SEISMIC CYCLES ALONG THE ALEUTIAN ARC - ANALYSIS OF SEISMICITY FROM 1957 THROUGH 1991

We catalog and relocate Aleutian are seismicity. Between 1957 and 1991 , two great earthquakes ruptured the same 250-km-long portion of the c entral Aleutian are: the 1957 Aleutian Islands earthquake and the 1986 Andreanof Islands earthquake. Because accurate estimates of the momen t distribution of the 1957 earthquake are not available, the spatial d istribution of aftershocks for each of these events is compared and te sted against models describing the modes of occurrence of great subduc tion zone earthquakes. Earthquake relocations are based on P wave arri val times published in the International Seismological Summary, the Bu reau Central International Seismologique, and the International Seismo logical Centre bulletins and include corrections for the near-source v elocity structure associated with the down-going slab. Magnitude estim ates are extracted from bulletins and prior to 1964 are estimated by u s from microfilmed records. Our catalog is complete above magnitude 5. 5. Aftershocks associated with the 1957 and 1986 earthquakes appear to occur in different areas. East of the main shock epicenters, aftersho ck locations are anticorrelated. West of the main shock epicenter, aft ershocks of the 1986 earthquake tended to concentrate along the updip edge of aftershock clusters associated with the 1957 earthquake. If we assume aftershocks rim the distribution of seismic moment release ass ociated with each event, these observations imply that the moment dist ribution of the 1986 earthquake was different from that of the 1957 ea rthquake. This suggests that we should use caution in identifying mech anically strong portions of a fault, asperities, by simply mapping the moment distribution of a single great earthquake. A fundamental tenet of the asperity model, that rupture always occurs on the strongest po rtions of the fault with weaker portions rupturing either aseismically or dynamically as a result of rupture on a strong fault patch, may in the case of the central Aleutian are not be correct. Thus observing t he moment distribution from a single great earthquake may tell us litt le about what the distribution of moment release will look like during the next earthquake.