First seismic record for intra-arc strike-slip tectonics along the Liquine-Ofqui fault zone at the obliquely convergent plate margin of the southern Andes

A temporal seismic network recorded local seismicity along a 130 km long segment of the transpressional dextral strike-slip Liquine-Ofqui fault zone (LOFZ) in southern Chile. Seventy five shallow crustal events with magnitudes up to M-w 3.8 and depths shallower than 25 km were observed in an 11-month period mainly occurring in different clusters. Those clusters are spatially related to the LOFZ, to the volcanoes Chaiten, Michinmahuida and Corcovado, and to active faulting on secondary faults. Further activity along the LOFZ is indicated by individual events located in direct vicinity of the surface expression of the LOFZ. Focal mechanisms were calculated using deviatoric moment tensor inversion of body wave amplitude spectra which mostly yield strike-slip mechanisms indicating a NE-SW direction of the P-axis for the LOFZ at this latitude. The seismic activity reveals the present-day activity of the fault zone. The recent Mw 6.2 event near Puerto Aysen, Southern Chile at 45.4 degrees S on April 21, 2007 shows that the LOFZ is also capable of producing large magnitude earthquakes and therefore imposing significant seismic hazard to this region. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.