Temporal Relationship of Slow Slip Events and Microearthquake Seismicity: Insights From Earthquake Automatic Detections in the Northern Hikurangi Margin, Aotearoa New Zealand

Slow slip events in the northern Hikurangi margin of Aotearoa New Zealand occur every 18-24 months and last for several weeks before returning to average convergence rates of around 38 mm/yr. Along this plate boundary, the Hikurangi plateau subducts beneath the overlying Australian plate and slow slip events occur along their plate interface at depths between 2 and 15 km. To explore whether there is a temporal relationship between slow slip events and earthquake occurrence, the Regressive ESTimator automated phase arrival detection and onset estimation algorithm was applied to a data set of continuous waveform data collected by both land and ocean bottom seismometers. This detector uses an autoregressive algorithm with iterative refinement to first detect seismic events and then create a catalog of hypocenters and P and S wave arrival times. Results are compared with an available catalog of manually detected seismic events. The auto-detector was able to find more than three times the number of events detected by analysts. With our newly assembled data set of automatically detected earthquakes, we were able to determine that there was an increase in the rate of earthquake occurrence during the 2014 slow slip event.

Automated summary

Slow slip events occur every 18-24 months in the northern Hikurangi margin of New Zealand and last for several weeks. The Regressive ESTimator algorithm was used to detect seismic events and determine the relationship between slow slip events and earthquakes. The auto-detector found more than three times the number of events compared to manual detection. An increase in earthquake occurrence rate was observed during the 2014 slow slip event.