"This is probably the clearest example worldwide of long-distance, large-scale slow slip triggering," said lead author Laura Wallace, a research scientist at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG). She also holds a joint position at GNS Science, a New Zealand research organization that studies natural hazards and resources.
Co-authors include other GNS scientists, as well as scientists from Georgia Tech and the University of Missouri. UTIG is a research unit of the UT Jackson School of Geosciences.
In November 2016, the second largest quake ever recorded in New Zealand—the 7.8 magnitude Kaik?ura quake—hit the country's South Island. A GPS network operated by GeoNet, a partnership between GNS Science and the New Zealand Earthquake Commission, detected slow slip events hundreds of miles away beneath the North Island. The events occurred along the shallow part of the Hikurangi subduction zone that runs along and across New Zealand.
A subduction zone is an area where a tectonic plate dives or "subducts" beneath an adjacent tectonic plate. This type of fault is responsible for causing some of the world's most powerful earthquakes, which occur when areas of built-up stress between the plates rupture.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-09-earthquake-triggers-motion-quakes-zealand.html#jCp
