Far-field deformations caused by the 2004 Sumatra earthquake

Theoretical horizontal displacements caused by the 2004 Sumatra earthquake in the Sichuan-Yunnan area have been calculated according to a spherical dislocation theory and an earthquake-fault model. The results show that the theoretical displacements are basically consistent with the GPS observations in situ. On this basis,we have calculated the co-seismic displacements, strains, changes of gravity and geoid of the whole Earth, including China mainland and vicinity, caused by this earthquake. Key wards：

Mechanism of the June 4, 2000 Southern Sumatra, Indonesia, earthquake

Mechanism of the June 4, 2000 southern Sumatra, Indonesia, earthquake (MS=8.0) are estimated from teleseismic body waves recorded by long period seismograph stations of the global seismic network. This solution is more reasonable than those reported by USGS, Harvard CMT and ERI of University of Tokyo. The best double-couple component of this earthquake is 1.51021 Nm, the compensated linear vector dipole component is 1.21020 Nm, and the explosion component is 5.91019 Nm. The focal mechanism is mainly left-lateral strike-slip, with a small thrust component. Nodal plane I: The strike is 199? the dip, 82? and the rake, 5? Nodal plane II: The strike is 109? the dip, 85, and the rake, 172. P axis: The azimuth is 154 and the plunge, 2; T axis: The azimuth is 64 and the plunge, 10; B axis: The azimuth is 256 and the plunge, 80. The P-waveforms recorded at different stations show prominent directivity. The directivity shows that the Nodal plane I is the fault plane, and that the earthquake ruptured unilaterally from the northeast to the southwest, nearly perpendicular to the strike of the Java trench.

Co-seismic fault geometry and slip distribution of the 26 December 2004, giant Sumatra–Andaman earthquake constrained by GPS, coral reef, and remote sensing data

We analyze co-seismic displacement field of the 26 December 2004, giant Sumatra–Andaman earthquake derived from Global Position System observations,geological vertical measurement of coral head, and pivot line observed through remote sensing. Using the co-seismic displacement field and AK135 spherical layered Earth model, we invert co-seismic slip distribution along the seismic fault. We also search the best fault geometry model to fit the observed data. Assuming that the dip angle linearly increases in downward direction, the postfit residual variation of the inversed geometry model with dip angles linearly changing along fault strike are plotted. The geometry model with local minimum misfits is the one with dip angle linearly increasing along strike from 4.3oin top southernmost patch to 4.5oin top northernmost path and dip angle linearly increased. By using the fault shape and geodetic co-seismic data, we estimate the slip distribution on the curved fault. Our result shows that the earthquake ruptured ＊200-km width down to a depth of about 60 km.0.5–12.5 m of thrust slip is resolved with the largest slip centered around the central section of the rupture zone78N–108N in latitude. The estimated seismic moment is8.2 9 1022 N m, which is larger than estimation from the centroid moment magnitude（4.0 9 1022 N m）, and smaller than estimation from normal-mode oscillation data modeling（1.0 9 1023 N m）.

The December 26, 2004, off the west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia, M_W=9.0, earthquake and the critical-point-like model of earthquake preparation

Long-term seismic activity prior to the December 26, 2004, off the west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia, MW=9.0 earthquake was investigated using the Harvard CMT catalogue. It is observed that before this great earth-quake, there exists an accelerating moment release (AMR) process with the temporal scale of a quarter century and the spatial scale of 1 500 km. Within this spatial range, the MW=9.0 event falls into the piece-wise power-law-like frequency-magnitude distribution. Therefore, in the perspective of the critical-point-like model of earthquake preparation, the failure to forecast/predict the approaching and/or the size of this earthquake is not due to the physically intrinsic unpredictability of earthquakes.