[1] The seismic hazard in the immediate vicinity of an earthquake is usually assumed to be reduced after rupture of a continental fault, with along-strike portions being brought closer to failure and aftershocks being significantly smaller. This period of reduced hazard will persist as strain re-accumulates over decades or centuries. However, this is only realised if the entire seismogenic layer ruptured in the event. Here we use satellite radar measurements to show the ruptures of two M w 6.3 earthquakes, occurring in almost the same epicentral location ten months apart in the Qaidam region, China, were nearly coplanar. The 2008 earthquake ruptured the lower half of the seismogenic layer, the 2009 event the upper half. Fault segmentation with depth allows a significant seismic hazard to remain even after a moderate and potentially devastating earthquake. This depth segmentation possibly exists in the case of the 2003 Bam earthquake where satellite radar and aftershock measurements showed that it ruptured only the upper half of the 15-20 km deep seismogenic region , and that the lower, unruptured part may remain as a continuing seismic hazard.
The ascending and descending interferometric synthetic aperture radar data are used to investigate the fault rupture and slip model of the 2018 Mw 7.5 Sulawesi, Indonesia, earthquake. The best fitting slip model indicates that this earthquake ruptured not only a segment extending the Palu fault to the north but also a northwestern segment offshore. The slip on the onshore fault is predominant left‐lateral strike slip. The slip on the offshore fault is dominated by normal faulting with a maximum slip of ~6.3 m. The newly discovered offshore normal faulting is likely to be the cause of the tsunami after the shock. Combined with previous geomorphic, tectonic, geodetic, and modeling studies, we suggest that the kinematics of the Palu fault maintained the same style of faulting from north to south, which resulted from an oblique extension occurred on an east dipping fault at depths. The deformation pattern of NW Sulawesi is dominated by this slip mechanism.
The 2013 Mw6.8 Lushan, China earthquake occurred in the southwestern end of the Longmenshan fault zone. We jointly invert local strong motion data and geodetic measurements of coseismic surface deformation, including GPS and InSAR, to obtain a robust model of the rupture process of the 2013 Lushan earthquake. Our joint inversion best model involves the rupture of two opposing faults during the Lushan earthquake, a main fault and a secondary fault. It is only when the secondary fault is included that both the GPS and InSAR measurements are fit along with the near-field strong motion. Over 75% of the computed moment was released in slip on the main fault segment, a northwest dipping, listric thrust fault, with buried thrust and dextral strike-slip at hypocenter depths, and with only minor slip closer to the surface. The secondary fault mainly involved oblique thrust slip or pure dextral strike-slip at shallower depths, and accounts for just under 24% of the moment released in the Lushan earthquake. Coulomb stress changes of about 0.5 MPa on the secondary fault segment at the time coseismic slip initiated on that fault indicate that slip was likely triggered by the coseismic slip on the main blind thrust fault. Our coseismic slip model is consistent with a sub-horizontal and east-west to southeast-northwest trending most compressive stress. Our inferred coseismic slip model is also consistent with previous GPS derived models of strain accumulation on the Longmenshan fault system.
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