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Interseismic secondary zone of subsidence during earthquake cycles in subduction zones

Nature Geoscience volume 18, pages 1027–1033 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Surface deformation observed in subduction zone forearcs helps to determine the locking state of the megathrust beneath, and therefore seismic and tsunami hazards. The vertical component of such deformation is particularly important, but measurements of this component in various subduction zones show a level of complexity that is poorly understood. Here we demonstrate from numerical simulations and a global compilation of observations that this apparent complexity can be readily explained in terms of earthquake cycles in a viscoelastic Earth. We show that subduction zones follow a common process of earthquake cycle evolution but are currently at various stages of this cycle, and that, during interseismic deformation, there is a previously overlooked secondary zone of subsidence around the volcanic arc, in addition to the primary zone of subsidence near the trench. We propose that this secondary zone is a key signature of megathrust locking that is absent from the elastic models commonly used to infer the locking state. The importance of this signature is demonstrated by the Lesser Antilles subduction zone, where we argue that the ongoing subsidence of the island arc is strong evidence for the presence of such a secondary zone; this implies that the megathrust is locked and building energy for a future earthquake, contrary to the prevailing understanding.

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Fig. 1: GNSS-observed interseismic deformation rates for four subduction zones.
Fig. 2: Viscoelastic earthquake cycle deformation illustrated using a 3D model with a recurrence interval of 500 years.
Fig. 3: Spatiotemporal evolution of surface deformation along the strike-normal line of symmetry of 3D viscoelastic models.
Fig. 4: Results of 2D viscoelastic earthquake cycle models for the four subduction zones.

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All the data used in this study are compiled from published literature as detailed in Methods and Extended Data Tables 2 and 3.

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The numerical modelling code used in this study is available from the authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. He at the Pacific Geoscience Centre, Canada for developing the finite element modelling code PGCviscl-3D and for discussions. This research is supported by the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Geophysical High-Resolution Imaging Technology (grant no. 2022B1212010002); MOE AcRF Tier 3 Award no. MOE-MOET32021-0002, ‘Integrating Volcano and Earthquake Science and Technology (InVEST)’, Singapore Ministry of Education, to E.M.H. and L.F.; Natural Engineering and Science Research Council of Canada Discovery Grant (grant no. RGPIN-2016-03738) to K.W.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

    Haipeng Luo

  2. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Geophysical High-Resolution Imaging Technology, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

    Haipeng Luo

  3. Earth Observatory of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Haipeng Luo, Lujia Feng & Emma M. Hill

  4. School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

    Haipeng Luo & Kelin Wang

  5. Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Lujia Feng & Emma M. Hill

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  1. Haipeng Luo
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Contributions

H.L. and K.W. conceived the study. H.L. did the numerical modelling. H.L. and K.W. did the data analysis and drafted the paper. L.F. and E.M.H. participated in the GNSS data analysis. All authors contributed to the writing of the paper.

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Correspondence to Haipeng Luo.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Spatiotemporal variations in megathrust slip and locking used in synthetic models of repeating earthquake cycles.

a, The temporal variation. Slip deficit accumulated in one cycle is fully recovered by the next earthquake. A longer recurrence time is followed by a larger coseismic slip. b, Downdip distribution of megathrust locking or slip described using a bell-shape function53. c, Map views of the spatial variation. For 3-D synthetic tests, we assume that a shorter recurrence interval is associated with a shorter rupture (as well as a smaller slip). Here the line of symmetry of the synthetic rupture is the equator. The three 3-D models feature full locking for 1°, 5°, or 10° along strike, plus a gradual transition to 0 over 0.5° following a sine function. In 2-D models, the downdip distribution is the same as in the 3-D models, but there is no along-strike variation.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Separate illustration of the contributions of earthquake stress relaxation (Earthquake only) and megathrust locking (Locking only) to the deformation for the 3-D model with a recurrence interval of 500 years.

The combined contribution is shown in Fig. 2. Similar to Fig. 2c, the effect of the steady subduction of the slab has been subtracted, and velocities are expressed as a percentage of the subduction rate. a, Material flow velocities due to viscoelastic relaxation of earthquake-induced stress alone at t = 10%T (the ‘Early interseismic’ phase of Fig. 2). The flow pattern at the ‘Postseismic’ stage (t = 1%T; not displayed here) is similar except for much higher flow velocities and a slightly more seaward location of the counterclockwise ‘eddy’. b, Velocities due to relaxation alone at t = T (the ‘Late interseismic’ phase of Fig. 2). Note the similar flow pattern to t = 10%T except for slower velocities and a slightly more landward location of the eddy. c, Velocities due to locking alone, which stay unchanged throughout the earthquake cycle. Velocities predicted by the elastic backslip model (blue) are shown for comparison. The zoomed-in view shows that the elastic model also produces downward motion in this region. d, Same as the top panel of Fig. 2c except for a larger display area.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Snapshots of surface motion rates for the 3-D models.

Shown here are the separate and combined contributions of megathrust locking and viscoelastic relaxation of earthquake induced stress to the deformation in Fig. 3a–c. The relaxation has larger effects during the postseismic period, as shown in panels c, f and i; it is overshadowed gradually by the effects of megathrust locking, as shown in panels b, e, and h for the early interseismic stage, and a, d, and g for the late interseismic stage.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Late-interseismic (t = T) motion at 250 km from trench as controlled by the recurrence interval T and affected by mantle wedge viscosity in 3-D synthetic tests.

Shown here are separate and combined contributions from of megathrust locking and viscoelastic relaxation of earthquake-induced stress. a, vertical rate. b, horizontal rate. The Maxwell viscosity ηM = 2 × 109 Pa s, and the Kelvin viscosity \({\eta }_{{\rm{K}}}=0.1{\eta }_{{\rm{M}}}\). For models with different T and/or viscosity values, all other parameters remain unchanged. For longer recurrence intervals or lower viscosities, earthquake-induced stress is more fully relaxed at the late-interseismic stage, so that the locking effect is more dominant resulting in faster subsidence (also see Extended Data Fig. 2).

Extended Data Fig. 5 Evolution of surface deformation in 2-D models with different earthquake recurrence intervals.

The zero lines of vertical velocities in panels a – c have also been shown in Figs. 3a – 3c. All descriptions of the plots (a–f) are the same as for the 3-D models in Fig. 3 in the main text.

Extended Data Fig. 6 A global compilation of evidence for interseismic SZS.

Observed SZS subsidence rate is shown as percentage of the subduction rate. See Extended Data Table 3 for details.

Extended Data Table 1 Parameters used for 3-D and 2-D synthetic models
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 Information for the four subduction zones in the main text
Full size table
Extended Data Table 3 Evidence for interseismic SZS in global subduction zones
Full size table

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Luo, H., Wang, K., Feng, L. et al. Interseismic secondary zone of subsidence during earthquake cycles in subduction zones. Nat. Geosci. 18, 1027–1033 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01778-1

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