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Along strike variation of seismic behavior of the Philippine fault based on

historical-and paleo-seismicity Hide affiliations

Conference Paper · December 2011

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Along strike variation of seismic behavior of the Philippine fault

based on historical- and paleo-seismicity
Hide affiliations

Tsutsumi, H. (Dept Geophysics, Kyoto Univ, Kyoto, Japan;);

Perez, J. S. (Dept Geophysics, Kyoto Univ, Kyoto, Japan;)

The Philippine fault is a 1250-km-long, left-lateral strike-slip fault extending NNW parallel to the
Philippine archipelago. This fault has been very active in the past 100 years with several destructive
earthquakes accompanied by surface rupture. There is notable along-strike variation in historical-
and paleo-seismicity of the Philippine fault that seems to be composed of locked, transition, and
creeping sections as first pointed out by Bacolcol (2003) and Besana and Ando (2005) based on
geodetic and seismological observations. The Philippine fault in central Luzon and Mindanao Islands
appears to be fully locked and produced M≥7 earthquakes. In central Luzon, four left-stepping
distinct segments comprise the Philippine fault and the Digdig segment ruptured during the 1990
Mw7.7 earthquake with maximum slip of 6 m. Paleoseismic trenching suggests an average
recurrence interval of 500-600 years for the Digdig fault. The Philippine fault in Mindanao Island is
also composed of several distinct fault strands separated by geometric discontinuities such as
dilatational steps and branching. Two historical M7-class earthquakes are known to have occurred
on the Philippine fault in Mindanao Island. Paleoseismic trenching revealed that an average
recurrence interval of surface-rupturing earthquakes in northeastern Mindanao is 300-400 years.
Historical seismicity of the central portion of the Philippine fault on Masbate and Leyte Islands is
quite different from that on Luzon and Mindanao Islands. There was no M≥7 earthquake in the past
400 years in Masbate and Leyte Islands (Bautista and Oike, 2000). In Masbate Island, the 2003
Ms6.2 earthquake ruptured the surface, producing ~18-km-long surface rupture with maximum slip of
~50 cm. Paleoseismic trenching across the surface rupture by Papiona and Kinugasa (2008)
revealed stratigraphic evidence for four surface-rupturing earthquakes in the past ~680 years. In
Leyte, there is no historical surface-rupturing earthquake and the largest historical earthquake along
the Philippine fault was Ms 6.4 (Bautista and Oike, 2000). Several studies identified aseismic
creeping of the Philippine fault on Leyte island. Perez et al. (2008) reported aseismic surface
creeping in Leyte town based on continuous fissuring of concrete structures and asphalt roads.
Catane et al. (2000) identified aseismic creeping at a rate of at least 26 mm/yr in a geothermal area
east of Ormoc City. The along-strike variation of seismic behavior of the Philippine fault may be in
part controlled by variation of thickness and rigidity of seismogenic crust along the fault. The
Philippine fault crosses the volcanic front related to the Philippine Sea plate subduction at the
latitude of Leyte Island where there are many geothermal fields along the fault. The seismogenic
brittle crust in Leyte Island may be thin and thus elastic strain may not accumulate to produce large
earthquakes.

Publication:
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American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract id. T43D-2366

Pub Date:
December 2011

Bibcode:
2011AGUFM.T43D2366T

Keywords:
7221 SEISMOLOGY / Paleoseismology;
7230 SEISMOLOGY / Seismicity and tectonics;
8123 TECTONOPHYSICS / Dynamics: seismotectonics;
9320 GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION / Asia

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