title: Viscosity of oceanic asthenosphere inferred from remote triggering of earthquakes
abstract: A sequence of large interplate earthquakes from 1952 to 1965 along the Aleutian arc and Kurile-Kamchatka trench released accumulated stresses along nearly the entire northern portion of the Pacific Plate boundary. The postseismic stress evolution across the northern Pacific and Arctic basins, calculated from a viscoelastic coupling model with an asthenospheric viscosity of 5 x 10(17) pascal seconds, is consistent with triggering of oceanic intraplate earthquakes, temporal patterns in seismicity at remote plate boundaries, and space-based geodetic measurements of anomalous velocity over an area 7000 by 7000 kilometers square during the 30-year period after the sequence.
authors.affiliation: F. F. Pollitz and R. Burgmann, Department of Geology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA. B. Romanowicz, University of California Seismological Laboratory, 475 McCone Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
authors.initials: FF
authors.lastname: Pollitz
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Burgmann
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Romanowicz