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A Study of the Impact of Static Coulomb Stress Changes of Megathrust

Earthquakes Along Subduction Zone on the Following Aftershocks

Article · September 2012

DOI: 10.1002/cjg2.1748

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 CHINESE JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICS Vol.55, No.5, 2012, pp: 240–1

A STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF STATIC COULOMB STRESS CHANGES

OF MEGATHRUST EARTHQUAKES ALONG SUBDUCTION
ZONE ON THE FOLLOWING AFTERSHOCKS

MIAO Miao, ZHU Shou-Biao∗

Institute of Crustal Dynamics, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing 100085, China

Abstract Research on static earthquake triggering has been carried out widely in the world, and achieved
remarkable results. But it is still unclear whether this model is effective to all large earthquakes. In this paper,
we investigated the Coulomb stress changes of 3 megathrust earthquakes along subduction zones (the 2011 Mw 9.1
Tohoku earthquake, the 2010 Mw 8.8 Chile earthquake, and the 2004 Mw 9.0 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake) to
test the triggering effects by examining the correlation between coulomb stress increases and spatial distribution
of the following aftershocks. The calculated results suggest that there is no obvious evidence that the Coulomb
stress changes caused by the 3 megathrust earthquakes promoted the occurrence of the aftershocks. There are
only 47% of the encouraged aftershocks following the Tohoku earthquake. And there are 47.6% and 49.8% for the
Sumatra-Andaman and the Chile earthquake, respectively. We also calculated the coulomb stress changes with
different focal models and parameters. It is still less than 60% of the promoted aftershocks in the optimal case.
However, the static triggering model is good for the Wenchuan earthquake and the Chi-Chi earthquake which have
enhanced more than 85% of the subsequent aftershocks. This model may be not reasonable for large subduction
earthquakes. Therefore, other model should be introduced in studying earthquake triggering in subduction zone
and further studies will be performed.

Key words Static earthquake triggering, Coulomb failure stress change, Subduction zone, Aftershock distribu-
tion

1 INTRODUCTION
In recent years, many researchers have focused on the role of static Coulomb stress change (∆CFS) to
study the impact of mainshock on the aftershocks and interaction between strong earthquakes[1−6] . King et
al.[7] calculated the ∆CFS caused by the 1992 Landers earthquake (Mw 7.3) on the optimum failure plane and
surrounding faults. They found that aftershocks were widely distributed in the stress increasing areas while less
activities in the reduction zones. Stress changes in Southern California were modeled by Deng et al.[8] for six
large (7.0 ≤ M ≤ 7.5) to great (M ≥ 7.5) earthquakes from 1812 to 1995. About 95% of the well-located M ≥ 6
earthquakes are consistent with the Coulomb stress evolutionary model; that is, they occurred in the areas of
positive ∆CFS. And above 85% of the M ≥ 5.0 aftershocks are enhanced by the large earthquakes. Stein et
al.[9] used the mapped surface slip and fault geometry to infer the transfer of stress throughout ten M ≥ 6.7
earthquakes in the North Anatolian fault (Turkey) during 1939–1992. Calculations of the change in Coulomb
failure stress reveal that 9 out of 10 ruptures were brought closer to failure by the preceding shocks, typically
by 0.1∼1 MPa, and rearrangement of stresses in the crust leads to subsequent damaging event, the 1999 Izmit
earthquake. Wan et al.[10] explored static stress triggering problem between several complex events since 1920
in the northeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau based on the formula of Okada. The result suggests that the 2001
HOh Xil earthquake is promoted by the joint ∆CFS produced by the 1937 Huashixia, the 1963 Dulan, and the
1973, 1997 Mani events. Zhang et al.[11] constructed fault models for seven earthquakes (Ms ≥ 6.0) in Jiashi
region to calculate the ∆CFS produced by each of these events. Their calculations show that the ∆CFS caused
by the preceding events was around 0.05 MPa at the hypocenter of the subsequent events. It reveals a Coulomb
stress interactive cycle of earthquake triggering between two adjacent faults. Zhu et al.[12] studied the patterns
E-mail: Joe0810@163.com
*Corresponding author: zhushoubiao@gmail.com
 Miao M et al.: A Study of the Impact of Static Coulomb Stress Changes of Megathrust Earthquakes · · · 1335

of ∆CFS induced by a sequence of 4 strong earthquakes occurred in Songpan County, Sichuan province from
1973 to 1976. Most aftershocks of the sequence occurred in the areas where Coulomb stress has been increased
along the near-field zone of the seismogenic fault-segments of the main shocks. In the 25 years following the
sequence and within about 200 km centered at the mid-segment of the seismogenic Huya fault of the sequence,
6 events with magnitudes 5.0 to 6.6 all occurred in those far field zone with very small amount of increase in
Coulomb stress induced by the sequence.
The above analysis shows that static triggering model has significant influence for many activities. However,
it remains unclear whether this model is effective to all large earthquakes. Previous researches pay less attention
on the megathrust earthquakes along the subduction zone. In this paper, we use the published earthquake source
models and aftershock catalogs to investigate the ∆CFS of 3 megathrust earthquakes (the 2011 Mw 9.1 Tohoku
earthquake, the 2010 Mw 8.8 Chile earthquake and the 2004 Mw 9.0 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake) to test the
triggering effects by examining the correlation between Coulomb stress increases and spatial distribution of the
following aftershocks.

2 STATIC COULOMB FAILURE STRESS CHANGE

Assuming the earth as a half-space homogeneous isotropic elastic medium, the internal displacement and
strain field can be obtained from the seismic dislocation model. According to the Okada[13] analytical expression
of static displacement and strain, we can calculate static stress and strain changes generated by the earthquake.
In the Coulomb criterion, failure occurs on a plane when the Coulomb stress σf exceeds a specific value

σf = τ − µ(σn + P ), (1)

where τ is the shear stress on the failure plane, σn the normal stress, P the pore fluid pressure, µ and the
coefficient of friction. Since it is hard to directly measure the real crustal stress value, the Coulomb failure
stress change is used to describe the relative change of stress[1,7] . When the coefficient of friction is constant,
Eq.(1) can be rewritten as
∆σf = ∆τ − µ(∆σn + ∆P ). (2)

Pore fluid pressure P modifies the effective normal stress across the failure plane. When rock stress is
changed more rapidly than fluid pressure diffusion, P can be related to confining stress by Skemptons coefficient
B, where the effective coefficient of friction is defined by µ0 = µ(1−B), it can account for the pore fluid behavior
and property of failure plane, with the range 0∼1, then Eq.(2) can therefore be rewritten as

∆σf = ∆τ − µ0 ∆σn , (3)

where the compressive stress is positive. The ∆CFS is defined on the specific failure plane which is so called
receive fault; it promotes the occurrence of earthquake when ∆σf > 0 or vice versa. Although ∆CFS caused by
earthquake is pretty smaller than the accumulated stress required for an earthquake, lots of seismic activities
show that increase of Coulomb stress of more than 0.01 MPa appears to be sufficient to trigger events[1,14] .
During the investigation of earthquake static triggering, we often define the optimally oriented fault plane on
which the value of stress change is greater than other oriented faults in the same place if the aftershocks’ focal
mechanisms are unknown. It could explain the aftershocks distribution, and forecast the spatial pattern of
subsequent earthquakes in the future[7,15] .

3 CALCULATION
3.1 2011 Tohoku Earthquake
On March 11, 2012, the Mw 9.1 Tohoku earthquake occurred in east coast offshore of Japan’s Honshu
Island. The earthquake is located near Miyagi, northeast Japan with a depth of 20 km which typically contains
1336 Chinese J. Geophys. Vol.55, No.5

foreshock-mainshock-aftershock events. The Pacific plate collides with the Eurasia Plate in the movement
towards northwest, and subducts below Japan at an average rate of about 8 to 10 cm/a. In the formation of
the Japan Trench, volcanoes and earthquake activities take place frequently due to the stress concentration
in the plate boundary[16] . The Tohoku earthquake took place in the subduction zone, and is the largest rare
megathrust earthquake of the instrumental era in Japan. It triggered devastating tsunami and caused huge
economic losses and casualties.
The inversion of the rupture dislocation distribution using GPS displacement and seismic waveform data
as constraints was made by Wei et al.[17] . Maximum slip is estimated up to 30 m which is located in the eastward
100 km of the epicenter. The source fault generated a 500-km-long and 200-km-wide surface rupture zone which
contains totally 19×10 slip patches with a 42 km maximum rupture depth. Table 1 shows the main rupture
plane of strike 201◦ , dip 9◦ and rake 93◦ . Focal mechanisms of the Chile earthquake and Sumatra-Andaman
earthquake are also listed in Table 1.

Table 1 Focal mechanisms of the three megathrust earthquakes

Hypocenter Focal mechanism

Date ϕ/(◦ ) λE /(◦ ) Depth/km Magnitude Mw Nodal Plane I/(◦ ) Nodal Plane II/(◦ )
Strike Dip Rake Strike Dip Rake
Tohoku earthquake 2011-3-11 37.52 143.05 20 9.1 203 10 88 25 80 90
Chile earthquake 2010-2-27 –35.98 –73.15 23.2 8.8 19 18 116 172 74 82
Sumatra-
Andaman 2004-12-26 3.09 94.26 28.6 9.0 329 8 110 129 83 87
earthquake
*Focal Mechanism: Harvard Global CMT

According to the method of Stein and King et al.[2,7] , we compute stress changes in elastic half-space
with a Poisson’s ratio of 0.25, effective coefficient of friction of 0.4, and a shear modulus of 3.3×104 MPa.
Given the great magnitude of this earthquake, the duration of its influence on surrounding regions would be
a longer period. In order to comprehensively analyze the correlation between stress changes and the following
earthquakes, we choose the subsequent events before July 11, 2011 to investigate the association. Data of
M ≥ 4.0 aftershocks given by USGS (http://neic.usgs.gov/) are used. Take the optimally oriented fault as the
defined failure plane.
The Tohoku earthquake is extremely destructive which results in great impact on the Japanese mainland.
The southern part of Honshu Island is loaded by more than 0.15 MPa while more than 0.01 MPa for the far
apart Hokkaido Island. The northern Honshu Island and the source fault plane are covered by stress shadow
whose Coulomb stress greatly reduces by –0.6 to –0.08 MPa.
Numerous aftershocks are generated after the mainshock. There are more than 3000 M ≥ 4.0 events
in the first three months which are mainly distributed on the eastern and southern parts of the fault plane.
Because depth has significant influence for the ∆CFS of thrust earthquake[18] , we investigate the relationship
between stress pattern and aftershocks distribution within the whole space. The spatial distribution of ∆CFS
induced by the Tohoku earthquake with aftershocks is shown in Fig. 1, and we can discover that a large amount
of aftershocks are not triggered by the mainshock. Through the statistics of the stress change pattern with
aftershocks, about 47% events are found in the regions where the stress change is positive. On the source failure
plane there are 1160 M ≥ 4.0 aftershocks and only 40.2% of them fall in the regions of increased stress. 50%
events lie in the areas of positive stress change in the southern part of the epicenter while more than 60% fall
into the negative zone in the eastern part.
Four M ≥ 7.0 great aftershocks occurred in the following 4 months, and we find that the March 11 Mw 7.9
and July 10 Mw 7.0 events are located in the stress shadow while the March 11 Mw 7.7 and April 7 Mw 7.1 events
in the positive zone. Only 26% of shallow (< 30 km) M ≥ 6.0 aftershocks are promoted while 67% in 30 to 50
km depth. Thus the Tohoku earthquake does not have a strong pushing effect on the following events.
 Miao M et al.: A Study of the Impact of Static Coulomb Stress Changes of Megathrust Earthquakes · · · 1337

Fig. 1 Coulomb stress change of the 2011 Tohoku earth-

quake and the spatial distribution of the aftershocks

3.2 2010 Chile Earthquake

Central Chile was struck by a megathrust earth-
quake on February 27, 2010. The earthquake was gen-
erated at the gently sloping fault which is an extremely
active area that conveys the Pacific plate eastward and Fig. 2 Coulomb stress change of the 2010 Chile earth-
downward beneath the South American plate[19] ; and quake and the spatial distribution of the aftershocks

it is about 115 km from Concepcion and 320 km from the Santiago, the capital of Chile. This area has
undergone several Mw ≥ 8.0 strong earthquakes since the 20th century and the largest Mw 9.5 earthquake
occurred in 1960. Ruptures caused by repeated earthquakes, largely offshore, extend nearly 2000 km parallel
to the coast[20] . Millions people were killed, at least 2 million people were affected and more than 1.5 million
houses were damaged or destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami.
Observation suggests that the Chilean quake had an asymmetrical bilateral rupture with a dominant
direction from south to north. The rupture between Santiago and Concepcion extended about 650 km long
and 180 km wide. We choose the source model given by Hayes et al.[21] to do the calculation because of its
similarity to the models developed by Pollitz and Delouis et al.[22−23] through a joint inversion of GPS and
InSAR data. The northern asperity became predominant with maximum slippage reaching about 14.5 m. This
model consists of 20×11 slip patches with maximum depth of 60 km. Take the optimally oriented fault as the
defined failure plane, and other parameters are consistent with the Tohoku model.
As shown in Fig. 2, the Coulomb stress increase areas generated by the Chile earthquake are mainly
distributed in the northwest and southeast sides of the fault plane and the decrease areas in the northeast and
southwest. The fault zones in the north and south of Chile are loaded by more than 0.05 MPa. However, the
1338 Chinese J. Geophys. Vol.55, No.5

east and west sides of the fault plane are greatly relaxed in a range –18.4 MPa to –0.05 MPa.
Take the aftershocks of 4 months also from USGS to investigate the triggering effect. The subsequent
events are concentrated on the fault plane and the area of maximum slip. According to the distribution of
∆CFS, we particularly analyze the relationship between aftershock location and stress change pattern within
depth range of 0 to 65 km: only 47.6% of the aftershocks lie in the enhanced region. The northern part of the
model generated a large shadow zone with stress reducing 5 MPa where a large number of activities occurred.
And 41% of the aftershocks happened in the focal depth are distributed in the positive region. Most of the
events fall into the suppression zone.
3.3 2004 Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake
The devastating Mw 9.0 megathrust earthquake of December 26th, 2004 occurred in the Sumatra-Andaman
subduction zone off the west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The hypocenter lied in the interface of the
India-Australia and Burma plates and was caused by the fast release of strain energy that developed as the India
plate subducts beneath the overriding Burma plate and simultaneously triggered rapid uplift of the seafloor.
The fault-rupture extends over 1200 km and lasts for more than 1000 s. This is the largest earthquake in the
world during the last 40 years and triggered the most destructive tsunami in record that directly resulted nearly
0.3 million deaths.
The subduction zone manifests low-angle in shallow and high-angle in the deep. The depth of the Sumatra
earthquake is 28.6 km, consistent with low dip angle
of nodal plane I in Table 1. The dislocation model
published by Chlieh et al.[24] is adopted for the cal-
culation. This complex model is divided into three
sub-faults with maximum slippage of 17 m that are
located around the hypocenter and the confluence
of the Andaman Trench and Sumatra fault. Strikes
of the three sub-faults are 5◦ , 342◦ , 315◦ and dips
17◦ , 15◦ , 12◦ from north to south. There are totally
695 slip patches with spatially asymmetrical distri-
bution, and rupture extends to 52.6 km in depth.
∆CFS distribution pattern generated by the
Sumatra earthquake is similar to the Chile earth-
quake’s (Fig. 3). The loading areas are mainly lo-
cated in the northwest and southeast of the fault
zone as well as the fault plane. The southern seg-
ments of Sumatra fault are loaded by more than
0.03 MPa and these results have certain degree of
consistency with McCloskey’s study[25] . Although
there are 5 more strong earthquakes (Mw >7.0) oc-
curred in this region after the megathrust earth-
quake, they are separated by four years and three
of them lie in the negative area. Stress change re-
sults calculated by the full elastic half space model
cannot be a good description for the triggering ef-
fect.
Subsequent aftershocks are widely distributed
throughout the fault plane and plenty of them lie Fig. 3 Coulomb stress change of the Sumatra-
in the middle of the Andaman Trench (black box in Andaman earthquake and the spatial
Fig. 3). More than 70% aftershocks take place in distribution of the aftershocks
 Miao M et al.: A Study of the Impact of Static Coulomb Stress Changes of Megathrust Earthquakes · · · 1339

30 km depth. In order to avoid the impact of the Mw 8.6 great earthquake (March 28, 2005) in this area, only
the events in subsequent 3 months (to March 26, 2005) would be taken into consideration. Although other
study pointed out that the Mw 8.6 strong earthquake is promoted by the megathrust earthquake[26] , we don’t
regard it as aftershock for the great magnitude.
Figure 3 introduces the relationship between spatial distribution of the aftershocks and ∆CFS pattern. It
is shown that about 49.8% of the aftershocks occur in the region where the stress is calculated to increase, the
percentage drops to 46% on the source failure plane. Numerous activities lie in the central section of Andaman
trench which is the boundary of stress raise and decline, and 60% of them are found where the stress change is
negative (–1 to –0.1 MPa). Majority of the aftershocks near the Sumatra fault fall in the failure plane and the
number of events in the region of stress increase is not significantly more than the number in the shadow zone.
No remarkable correlation is found between static stress changes produced by the mainshock and the following
quakes.

4 COMPARISON ANALYSIS

Static triggering effect is unsatisfactory for the three magathrust earthquake calculated above. Most of
the areas on the fault plane are the reduction zones which go against the occurrence of the subsequent seismic
activities while a great many of aftershocks distribute in these parts. Less than 50% of the seismic activities are
promoted by the three megathrust earthquakes. Mainshock stress change patterns have no obvious relationship
with aftershocks’ occurrence. To avoid the calculation error from the unique model and parameters, we select
different source models and parameters to analyze comparatively.

4.1 Different Source Models

First we use different dislocation models to calculate the Coulomb stress changes for avoiding the uncer-
tainties coming from the unique model. Focal models given by Shao et al.[27−28] are adopted to calculate the
stress changes induced by the Tohoku earthquake and Chile earthquake (Fig. 4, 5).
Figure 4 shows that the Honshu Island is loaded of more than 0.1 MPa by the Tohoku earthquake according
to Shao’s model. The areas of stress increase are in the east and west sides of the fault plane and this result is
consistent with the former study of Wei et al.’s model (Fig. 1). The stress variation caused by Chile earthquake
from Shao et al.’s model is shown in Fig. 5. And it is similar to the pattern calculated by Hayes’s model in
Fig. 2 that the south and north lobes are stress increasing areas and both sides of the fault plane are stress
shadow zones. The western part is stress loading strip area and alternatively positive and negative Coulomb
stress areas toward east.
The triggering effects are still not ideal using Shao’s models. The Tohoku earthquake gets a relatively
better result, but only 58% of the aftershocks have been triggered. In the focal depth there are 47.9% of the
seismic events occur in the stress shadow which should suppress the earthquakes. Moreover, merely 46.8% of
the quakes have been triggered and 51.5% in the focal depth for Chile earthquake.

4.2 Different Friction Coefficients

We further investigate the impact of friction variation on the triggering effect. Keeping the shear modulus
and Poisson’s ratio constant, friction coefficient varies from 0.0 to 0.8, step 0.1, and use all the models above
to examine correlation of stress changes and aftershocks. Table 2 shows the results of static stress triggering
effects when the friction coefficients are the typical values 0.0, 0.4 and 0.8. For different values certain degree of
differences are found in number of the promoted aftershocks, and there are still less than 60% of the aftershocks
that fall into the load zones. When it comes to 0.8 for Sumatra earthquake, the aftershocks have even only 34.8%
in the stress increase areas. The triggered events are not apparently more than the events lie in the inhibited
regions. Consequently, the static triggering effect does not become better from the variation of friction coefficient
value.
1340 Chinese J. Geophys. Vol.55, No.5

Fig. 5 Coulomb stress change using Shao’s model

Fig. 4 Coulomb stress change using Shao’s model of of the 2010 Chile earthquake and the spatial
the 2011Tohoku earthquake and the spatial distribution of the aftershocks
distribution of the aftershocks
Table 2 Coulomb stress change calculated by different effective coefficients of friction
and the aftershocks triggering effect

Seismic moment Triggered aftershocks(%)

Source model Slip patches
(1024 N·cm) µe = 0.0 µe = 0.4 µe = 0.8 Mean
Tohoku earthquake Wei et al.[17] 4.23 350 48.3 47 49.7 48.3
Shao et al.[27−28] 3.81 190 59.3 58.7 59.8 59.3
Chile earthquake Hayes et al.[21] 1.34 180 42.0 47.6 45.3 45.0
Shao et al.[27−28] 1.46 220 48.0 46.8 47.0 47.3
Sumatra-Andaman earthquake Chlieh M et al.[24] 3.78 695 49.1 49.8 34.8 44.6

4.3 Intraplate Earthquake Results

The 2008 Ms 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake is a typical intraplate seismic event. After the earthquake, many
scholars calculated the Coulomb stress change’s impact on the faults around. Toda et al.[29] used two source
models from Ji and Nishimura to do the calculation respectively. The surrounding faults have a high risk of
earthquake occurrence. Xianshuihe fault, Kunlun fault and Minjiang fault are loaded by 0.02 to 0.05 MPa. In
this paper we also use Ji et al.’s model[30] to observe the triggering effect of the Wenchuan earthquake to the
aftershocks.
 Miao M et al.: A Study of the Impact of Static Coulomb Stress Changes of Megathrust Earthquakes · · · 1341

The unexpected Wenchuan earthquake occurred on the Longmenshan fault which is not active recently
in the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau, the middle of the North-south Seismic Belt. Previous studies
indicated that the Beichuan-Yingxiu fault along the Longmenshan thrust belt was the main source fault, which
generated a 240-km-long surface rupture zone, and its maximum vertical and horizontal slips were estimated up
to 6.2 and 4.9 m respectively[31] . An additional surface rupture zone developed along the Guanxian-Jiangyou
fault with a 72-km-long surface rupture and 3.5 m maximum horizontal slip. Great shock leads to landslides
and other geological disasters, besides, huge casualties and property losses.
The Wenchuan earthquake had a complicated
rupture process; Yingxiu and Beichuan were the most
damaged regions with high-slip areas. Ji et al. pub-
lished the slip distribution model seven hours after the
mainshock: This earthquake was mainly a thrust event
with right-lateral strike-slip component in the southern
section and mainly right-lateral strike-slip with thrust
component in the northern section. The model consists
of 21×8 slip patches with maximum rupture depth of
20 km.
We use the conditions above to calculate the
∆CFS, and the pattern is shown in Fig. 6. The spatial
distribution of stress change is intricate that alternates
positive and negative. Maximum increasing zone is lo-
cated in the north and south lobes of the fault plane
and maximum decreasing zone in the east and west
sides.
Over 1000 aftershocks happened within four Fig. 6 Coulomb stress change of the Wenchuan earth-
months after the Wenchuan earthquake, and are mostly quake and the spatial distribution of the aftershocks

concentrated in west side of Beichuan-Yingxiu fault, and a few aftershocks are distributed around vicinity of
Wenchuan-Yingxiu.
Figure 6 shows the spatial distribution of ∆CFS induced by the Wenchuan earthquake and its aftershocks.
In this model, more than 85% of aftershocks lie where the stress is calculated to increase, the percentage rises to
87% on the source failure plane. The stress variation is greater than triggering threshold 0.01 MPa. This result
indicates that the Wenchuan earthquake plays a good role in triggering the subsequent activities. Compared
with the aftershocks occurred in the first month (May 12,2008 to June 12, 2008), events in the second to
fourth month (June 13, 2008 to September 12, 2008) reduced sharply, and more than 90% of them fall into the
increasing zone. This result is consistent with other studies[32−33] and the triggering effect of the Wenchuan
earthquake would last more than six months in the study area.
According to previous studies, it is found that intraplate earthquake usually has a good triggering effect:
more than 20000 aftershocks occurred after the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake (Mw 7.6), and the calculation result
shows that in shallow depths ∆CFS generated by the mainshock promote most of the subsequent events using
a half-space elastic model[34] . When it comes to multi-layered medium model there are about 72% of the
aftershocks in the region of Coulomb stress increasing over 0.01 MPa[35] . The study of Ma et al.[36] shows that
there is a widespread increase in seismicity rate in the surrounding areas. Besides, the earthquakes mentioned
above which gain good triggering effect are all intraplate earthquakes.
We can see from the comparison analysis above that regardless of the variation of the source models and
the parameters, the triggering effect of the three megathrust earthquakes is insignificant. In the optimal case
the promoted aftershocks are still less than 60%. However, the static triggering model is good for intraplate
earthquakes (the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake) which have enhanced more than
1342 Chinese J. Geophys. Vol.55, No.5

70% of the subsequent events.

5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

5.1 Problem Discussion
This study calculated the static Coulomb failure stress changes of three megathrust earthquakes by the
dislocation models. The main purpose was to investigate the triggering effect of the mainshock on the after-
shocks. Aftershocks’ focal mechanism and the distance to the epicenter should usually get into consideration.
For example, Zhan et al.[37] used the aftershock mechanism parameters (strike, dip and rake) to calculate the
Coulomb stress change on the rupture plane (or nodal plane) to study the static earthquake triggering problem.
However, this method is only confined to a small number of aftershocks. It is difficult to study the triggering
effect from the mainshock on the entire sequence of aftershocks for several reasons: 1) The uncertainty of after-
shock focal mechanism solutions (especially for the aftershocks of small magnitudes); 2) The great quantity of
the aftershocks. Therefore, most of the studies about static earthquake triggering were focused on the statistical
number of promoted aftershocks such as Harris, King and Deng et al.[1,7−8] . In addition, Dĺez, Mueller and
Stramondo et al.[38−40] take the same way to do some similar researches. High percentage of aftershocks in
positive stress changing zones leads to good triggering or enhancing effect whereas bad effect in the negative
changing zone.
According to the simple statistics of the aftershocks occurrence in the stress increasing areas after the three
megathrust earthquakes, there are great differences in triggering effect of aftershocks between earthquakes. For
the Wenchuan earthquake more than 85% of the aftershocks lie in the regions of Coulomb stress increase while
relatively small percentages of enhanced aftershocks for the megathrust earthquakes (the Tohoku earthquake,
the Chile earthquake and the Sumatra earthquake).
The correlation between the Coulomb stress change pattern and the aftershock distribution was not sig-
nificant. The reasons may be as follows:
(1) Dynamic Coulomb failure stress change. When the seismic waves (mainly surface waves) generated by
earthquakes propagate to some active structures in a critical state, it may lead to earthquake rupture which is
named dynamic earthquake triggering. Dynamic triggering is an instantaneous process without any distance
restriction, and peak dynamic stress is typically more than an order of magnitude larger than static stress
beyond about 10km from the causative rupture. There is not only the direct triggering for dynamic stress (a
few seconds or minutes), but also delayed triggering (a few days). Changes in the mechanical properties or
failure processes of a fault do not mean that failure occurs immediately or with constant clock-advance; thus
they allow variable time delays between triggering and triggered earthquakes. The dynamic stress changes may
modify the properties of the fault zone itself, effectively changing the failure criteria and the nature and rates
of mechanical or chemical processes that lead to earthquake rupture[42−43] .
Dynamic Coulomb stress change plays a part in not only the far-field, but also the near-field. In the
near-field dynamic and static stress changes are inseparable. For example, the study of August 2002 Mw 7.6
Tonga deep earthquake proposed that, most subsequent events and a Mw 7.7 earthquake are triggered after seven
minutes by transient effects in regions near criticality in a previously aseismic region, but where earthquakes
have difficulty nucleating without external influences[44] . Wu et al.’s study[45] shows that the Ms 7.2 Gengma
shock and most of the strong aftershocks are subjected to the triggering effect of both dynamic and static
Coulomb stresses induced by the Ms 7.6 Lancang earthquake. For the three megathrust earthquakes, static
stress triggering can not explain the distribution of aftershocks. Hence, dynamic Coulomb stress change should
be taken into consideration in future research to make better judgment on the strong aftershocks’ location and
risk of surrounding faults.
(2) Pore fluid migration. Underground fluid acts a crucial role in the earthquake preparation and occur-
rence. The physical mechanisms of fluid-induced earthquakes are mainly the following three kinds: 1 Increasing
in pore pressure; 2 Fluid expansion due to thermal effect and 3 Softening effect of rock. Raised pore pressure
 Miao M et al.: A Study of the Impact of Static Coulomb Stress Changes of Megathrust Earthquakes · · · 1343

can reduce the strength of the fault, resulting in fault rupture or reactivation of existing rupture with constant
shear stress, and finally earthquake; cracks and traps formed after the mainshock play strong control roles on
the pore pressure. Thermal expansion of the underground fluid would generate lots of gaps; these gaps become
good path for accumulation and migration of fluid to impact on the stability of the fault in return. For the West
Bohemia/Vogtland earthquake swarms, increased pore pressure of crustal fluids in the region takes a key part
in bringing the faults from the subcritical to critical state. The swarm activities are mainly driven by stress
changes due to co-seismic and post-seismic slips, which considerably depend on the frictional conditions at the
fault; crustal fluids keep the fault in a critical state[47] . Brodsky et al.[48] propose a new model for coseismic
pore pressure steps in which a temporary barrier deposited by ground water flow is entrained and removed by
the more rapid flow induced by the seismic waves. In hydrothermal areas, this mechanism could lead to 0.04
MPa pressure changes and trigger seismicity. Astiz et al.[49] also point out that the following-up activities of
the 1990 California Upland ML 5.5 earthquake can be related to the fluid-rich hypocenter.
(3) Different types of models. Earthquake occurrence is mainly a process of strain energy release, and
thus in small time scales we often simplify the earth as isotropic elastic half-space medium. This is a certain
approximation for stress transfer in short period after the mainshock. In order to get closer to the actual
situation, some scholars often adopted multi-layered medium model for the calculation of ∆CFS. Take Wang
and Shao’s researches[34−35] for example, both models have been done for the ∆CFS and the results reveal that
stress change patterns are consistent in general but some obvious differences in details cannot be ignored.
Afterslip generated by a great earthquake often gives rise to stress state perturbation of the hypocenter
and surrounding areas. It often acts in a short-term with rapid decay (a few months to one year). But it is
still difficult to figure out how much the afterslip would work (different afterslips may effect differently). So
far, the stress change evolution problem considering the afterslip has not been reported. The afterslip model
in subduction zone is hard to establish because of the lack of near-field surface deformation information. In
this paper we only considered the co-seismic ∆CFS. Stress perturbation from the afterslip would be taken into
consideration in further research.
For large time scales viscoelastic relaxation stress evolution is worth to explore due to the coupling of the
brittle upper-crust and viscoelastic lithosphere. Shen et al.[50] found that the ∆CFS generated by the East
Kunlun earthquake increase gradually with time because of the effect of viscoelastic relaxation in the lower
crust. And the ∆CFS caused by the viscoelastic relaxation can even greatly exceed the co-seismic ∆CFS.
Therefore, although energy accumulation is the key factor of the strong earthquake occurrence in the plate
boundary within a short period, crustal viscoelastic relaxation also plays a vital role for the subsequent events
close to the mainshock.
(4) The influence of the initial stress field. In the studies of static earthquake triggering, an empirical
threshold of ∆CFS (say, 0.01 MPa) is often taken to determine the risk of surrounding areas. In fact, ∆CFS> 0
only means the probability increase of the earthquake occurrence. The earthquake occurrence is related not only
to ∆CFS but also to the stresses before the mainshock[51] . On the one hand, the earthquake may be triggered
even if the ∆CFS is slightly greater than zero if the stresses before the mainshock are very close to Coulomb
failure. On the other hand, it may not be triggered even though ∆CFS is large if the stresses are far away from
the Coulomb failure. Hardbeck et al.[52] pointed out that the aftershocks in one month of the 1994 Northridge
earthquake can not be explained by the ∆CFS. The impact of the tectonic stress field and fault strength should
be considered. Hu et al.[51] used continuous evolution of stress field to investigate the triggering effect of the
1976 Tangshan earthquake. The results indicate that the effects of the stress field of the Tangshan earthquake
fault zone on the aftershock triggering are very important. The aftershocks fallen in the earthquake triggering
regions predicted by the new method are more than those fallen in the regions of ∆CFS≥ 0 predicted by seismic
dislocation theory.
(5) Specificity of the megathrust earthquake. Mechanism of the devastating earthquake in subduction
zone has some differences with intraplate earthquake. Due to the special geographical location, the seismogenic
1344 Chinese J. Geophys. Vol.55, No.5

environment, stress state and tectonic background are unknown, the nature specificity of the subduction zone
may cause the static triggering failure. In addition, Lin et al.[18] believed that when the fault aspect ratio L/W
is large, Coulomb stress changes would generate a large “earthquake shadow” on both sides of the fault. The
megathrust earthquake models are relatively long and narrow, such as the rupture of Sumatra earthquake is up
to 1000 km while the width is only 300 km. The large aspect ratio may be one reason of the reduction of the
triggered aftershocks.
Besides the three megathrust earthquakes there are several other examples of bad triggering effect on the
subduction zone. Such as the aftershock sequence of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in Southern California has
no significant association with Coulomb stress change pattern[41] . The 1911 Morgan Hill earthquake’s hypocen-
ter falls in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake’s stress shadow zone[53] . Consequently, the static earthquake
triggering is a very complicated issue, and need further detailed study.

5.2 Preliminary Conclusion

According to the numerical calculation and analysis, we come to the following preliminary conclusions:
For the three megathrust earthquakes (the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, the 2010 Chile earthquake and the
2004 Sumatra earthquake), the relationship between ∆CFS pattern and the aftershocks’ spatial distribution
indicates that triggered aftershocks account for 47%, 47.6% and 49.8% of the total number respectively. The
number of aftershocks falling into the regions where ∆CFS is positive is not remarkably more than the number
in the shadow zone. Thus this model may be not effective for large subduction earthquakes.
Triggering effect is still unsatisfactory by changing the source models and the friction coefficient values of
the mainshock. The promoted aftershocks are still less than 60% in the optimal case. But for most intraplate
earthquakes mainshock gains a good static triggering effect. Therefore, the static trigger problems on the
subduction zone earthquakes need in-depth research.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Acknowledgement We thank two reviewers for their valuable suggestions. We are grateful to Jian Lin,
Ross Stein and Shinji Toda for their data and kind help. This study was supported by National Natural Science
Foundation of China (40974020).

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