The 28 January 2020, Mw7.7, Cayman Trough / Oriente Fault, Supershear Earthquake Rupture

Authors

  • Eric Calais Université PSL, École Normale Supérieure, CNRS UMR 8538, Paris, France https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5935-8117
  • Bertrand Delouis Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, IRD,Géoazur, Valbonne, France
  • Jean-Paul Ampuero Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, IRD,Géoazur, Valbonne, France https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4827-7987
  • Han Bao Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences,University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
  • Françoise Courboulex Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, IRD,Géoazur, Valbonne, France https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4467-9102
  • Anne Deschamps Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, IRD,Géoazur, Valbonne, France https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6209-9814
  • Bernard de Lépinay Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, IRD,Géoazur, Valbonne, France
  • Tony Monfret Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, IRD,Géoazur, Valbonne, France | Barcelona Center for Subsurface Imaging, Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM), CSIC, Barcelona, Spain https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4521-0357
  • Lingsen Meng Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences,University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2428-0548
  • Liuwei Xu Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences,University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8881-5834
  • Charles DeMets Department ofGeoscience, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7460-1165
  • O'Leary Gonzalez Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Sismológicas (CENAIS), Santiago de Cuba, Cuba https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0810-3656
  • Enrique Arango-Arias Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Sismológicas (CENAIS), Santiago de Cuba, Cuba
  • Bladimir Moreno Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Sismológicas (CENAIS), Santiago de Cuba, Cuba https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7830-5184
  • Raul Palau Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Sismológicas (CENAIS), Santiago de Cuba, Cuba
  • Manuel Cutie Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Sismológicas (CENAIS), Santiago de Cuba, Cuba https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7909-8925
  • Eduardo Diez Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Sismológicas (CENAIS), Santiago de Cuba, Cuba https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1323-8451
  • Ernesto Roche Grupo Empresarial GEOCUBA, Havana, Cuba
  • Jorge Garcia Grupo Empresarial GEOCUBA, Havana, Cuba https://orcid.org/0009-0007-5582-6511
  • Enrique Castellanos Ministerio de Energía y Minas (MINEM), Havana, Cuba https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2066-7681
  • Steeve Symithe Université d’État d’Haïti, Faculté desSciences, Unité de Recherche en Géosciences, Port-au-Prince, Haïti
  • Paul Williams Earthquake Unit of the University of West Indies Mona Campus, Jamaica

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26443/seismica.v4i2.1629

Abstract

The largest magnitude strike-slip event of the instrumental seismology era along the northern Caribbean plate boundary, with a moment magnitude of 7.7, occurred on 28 January 2020 on the Oriente transform fault, along the northern edge of the Cayman Trough, west of Cuba. We use local, regional, and global seismic waveforms and coseismic geodetic offsets, to produce high-resolution rupture models for both the low-frequency (~ 0.02 Hz) and high-frequency (~ 1 Hz) components of the rupture using a finite fault kinematic inversion and back-projection imaging, respectively. We document a rupture that propagated predominantly unilaterally westward, with an initial phase at subshear speed for 20–-30~s and over 40 to 50~km, followed by an acceleration to supershear speed that persisted all the way to the western end of the rupture, for 40~s and over about 200~km. Supershear rupture speed is consistent with strong motion observations of low ground acceleration levels in the near-field of the fault and low aftershock production in numbers and moment release. The rupture followed a very linear, unsegmented portion of the Oriente fault that had not experienced significant seismic activity for at least a century. Observational evidence and models indicate that the 28 January 2020, Mw7.7 earthquake, supershear over most of its length, had a smooth rupture process along a simple linear fault segment where earthquake nucleation is infrequent and interseismic locking depth shallow, two characteristics that may explain this unusually large magnitude supershear event.

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2025-08-31

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Calais, E., Delouis, B., Ampuero, J.-P., Bao, H., Courboulex, F., Deschamps, A., de Lépinay, B., Monfret, T., Meng, L., Xu, L., DeMets, C., Gonzalez, O., Arango-Arias, E., Moreno, B., Palau, R., Cutie, M., Diez, E., Roche, E., Garcia, J., Castellanos, E., Symithe, S., & Williams, P. (2025). The 28 January 2020, Mw7.7, Cayman Trough / Oriente Fault, Supershear Earthquake Rupture. Seismica, 4(2). https://doi.org/10.26443/seismica.v4i2.1629

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Copyright (c) 2025 Eric Calais, Bertrand Delouis, Jean-Paul Ampuero, Han Bao, Françoise Courboulex, Anne Deschamps, Bernard de Lépinay, Tony Monfret, Lingsen Meng, Liuwei Xu, Charles DeMets, O'Leary Gonzalez, Enrique Arango-Arias, Bladimir Moreno, Raul Palau, Manuel Cutie, Eduardo Diez, Ernesto Roche, Jorge Garcia, Enrique Castellanos, Steeve Symithe, Paul Williams

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