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Earth science

When an oceanic tectonic plate cracks

Nature volume 490, pages 183–185 (2012)Cite this article

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Analyses of two recent earthquakes of great magnitude show how complex the breaking of the oceanic lithosphere can be, how it is linked to earlier great events and how it triggers seismicity worldwide. See Letters p.240, p.245 & p.250

Yue et al.4 (page 245) unravel the extraordinary complexity of the underlying mechanisms of the 2012 events, which display perpendicular (orthogonal) and discontinuous (en échelon) fault ruptures. By analysing short-period and long-period seismic waves recorded by stations in Europe and Japan, the authors identified a sequence of shocks along four fault planes, and estimated the rupture length and amount of slip along the faults. The deduced radiation pattern of the seismic waves outlines the interplay between multiple orthogonal and en échelon faults, whose spatial distribution is consistent with the epicentres of the first-week aftershocks. The orientations of the faults reflect the seafloor's tectonic fabric2,4, with ruptures occurring alternately along faults that extend bilaterally west-northwest and east-southeast (parallel to the abyssal hills) or along faults extending north-northeast and south-southwest (parallel to the fracture zone's orientation), the latter being perpendicular to the former. The high-level seismicity in the Wharton Basin (Fig. 1), as well as seafloor mapping, had already provided direct evidence that the fossil fracture zones — seismically inactive, long linear faults generated by seafloor spreading — in this region are continually reactivated6,7,8,9. But the question remains as to why so much stress can accumulate and provoke such large-magnitude earthquakes, and furthermore in an area that could have been activated by the nearby Aceh megathrust earthquake.

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Figure 1: Seismo-tectonic chart of the India–Australia plate.

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  1. Jean-Yves Royer is at the Laboratoire Domaines Océaniques, Institute for Marine Studies, CNRS and University of Brest, 29280 Plouzané, France.,

    Jean-Yves Royer

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Correspondence to Jean-Yves Royer.

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Royer, JY. When an oceanic tectonic plate cracks. Nature 490, 183–185 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/490183a

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