Fault Instability and Its Relation to Static Coulomb Failure Stress Change in the 2016 Mw 6.5 Pidie Jaya Earthquake, Aceh, Indonesia

Herein, we applied the fault instability criterion and integrated it with the static Coulomb stress change (Delta CFS) to infer the mechanism of the 2016 Mw 6.5 Pidie Jaya earthquake and its aftershock distribution. Several possible causative faults have been proposed; however, the existence of a nearby occurrence, the 1967 mb 6.1 event, created obscurity. Hence, we applied the fault instability analysis to the Pidie Jaya earthquake 1) to corroborate the Pidie Jaya causative fault analysis and 2) to analyze the correlation between Delta CFS distribution imparted by the mainshock and the fault instability of the reactivated fault planes derived from the focal solution of the Pidie Jaya aftershocks. We performed the fault instability analysis for two possible source faults: the Samalanga-Sipopok Fault and the newly inferred Panteraja Fault. Although the maximum instability value of the Samalanga-Sipopok Fault is higher, the dip value of the Panteraja Fault coincides with its optimum instability. Therefore, we concluded that Panteraja was the causative fault plane. Furthermore, a link between the 1967 mb 6.1 event and the 2016 Mw 6.5 earthquake is discussed. To analyze the correlation between the fault instability and the Delta CFS, we resolved the Delta CFS of the Pidie Jaya mainshock on its aftershock planes and compared the Delta CFS results with the fault instability calculation on each aftershock plane. We discussed the possibility of conjugate failure as shown by the aftershock fault instability. Related to the Delta CFS and fault instability comparison, we found that not all the aftershocks have positive Delta CFSs, but their instability value is high. Thus, we suggest that the fault plane instability plays a role in events that do not occur in positive Delta CFS areas. Apart from these, we also showed that the off-Great Sumatran Fault (Panteraja and Samalanga-Sipopok Faults) are unstable in the Sumatra regional stress setting, thereby making it more susceptible to slip movement.

Automated summary

In this study, the fault instability criterion was applied to analyze the mechanism of the 2016 Mw 6.5 Pidie Jaya earthquake and its aftershock distribution, determining Panteraja as the causative fault. It was found that fault plane instability may play a role in seismic events in areas with high ΔCFS values, suggesting a potential influence on earthquake activity in different regions.