We catalog and relocate Aleutian arc seismicity. Between 1957 and 1991, two great earthquakes ruptured the same 250-km-long portion of the central Aleutian arc: the 1957 Aleutian Islands earthquake and the 1986 Andreanof Islands earthquake. Because accurate estimates of the moment distribution of the 1957 earthquake are not available, the spatial distribution of aftershocks for each of these events is compared and tested against models describing the modes of occurrence of great subduction zone earthquakes. Earthquake relocations are based on P wave arrival times published in the International Seismological Summary, the Bureau Central International Seismologique, and the International Seismological Centre bulletins and include corrections for the near-source velocity structure associated with the down-going slab. Magnitude estimates are extracted from bulletins and prior to 1964 are estimated by us from microfilmed records.

Our catalog is complete above magnitude 5.5. Aftershocks associated with the 1957 and 1986 earthquakes appear to occur in different areas. East of the main shock epicenters, aftershock locations are anticorrelated. West of the main shock epicenter, aftershocks of the 1986 earthquake tended to concentrate along the updip edge of aftershock clusters associated with the 1957 earthquake. If we assume aftershocks rim the distribution of seismic moment release associated with each event, these observations imply that the moment distribution of the 1986 earthquake was different from that of the 1957 earthquake. This suggests that we should use caution in identifying mechanically strong portions of a fault, asperities, by simply mapping the moment distribution of a single great earthquake. A fundamental tenet of the asperity model, that rupture always occurs on the strongest portions of the fault with weaker portions rupturing either aseismically or dynamically as a result of rupture on a strong fault patch, may in the case of the central Aleutian arc not be correct. Thus observing the moment distribution from a single great earthquake may tell us little about what the distribution of moment release will look like during the next earthquake. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1995