Ring Fault Slip Reversal at Bárðarbunga Volcano, Iceland: Seismicity
during Caldera Collapse and Re-Inflation 2014-2018
Esme Olivia Southern
Bullard Laboratories, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Bullard Laboratories, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Bullard Laboratories, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge
Corresponding Author:[email protected]
Author ProfileAbstract
Microearthquakes reveal the kinematics of the Bárðarbunga caldera ring
fault; both during the 2014-2015 volcanic rifting event and gradual
caldera collapse, and its subsequent, ongoing re-inflation. Manual
analysis of earthquake phase arrivals has been used to produce reliable
hypocenter locations with tightly constrained focal mechanisms for
events both during and after the eruption. Phase arrival polarities are
reversed between events that occurred during the caldera collapse and
those that have occurred since. Both precise relative relocations of the
seismicity and focal mechanism solutions confirm that this is due to
slip reversal on the same ring fault structure. The fault planes are
steeply dipping (averaging 78 ± 6°). Furthermore, the spatial
distribution of aftershocks following large-magnitude post-eruptive
events provides constraints on the shape and size of the fault plane and
the amount of slip that typically occurs in caldera events.