A study on the seismogenic structure of the 2016 Zaduo, Qinghai Ms6.2 earthquake using InSAR technology

On October 17th, 2016, a Ms6,2 earthquake occurred in Zaduo County of Qinghai Province, China. The aim of this study is to use synthetic aperture radar （SAR） technology aboard the Sentinel-lA satellite to obtain high-resolution co-seismic surface displacement data and then to confirm the geometric parameters of the fault and slip distribution model. To this end, linear and non-linear inversion algorithms based on an elastic half-space dislocation model were used. The results showed that a distributed slip model can explain the surface deformation field measured by InSAR very well. The surface deformation field caused by the earthquake was an oval-shaped region of subsidence with a maximum displacement of 5 cm along the line of sight of the radar waves. This earthquake was mainly the result of a normal-slip fault process with 72°N strike and 65% dip. The slip was mainly concentrated at depths of 9-15 kin. The maximum slip was 0.17 m, located at a depth of 12 km. The moment magnitude given by inversion was Mw5.9. This was basically in agreement with the moment magnitudes and surface magnitudes measured by USGS and CENC.

Research on Deformation Mode of the Longmenshan-Longriba Region Using GPS and Leveling Data

The Longmenshan-Longriba region is located on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, and is an ideal place to study the eastward extrusion and uplift mechanism of the plateau. Previous studies on this area mainly focused on tectonic activity and seismic hazard, with few studies giving its overall deformation characteristics and dynamic mechanism. This paper uses the latest dense GPS data, combined with precise Leveling data to analyze the kinematic characteristics and deformation mode of the Longmenshan fault zone (LMSF) and the Longriba fault zone (LRBF). The results show that both the Longmenshan fault zone and the Longriba fault zone have certain right-lateral strike-slip and thrusting, indicating that they play an important role in adjusting strain distribution and absorbing tectonic deformation;The strain-rate field on the Longriba fault zone is broadly distributed, suggesting that the deformation field is at least partially coupled;while the strain-rate field on the Longmenshan fault zone presents a non-uniform distribution, indicating different dynamic sources acting on segments. The high strain rate areas revealed in this study points us to the high-risk area for future earthquakes. The present-day vertical motion velocity field in the region obtained from Leveling and GPS data shows a mismatch between the regional deformation field and active tectonics, which can be explained by the incomplete coupling of deformation between the lower and upper crust.

The June 2022 Khost earthquake in southeastern Afghanistan:A complicated shallow slip event revealed with InSAR

On June 22,2022,the Mw6.2 earthquake in southeastern Afghanistan caused a severe disaster.We used the Sentinel-1A ascending and descending track images of the European Space Agency and interferometric synthetic aperture radar(In SAR)to obtain the coseismic surface deformation field of the earthquake,which showed that the earthquake caused complex ruptures of multiple faults and various types.Using the dislocation model of the elastic half-space,we determined the focal parameters and slip distribution on the fault plane of this event.The results reveal that:(1)the seismogenic fault of this event is an unknown fault on the northeastern edge of the Katawaz microblock;(2)The slip on the fault plane is mainly in the range of 0—8 km along the dip,with maximum slips about 2 m at a depth of 2 km,which projected on the surface is 69.44°E,32.96°N.This event suggests that,similar to the Chaman,Ghazaband and other large faults,the faults inside the microblock also play an important role in adjusting for the collision stress between India and Europe.

Present-day tectonic activity along the central section of the AltynTagh fault derived from time series InSAR

The Altyn Tagh Fault(ATF) is a large-scale complex tectonic system. In this study, the present-day crustal deformation of the central section of the ATF(90.8E-91.58E) was obtained using 14 images on a descending track acquired between 2007 and 2010 from Advanced Land Observing Satellite(ALOS). To improve the accuracy of the interferograms, ALOS World 3 De30 m(AW3 D-30)Digital Surface Model(DSM) from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency was used in Small Baseline Subset(SBAS) Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar(InSAR) processing. The Line of Sight(LOS) deformation map show that there is an obvious zoning feature. With the main ATF as the boundary, the north block is concentrated around -35~ -60 mm, and the south block is concentrated around -9 ~ 11 mm. Based on the InSAR velocity map, we inverted for the strike-slip rate and locking depth of the fault using the twodimensional strike-slip fault buried-dislocation model. The inversion results for the strike-slip rate at three selected cross-section locations perpendicular to the ATF were 6.1 mm/a, 5.3 mm/a and 7.9 mm/a from west to east;the corresponding locking depths were 9.5 km, 6.8 km and 12.3 km from west to east.The location and trend of the fault obtained by inversion are coincides with the Xorkol seismic belt.