Collaborative Research: Unraveling the habitat and dynamics of slow slip events through integrated borehole observations in the northern Hikurangi subduction margin

Subduction zone plate boundaries, where one tectonic plate dives or subducts beneath another tectonic plate produce the world’s largest earthquakes and tsunami, as starkly demonstrated by the M9.2 Indian Ocean earthquake in 2004, and the 2011 M9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake offshore northern Japan. Recently, scientists have recognized that subduction megathrust faults undergo slip in episodic slow-motion earthquakes, or slow slip events lasting days to months. In some cases, slow slip events have been observed to precede (and possibly trigger) major subduction earthquakes, increasing the need to understand them. Slow slip events occurring close to Earth's surface (