**Abstract**

On February 27th 2010 occurred the Mw = 8.8 Maule subduction earthquake, filling a seismic gap of south Chile. The uplift trend is mostly typical for subduction earthquakes with decreasing uplift trend from trench to arc in Andes Cordillera. However local perturbations occurred due to the reactivations of crustal faults occurred such as Pichilemu fault (normal), Santa María fault (normal) and Tirua-Mocha fault (reverse). Different kind of faults and seismic behavior evidence complex stress distribution at the overriding South American Plate. In this paper, the activity and seismicity linked of some crustal faults at Maule earthquake rupture área are considered, and the related seismic potential that can increase the seismic hazard. Some questions are the bigger magnitude that can generate these faults and if their activity is related to the interseismic or coseismic phases of the subduction seismic cycle.

**Keywords:** earthquakes, crustal, faults, Chile, seismicity
