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Interplate slip rate variation between closely spaced earthquakes in southern Mexico: The 2012 Ometepec and 2018 Pinotepa Nacional thrust events
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  • Luis Dominguez,
  • Taka'aki Taira,
  • Víctor M. Cruz-Atienza,
  • Arturo Iglesias,
  • Carlos Villafuerte,
  • Denis LEGRAND,
  • Xyoli Pérez-Campos,
  • Miguel Raggi
Luis Dominguez
Instituto de Geofísica, UNAM

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Taka'aki Taira
University of California, Berkeley
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Víctor M. Cruz-Atienza
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
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Arturo Iglesias
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
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Carlos Villafuerte
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Instituto de Geofisica
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Denis LEGRAND
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
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Xyoli Pérez-Campos
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
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Miguel Raggi
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
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Abstract

On 20 March 2012, a Mw 7.5 thrust earthquake started a series of large events up to magnitude Mw 8.2 (2017) that struck central Mexico during a period of nine years. Before this event, the Mexican subduction zone did not experience subduction earthquakes (Mw > 7.0) for at least 12 years. Most of the events during this highly active period (2012-) occurred in the plate interface, resulting in a significantly larger interplate slip rate in the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero. In this study, we explore how the aseismic slip transient caused by the 2012 Mw 7.5 earthquake affected the region and whether this earthquake had a causal relationship with a nearby similar magnitude event that occurred in 2018 (Mw 7.2). To this end, we identified and analyzed characteristic repeating earthquakes along the Mexican subduction zone for assessing the plate interface slip history and found a notably increase in the aseismic slip rate inferred from repeating earthquake activity following the 2012 mainshock, which suggests a long-standing slip perturbation in Oaxaca near the trench that continued until the 2018 Mw 7.2 Pinotepa Nacional earthquake.