Precision Seismicity of the San Andreas Fault System in Central California: Insights into Active Tectonics and Earthquake Physics

Since the late 1960s, seismicity of the San Andreas Fault system in central California has been under intense observation by U. S. Geological Survey’s Northern California Seismic Network (NCSN). Designed to provide accurate focal depth control and a low magnitude of catalog completeness, the network maps fault, both large and small across the full breadth of this 400-kilometer-long portion of the plate boundary, including many that are known only from their seismicity. Beginning in 1984, with the advent of routine digital recording, new opportunities were created to significantly enhance the spatial resolution of seismicity. This led to the co-evolution of method that take full advantage of digital waveforms and new insights into the nature of seismicity and faults. Collectively referred to as precision seismicity, discoveries included repeating earthquakes and highly organized and stable distributions of seismicity on major faults. Long term observation of seismicity before and after the six largest earthquakes over the last half-century underscore the outstanding challenges for earthquake predictability and theories of earthquake nucleation.