Long-range earthquake energy-release process under locally homogeneous conditions between 2007-2014 at northern Chile

The seismic cycle in subduction zones comprehends a phenomena of build-up and release of strain, which is punctuated by the occurrence of earthquakes. Nonetheless, the occurrence of earthquakes themselves depends on the relative plate velocity and on lateral heterogeneities that ponderate the energy release. This characteristic is exploited in order to obtain a seismic cycle representation in Northern Chile, using data from the IPOC catalog in the years 2007–2014. We propose and evaluate a scaling relationship for the energy released by earthquakes in a determined scale, depending on the elastic modulus, earthquake displacement and mean stress drop. Displacement, on the other hand, is obtained assuming that the seismicity rate is locally homogeneous and that the averaged regional balance process, which counters tectonic displacement in time due to plates relative velocity with the cumulative sum of earthquake displacements, washes out on the long term. This framework allowed us to obtain a seismic cycle representation between megathrust earthquakes from 2007 and 2014, accounting for a variety of phenomena observed.