The sharp turn: Backward rupture branching during the 2023 Mw 7.8 Kahramanmaraş (Türkiye) earthquake

Abstract

Multiple lines of evidence indicate that the 2023 Mw 7.8 Kahramanmaraş (Türkiye) earthquake started on a splay fault, then branched bilaterally onto the nearby East Anatolian Fault (EAF). This rupture pattern includes one feature previously deemed implausible, called backward rupture branching: rupture propagating from the splay fault onto the SW EAF segment through a sharp corner (with an acute angle between the two faults). To understand this feature, we perform 2.5-D dynamic rupture simulations considering a large set of possible scenarios. We find that both subshear and supershear ruptures on the splay fault can trigger bilateral ruptures on the EAF, which themselves can be either subshear, supershear, or a mixture of the two. In most cases, rupture on the SW segment of the EAF starts after rupture onset on its NE segment: the SW rupture is triggered by the NE rupture. Only when the EAF has initial stresses very close to failure can its SW segment be directly triggered by the initial splay-fault rupture, earlier than the activation of the NE segment. These results advance our understanding of the mechanisms of multi-segment rupture and the complexity of rupture processes, paving the way for a more accurate assessment of earthquake hazards.