Stress heterogeneity as a driver of aseismic slip during the 2011 Prague, Oklahoma aftershock sequence

Abstract

The interaction of aseismic and seismic slip before and after an earthquake is fundamental for both earthquake nucleation and postseismic stress relaxation. However, it can be difficult to determine where and when aseismic slip occurs within the seismogenic zone because geodetic techniques are limited to detecting moderate to large slip amplitudes or long duration small slip amplitudes. Here, we use repeating earthquakes (earthquakes that re-rupture the same fault patch) as a proxy for aseismic slip during the 2011 Prague, Oklahoma earthquake sequence. We find that aseismic slip in the Prague earthquake sequence occurs both within the granitic basement and the overlying sedimentary rocks. The repeating earthquakes show that patches of aseismic slip are mostly located at fault intersections. These fault intersections hosted possible mainshock slip, abundant aftershocks, and afterslip. We estimate that ∼40% of the aftershocks are driven by afterslip. We interpret that aseismic slip occurs at fault intersections where stress heterogeneity creates patches of lower stress that are stable within a nonsteady state, rate-state framework.