Change in the pattern of crustal seismicity at the Southern Central Andes from a local seismic network

Abstract

Shallow seismicity in the Southern Central Andes is associated with interplate earthquakes due to the subduction of the Nazca plate beneath the South American plate and neotectonic activity, mainly located in the retro-arc region. However, this pattern changes drastically south of 34°S within the transition zone at the Southern Central Andes where crustal seismicity associated with mountain-building processes concentrates at the fore-arc and intra-arc region. In order to define more accurately this transition we used data from a high density-seismic network over the Chilean fore-arc and axial Andean sector (~ 33?34.5°S). We obtained a constraint data set of 77 seismic events located mostly in the Principal Cordillera western flank in the first 10 km of the upper crust. This cluster implies an abrupt change in the pattern of seismicity at the Southern Central Andes with a set of structures in the fore-arc and intra-arc accommodating shortening. This change in the locus of crustal seismicity and particularly its location on the fore-arc and intra-arc south of 34°S is discussed on the light of different hypotheses among which changes in the precipitation pattern and erosion along the Andes were favored. Focalized erosion associated with direction of prevailing Pacific winds south of ~ 34°S could determine subcritical conditions that could be adjusted by out-of-sequence deformation causing crustal earthquakes in the fore-arc region, becoming the retro-arc zone nearly fossilized from a deformational point of view. Additionally, trench sediments associated with this change in the precipitation pattern could also favor decoupling of the subduction zone inhibiting retro-arc seismicity, although it does not explain activation of fore-arc structures south of 34°S and their absence north of this latitude. Finally, inhomogeneous distribution of seismicity through the fore-arc zone south of 34°S is discussed on the light of variable elastic thicknesses.