Strain rate dependency of oceanic intraplate earthquake b‐values at extremely low strain rates

Abstract We discovered a clear positive dependence of oceanic intraplate earthquake (OCEQ) b ‐values on the age of the oceanic lithosphere. OCEQ b ‐values in the youngest (<10 Ma) oceanic lithosphere are around 1.0, while those in middle to old (>20 Ma) oceanic lithosphere exceed 1.5, which is significantly higher than the average worldwide earthquake b ‐value (around 1.0). On the other hand, the b ‐value of intraplate earthquakes in the Ninety East‐Sumatra orogen, where oceanic lithosphere has an anomalously higher strain rate compared with normal oceanic lithosphere, is 0.93, which is significantly lower than the OCEQ b ‐value (about 1.9) with the same age (50–110 Ma). Thus, the variation in b ‐values relates to the strain rate of the oceanic lithosphere and is not caused by a difference in thermal structure. We revealed a negative strain rate dependency of the b ‐value at extremely low strain rates (<2 × 10 −10 /year), which can clearly explain the above b ‐values. We propose that the OCEQ b ‐value depends strongly on strain rate (either directly or indirectly) at extremely low strain rates. The high OCEQ b ‐values (>1.5) in oceanic lithosphere >20 Ma old imply that future improvement in seismic observation will capture many smaller magnitude OCEQs, which will provide valuable information on the evolution of the oceanic lithosphere and the driving mechanism of plate tectonics.