The 24 June 2026 Earthquake Doublet in Northwestern Venezuela: Joint Hypocentral Determination, Fault-Zone Tomography and Four-Track Sentinel-1 Constraints on Rupture Geometry, Slip and Stress Transfer
Matteo Mangiagalli, Francesco Ottaviani, Marco Alessandrini, Marco MenichettiOn 24 June 2026, two earthquakes struck northwestern Venezuela 39 s apart, according to the ISC Bulletin. We integrate International Seismological Centre data with four-track Sentinel-1 interferometry to constrain the rupture and tectonic setting. Joint hypocentral determination relocated 225 events, all pre-dating the doublet, and reduced travel-time RMS from 1.79 to 1.11 s; no event of the 2026 sequence was relocated. Tomographic recovery tests support broad interpretation at approximately 30 km and coarser. A joint inversion of 10,000 line-of-sight observations on the east–west nodal plane of the reviewed USGS W-phase solution places dextral moment release along the coastal fault system, increasing eastwards. The length scan reaches a misfit plateau beyond 225 km; the preferred 300 × 30 km model gives M0 = 2.51 × 1020 N m (Mw 7.53), 84% of the summed W-phase moment, and peak slip of 2.32 m near 10.55°N, 67.23°W. Synthetic sources of prescribed moment are recovered at 97–124%, so the geodetic moment is reported as a model-dependent estimate. Broad along-strike slip is better resolved than patch-scale amplitude or depth. A warm-started two-plane inversion reduces LOS RMS from 19.79 to 19.46 mm, a 0.33 mm (1.7%) gain, demonstrating source non-uniqueness rather than uniquely separating the subevents. Thirteen conditional first-event stress scenarios give positive median loading at the second hypocentre in twelve cases, with positive medians of +0.31 to +2.35 MPa at effective friction of 0.4. The results are consistent with rapid interaction along the Morón–western San Sebastián plate-boundary system.