Stress changes on major faults caused by 2013 Lushan earthquake and its relationship with 2008 Wenchuan earthquake

On April 20, 2013, an Ms7.0 earthquake occurred in Ya'an-Lushan region, Sichuan Province, China, killing and injuring morethan one thousand people. Therefore, it is critical to outline the areas with potential aftershocks before reconstruction andre-settlement as to avoid future disasters. Based on the elastic dislocation theory and multi-layered lithospheric model, we calculate the co-and post-seismic stress changes caused by the Wenchuan and Lushan earthquakes to discuss the relationshipbetween Mw7.9 Wenchuan earthquake and Ms7.0 Lushan earthquake, the influences on the distribution of aftershock caused bythe Lushan earthquake, and the stress changes on major faults in this region. It is shown that the Coulomb failure stress increment on the hypocenter of Lushan earthquake caused by the Wenchuan earthquake is about 0.0037-0.0113 MPa. And the possible maximum value (0.0113 MPa) is larger than the threshold of stress triggering. Therefore, the occurrence of Lushanearthquake is probably effectively promoted by the Wenchuan earthquake. The aftershock distribution is well explained by theco-seismic stress changes of Lushan earthquake. By the two ends of the rupture of Lushan earthquake with increased Coulombfailure stress, a lack of aftershock recordings indicates the high seismic hazard. The stress accumulation and correspondingseismic hazard on the Kangding-Dafu segment of the Xinshuihe fault, the Beichuan-Yingxiu fault, the Pengxian-Guanxianfault, and the Ya'an fault are further increased by the Lushan earthquake and post-seismic process of Wenchuan earthquake.

Crustal and upper mantle structure and the deep seismogenic environment in the source regions of the Lushan earthquake and the Wenchuan earthquake

Following the M w 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake, the M w 6.6 Lushan earthquake is another devastating earthquake that struck the Longmenshan Fault Zone (LFZ) and caused severe damages. In this study, we collected continuous broadband ambient noise seismic data and earthquake event data from Chinese provincial digital seismic network, and then utilized ambient noise tomography method and receiver function method to obtain high resolution shear wave velocity structure, crustal thickness, and Poisson ratio in the earthquake source region and its surroundings. Based on the tomography images and the receiver function results, we further analyzed the deep seismogenic environment of the LFZ and its neighborhood. We reveal three main findings: (1) There is big contrast of the shear wave velocities across the LFZ. (2) Both the Lushan earthquake and the Wenchuan earthquake occurred in the regions where crustal shear wave velocity and crustal thickness change dramatically. The rupture faults and the aftershock zones are also concentrated in the areas where the lateral gradients of crustal seismic wave speed and crustal thickness change significantly, and the focal depths of the earthquakes are concentrated in the transitional depths where shear wave velocities change dramatically from laterally uniform to laterally non-uniform. (3) The Wenchuan earthquake and its aftershocks occurred in low Poisson ratio region, while the Lushan earthquake sequences are located in high Poisson ratio zone. We proposed that the effect of the dramatic lateral variation of shear wave velocity, and the gravity potential energy differences caused by the big contrast in the topography and the crustal thickness across the LFZ may constitute the seismogenic environment for the strong earthquakes in the LFZ, and the Poisson ratio difference between the rocks in the south and north segments of the Longmenshan Fault zone may explain the 5 years delay of the occurrence of the Lushan earthquake than the Wenchuan earthquake.

Source parameters inversion of the 2013 Lushan earthquake by combining teleseismic waveforms and local seismograms

On April 20, 2013, a magnitude M s 7.0 earthquake occurred in Lushan, Sichuan Province, China, and caused heavy casualties and economic losses. Based on the local broadband waveforms in Sichuan and adjacent provinces regional networks and teleseismic broadband records from IRIS stations, the focal mechanism and the focal depth are determined by the CAP (Cut And Paste) and its upgraded methods, CAPtele and CAPjoint, respectively. The results show that the focal mechanisms and depth from different methods are steady, and the best double couple solution derived from the joint inversion is 210°, 44°, and 91° for strike, dip, and rake angles respectively for one nodal plane and 29°, 46°, and 89° for another with 16 km focal depth and M w 6.66 moment magnitude. In order to verify the reliability of the results, a number of tests are performed based on local seismograms with different velocity models. They indicate that there is about 10 degree's fluctuation in focal mechanisms and about 2 km variation in focal depth with a complex velocity structure. Furthermore, inverted by re-sampling the teleseismic waveforms on the basis of epicentral distance, the solutions are consistent with each other, which manifests that the teleseismic records are effective for constraining source parameters of the Lushan earthquake.

Rupture process of the M_s 7.0 Lushan earthquake, 2013

On April 20, 2013 at 8：02 am, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake occurred in Lushan County, Sichuan Province, China, which induces massive landslides, causes great losses to life and property. Based on the locations of aftershocks provided by the China Earthquake Network Center and the characteristic of Longmenshan active faults system, combined with the current preliminary focal mechanism solution, the fault rupture direction is determined. With the finite fault inversion method, we invert the rupture process of the Lusban Ms7.0 earthquake by teleseismic waveforms data. The inversion results indicate that the main shock is dominated by thrust fault component and the rupture initiated at depth of 15 km, and most of slip ruptured around the hypocenter with the peak slip of about 1.5 m. Most of rupture slips released at the first 20 s and the main rupture occurred at the first 10 s after the onsets of the mainshock. Most of seismic energy released near the hypocenter with a length of 28 km, especially on both sides of the hypocenter with the range of 20 km, and the seismic energy released relatively smaller in other areas. There is a large area with weak slip between the main rupture and another two asperities on both sides of the hypocenter; it may imply that the accumulated strain on the rupture fault has not been completely released. Therefore, there is a significant possibility of having strong aftershocks in the areas where energy is not fully released. This is also the main reason why there are a lot of moderate to strong aftershocks in the Lushan aftershock sequence. In addition, there is an earthquake vacant zone with a length of about 50 km between the Wenchuan Mw7.9 earthquake and this event, which is of high earthquake risk and is deserved to be paid close attention to.