Precise dating of geomorphic markers that are subject to thrust-related deformation, such as alluvial fan surface are crucial for quantifying forearc deformation, especially in a context of weak interseismic coupling on the subduction interface as in northern Peru. In this study, we document the late Pleistocene tectonic history of the Amotape massif, which is a prominent basement relief in the northern Peruvian forearc. To achieve this, we combine a morphometric analysis and Terrestrial Cosmogenic Nuclides (TCNs) surface exposure dating of alluvial fan surface with subsurface structural data. TCNs (10Be and 26Al) surface exposure ages of alluvial fan surfaces on the northwestern flank of the massif range from 35.1 f 1.1 ka to 59.3 f 2.1 ka for 10Be and from 27.3 f 2.0 ka to 48.9 f 2.5 ka for 26Al. Both cosmogenic nuclides provide consistent results. We calculated a mean weighted age of 39.0 f 0.3 ka for an alluvial fan that is offset by a major NW-verging thrust. Our results provide an estimated slip rate of 1.15 f 0.46 m/ka along the Amotape thrust front since the late Pleistocene. The surface deformation along the Amotape thrust front correlates with the top portion of a deep-seated contractional wedge involving the crustal basement, according to subsurface structural data and regional seismicity. This integrated analysis demonstrates active shortening in the onshore crustal basement of the northern Peruvian forearc where no active thrust reaching the surface has been described before.

Slow slip events (SSEs) are transient slip episodes taking place along the plate interface of subduction zones. They usually occur synchronously to tectonic tremors and/or seismic swarms, but the relationship between slip and seismicity remains unclear. Here, we study a well-instrumented seismic swarm-SSE sequence near a highly coupled segment along the Ecuadorian subduction zone. GPS data reveal that a one-week long SSE developed along the subduction interface at shallow depth (5-15 km) with an equivalent moment magnitude (Mw) of 6.3. During that period, a local temporary seismic network recorded >700 earthquakes with magnitudes ranging between 1.0 and 4.6. The distribution of seismicity illuminates a steep intraslab fault downdip of an oceanic relief, striking almost parallel to the trench. This seismicity migrates along strike of this active structure at a velocity of 10-15 km/day. This velocity is commonly observed in the case of slow slip propagation. Our observation suggests that the interplate SSE might have triggered a slow slip along the the intraslab active structure, which in turn drove the intraslab seismicity. In addition, at the northern part of the intraslab faults, a cluster of seismicity shows a radial expansion compatible with a fluid diffusion process. Overall, our study highlights the dynamical interaction between an interplate slow slip and an intraslab seismic swarm with the interplay of an intraslab aseismic slip propagation and fluid diffusion, both controlling the migration of seismicity.

ABSTRACT Although seismological networks have densified along the Ecuadorian active margin since 2010, visual phase reading, ensuring high arrival times quality, is more and more time-consuming and becomes impossible to handle for the very large amount of recorded seismic traces, even when preprocessed with a detector. In this article, we calibrate a deep-learning-based automatized workflow to acquire accurate phase arrival times and build a reliable microseismicity catalog in the central Ecuadorian forearc. We reprocessed the dataset acquired through the OSISEC local onshore–offshore seismic network that was already used by Segovia et al. (2018) to produce a reference seismic database. We assess the precision of phase pickers EQTransformer and PhaseNet with respect to manual arrivals and evaluate the accuracy of hypocentral solutions located with NonLinLoc. Both the phase pickers read arrival times with a mean error for P waves lower than 0.05 s. They produce 2.7 additional S-labeled picks per event compared to the bulletins of references. Both detect a significant number of waves not related to seismicity. We select the PhaseNet workflow because of its ability to retrieve a higher number of reference picks with greater accuracy. The derived hypocentral solutions are also closer to the manual locations. We develop a procedure to automatically determine thresholds for location attributes to cull a reliable microseismicity catalog. We show that poorly controlled detection combined with effective cleaning of the catalog is a better strategy than highly controlled detection to produce comprehensive microseismicity catalogs. Application of this technique to two seismic networks in Ecuador produces a noise-free image of seismicity and retrieves up to twice as many microearthquakes than reference studies.

<p>Understanding the dynamics of forearc basins is a challenge to improve knowledge of their influence on subduction zone earthquakes and tsunamis. The structural architecture of the Tumbes and Guayaquil forearc depocenters in the Northern Andes is revealed by subsurface data and the construction of serial cross-sections. Seismic reflection profiles and well data reveal that the overall forearc depocenters by widespread gravitational raft tectonics instabilities. These instabilities occurred principally during the Late Neogene to Quaternary period. We emphasize kilometric-scale upper listric normal fault dip regionally basinward paired with downdip thrust wedge. These structures branch downward on a regional décollement level developed in the upper Oligocene ductile shales above subduction zone. The development of this tectonic style appears to be significantly controlled by the coeval of tectonics, high sedimentation rate in the basin and pore pressures processes. Our findings are original enough as these kinds of instabilities are much more often observed in passive margins. Finally, the large active movements of sedimentary masses could also be triggered by seismicity and could generate potential tsunamis that could reach the neighboring coastal zone, including the Guayaquil city.</p>

In Ecuador, on some areas of the subduction interface, accumulated stress is released aseismically through slow slip events (SSE) synchronous to seismic swarms (S5). In the La Plata island region in the Central Ecuadorian forearc, recurrent and shallow S5 occur near a portion of the plate interface highly coupled by the subduction of a massive oceanic relief. This study shows a sequence of seismicity and SSE organization propitious to investigate the cause and effect relation-ship between both phenomena.GPS data show that an SSE (Mw 6.3) initiated at the end of November 2012 and ruptured 2 shallow aseismic patches 25 km apart (~10 km along the vertical direction). The first patch (P1), located southeastward of the island on a moderately coupled portion of the plate interface at the leading edge of the subducting oceanic mount, has a rupture area of about 80 km2 and a maximum cumulated slip of 15 cm. Its slipping behavior is pulse-like for about a month and a half. Mid-January, the slip of the SSE suddenly accelerates. A day later, a second aseismic patch (P2), updip from P1, ruptured a highly coupled area of about 250 km2 with a maximum slip of 35 cm. This second rupture lasted 8 days and accounted for 80% of total aseismic moment. Both SSE patches stopped slipping by the end of January 2013.The spatial-temporal distribution of 2,000 micro-earthquakes between November 2012 and February 2013 provides clues about the interface processes and highlights that faulting occurred on secondary faults during an S5. An outer rise seismic cluster with an ML 4.8 earthquake occurred on a bending fault of the Nazca Plate, 10 days before P1 started. The cluster is collinear with P1 with respect to the relative plate convergence direction, suggesting a possible causal relationship. Almost no seismicity affects the plate interface during the pulse-like development of P1 until mid-January. As the P1-SSE’s slip accelerates, an intense seismic swarm developed updip of P1 along a narrow NNE-SSW trending direction, organized in sub-vertically active structures within the subducting plate. The Coulomb stress variation computed from the cumulative slip of P1 as well as the velocity migration of the cluster (about 10 km/day) suggests that the intraplate swarm is triggered and developed at the P1-SSE’s rupture front. Synchronously to P2, seismicity developed at the Northern edge of the oceanic relief.The seismicity swarm witnesses the reactivation of oceanic bending faults within the Nazca plate. We hypothesize that this reactivation is likely responsible of a fluid release on the plate interface, that contributed to overpressuring the highly coupled area near P2, priory saturated with fluids, which ruptures aseismically afterwards.

The southern Ecuadorian forearc system is related to the subduction of the oceanic Farallon/Nazca Plate beneath the continental South American Plate since the Late Cretaceous, and currently evolves with the dynamic of a tectonic block called North Andean Sliver. To explore the structural architecture and processes controlling the Upper Cretaceous-Cenozoic growth of the forearc, we built a similar to 143 km-long onshore-offshore crustal-scale crosssection in the Santa Elena Peninsula region using seismic reflection profiles and well and field data. The structure of the Santa Elena Peninsula forearc system is controlled by imbrication of Upper Cretaceous-Palaeocene oceanic basement and Cenozoic sedimentary units, and underplating of distal Cenozoic sequences stacked at the trench zone. This led to the progressive construction of an accretionary wedge through time. The forearc substratum is mainly formed by the Upper Cretaceous-Palaeocene basement developed during the docking of oceanic terranes. It is later deformed by NW-trending landward-dipping, normal to strike-slip faults during the Middle Eocene, and renewed compression by inversion of inherited faults from the Oligocene onwards. Recent deformation consists in N-trending oceanward-dipping normal faults in the frontal slope domain and fault-controlled uplift of marine terraces along the coastal area. Therefore, the Upper Cretaceous to present-day structural evolution of the Santa Elena Peninsula forearc is controlled by the long-lasting subduction dynamics and structural inheritance of the upper plate.

The offshore Tumbes-Guayaquil forearc basin in the accretionary prism of Northern Peru-Southern Ecuador shows evidence of gravity-driven large-scale deformation systems active during the Late Neogene-Quaternary period. Subsurface data and the construction of eight structural cross-sections show that the similar to 8 km-thick Oligocene-Quaternary sedimentary infill is detached seaward and completely decoupled from the underlying inner accretionary prism systems. The Corvina decollement in the Tumbes basin and the Posorja decollement in the Guayaquil basin constitute two thin-skinned gravity tectonic systems associated with kilometer-scale, updip "raft" extensional structures paired with downdip fold-thrust systems (Barracuda and Domito thrust systems). Although many previous studies have described the structural and stratigraphic architecture of the Tumbes-Guayaquil forearc basin, no model explicitly accounts for this anomalous large-scale gravity tectonics. We propose that this gravity tectonic style, more commonly observed in passive continental margins, is primarily controlled by the combination of tectonostratigraphic features, including crustal-scale transtensional deformation related to oblique convergence along the Northern Andean margin, basal decollement slope tilting, strong sediment accumulation, and the presence of overpressured shales.

The analysis of the seismicity catalog (1996 to 2019) covering the region from the Jura mountains to Corsica provides a first-order image of the distribution of earthquakes, highlighting large structures such as the Briançonnais and Piedmontais seismic arcs, the eastward deepening of the focal depths through the Western Alps, several large active faults (e.g. Belledonne, Middle Durance, Ligure). Over this period the magnitudes are moderate and the focal mechanisms of the main events display a diversity of seismic behaviors that can be explained by the complexity of the different geological domains with a more or less strong structural inheritage, by variable rheological characteristics at the scale of the crust and by the joint action of different mechanisms of deformation. The distribution of the historical events is in fairly good agreement with the instrumental seismicity, but several earthquakes of M>6 are highlighted since the 14th century until the beginning of the 20th.

The point source parameters of the 11 November 2019 Le Teil earthquake (Mw 4.9) in France are revisited. Previous hypocenter determinations either located it on the wrong side of the causative fault, or had to restrain the depth ranges to obtain epicenters compatible with the fault geometry. Here, relocation is carried out with three different approaches: (1) using as a master event an aftershock well-recorded by the post-earthquake temporary seismic network; (2) optimizing the velocity model in two subareas; and (3) using a quarry blast. All three approaches concur in a common epicentral area located in the middle of the rupture, confirming its bilateral character. Hypocentral depth is best constrained at $1.5 \pm 0.5~\mathrm{km}$, a range confirmed by waveform inversion. The dip of the SE-dipping nodal plane corresponding to the fault is not well constrained by waveform inversion, but the focal mechanism at rupture initiation determined with the first motions suggests that fault dip may be constant (50°–60°) from the surface down to 1–1.5 km depth. Optimized velocity models point to a strong velocity contrast, mainly in the $V_p/V_s$ ratio, between the NW and the SE sides of the Cevennes fault system, which clearly correlates with the geology.

Repeating earthquakes repeatedly rupture the same seismic asperity and are strongly linked to aseismic slip. Here, we study the repeating aftershocks of the April 16, 2016 MW 7.8 Pedernales earthquake in Ecuador, which generated a large amount of afterslip. Using temporary and permanent stations, we correlate waveforms from a one‐year catalog of aftershocks. We sort events with a minimum correlation coefficient of 0.95 into preliminary families, which are then expanded using template‐matching to include events from April 2015 to June 2017. In total, 376 repeaters are classified into 62 families of 4–15 events. They are relocated, first using manual picks, and then using a double difference method. We find repeating earthquakes during the whole period, occurring primarily within large aftershock clusters on the edges of the areas of largest afterslip release. Their recurrence times, shortened by the mainshock, subsequently increase following an Omori‐type law, providing a timeframe for the afterslip's deceleration. Although they are linked temporally to the afterslip, repeater‐derived estimates of slip differ significantly from GPS‐based models. Combined with the fact that repeaters appear more spatially correlated with the afterslip gradient than with the afterslip maxima, we suggest that stress accumulation at the edge of the afterslip may guide repeater behavior.

SUMMARY Coda-Q is used to estimate the attenuation and scattering properties of the Earth. So far focus has been on earthquake data at frequencies above 1 Hz, as the high noise level in the first and second microseismic peak, and possibly lower scattering coefficient, hinder stable measurements at lower frequencies. In this work, we measure and map coda-Q in the period bands 2.5–5 s, 5–10 s and 10–20 s in the greater Alpine region using noise cross-correlations between station pairs, based on data from permanent seismic stations and from the temporary AlpArray experiment. The observed coda-Q for short interstation distances is independent of azimuth so there is no indication of influence of the directivity of the incoming noise field on our measurements. In the 2.5–5 s and 5–10 s period bands, our measurements are self-consistent, and we observe stable geographic patterns of low and high coda-Q in the period bands 2.5–5 s and 5–10 s. In the period band 10–20 s, the dispersion of our measurements increases and geographic patterns become speculative. The coda-Q maps show that major features are observed with high resolution, with a very good geographical resolution of for example low coda-Q in the Po Plain. There is a sharp contrast between the Po Plain and the Alps and Apennines where coda-Q is high, with the exception a small area in the Swiss Alps which may be contaminated by the low coda-Q of the Po Plain. The coda of the correlations is too short to make independent measurements at different times within the coda, so we cannot distinguish between intrinsic and scattering Q. Measurements on more severely selected data sets and longer time-series result in identical geographical patterns but lower numerical values. Therefore, high coda-Q values may be overestimated, but the geographic distribution between high and low coda-Q areas is respected. Our results demonstrate that noise correlations are a promising tool for extending coda-Q measurements to frequencies lower than those analysed with earthquake data.

The heterogeneous seafloor topography of the Nazca Plate as it enters the Ecuador subduction zone provides an opportunity to document the influence of seafloor roughness on slip behavior and megathrust rupture. The 2016 M-w 7.8 Pedernales Ecuador earthquake was followed by a rich and active postseismic sequence. An internationally coordinated rapid response effort installed a temporary seismic network to densify coastal stations of the permanent Ecuadorian national seismic network. A combination of 82 onshore short and intermediate period and broadband seismic stations and six ocean bottom seismometers recorded the postseismic Pedernales sequence for over a year after the mainshock. A robust earthquake catalog combined with calibrated relocations for a subset of magnitude >= 4 earthquakes shows pronounced spatial and temporal clustering. A range of slip behavior accommodates postseismic deformation including earthquakes, slow slip events, and earthquake swarms. Models of plate coupling and the consistency of earthquake clustering and slip behavior through multiple seismic cycles reveal a segmented subduction zone primarily controlled by subducted seafloor topography, accreted terranes, and inherited structure. The 2016 Pedernales mainshock triggered moderate to strong earthquakes (5 <= M <= 7) and earthquake swarms north of the mainshock rupture close to the epicenter of the 1906 M-w 8.8 earthquake and in the segment of the subduction zone that ruptured in 1958 in a M-w 7.7 earthquake.

Along the Ecuadorian margin, the North Andean Sliver is moving in the northeastward direction due to the oblique subduction of the Nazca plate. The opening of the gulf of Guayaquil is a consequence of this motion. Two principal models compete to explain the opening. One proposes an opening achieved essentially with strike-slip motion along a single major fault through the gulf, the other with a combination of strike-slip and normal faulting on both sides of the gulf. The consequences in term of seismic hazard are very different. A single strike-slip fault model could imply a long fault segment capable of generating large magnitude events. In contrast, a multi-segments composite fault system will give conditions for producing small to medium size earthquakes. The southern Ecuador subduction zone is characterized by the absence of large historical earthquake. Data from the historical and instrumental seismicity for magnitude above 4 show the forearc has a high level of moderate seismic activity within and around the gulf that connects to the crustal seismic activity of the volcanic arc. In contrast, the forearc elsewhere shows very little or no seismic activity between the marine forearc zone and the volcanic arc. Regional and global CMTS data show a large number of mechanisms within the gulf that do not line up on a simple straight fault system. We present new earthquake data from the recently upgraded national seismic network of Ecuador. They provide the first image of SW-NE trending crustal faults stretching in the central part of the gulf and running eastward south of the Puna island. The main seismic belt appears to be discontinuous, made of short length segments with variable trends. The variety of focal solutions also indicates complex faulting. As the shape of this seismic belt is in good agreement with the orientation of the GPS velocity vectors, this new fault zone is readily interpreted as the southernmost segment of the actual NAS boundary. Others seismic clusters are observed parallel to the northern coast of the gulf, indicating active structures eventually accommodating the North-South opening of the gulf through normal faulting. b-value analysis of the main seismic belt seismicity shows high b value (>1) indicating either highly fractured or heterogeneous medium, or/and low stress level within the gulf of Guayaquil. This is again in agreement with a multi-segmented faulting system and also with the lack of large magnitude event in the historical seismic data. A cross-section for the entire seismic belt shows a depth extend of the crustal seismic activity down to 30 km which confirms the seismic belt to be a sliver boundary.

SUMMARYThe Ecuadorian convergent margin has experienced many large mega-thrust earthquakes in the past century, beginning with a 1906 event that propagated along as much as 500 km of the plate interface. Many subsections of the 1906 rupture area have subsequently produced Mw ≥ 7.7 events, culminating in the 16 April 2016, Mw 7.8 Pedernales earthquake. Interestingly, no large historic events Mw ≥ 7.7 appear to have propagated southward of ∼1°S, which coincides with the subduction of the Carnegie Ridge. We combine data from temporary seismic stations deployed following the Pedernales earthquake with data recorded by the permanent stations of the Ecuadorian national seismic network to discern the velocity structure of the Ecuadorian forearc and Cordillera using ambient noise tomography. Ambient noise tomography extracts Vsv information from the ambient noise wavefield and provides detailed constraints on velocity structures in the crust and upper mantle. In the upper 10 km of the Ecuadorian forearc, we see evidence of the deepest portions of the sedimentary basins in the region, the Progreso and Manabí basins. At depths below 30 km, we observe a sharp delineation between accreted fast forearc terranes and the thick crust of the Ecuadorian Andes. At depths ∼20 km, we see a strong fast velocity anomaly that coincides with the subducting Carnegie Ridge as well as the southern boundary of large mega-thrust earthquakes. Our observations raise the possibility that upper-plate structure, in addition to the subducting Carnegie Ridge, plays a role in the large event segmentation seen along the Ecuadorian margin.

SUMMARYThe Ecuadorian forearc is a complex region of accreted terranes with a history of large megathrust earthquakes. Most recently, a Mw 7.8 megathrust earthquake ruptured the plate boundary offshore of Pedernales, Ecuador on 16 April 2016. Following this event, an international collaboration arranged by the Instituto Geofisico at the Escuela Politécnica Nacional mobilized a rapid deployment of 65 seismic instruments along the Ecuadorian forearc. We combine this new seismic data set with 14 permanent stations from the Ecuadorian national network to better understand how variations in crustal structure relate to regional seismic hazards along the margin. Here, we present receiver function adaptive common conversion point stacks and a shear velocity model derived from the joint inversion of receiver functions and surface wave dispersion data obtained through ambient noise cross-correlations for the upper 50 km of the forearc. Beneath the forearc crust, we observe an eastward dipping slow velocity anomaly we interpret as subducting oceanic crust, which shallows near the projected centre of the subducting Carnegie Ridge. We also observe a strong shallow positive conversion in the Ecuadorian forearc near the Borbon Basin indicating a major discontinuity at a depth of ∼7 km. This conversion is not ubiquitous and may be the top of the accreted terranes. We also observe significant north–south changes in shear wave velocity. The velocity changes indicate variations in the accreted terranes and may indicate an increased amount of hydration beneath the Manabí Basin. This change in structure also correlates geographically with the southern rupture limit of multiple high magnitude megathrust earthquakes. The earthquake record along the Ecuadorian trench shows that no event with a Mw >7.4 has ruptured south of ∼0.5°S in southern Ecuador or northern Peru. Our observations, along with previous studies, suggest that variations in the forearc crustal structure and subducting oceanic crust may influance the occurrence and spatial distribution of high magnitude seismicity in the region.

Megathrust ruptures and the ensuing postseismic deformation cause stress changes that may induce seismicity on upper plate crustal faults far from the coseismic rupture area. In this study, we analyze seismic swarms that occurred in the north Ecuador area of Esmeraldas, beginning two months after the 2016 Mw 7.8 Pedernales, Ecuador megathrust earthquake. The Esmeraldas region is 70 km from the Pedernales rupture area in a separate segment of the subduction zone. We characterize the Esmeraldas sequence, relocating the events using manual arrival time picks and a local a-priori 3D velocity model. The earthquake locations from the Esmeraldas sequence outline an upper plate fault or shear zone. The sequence contains one major swarm and several smaller swarms. Moment tensor solutions of several events include normal and strike-slip motion and non-double-couple components. During the main swarm, earthquake hypocenters increase in distance from the first event over time, at a rate of a few hundred meters per day, consistent with fluid diffusion. Events with similar waveforms occur within the sequence, and a transient is seen in time series of nearby GPS stations concurrent with the seismicity. The events with similar waveforms and the transient in GPS time series suggest that slow aseismic slip took place along a crustal normal fault during the sequence. Coulomb stress calculations show a positive Coulomb stress change in the Esmeraldas region, consistent with seismicity being triggered by the Pedernales mainshock and large aftershocks. The characteristics of the seismicity indicate that postseismic deformation involving fluid flow and slow slip activated upper plate faults in the Esmeraldas area. These findings suggest the need for further investigation into the seismic hazard potential of shallow upper plate faults and the potential for megathrust earthquakes to trigger slow-slip and shallow seismicity across separate segments of subduction zones.

Over the last 23 Myr, the roughly east-directed subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath South America led to the formation of several mountain ranges associated with the overall northern Andes evolution. Along the active southwestern Ecuadorian margin, the compressional setting involves the Cretaceous-Miocene Chongón-Colonche / Santa Elena terranes, overlain by recent sedimentary basins. This geological setting, generally interpreted as an onshore-offshore forearc system, evolves in close relation with the active tectonic escape of the North Andean Sliver and the opening of the Gulf of Guayaquil. This region is characterised by a widespread extensional deformation in the upper plate that overprints moderate subduction and crustal earthquakes. To better document such extensional processes, we specifically explore the offshore shelf and the littoral area of the Santa Elena Peninsula using academic and industrial 2D seismic profiles calibrated with local wells and field observations. We document a trench-parallel fault network, composed of >20km-long normal faults that take place on top of the former Chongón-Colonche accretionary wedge. These faults are linearly-steep along the trench, and are listric toward the continent where they clearly control fault-block rotation. They separate flexural basins developing on the platform ahead the Chongón-Colonche Cordillera, and are associated with immerged terraces most likely formed during the Last Glacial Maximum. They also may link to further onshore marine terraces developing since the Pleistocene across the coastline. These observations suggest a peculiar dismantlement of the margin, mainly affected by tectonic erosion involving reactivation of former compressional features. Normal faults are specifically interpreted as a regional syn-orogenic collapse of the Chongón-Colonche Cordillera, which may result from transecting subducting ridges, fracture zones and seamounts controlling, at least partially, the geometry and the nature of the deformation along the southwestern Ecuadorian margin. This deformation pattern is likely linked to a weak interseismic coupling along the subduction interface to which the active opening of the Gulf of Guayaquil overlaps. This project is funded by the project ANR MARACAS ANR-18-CE31-0022 (MARine terraces along the northern Andean Coast as a proxy for seismic hazard ASsessment).

The April 2016 Pedernales earthquake ruptured a 100 km by 40 km segment of the subduction zone along the coast of Ecuador in an M-w 7.8 megathrust event east of the intersection of the Carnegie ridge with the trench. This portion of the subduction zone has ruptured on decadal time scales in similar size and larger earthquakes, and exhibits a range of slip behaviors, variations in segmentation, and degree of plate coupling along strike. Immediately after the earthquake, an international rapid response effort coordinated by the Instituto Geofisico at the Escuela Politecnica Nacional in Quito deployed 55 seismometers and 10 ocean-bottom seismometers above the rupture zone and adjacent areas to record aftershocks. In this article, we describe the details of the U.S. portion of the rapid response and present an earthquake cata-log from May 2016 to May 2017 produced using data recorded by these stations. Aftershocks focus in distinct clusters within and around the rupture area and match spatial patterns observed in long-term seismicity. For the first two and a half months, aftershocks exhibit a relatively sharp cutoff to the north of the mainshock rupture. In early July, an earthquake swarm occurred similar to 100 km to the northeast of the mainshock in the epicentral region of an M-w 7.8 earthquake in 1958. In December, an increase in seismicity occurred similar to 70 km to the northeast of the mainshock in the epicentral region of the 1906 earthquake. Data from the Pedernales earthquake and aftershock sequence recorded by permanent seismic and geodetic networks in Ecuador and the dense aftershock deployment provide an opportunity to examine the persistence of asperities for large to great earthquakes over multiple seismic cycles, the role of asperities and slow slip in subduction-zone megathrust rupture, and the relationship between locked and creeping parts of the subduction interface.