Exciting news! We're transitioning to the Statewide California Earthquake Center. Our new website is under construction, but we'll continue using this website for SCEC business in the meantime. We're also archiving the Southern Center site to preserve its rich history. A new and improved platform is coming soon!

The 2002 Denali fault earthquake, Alaska: A large magnitude, slip-partitioned event

Donna Eberhart-Phillips, Peter Haeussler, Jeffrey T. Freymueller, Arthur Frankel, Charles M. Rubin, Patricia Craw, Natalia Ruppert, Greg Anderson, Gary Carver, Anthony J. Crone, Timothy Dawson, Hilary Fletcher, Roger Hansen, Ed Harp, Ruth A. Harris, David P. Hill, Sigrun Hreinsdottir, Randall Jibson, Lucile M. Jones, Robert Kayen, David K. Keefer, Christopher F. Larsen, Seth C. Moran, Stephen F. Personius, George Plafker, Brian Sherrod, Kerry Sieh, Nicholas Sitar, & Wesley Wallace

Published May 16, 2003, SCEC Contribution #839

The MW (moment magnitude) 7.9 Denali fault earthquake on 3 November 2002 was associated with 340 kilometers of surface rupture and was the largest strike-slip earthquake in North America in almost 150 years. It illuminates earthquake mechanics and hazards of large strike-slip faults. It began with thrusting on the previously unrecognized Susitna Glacier fault, continued with right-slip on the Denali fault, then took a right step and continued with right-slip on the Totschunda fault. There is good correlation between geologically observed and geophysically inferred moment release. The earthquake produced unusually strong distal effects in the rupture propagation direction, including triggered seismicity.

Citation
Eberhart-Phillips, D., Haeussler, P., Freymueller, J. T., Frankel, A., Rubin, C. M., Craw, P., Ruppert, N., Anderson, G., Carver, G., Crone, A. J., Dawson, T., Fletcher, H., Hansen, R., Harp, E., Harris, R. A., Hill, D. P., Hreinsdottir, S., Jibson, R., Jones, L. M., Kayen, R., Keefer, D. K., Larsen, C. F., Moran, S. C., Personius, S. F., Plafker, G., Sherrod, B., Sieh, K., Sitar, N., & Wallace, W. (2003). The 2002 Denali fault earthquake, Alaska: A large magnitude, slip-partitioned event. Science, 300(5622), 1113-1118. doi: 10.1126/science.1082703.