The 5 September 2012 M_w 7.6 earthquake on the Costa Rica subduction plate boundary followed a 62-y interseismic period. High-precision GPS recorded numerous slow slip events (SSEs) in the decade leading up to the earthquake, both up-dip and down-dip of seismic rupture. Deeper SSEs were larger than shallower ones and, if characteristic of the interseismic period, release most locking down-dip of the earthquake, limiting down-dip rupture and earthquake magnitude. Shallower SSEs were smaller, accounting for some but not all interseismic locking. One SSE occurred several months before the earthquake, but changes in Mohr–Coulomb failure stress were probably too small to trigger the earthquake. Because many SSEs have occurred without subsequent rupture, their individual predictive value is limited, but taken together they released a significant amount of accumulated interseismic strain before the earthquake, effectively defining the area of subsequent seismic rupture (rupture did not occur where slow slip was common). Because earthquake magnitude depends on rupture area, this has important implications for earthquake hazard assessment. Specifically, if this behavior is representative of future earthquake cycles and other subduction zones, it implies that monitoring SSEs, including shallow up-dip events that lie offshore, could lead to accurate forecasts of earthquake magnitude and tsunami potential. Significance Recent destructive megathrust earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan and Sumatra indicate the difficulty of forecasting these events. Geodetic monitoring of the offshore regions of the subduction zones where these events occur has been suggested as a useful tool, but its potential has never been conclusively demonstrated. Here we show that slow slip events, nondestructive events that release energy slowly over weeks or months, are important mechanisms for releasing seismic strain in subduction zones. Better monitoring of these events, especially those offshore, could allow estimates of the size of future earthquakes and their potential for damaging tsunamis. However, the predictive value of slow slip events remains unclear.

The knowledge of the crustal strain rate tensor provides a description of geodynamic processes such as fault strain accumulation, which is an important parameter for seismic hazard assessment, as well as anthropogenic deformation. In the past two decades, the number of observations and the accuracy of satellite based geodetic measurements like GPS greatly increased, providing measured values of displacements and velocities of points. Here we present a method to obtain the full continuous strain rate tensor from dense GPS networks. The tensorial analysis provides different aspects of deformation, such as the maximum shear strain rate, including its direction, and the dilatation strain rate. These parameters are suitable to characterize the mechanism of the current deformation. Using the velocity fields provided by SCEC and UNAVCO, we were able to localize major active faults in Southern California and to characterize them in terms of faulting mechanism. We also show that the large seismic events that occurred recently in the study region highly contaminate the measured velocity field that appears to be strongly affected by transient postseismic deformation. Finally, we applied this method to coseismic displacement data of two earthquakes in Iceland, showing that the strain fields derived by these data provide important information on the location and the focal mechanism of the ruptures.

Slow slip events have been suggested to trigger subduction earthquakes. However, examples to date have been poorly recorded, occurring offshore, where data are sparse. Better understanding of slow slip events and their influence on subsequent earthquakes is critical for hazard forecasts. We analyze a well-recorded event beginning 6 months before the 2012 M_w (moment magnitude) 7.6 earthquake in Costa Rica. The event migrates to the eventual megathrust rupture. Peak slip rate reached a maximum of 5 mm/day, 43 days before the earthquake, remaining high until the earthquake. However, changes in Mohr-Coulomb failure stress at the hypocenter were small (0.1 bar). Our data contradict models of earthquake nucleation that involve power law acceleration of slip and foreshocks. Slow slip events may prove useful for short-term earthquake forecasts.