Fitful but sustained rupture of the 2026 Mw 7.6 Venezuela earthquake
Abstract
The devastating 2026 Venezuela earthquake was cataloged as a doublet of \Mw~7.2 and 7.5 events. Combining NISAR and ALOS-2 Synthetic Aperture Radar data, teleseismic source imaging, and ensemble Kalman inversion of multiple moment tensors and dynamic rupture simulations, we show that the 2026 Venezuela earthquake was instead a single \Mw~7.6 event with variable rupture speed and seismic moment release. The earthquake rupture went through episodes of acceleration and deceleration, including a pronounced slow-down around the rupture area of the 1967 \Mw~6.6 Caracas earthquake. Stress transfer from the partially arrested front and a trailing slip pulse enabled the rupture to break through this stress barrier and release ~26% of the seismic moment beneath the coastal cities of Playa Grande and Caraballeda, where damage was most severe. Such fitful ruptures enhance high-frequency seismic radiation and challenge conventional methods for characterization of large earthquakes.
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BibTeX
@misc{wong2026fitful,
title = {{Fitful but sustained rupture of the 2026 Mw 7.6 Venezuela earthquake}},
author = {Jeremy wing ching wong and Eitan Rapaport Bruck and Rubi Garcia Gonzalez and Mathilde Marchandon and Baoning Wu and Fabian Kutschera and Molly Zebker and Yohai Magen and Wenyuan Fan and Yuri Fialko and Alice-Agnes Gabriel},
howpublished = {EarthArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.31223/x58b9r},
url = {https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/15594/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Fitful but sustained rupture of the 2026 Mw 7.6 Venezuela earthquake
AU - Jeremy wing ching wong
AU - Eitan Rapaport Bruck
AU - Rubi Garcia Gonzalez
AU - Mathilde Marchandon
AU - Baoning Wu
AU - Fabian Kutschera
AU - Molly Zebker
AU - Yohai Magen
AU - Wenyuan Fan
AU - Yuri Fialko
AU - Alice-Agnes Gabriel
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/20
PB - EarthArXiv
DO - 10.31223/x58b9r
UR - https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/15594/
AB - The devastating 2026 Venezuela earthquake was cataloged as a doublet of \Mw~7.2 and 7.5 events. Combining NISAR and ALOS-2 Synthetic Aperture Radar data, teleseismic source imaging, and ensemble Kalman inversion of multiple moment tensors and dynamic rupture simulations, we show that the 2026 Venezuela earthquake was instead a single \Mw~7.6 event with variable rupture speed and seismic moment release. The earthquake rupture went through episodes of acceleration and deceleration, including a pronounced slow-down around the rupture area of the 1967 \Mw~6.6 Caracas earthquake. Stress transfer from the partially arrested front and a trailing slip pulse enabled the rupture to break through this stress barrier and release ~26% of the seismic moment beneath the coastal cities of Playa Grande and Caraballeda, where damage was most severe. Such fitful ruptures enhance high-frequency seismic radiation and challenge conventional methods for characterization of large earthquakes.
ER -