Activity of crustal faults and the Xolapa sliver motion in Guerrero–Oaxaca forearc of Mexico, from seismic data

Oblique convergent margins often host forearc slivers separated by the subduction interface and a trench parallel strike-slip fault system in the overriding plate. Mexican oblique subduction setting led to the formation of a forearc sliver and accomodation of part of the slip at the bounding system of strike-slip faults. The Xolapa sliver is, on average, a $$\sim 105$$ -km-wide crustal block located along the coast of Guerrero and Oaxaca states of Mexico, and is limited by a $$\sim 650$$ -km-long La Venta-Chacalapa fault zone. Two types of datasets, local catalog and Global CMT compilation, are used to estimate the motion of the Xolapa sliver using the rigid block model that describes the phenomenon of slip partitioning. According to the results obtained from local and Global CMT catalogs for selected subduction thrust earthquakes, the forearc sliver moves southeastwards with respect to the fixed North America plate at the rate of 10 ± 1 mm/year and 5.6 ± 0.8 mm/year, respectively. These velocities in general agree with the values obtained from long-term GPS observations (5–6 mm/year). The origin of the inconsistency between local and teleseismic estimates is attributed to a difference in the double couple focal mechanism parameters for two types of datasets. Convergence obliquity changes from $$10.42{^\circ }$$ and the rate of 58 mm/year to $$13.29{^\circ }$$ at the rate of 68 mm/year along the Guerrero and Oaxaca coast increasing from northwest to southeast; therefore, the Xolapa sliver is supposed to be stretched. However, the slip vector azimuths of thrust subduction earthquakes tend to approach plate convergence vectors southeastwards along the coast; so, we assume that this may produce the forearc block compression.