The 2019 Mw 6.4 and Mw 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence in Eastern California: rupture on a conjugate fault structure revealed by GPS and InSAR measurements

Abstract

SUMMARY On 4 and 6 July 2019, an Mw 6.4 foreshock and an Mw 7.1 main shock successively struck the city of Ridgecrest in eastern California. These two events are the most significant earthquake sequences to strike in this part of California for the past 20 yr. We used both continuous global positioning system (GPS) measurements and interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) images taken by the Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2 satellites in four different viewing geometries to fully map the coseismic surface displacements associated with these two earthquakes. Using these GPS and InSAR measurements both separately and jointly, we inverted data to find the coseismic slip distributions and fault dips caused by the two earthquakes. The GPS-constrained slip models indicate that the Mw 7.1 main shock was predominately controlled by right-lateral motions on a series of northwest-trending faults, while the Mw 6.4 foreshock involved both right-lateral slipping on a northwest-trending fault and left-lateral slipping on a northeast-trending fault. The two earthquakes both generate significant surface slip, with the maximum inferred slip of 5.54 m at the surface. We estimate the cumulative geodetic moment of the two earthquakes to have been 4.93 × 1019 Nm, equivalent to Mw 7.1. Furthermore, our calculations of the changes in static Coulomb stress suggest that the Mw 7.1 main shock was promoted significantly by the Mw 6.4 foreshock. This latest Ridgecrest earthquake sequence ruptured only the northern part of the seismic gap between the 1992 Mw 7.3 Landers earthquake and the 1872 M 7.4–7.9 Owens Valley earthquake. The earthquake risk in this area, therefore, remains very high, considering the significant accumulation of strain in the Eastern California Shear Zone, especially in the southern part of the seismic gap.