--- "Maryanto (Maryant)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Kompas, Minggu, 28 Mei 2006, sebut, Pak Cecep
> Suhardja, ahli geodesi
> Badan Koordinasi Pemetaan Nasional, JKT, telah
> memprediksikannya, di
> muat Nature, Maret 2006. 
> Ada yang bisa meberikan info tentang bagaimana
> prediksi beliau ?
> 

Pak Maryant Yth.

Kalau yang dimaksudkan adalah artikel yang ditulis Pak
Cecep Subarya (bukan Cecep Suhardja) di Jurnal Nature
edisi Maret 2006, saya coba share full text-nya ke
millist ini. Semoga bermanfaat.

-----------------------------------------------------
Article
Nature 440, 46-51 (2 March 2006) 

Plate-boundary deformation associated with the great
Sumatra–Andaman earthquake

Cecep Subarya1, Mohamed Chlieh2, Linette
Prawirodirdjo3, Jean-Philippe Avouac2, Yehuda Bock3,
Kerry Sieh2, Aron J. Meltzner2, Danny H. Natawidjaja4
and Robert McCaffrey5

Top of pageAbstractThe Sumatra–Andaman earthquake of
26 December 2004 is the first giant earthquake (moment
magnitude Mw > 9.0) to have occurred since the advent
of modern space-based geodesy and broadband
seismology. It therefore provides an unprecedented
opportunity to investigate the characteristics of one
of these enormous and rare events. Here we report
estimates of the ground displacement associated with
this event, using near-field Global Positioning System
(GPS) surveys in northwestern Sumatra combined with in
situ and remote observations of the vertical motion of
coral reefs. These data show that the earthquake was
generated by rupture of the Sunda subduction
megathrust over a distance of >1,500 kilometres and a
width of <150 kilometres. Megathrust slip exceeded 20
metres offshore northern Sumatra, mostly at depths
shallower than 30 kilometres. Comparison of the
geodetically and seismically inferred slip
distribution indicates that 30 per cent additional
fault slip accrued in the 1.5 months following the
500-second-long seismic rupture. Both seismic and
aseismic slip before our re-occupation of GPS sites
occurred on the shallow portion of the megathrust,
where the large Aceh tsunami originated. Slip tapers
off abruptly along strike beneath Simeulue Island at
the southeastern edge of the rupture, where the
earthquake nucleated and where an Mw = 7.2 earthquake
occurred in late 2002. This edge also abuts the
northern limit of slip in the 28 March 2005 Mw = 8.7
Nias–Simeulue earthquake.

The great Sumatra–Andaman earthquake of 2004 was
produced by rupture of the Sunda subduction
megathrust, along which the Indian and Australian
plates subduct northeastward beneath the Sunda shelf
(Fig. 1). Southeast of Sumatra, at Java, convergence
is nearly orthogonal to the plate boundary at 63–68 mm
yr-1 (refs 1, 2). Along Sumatra the convergence is
oblique to the trench and the relative plate motion is
partitioned into nearly perpendicular thrusting on the
megathrust at 45 mm yr-1 and trench-parallel,
right-lateral slip along the Sumatra fault at 11 to 28
mm yr-1 (refs 3, 4). The convergence rate normal to
the trench is 40 mm yr-1near the 2004 epicentre off
northern Sumatra and decreases northwards as the
megathrust strike becomes nearly parallel to the
direction of relative plate motion. North of 8° N,
sparse geodetic data suggest a convergence rate normal
to the trench of between 14 and 34 mm yr-1 (refs 5,
6).

Figure 1: Tectonic setting and ruptures of major
interplate earthquakes along the Sunda megathrust.
The yellow patches are estimated rupture areas of
known large subduction events between 1797 and 2004
(refs 7, 9, 20). Orange patches depict the 2004
Sumatra–Andaman rupture where slip was 5 m or more.
Tectonic features are simplified from Curray43 and
Natawidjaja et al.20. The boundary between Australia
and India is a diffuse plate boundary between 5° S and
8° N (ref. 44). Plate velocities of Australia (black
arrows) and India (red arrows) relative to Sunda were
computed from a regional kinematic model1. Dashed
lines are contours of sediment thickness at intervals
of 2,000 m. The inset shows that the age of the sea
floor increases northwards, from 50 Myr in the
epicentral area to 80–120 Myr at the latitude of the
Andaman islands.

High resolution image and legend (149K) 

The Sumatran section of the Sunda megathrust generated
great earthquakes south of the 2004 event in 1797,
1833 and 1861 (refs 7–9) but there is no historical
record of giant earthquakes to the north, between
Sumatra and Myanmar (Fig. 1).

Analyses of high-frequency seismic records of the
December 2004 earthquake obtained from the Global
Seismic Network10, from an array of seismic stations
in Thailand11 and from T-waves recorded in the Indian
Ocean11, 12, indicate that the rupture took about 500
s to propagate a straight-line distance of 1,300 km
from the hypocentre in northern Sumatra to the
northern Andaman Islands. This rupture area roughly
coincides with the distribution of aftershocks6, 11
(Fig. 1). A model of the slip history and its spatial
distribution obtained by combining body waves and
surface waves yielded a total seismic moment for the
earthquake of 6.5  1022 N m, released mostly between
latitudes 2° N and 10° N, corresponding to Mw = 9.1
(refs 13, 14).

We report here on near-field GPS observations of
deformation and in situ and remotely sensed
observations of uplift and subsidence of coral reefs.
We use these to constrain the distribution of slip on
the Sunda megathrust during and soon after the 26
December 2004 earthquake, and to compare it to slip
models derived from seismic data. These geodetic data
allow us to model in great detail the slip
distribution west of northern Sumatra, the region of
greatest devastation.

Top of pageGPS measurements
Our re-survey of GPS monuments in northern Sumatra
between 28 January and 19 February 2005 reveals
combined coseismic and postseismic displacements of up
to several metres associated with the earthquake (Fig.
2). One set of monuments was surveyed three or four
times in the years 1991–2001 (refs 15 and 16) and
provides a record of pre-earthquake interseismic
velocities1. This GPS network includes lines of
closely spaced points across the Sumatran fault4,
including one in northernmost Aceh, across the region
of greatest devastation from the ensuing tsunami. A
second set of monuments was surveyed only once before
the earthquake by the Indonesian National Coordinating
Agency for Surveys and Mapping (BAKOSURTANAL) as part
of geodetic control for Sumatra. One of these sites
(R171) is on Selaut Besar, a small island north of
Simeulue Island, only about 50 km from the
earthquake's epicentre (Fig. 3a). We used the
decade-long pre-earthquake GPS measurements to
construct a kinematic model of interseismic
deformation that allowed us to correct the measured
displacements for steady interseismic motions (Table 2
in Supplementary Information 1).

Figure 2: Comparison of near-field geodetic
measurements (black arrows) with predictions (green
arrows) of the seismic model III of ref.14.
This comparison suggests that the geodetic data
require more slip, a different spatial distribution of
slip, or both. The inset shows a close-up of the
Simeulue area. Horizontal displacements are shown with
95% confidence ellipses (see tables in Supplementary
Information 1). Vectors in the Andaman and Nicobar
islands are from CESS
(http://www.seires.net/content/view/123/52/).

High resolution image and legend (121K) 

Figure 3: Fault slip distribution determined from the
geodetic data.
a, Model A. The distribution of combined coseismic and
one-month post-seismic slip on the Sunda megathrust
estimated from inversion of geodetic data shown in
Fig. 2, including 30-day estimates of displacements
from the permanent GPS stations at Medan (SAMP) and
Phuket (PHKT)17. Black contour lines of slip are at
5-m intervals. Displacements computed from this model
(green arrows for the horizontal and red arrows for
the vertical at the sites used in the inversion, blue
arrows at the other sites) are compared with the
survey-mode observations and with displacements over
the first day estimated at continuous GPS stations in
Thailand and Malayasia17 (red arrows). Displacements
are shown with 95% confidence ellipses. The comparison
shows that significant postseismic displacements
occurred in the first month following the rupture. The
lower inset in a is a close-up view of predicted and
measured vertical displacements on Simeulue Island.
The upper inset in a shows a comparison of ruptured
area (where slip exceeds 5 m in the model) with
seismicity before the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake
(1964–2002)44. 'Beach ball' symbols show local
mechanisms determined from the geodetic model. Each
focal mechanism corresponds to the summation of moment
tensor within a 2° wide latitudinal bin. Slip vector
azimuth of aftershocks (red lines) and foreshocks
(black lines) are nearly parallel to slip azimuth
during the main shock. b, Model B. The distribution of
co- and post-seismic seismic slip on the Sunda
megathrust estimated from inversion of geodetic data.
Light contours of slip are at 5-m intervals starting
at 5 m. Red vectors (with 95% confidence ellipses) are
observed displacements and black are predicted.
Coloured dots show locations of uplift constraints;
those that are outlined were not fitted at the 2-
level (hinge-line points were not used in this
inversion). Small arrows near the Sunda trench show
seismological estimates of coseismic slip directions
in green45 and geodetic estimates in grey. The insets
show trench-normal profiles of earthquakes44 (blue
dots), megathrust (red curve), and slip amplitudes
(purple curves). This model indicates up to 30 m of
slip at depths of only 12–20 km, northwest of
nucleation and where the large Aceh tsunami
originated.

High resolution image and legend (174K) 

Continuous GPS data from BAKOSURTANAL's site SAMP
(Fig. 3a) reveal a clear record of coseismic and
postseismic deformation. The daily time series shows a
coseismic horizontal displacement of 138 mm that
increased logarithmically with time after the main
shock by 15% over 15 days, and 25% over 30 days. For
comparison continuous measurements at site PHKT on the
island of Phuket indicate a coseismic slip of 270 mm,
which increased by 22% over 30 days (ref. 17).
Although these two records reveal significant
post-earthquake motion, they do not show how
widespread or variable it was. Continuous GPS data
from the Sumatran GPS Array (SuGAr;
http://www.tectonics.caltech.edu/sumatra/data.html),
more than 300 km south of the epicentre, show
coseismic displacements typically less than 10 mm and
no detectable postseismic transients.

We processed the raw survey-mode and continuous GPS
data with the GAMIT/GLOBK software
(http://www-gpsg.mit.edu/~simon/gtgk/)18. The data
were analysed in 24-h segments (0–24 h GMT) with data
from ten additional continuous GPS sites on Java, the
Cocos Islands, Diego Garcia, Singapore, India,
Australia and Guam. These solutions were combined with
global GPS network solutions produced routinely at the
Scripps Orbit and Permanent Array Center
(http://sopac.ucsd.edu) to determine the GPS
velocities and displacements and their uncertainties
with respect to the ITRF2000 reference frame19.

Top of pageUplift determined from field measurement of
coral heads
At the southern end of the rupture, coral heads
enabled measurement of uplift. We used their
'micro-atoll' morphology to measure pre- and
post-earthquake sea level9, 20, 21. We measured these
sea level proxies on 17 and 18 January and on 5
February 2005 at ten locations around Simeulue Island.
We found the pre-quake highest level of survival to be
systematically 0.2 to 1.5 m higher than the post-quake
level, with values rising towards the northwest (Fig.
2 and Supplementary Information 1). Differences in low
tide levels before and after the earthquake, computed
according to an ocean-tide model22, lead to
adjustments of just a few centimetres23. The accuracy
of the measurements, about  50 to 100 mm, is only 2–3
times worse than the vertical accuracy of typical
field GPS geodetic measurements. The advantage of the
coral measurements is that they form a dense array of
points that constrains the tilting of Simeulue and
therefore the gradient in slip at the southern end of
the underlying megathrust. We also collected less
quantitative evidence of submergence around the
southern half of Simeulue Island; at two localities
these are eyewitness accounts of sea level changes. At
another place we measured the depth of flooding of a
well-drained locality where residents said water had
never stood before.

Top of pageDetermination of uplift and subsidence from
remote sensing
We used satellite imagery (ASTER, SPOT, IKONOS,
QUICKBIRD and LANDSAT) to assess changes in relative
sea level associated with the earthquake23. Because
the colour and brightness of a reef in an image depend
on water depth above the reef, changes in water depths
of several centimetres or more are recognizable on the
images. We examined satellite images of the Andaman
and Nicobar islands and northwestern Sumatra to
identify areas where reef or land exposure changed
following the earthquake.

Satellite images acquired before 26 December 2004 were
compared with images acquired between 26 December 2004
and 28 March 2005. We used a tidal model22 (1-
uncertainty of 5 cm) to determine the relative sea
surface height at each location at the acquisition
time of each image. To document the uplift of a reef,
we looked for a post-earthquake image with more reef
exposure than a pre-earthquake image of the same area
taken at a lower tide; in that case, the difference in
sea surface height between the two images provides a
minimum amount of uplift. Similarly, a pre-earthquake
image with more exposure than a post-earthquake image
at a lower tide indicates subsidence; in this case,
the difference in sea surface height gives the minimum
subsidence.

Although we can provide both maximum and minimum
constraints on uplift or subsidence in a few
locations, in most cases this method is limited by the
tidal range; where uplift or subsidence exceeded the
tidal range, we can provide only a minimum bound on
the amount of tectonic elevation change. Nonetheless,
the extrema of vertical displacements and the sign of
the elevation change at a location are robust.
Altogether we made such observations at 156 locations
(Fig. 2). These data show detectable uplift from
Simeulue to Preparis Island (Myanmar) over a distance
of 1,600 km along the trench23.

Top of pageFault slip distribution from inversion of
geodetic data
Vertical ground displacements determined from the
various techniques show a characteristic pattern: a
region of uplift nearer the trench and a region of
subsidence away from it (Fig. 2). The pivot line,
which separates the areas of coseismic uplift and
subsidence, approximates the easternmost extent of
slip on the fault surface below. Where constrained by
both uplift and subsidence observations, the pivot
line of the 2004 earthquake lies between 80 and 120 km
from the trench. In the area of the Nicobar Islands,
all of which subsided, the pivot line is close to the
westernmost islands23, less than 150 km from the
trench. Observations of both uplift on northwestern
Simeulue Island and subsidence on the southernmost
part of the island also indicate that the southern,
lateral limit of slip is beneath the island. These
simple observations imply that the rupture area was
confined to the shallow part of the subduction zone
within about 150 km of the trench and did not extend
south of Simeulue Island.

We estimate the three-dimensional distribution of slip
on the megathrust by inverting the geodetic
observations described above, GPS measurements from
the Nicobar and Andaman islands
(http://www.seires.net/content/view/123/52/, CESS
website)24, and continuous GPS offsets in Phuket and
Medan (Fig. 3a, b). Because the uplift and survey-mode
GPS observations were made a month or so after the
earthquake, they probably contain displacements due to
aftershocks and postseismic slip. Displacements
directly associated with aftershocks are, however,
relatively minor, because the total seismic moment
from aftershocks is less than one per cent of that of
the mainshock. We followed a two-step procedure in the
inversion of the geodetic data (details in the
Supplementary Information). To facilitate direct
comparison of seismic and geodetic slip models, we
first inverted the geodetic data using the same
simplified fault geometry: three planar faults, and
layered structure as in previous seismological
models14 (model A, Fig. 3a). Then, to assess the
sensitivity of the results to the fault geometry and
seismic velocity structure, we used a more realistic
three-dimensional fault geometry, in a homogeneous
half-space (model B, Fig. 3b). Details on these two
models are given in the Supplementary Information.

In model A, the fault is represented by three
overlapping planar segments with different strikes,
and dip angles increasing from 12° in the south to
17.5° in the north, with the slab extending to about
125 km depth. In this model, our best estimate of the
geodetic moment is 8.8  1022 N m, corresponding to a
magnitude of Mw = 9.22. The weighted root-mean-square
is 1.8 cm, corresponding to a reduced 2 of 2.44.
Sensitivity and resolution tests suggest that the
model probably provides a lower bound on the estimated
moment required to fit the geodetic data. The scalar
seismic moment for the best-fit geodetic model is 30%
greater than the seismological estimate (Fig. 4). The
geodetic model predicts remarkably well the azimuths
of coseismic displacements observed at continuous GPS
stations in Thailand and Malaysia17 (Fig. 3a), but the
amplitudes are systematically larger by an average of
26%. The seismological model14 predicts displacements
which also agree well with these azimuths, but
underpredicts the amplitudes. When only the coseismic
data (representing geodetic displacements over one
day) from Thailand and Malaysia and at Medan are
inverted, the geodetic moment is constrained to about
6.8  1022 N m (as also estimated by Vigny et al.17),
which is close to the seismic estimate. We conclude
that the excess moment of the geodetic model over the
seismic model, equivalent to about a Mw = 8.7
earthquake, reflects aseismic afterslip in the weeks
following the earthquake, rather than slow aseismic
slip during the first day after the earthquake, as
proposed in some early studies6, 13.

Figure 4: Latitudinal variations of scalar moments as
determined from seismic waveforms (model III of
ref.14) and from geodetic data.
Moment released per half degree in latitude. Both
geodetic models imply a rougher slip distribution than
the seismic model. The total moment for geodetic model
A (8.78  1022 N m) exceeds the seismic moment by 30% 
12%. This excess presumably reflects afterslip during
the 30 days following the main shock.

High resolution image and legend (40K) 

In model B, the slip distribution is represented as
three-parameter gaussian functions of depth along 26
trench-normal profiles between 1° N and 16° N. In
cross-section, the modelled fault geometry, based
largely on earthquake distributions, is curved
downward and is on average steeper in the northern
profiles. The 78 free parameters are estimated by
least-squares fit to the 287 weighted observations,
giving a reduced 2 of 0.83, indicating the
observations are matched closely at their levels of
uncertainty. It also yields a seismic moment of Mw =
9.22 and slip that varies markedly along strike. Both
models show three distinct patches of high slip from
4° to 6° N, 8° to 10° N, and 12° to 13.75° N. These
patches probably correspond to the three distinct
bursts of energy seen in the seismological inversions
and attributed to patches of high slip14. Both models
suggest a minimum rupture length of about 1,400 km,
based on the area within which slip exceeded 5 m.
Given the uplift documented at Preparis Island23 the
rupture must have been somewhat longer: about 1,600
km. Both models display a prominent trough in slip
values from about 7° to 8° N, which may reflect a lack
of local geodetic measurements. Slip near the
epicentre was relatively low (< 15 m) but ramped up
dramatically northward to >20 m. Model A places all
slip at depths shallower than 50 km. The more
realistic curved geometry of model B yields a
shallower slip distribution in which most slip was
shallower than 25 km depth. This shallowness of slip
is the principal reason that the rupture generated the
great tsunami.

Top of pageDiscussion
The 2004 Sumatra–Andaman earthquake illuminates the
rupture processes of giant earthquakes. Such
earthquakes are so rare that we have relied largely on
empirical correlations between properties of
megathrust earthquakes and their subduction zones to
understand them. One widely accepted relationship25,
26 is that maximum earthquake magnitude on a given
thrust increases linearly with convergence rate and
decreases linearly with subducting plate age. The
relatively small Car Nicobar and Andaman earthquakes
of 1881 and 1941 (ref. 6), enveloped within the
northern part of the 2004 rupture, fitted this
pattern—the subducting lithosphere is old and
converging at a moderate rate (Fig. 1). Backarc
extension, like that east of the northern part of the
2004 rupture, has also been associated with
low-magnitude maximum magnitudes27, 28. The size of
the 2004 earthquake is clearly at odds with these
concepts. Thus, these empirical relationships must
neglect important physical processes governing the
seismicity of subduction zones. An alternative
explanation for the distribution of large earthquakes
at subduction zones over the past century is that
these correlations result from a sample period that is
too short—faster slipping subduction zones will on
average produce larger earthquakes in a given time
period because the repeat time of an earthquake of a
given size is inversely related to the fault slip
rate29. Perhaps we must now consider the possibility
that, given a suitable length of time, any megathrust
fault can produce an earthquake whose size is limited
only by the available area of the locked fault plane.
>From 0.5° to about 6° S, the Sunda megathrust has
produced two giant earthquakes in recorded history7,
30, and geodetic measurements show it has been fully
locked above a depth of 40 to 55 km for at least the
past 50 years1, 31. Further south, the long section of
the Sunda megathrust adjacent to the densely populated
island of Java subducts very old lithosphere and
should, according to previous wisdom, not produce
great quakes. The degree of locking of the megathrust
and possibility of great earthquakes there should now
be investigated.

Could we have forecast the width of the 2004
megathrust rupture? Analyses of the geodetic and
paleogeodetic records of interseismic deformation a
few hundred kilometres south of the epicentre suggest
that the depth of the downdip end of the locked zone
varies from 30 to 55 km (refs 15, 31–33). No published
geodetic or paleogeodetic data were available to
constrain interseismic deformation in the area of the
2004 rupture. However, background seismicity provided
a clue. Along intracontinental megathrusts, background
seismicity tends to cluster around the downdip end of
the locked fault zone34. Before December 2004,
seismicity was clustered near the downdip end of the
future rupture zone, at depths between 40 and 50 km
(Fig. 3a). This suggests that the rupture remained
confined to the shallow portion of the fault zone that
was locked before the great event. Our results thus
support the use of background seismicity as one
indicator of the down-dip limits of future seismic
ruptures.

Substantial afterslip followed the 2004 coseismic
rupture. The geodetic data suggest that slip,
equivalent to an Mw = 8.7 earthquake, occurred along
the plate interface in the month following the 2004
earthquake. Afterslip downdip of the coseismic rupture
is not uncommon35, 36, 37, 38, but the data do not
reveal significant deep slip. The correlation between
the zone with high slip determined from geodesy and
the area that generated high-frequency body waves14
suggests that early afterslip occurred on or close to
the fault patch that underwent coseismic slip. It is
possible that a significant fraction of afterslip
occurred updip of the seismically ruptured area.
However, the details of the spatial and temporal
evolution of slip on the shallow plate interface
during and after the event cannot be constrained
because of the lack of data close to the trench.

The great horizontal extent of the rupture, which
ultimately led to the great magnitude, would have been
far more difficult to forecast. The along-strike
variability of the coseismic slip distribution (Fig.
3) might reflect past earthquake history, with areas
of low slip corresponding to patches that ruptured
during past events, or could indicate that the
megathrust fault plane is a mix of aseismically
slipping areas characterized by a rate-strengthening
friction law, and areas of stick-slip behaviour,
characterized by a rate-weakening friction law. The
latter hypothesis is more plausible, given the
correlation of historical Mw > 7 earthquakes with
high-slip patches of 2004. The frictional and seismic
properties of fault zones are thought to depend on a
number of factors, including lithology, temperature,
pore pressure and normal stress39, that could act
jointly to produce variable behaviour. Because
aseismic creep is thermally activated, temperature
might limit the bottom of the locked fault zone by
promoting aseismic slip at depth40. Another
possibility is that the downdip end of the locked
fault zone coincides with the intersection of the
plate interface and the forearc Moho, because stable
sliding slip could occur along the serpentinized
mantle wedge40. In the Sumatra–Andaman case, we
discount this possibility because the forearc Moho
intersects the megathrust well updip of the bottom of
the interseismic locked zone33. To assess whether or
not temperature might control the downdip extent of
the ruptured area, we estimate the along-strike depth
of the 350 °C isotherm, a commonly assumed temperature
at the downdip end of the locked section of subduction
megathrusts. For an average shear stress between 20 to
40 MPa on the fault and for the variety of subduction
dip-angles, this depth is around 40 km in the
epicentral area and does not vary much along strike
from northern Sumatra to the northern Andaman Islands.
This near-constancy in fault zone temperature occurs
because the lower heat flow at the top of the older
lithosphere in the north has longer to transmit heat
to the upper plate owing to the lower trench-normal
slip rate.

Still, temperature cannot easily explain
short-wavelength lateral variations of frictional
properties; other factors must control changes in
behaviour. The high proportion of aseismic slip on the
2004 rupture plane may, for example, be due to a
lubricating or pore-pressure effect of sediments from
the Bengal fan subducting down along the megathrust.
The thickness of the sediment reaching the trench is
indeed great along the entire rupture, decreasing
gradually southwards from more than 4 km to about 1 km
(Fig. 1).

The large proportion of afterslip on the 2004 rupture
and the irregular coseismic slip pattern might
indicate that much of the megathrust slips
aseismically. If the proportion of aseismic to seismic
slip during the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman earthquake is
representative of the long-term average, aseismic slip
might be of the order of 0.5 or greater in the Andaman
and Nicobar area. The large fraction of aseismic slip
may account for the common observation that seismic
moment release along subduction zones falls short of
the value estimated from the long-term slip rate along
the seismogenic portion of the plate interface41, 42.

We estimate a nominal repeat time for the 2004 event
by dividing the quake's potency (slip times rupture
area; 1.7  0.1  1012 m3) by the long-term potency rate
(3–7  109 m3 yr-1), estimated from the area of the
subduction interface north of 2° N (about 2.0  105
km2), and the long-term average slip rate (24  10 mm
yr-1). If all this slip was released only by the
repetition of events like the Sumatra–Andaman
earthquake, such events would occur on average every
230–600 years; if half of the slip is aseismic, or
taken up by smaller events such as the events in 1881
or 1941, the recurrence time would double. Such long
average return periods are consistent with no
historical record of prior events.

A striking feature of the slip distributions we
derived is the abrupt southern termination, required
by the rapid southward decrease in coral uplift. Our
measurements show that the southern limit of uplift in
2004 is approximately coincident with the northern
limit of uplift during the 28 March 2005, Mw = 8.7
Nias–Simeulue earthquake
(http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~jichen/Earthquake/2005/sumatra/preliminary/sumatra.html).
The proximity of the 2004 and 2005 uplift terminations
and a Mw = 7.2 foreshock on 2 November 2002 could
reflect the presence of a structural feature that is
an impediment to rupture propagation. Perhaps the long
north-trending fracture zone on the seafloor of the
Indian plate that projects to this point7 has created
a structural or rheological complexity in the
megathrust beneath central Simeulue Island. Similar
structural discontinuities on the sea floor may have
influenced the termination points of large megathrust
ruptures in 1861, 1833 and 1935 (refs 7, 20), but the
exact mechanism by which they might have done so
remains elusive.

Top of pageAcknowledgments
We thank the team from BAKOSURTANAL who collected the
GPS field data in Sumatra under difficult conditions
(J. Efendi, A. Indrajit, M. Nyamadi, C. Bagandi, D.
Sudharmono, A. Suryono, M. Achmad, U. Santoso, C.
Yuniarsa, Endang, A. Pujobuntoro, H. Dradjat, B.
Susilo and B. Parjanto). We are grateful to C. Vigny
for comments and suggestions. This work has benefited
from discussions with C. Ji. The Gordon and Betty
Moore Foundation, the US National Science Foundation,
the Southern California Earthquake Center, and
BAKOSURTANAL supported this research. We thank R. W.
Matindas and J. McRaney for their support. This is
Caltech Tectonics Observatory contribution number 31.

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Bagi yang punya akses silahkan dibaca ke:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7080/full/nature04522.html

Salam,

Nur H.


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