Revised kinematic slip model of the 2019 Ridgecrest (California) earthquakes

<p>The published slip model of Jin and Fialko (2020) features a complex rupture geometry in the shallow crust, including a &ldquo;flower structure&rdquo; formed by intersecting splay faults. Slip inversions were performed using the first-order Tikhonov regularization to moderate extreme variation in slip between the adjacent slip patches, including between slip patches that belonged to different sub-faults. This resulted in a highly peaked along-strike averaged normalized coseismic slip at the bottom of the inferred flower structure (3-4 km, Figure 15a in Jin and Fialko, 2020). However, in case of bifurcating faults, or &ldquo;Y-shaped&rdquo; fault intersections, a more appropriate regularization would be to preserve the slip budget between the bifurcated fault strands and a &ldquo;parent&rdquo; fault segment such that <span class="math-tex">\(U_s^1 + U_s^2 = U_p\)</span>, where <span class="math-tex">\(U_s^1, U_s^2\)</span>&nbsp;are slip components that belong to two (or more) splay faults, and <span class="math-tex">\(U_p \)</span>&nbsp;is the respective slip component on the parent fault (Jin and Fialko, 2021). We re-run inversions of space geodetic data for the Ridgecrest earthquakes, as described in Jin and Fialko (2020), but with the imposed &ldquo;slip budget&rdquo; constraint for the intersecting faults.&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>References:</p> <p>Jin, Z., &amp; Fialko, Y. (2020). Finite slip models of the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence constrained by space geodetic data and aftershock locations. Bull. Seism. Soc. Am., 110, 1660&ndash;1679.</p> <p>Jin, Z., &amp; Fialko, Y. (2021). Coseismic and early postseismic deformation due to the 2021 M7.4 Maduo (China) earthquake. Geophys. Res. Lett., 48, e2021GL095213.</p>