Supershear Cascading Rupture Envelopes: A Case Study from the 2023 Kahramanmaraş Seismic Doublet

Davide Zaccagnino^1*Tony Alfredo Stabile²Aybige Akinci³André Herrero³Onur Tan⁴Luciano Telesca²Carlo Doglioni⁵

• ¹Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
• ²Istituto di Metodologie per l'Analisi Ambientale Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Tito Scalo, Italy
• ³Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Rome, Italy
• ⁴Istanbul Universitesi-Cerrahpasa, Avcılar, Türkiye
• ⁵Universita degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Rome, Italy

Super-shear ruptures, characterized by rupture velocities exceeding the shear wave speed, were first predicted theoretically and later observed in laboratory experiments. While a few tectonic earthquakes have been reported as super-shear, most involve strike-slip faults, including the 2023 Mw 7.5 Kahramanmaraş earthquake (Türkiye) and transient phases of the Mw 7.8 event. However, natural ruptures propagate through complex, rough fault systems - deviating from idealized smooth interfaces - resulting in heterogeneous slip, stress drops, and rupture jumps. Additionally, the expected high-frequency spectral signature of super-shear ruptures often conflicts with observations. To reconcile these discrepancies, we propose a generalized interpretation of super-shear events, where observed super-shear velocities arise not only from continuous rupture fronts but also from dynamically triggered multi-focal ruptures along strike. We explore how fault rheology modulates rupture speed and introduce a triggering mechanism driven by P-wave perturbations. Our model also predicts Mach cones detected teleseismically during super-shear earthquakes such as the Kahramanmaraş doublet, while it suggests they should not be observed locally in the case of super-shear cascading rupture envelopes. We show that both the Kahramanmaraş 2023 events initiated cascading instabilities, with dynamic stress transfers propagating rupture across fault patches. High-frequency (>10 Hz) P-wave pulses mark transitions between patches, identified via accelerometric waveform analysis. Our findings support the idea that even minor stress perturbations can trigger near-instantaneous dynamic ruptures, posing implications for early-warning algorithms.