Teleseismic finite-fault slip models of Mexico subduction earthquakes: A 44-year catalog

Modelos de deslizamiento de falla finita telesísmicos de los sismos de subducción en México: Un catálogo de 44 años

Carlos Mendoza1,*, María del Rosario Martínez López2

1 Instituto de Geociencias, Campus Juriquilla, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Blv. Juriquilla 3001, Juriquilla La Mesa, 76230, Juriquilla, Querétaro, México.

2 Instituto de Geofísica, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Circuito de la Investigación Científica, Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacán, 04510, CDMX, México.

* Corresponding author: (C. Mendoza) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

How to cite this article:

Mendoza, C., & Martínez López, M. R. (2026). Teleseismic finite-fault slip models of Mexico subduction earthquakes: A 44-year catalog: Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana, 78(2), N271025. https://doi.org/10.18268/BSGM2026v78n2N271025 

Manuscript received: August 12, 2025. Corrected manuscript received: October 20, 2025. Manuscript accepted: October 25, 2025.

ABSTRACT

Body waves of large earthquakes occurring along the Cocos-North America plate margin are recorded by high-quality digital instruments that can be used to derive an image of the coseismic rupture. Waveforms recorded at teleseismic distances for the fourteen Mw ≥ 7 thrust earthquakes that occurred between 1978 and 1921 in the Mexico subduction zone have been previously analyzed to recover the distribution of coseismic slip using a kinematic, finite-fault inversion scheme. The slip models obtained in these studies are presented here in the form of a 44-year catalog that documents the source parameters used in each of the inversions, including the fault dimensions and geometry, the hypocenter depth, the number of subfaults, and the number and duration of time windows used to discretize the dislocation rise time.

Keywords: teleseismic body-waves, thrust earthquakes, coseismic slip, Mexico  subduc-tion zone.

RESUMEN

Las ondas de cuerpo generadas por sismos mayores que ocurren en la frontera entre las placas de Cocos y de Norteamérica se registran con instrumentos digitales de alta calidad que permiten obtener una imagen de la ruptura sísmica. Las formas de onda registradas a distancias telesísmicas de los catorce sismos de fallamiento inverso con magnitud Mw ≥ 7 ocurridos entre 1978 y 2021 en la zona de subducción de México han sido analizadas previamente para determinar la distribución del deslizamiento  cosísmico utilizando una metodología de inversión cinemática de falla finita. Los modelos de deslizamiento obtenidos en estos trabajos se presentan aquí en forma de un catálogo de 44 años que documenta los parámetros de la fuente utilizados en cada una de las inversiones, incluyendo las dimensiones y geometría de la falla, la profundidad del hipocentro, el número de subfallas y el número y duración de las ventanas de tiempo que se utilizaron para discretizar el tiempo de ascenso del deslizamiento.

Palabras clave: ondas de cuerpo telesísmicas, sismos inversos, deslizamiento  cosísmico,  zona de subducción de México.

1. Introduction

Large, interplate thrust earthquakes occur frequently along the Mexico subduction zone, resulting in damage along the coast and along inland areas susceptible to amplified ground motions. These earthquakes result from shallow underthrusting of the Rivera and Cocos plates beneath North America. Santoyo et al. (2005) list thirty-five interplate events of magnitude greater than or equal to 7 that occurred between 1900 and 2003 along the plate margin from Jalisco to Oaxaca (95°W-106°W). Six additional large thrust events have occurred in this portion of the subduction zone since 2003, resulting in a total of forty-one earthquakes of this size in the last 125 years. This corresponds to an average of one magnitude 7 or greater subduction earthquake occurring every three years.

Large MW ≥ 7 events that have occurred in the Mexico subduction region since 1978 have been recorded by modern digital instruments from several worldwide seismic networks, including the Global Digital Seismograph Network (GDSN) that became operational in the mid-1970s and the more recent Global Seismograph Network (GSN) deployed in the late 1980s (Ringler et al., 2022). These recordings provide high-quality body-wave data that can be used to derive an image of the distribution of coseismic slip along the fault. The resulting slip models are generally interpreted in terms of an asperity model, where slip concentrations along the fault represent zones of high strength, or asperities, surrounded by weaker regions of lower slip (Kanamori, 1981; Lay and Kanamori, 1981). The asperities and the surrounding weak regions map the overall rupture area of the earthquake. The zones of high coseismic slip may also contain internal secondary asperities, forming a hierarchical structure that may control earthquake occurrence along tectonic-plate boundaries (e.g., Seno, 2014; Uchida and Matzusawa, 2011).

High-quality digital body waves (P and S) recorded at teleseismic distances (~30°–90° for P-waves and ~40°–80° for S-waves) for MW ≥ 7 interplate earthquakes occurring from 1978 to 2021 in the 95°W-106°W subduction region (Table 1) have been previously analyzed to recover the distribution of coseismic slip using the finite-fault waveform inversion scheme of Hartzell and Heaton (1983, 1986). Body waves recorded at these distances travel within the Earth’s lower mantle and are minimally affected by distortions due to upper-mantle propagation or by core diffractions. Here, we present a catalog of the teleseismic slip models derived using digital body-wave records for the fourteen subduction events listed in Table 1. In the Hartzell and Heaton (1983, 1986) formulation, a fault plane of prescribed orientation is placed at the earthquake hypocenter, and the seismic records are subsequently inverted to recover the distribution of slip whose predicted waveforms best reproduce the observations. Fault dimensions are made greater than the expected area of coseismic slip to adequately identify the overall rupture area of the earthquake, and the fault is divided into a given number of subfaults with slip assumed to propagate radially from the hypocenter at a constant rupture velocity. Time windows are used to discretize the rise time on the fault, allowing flexibility in the subfault rupture time and relaxing the constraints imposed by a fixed rupture velocity. Mendoza and Hartzell (2013) give a summary of the inversion procedure and describe recent modifications to the inversion scheme, including the estimation of the amount of smoothing to apply to the inverse problem to derive a constrained fault-slip model from a single inversion of the teleseismic dataset.

Table 1. MW ≥ 7 interplate thrust earthquakes that occurred from 1978 to 2021 in the 95º–106ºW portion of the Mexico subduction zone. The events have been previously analyzed to derive a coseismic slip model using digital teleseismic body waves.

2. Teleseismic slip models

Slip models published for the fourteen Mw ≥ 7 thrust earthquakes that occurred between 1978 and 2021 in the Mexico subduction zone are shown in Figures 1–14. Fault parameters used in the source inversion for each event are given in Table 2. This includes the fault dimensions, the fault geometry, the hypocentral depth, the number of subfaults, and the number and duration of time windows. Slip values obtained for each subfault for all fourteen events are available from the authors on request. Tables 3–16 list the stations and data types used in the derivation of each of the source models. In the case of the 14 March 1979 earthquake (Table 4), GSN station coverage was limited, and digitized analog World-wide Standardized Seismograph Network (WWSSN) records (see Peterson and Hutt, 2014) were included in the analysis.

Figure 1. Slip model obtained by Martinez-Lopez et al. (2025) for the 29 November 1978 earthquake from the inversion of broadband and long-period teleseismic body waveforms listed in Table 3. Coseismic slips correspond to a seismic moment of 2.3 × 1027 dyn-cm (7.5 MW ). The star denotes the hypocenter location on the fault.

Figure 2. Slip model obtained by Mendoza (1995) for the 14 March 1979 earthquake from the inversion of broadband, long-period, and short-period teleseismic P-waveforms listed in Table 4. Coseismic slips correspond to a seismic moment of 1.5 × 1027 dyn-cm (7.4 MW ). The star denotes the hypocenter location on the fault.

Figure 3. Slip model obtained by Martinez-Lopez and Mendoza (2018) for the 25 October 1981 earthquake from the inversion of short-period, long-period, and intermediate-period teleseismic body waveforms listed in Table 5. Coseismic slips correspond to a seismic moment of 7.6 × 1026 dyn-cm (7.2 MW ). The star denotes the hypocenter location on the fault.

Figure 4. Slip model obtained by Martinez-Lopez and Mendoza (2018) for the 19 September 1985 earthquake from the inversion of long-period and intermediate-period teleseismic body waveforms listed in Table 6. Coseismic slips correspond to a seismic moment of 9.8 × 1027 dyn-cm (8.0 MW ). The star denotes the hypocenter location on the fault.

Figure 5. Slip model obtained by Martinez-Lopez and Mendoza (2018) for the 21 September 1985 earthquake from the inversion of long-period and intermediate-period teleseismic body waveforms listed in Table 7. Coseismic slips correspond to a seismic moment of 1.7 × 1027 dyn-cm (7.4 MW ). The star denotes the hypocenter location on the fault.

Figure 6. Slip model obtained by Mendoza and Martinez-Lopez (2021) for the 14 September 1995 earthquake from the inversion of broadband teleseismic body waveforms listed in Table 8. Coseismic slips correspond to a seismic moment of 1.0 × 1027 dyn-cm (7.3 MW ). The star denotes the hypocenter location on the fault.

Figure 7. Slip model obtained by Martinez-Lopez and Mendoza (2018) for the 9 October 1995 earthquake from the inversion of broadband teleseismic body waveforms listed in Table 9. Coseismic slips correspond to a seismic moment of 6.0 × 1027 dyn-cm (7.8 MW ). The star denotes the hypocenter location on the fault.

Figure 8. Slip model obtained by Mendoza and Martinez-Lopez (2021) for the 25 February 1996 earthquake from the inversion of broadband teleseismic body waveforms listed in Table 10. Coseismic slips correspond to a seismic moment of 3.5 × 1026 dyn-cm (7.0 MW ). The star denotes the hypocenter location on the fault.

Figure 9. Slip model obtained by Martinez-Lopez and Mendoza (2018) for the 22 January 2003 earthquake from the inversion of broadband teleseismic body waveforms listed in Table 11. Coseismic slips correspond to a seismic moment of 1.2 × 1027 dyn-cm (7.3 MW ). The star denotes the hypocenter location on the fault.

Figure 10. Slip model obtained by Mendoza and Martinez-Lopez (2021) for the 20 March 2012 earthquake from the inversion of broadband teleseismic body waveforms listed in Table 12. Coseismic slips correspond to a seismic moment of 1.5 × 1027 dyn-cm (7.4 MW ). The star denotes the hypocenter location on the fault.

Figure 11. Slip model obtained by Mendoza and Martinez-Lopez (2017) for the 18 April 2014 earthquake from the inversion of broadband teleseismic body waveforms listed in Table 13. Coseismic slips correspond to a seismic moment of 1.0 × 1027 dyn-cm (7.3 MW ). The star denotes the hypocenter location on the fault.

Figure 12. Slip model obtained by Mendoza and Martinez-Lopez (2021) for the 16 February 2018 earthquake from the inversion of broadband teleseismic body waveforms listed in Table 14. Coseismic slips correspond to a seismic moment of 6.1 × 1026 dyn-cm (7.2 MW ). The star denotes the hypocenter location on the fault.

Figure 13. Slip model obtained by Martinez-Lopez et al. (2025) for the 23 June 2020 earthquake from the inversion of broadband teleseismic body waveforms listed in Table 15. Coseismic slips correspond to a seismic moment of 1.3 × 1027 dyn-cm (7.4 MW ). The star denotes the hypocenter location on the fault.

Figure 14. Slip model obtained by Martinez-Lopez (2023) for the 8 September 2021 earthquake from the inversion of broadband teleseismic body waveforms listed in Table 16. Coseismic slips correspond to a seismic moment of 5.7 × 1026 dyn-cm (7.1 MW ). The star denotes the hypocenter location on the fault.

Table 2. Fault parameters used to derive the teleseismic slip models of the Mw ≥ 7 earthquakes listed in Table 1.

Table 3. Stations used in the inversion of broadband (BB) and long-period (LP) waveforms recorded for the 29 November 1978 earthquake (MW 7.8).

Table 4. Stations used in the inversion of long-period (LP), short-period (SP), and broadband (BB) waveforms recorded for the 14 March 1979 earthquake (MW 7.4).

Table 5. Stations used in the inversion of long-period (LP), short-period (SP), and intermediate-period (IP) waveforms recorded for the 25 October 1981 earthquake (MW 7.2).

Table 6. Stations used in the inversion of long-period (LP) and intermediate-period (IP) waveforms recorded for the 19 September 1985 earthquake (MW 8.0).

Table 7. Stations used in the inversion of long-period (LP) and intermediate-period (IP) waveforms recorded for the 21 September 1985 earthquake (MW 7.5).

Table 8. Stations used in the inversion of broadband (BB) waveforms recorded for the 14 September 1995 earthquake (MW 7.3).

Table 9. Stations used in the inversion of broadband (BB) waveforms recorded for the 9 October 1995 earthquake (MW 8.0).

Table 10. Stations used in the inversion of broadband (BB) waveforms recorded for the 25 February 1996 earthquake (MW 7.1).

Table 11. Stations used in the inversion of broadband (BB) waveforms recorded for the 22 January 2003 earthquake (MW 7.5).

Table 12. Stations used in the inversion of broadband (BB) waveforms recorded for the 20 March 2012 earthquake (MW 7.5).

Table 13. Stations used in the inversion of broadband (BB) waveforms recorded for the 18 April 2014 earthquake (MW 7.3).

Table 14. Stations used in the inversion of broadband (BB) waveforms recorded for the 16 February 2018 earthquake (MW 7.2).

Table 15. Stations used in the inversion of broadband (BB) waveforms recorded for the 23 June 2020 earthquake (MW 7.4).

Table 16. Stations used in the inversion of broadband (BB) waveforms recorded for the 8 September 2021 earthquake (MW 7.0).

3. Summary

Teleseismic body waves recorded by high-quality digital instruments for large MW ≥ 7 interplate thrust earthquakes occurring between 1978 and 1921 in the 95°−106° W portion of the Mexico subducting plate margin have been previously analyzed to recover the distribution of coseismic slip using the finite-fault inversion scheme of Hartzell and Heaton (1983, 1986). This includes P and SH waves recorded at distances of ~30°–90° and ~40°–80°, respectively, to avoid waveform distortions due to upper-mantle propagation and outer-core diffractions. We present a catalog of published slip models for these fourteen MW ≥ 7 events documenting the fault dimensions, the number of subfaults, the fault geometry, the hypocenter depth, and the number and duration of time windows used in the teleseismic inversions.

Acknowledgments

We thank reviewers M. Schmitz and O. Castro Artola for comments and suggestions that helped improve the manuscript.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Handling editor

Raúl Castro Escamilla.

References

Courboulex, F., Santoyo, M. A., Pacheco, J. F., & Singh, S. K. (1997a). The 14 September 1995 ( M = 7.3) Copala, Mexico, earthquake: a source study using teleseismic, regional, and local data. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 87(4), 999–1010. https://doi.org/10.1785/BSSA0870040999 

Courboulex, Françoise, Singh, S. K., Pacheco, J. F., & Ammon, C. J. (1997b). The 1995 Colima-Jalisco, Mexico, Earthquake (Mw 8): a study of the rupture process. Geophysical Research Letters, 24(9), 1019–1022. https://doi.org/10.1029/97GL00945 

Dziewonski, A. M., Chou, T. -A., & Woodhouse, J. H. (1981). Determination of earthquake source parameters from waveform data for studies of global and regional seismicity. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 86(B4), 2825–2852. https://doi.org/10.1029/JB086iB04p02825 

Ekström,  G.,  Nettles,  M.,  &  Dziewoński, A. M. (2012). The global CMT project 2004–2010: Centroid-moment tensors for 13,017 earthquakes. Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, 200–201, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pepi.2012.04.002 

Gettrust, J. F., Hsu, V., Helsley, C. E., Herrero, E.,  &  Jordan,  T.  (1981).  Patterns of local seismicity preceding the petatlan earthquake of 14 March 1979. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 71(3), 761–769. https://doi.org/10.1785/BSSA0710030761 

Hartzell, S. H., & Heaton, T. H. (1983). Inversion of strong ground motion and teleseismic waveform data for the fault rupture history of the 1979 Imperial Valley, California, earthquake. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 73(6A), 1553–1583. https://doi.org/10.1785/BSSA07306A1553 

Hartzell, S. H., & Heaton, T. H. (1986). Rupture history of the 1984 Morgan Hill, California, earthquake from the inversion of strong motion records. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 76(3), 649–674. https://doi.org/10.1785/BSSA0760030649 

Havskov, J., Singh, S. K., Nava, E., Domínguez, T., & Rodríguez, M. (1983). Playa Azul, Michoacan,   Mexico,   earthquake of 25 October 1981 (Ms = 7.3). Bulletin of the  Seismological  Society of  America, 73(2), 449–457.

Kanamori, H. (1981). The nature of seismicity patterns before large earthquakes. In Earthquake prediction: An international review (Vol. 4, pp. 1–19). American Geophysical Union. https://doi.org/10.1029/ME004p0001 

Lay, T., & Kanamori, H. (1981). An Asperity Model of Large Earthquake Sequences. In Earthquake Prediction: An International Review (Vol. 4, pp. 579–592). American Geophysical Union. https://doi.org/10.1029/ME004p0579 

Martínez-López, M. R., & Mendoza, C. (2018).  Caracterización  de  asperezas de sismos recientes en la zona de subducción de Michoacán-Colima-Jalisco, México. Geofísica Internacional, 57(4), 289–306. https://doi.org/10.22201/igeof.00167169p.2018.57.4.2107 

Martínez-López,  M.  R.  (2023).  Study of the rupture processes of the  1989  (Mw  6.9) and  2021  (Mw  7.0)  Guerrero earthquakes using teleseismic records: Sismotectonic implications. Geologica Acta, 21(9), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1344/GeologicaActa2023.21.9 

Martínez-López, M. R., Suárez, G., & Mendoza, C. (2025). Rupture zones of the 1978 (Mw 7.6) and 2020 (Mw 7.4) earthquakes in the Oaxaca subduction zone: Implications for seismic slip and seismic hazard. Journal of Seismology, 29, 317–336. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10950-024-10275-8 

Mendoza, C. (1995). Finite-fault analysis of the 1979 March 14 Petatlan, Mexico, earthquake using teleseismic P waveforms. Geophysical   Journal   International, 121(3), 675–683. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-246X.1995.tb06430.x 

Mendoza, C., & Hartzell, S. (2013). Finite-fault source inversion using teleseismic P waves: Simple parameterization and rapid analysis. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 103(2A), 834–844. https://doi.org/10.1785/0120120069 

Mendoza, C., & Martínez-López, M. R. (2017).  The  Mw  7.3  Papanoa,  Mexico earthquake of April 18, 2014: Implications for recurrent M > 7 thrust earthquakes in western Guerrero. Geofísica Internacional, 56(1), 13–26. https://doi.org/10.22201/igeof.00167169p.2017.56.1.1731 

Mendoza, C., & Martínez-López, M. R. (2021). Rupture models of recent Mw>7 thrust earthquakes in the Guerrero–Oaxaca region of the Mexico subduction zone using teleseismic body waves. Seismological Research Letters, 92(6), 3565–3576. https://doi.org/10.1785/0220200423 

Peterson, J. R., & Hutt, C. R. (2014). World-Wide standardized seismograph network: a data users guide. U. S. Geological Survey Open-File Report, (2014–1218), 1–74. https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20141218 

Ponce, I., Mcnally, K. C., Sumin De Portilla, V., González, J., del Castillo, A., González, L., Chael, E., & French, M. (1978). Oaxaca, México, earthquake of 29 November 1978: a preliminary report on spatio-temporal pattern on preceding seismic activity and mainshock relocation. Geofísica Internacional, 17(2), 109–126. https://doi.org/10.22201/igeof.00167169p.1978.17.2.928 

Ringler, A. T., Anthony, R. E., Aster, R. C., Ammon, C. J., Arrowsmith, S., Benz, H., Ebeling, C., Frassetto, A., Kim, W. -Y., Koelemeijer, P., Lau, H. C. P., Lekić, V., Montagner, J. P., Richards, P. G., Schaff, D. P., Vallée, M., & Yeck, W. (2022). Achievements and prospects of global broadband seismographic networks after 30 years of continuous geophysical observations. Reviews of Geophysics, 60(3). https://doi.org/10.1029/2021RG000749 

Santoyo, M. A., Singh. S. K., Mikumo, T., & Ordaz, M. (2005). Space-time clustering of large thrust earthquakes along the Mexican subduction zone: an evidence of source stress interaction. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 95(5), 1856–1864. https://doi.org/10.1785/0120040185 

Seno, T. (2014). Fractal asperities, invasion of barriers, and interplate earthquakes. Earth, Planets and Space, 55(11), 649–665. https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03352472 

Servicio Sismológico Nacional (SSN). (2025). Servicio Sismológico Nacional, Catálogo de sismos. 2025. http://www.ssn.unam.mx/ 

Singh, S. K., Pacheco, J. F., Alcantara, L., Reyes, G., Ordaz, M., Iglesias, A., Alcocer, S. M., Gutierrez, C., Valdes, C., Kostoglodov, V., Reyes, C., Mikumo, T., Quaas, R., & Anderson, J. G. (2003). A preliminary report on the Tecoman, Mexico earthquake of 22 January 2003 (Mw 7.4) and its effects. Seismological Research Letters, 74(3), 279–289. https://doi.org/10.1785/gssrl.74.3.279 

Uchida, N., & Matsuzawa, T. (2011). Coupling coefficient, hierarchical structure, and earthquake cycle for the source area of the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku earthquake inferred from small repeating earthquake data. Earth, Planets and Space, 63(7), 675–679. https://doi.org/10.5047/eps.2011.07.006 

UNAM Seismology Group. (1986). The September 1985 Michoacan earthquakes: aftershock distribution and history of rupture. Geophysical Research Letters, 13(6), 573–576. https://doi.org/10.1029/GL013i006p00573 

UNAM Seismology Group. (2013). Ometepec-Pinotepa Nacional, Mexico earthquake of 20 March 2012 (Mw 7.5): a preliminary report. Geofísica Internacional, 52(2), 173–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7169(13)71471-5 

UNAM Seismology Group. (2015). Papanoa, Mexico  earthquake  of  18  April  2014 (Mw  7.3).  Geofísica  Internacional,  54(4), 363–386.    https://doi.org/10.22201/igeof.00167169p.2015.54.4.1702 

Peer Reviewing under the responsibility of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/