Activation of Ms 6.9 Milin Earthquake on Sedongpu Disaster Chain, China with Multi-Temporal Optical Images

Abstract

In recent years, disaster chains caused by glacier movements have occurred frequently in the lower Yarlung Tsangpo River in southwest China. However, it is still unclear whether earthquakes significantly contribute to glacier movements and disaster chains. In addition, it is difficult to measure the high-frequency and large gradient displacement time series with optical remote sensing images due to cloud coverage. To this end, we take the Sedongpu disaster chain as an example, where the Milin earthquake, with an epicenter 11 km away, occurred on 18 November 2017. Firstly, to deal with the cloud coverage problem for single optical remote sensing analysis, we employed multiple platform optical images and conducted a cross-platform correlation technique to invert the two-dimensional displacement rate and the cumulative displacement time series of the Sedongpu glacier. To reveal the correlation between earthquakes and disaster chains, we divided the optical images into three classes according to the Milin earthquake event. Lastly, to increase the accuracy and reliability, we propose two strategies for displacement monitoring, that is, a four-quadrant block registration strategy and a multi-window fusion strategy. Results show that the RMSE reduction percentage of the proposed registration method reaches 80%, and the fusion method can retrieve the large magnitude displacements and complete displacement field. Secondly, the Milin earthquake accelerated the Sedongpu glacier movement, where the pre-seismic velocities were less than 0.5 m/day, the co-seismic velocities increased to 1 to 6 m/day, and the post-seismic velocities decreased to 0.5 to 3 m/day. Lastly, the earthquake had a triggering effect around 33 days on the Sedongpu disaster chain event on 21 December 2017. The failure pattern can be summarized as ice and rock collapse in the source area, large magnitude glacier displacement in the moraine area, and a large volume of sediment in the deposition area, causing a river blockage.