a very distinct transient signal. GPS displacement vectors calculated over the times spanning these foreshock clusters point towards the cluster epicentres (Extended Data Figure 4). Deformation for both transients is entirely explained by the cumulative coseismic displacement of the respective foreshock clusters (Fig. 3d inset, Extended Data Figure 4). The ar...

The Pamir orogen, Central Asia, is the result of the ongoing northward advance of the Indian continent causing shortening inside Asia. Geodetic and seismic data place the most intense deformation along the northern rim of the Pamir, but the recent 7 December 2015, Mw7.2 Sarez earthquake occurred in the Pamir's interior. We present a distributed slip model of this earthquake using coseismic geodetic data and postseismic field observations. The earthquake ruptured an ∼80 km long, subvertical, sinistral fault consisting of three right‐stepping segments from the surface to ∼30 km depth with a maximum slip of three meters in the upper 10 km of the crust. The coseismic slip model agrees well with en échelon secondary surface breaks that are partly influenced by liquefaction‐induced mass movements. These structures reveal up to 2 m of sinistral offset along the northern, low‐offset segment of modeled rupture. The 2015 event initiated close to the presumed epicenter of the 1911 Mw∼7.3 Lake Sarez earthquake, which had a similar strike‐slip mechanism. These earthquakes highlight the importance of NE trending sinistral faults in the active tectonics of the Pamir. Strike‐slip deformation accommodates shear between the rapidly northward moving eastern Pamir and the Tajik basin in the west and is part of the westward (lateral) extrusion of thickened Pamir plateau crust into the Tajik basin. The Sarez‐Karakul fault system and the two large Sarez earthquakes likely are crustal expressions of the underthrusting of the northwestern leading edge of the Indian mantle lithosphere beneath the Pamir.

Significance The Songpan-Ganzi terrane lies in the central-east of the Tibetan Plateau, which was considered a stable block in some tectonic models. Its deformation mode is of crucial importance for understanding the evolutionary history and seismic hazard of the plateau. The recent Maduo earthquake occurred inside the terrane. We resolve a bilateral rupture process with distinct super- and subshear rupture modes for this event. We also find that pervasive folding structures that are aligned by shear deformation in the current Songpan-Ganzi terrane are responsible for the seismic wave anisotropy and shear strain orientation in its upper crust. Its deformation mode can be classified as distributed simple shear, which receives shear loads from side walls and produces internal earthquakes.

Arginine is one of the most versatile amino acids in eukaryote cells, which plays important roles in a multitude of processes such as protein synthesis, nitrogen metabolism, nitric oxide (NO) and urea biosynthesis. The de novo arginine biosynthesis pathway is conserved among fungal kingdom, but poorly understood in plant pathogenic fungi. Here, we characterized the functions of three synthetic enzyme-encoding genes MoARG1, MoARG5,6, and MoARG7, which involved the seventh step, second-third step and fifth step of arginine biosynthesis in Magnaporthe oryzae, respectively. Deletion of MoARG1 or MoARG5,6, resulted in arginine auxotrophic mutants, which had a strict requirement for arginine on minimal medium (MM). Both ΔMoarg1 and ΔMoarg5,6 severely reduced in aerial hyphal growth, pigmentation, conidiogenesis, sexual reproduction and pathogenicity. Interestingly, like Saccharomyces cerevisiae, deletion of MoARG7 caused a leaky arginine auxotrophy, and attenuated pathogenicity. Limited appressorium-mediated penetration and restricted invasive hyphae growth in host cells are responsible for the severely attenuated pathogenicity of the Arg(-) mutants. Additionally, we monitored the NO generation during conidial germination and appressorial formation in both Arg(-) mutants and wild type, and demonstrated that NO generation may not occur via arginine-dependent pathway in M. oryzae. In summary, MoARG1, MoARG5,6, and MoARG7 are required for growth, conidiogenesis, sexual reproduction, and pathogenicity in M. oryzae.