Seismic active faults in the northwestern Beijing by seismic tomography

Using the arrival times of 197 earthquakes well recorded by the Beijing Seismic Network and the China-Germany cooperative Yanqing Digital Seismic Array in the period from October of 2001 to December of 2005, we accurately relocate these earthquakes by the joint-inversion program for hypocentral position and 3-D velocity structure The distribution of hypocenters shows that there are two major seismic active belts in the northwestern Beijing. The first belt stretches from Qinghe, Wenquan to the NW direction and the second extends from Nankou, Changping to the ENE direction.

The Kangding earthquake swarm of November, 2014

There was an earthquake swarm of two major events of MS6.3 and MS5.8 on the Xianshuihe fault in November, 2014. The two major earthquakes are both strike-slip events with aftershock zone along NW direction.We have analyzed the characteristics of this earthquake sequence. The b value and the h value show the significant variations in different periods before and after the MS5.8earthquake. Based on the data of historical earthquakes, we also illustrated the moderate-strong seismic activity on the Xianshuihe fault. The Kangding earthquake swarm manifests the seismic activity on Xianshuihe fault may be in the late seismic active period. The occurrence of the Kangding earthquake may be an adjustment of the strong earthquakes on the Xianshuihe fault. The Coulomb failure stress changes caused by the historical earthquakes were also given in this article. The results indicate that the earthquake swarm was encouraged by the historical earthquakes since1893, especially by the MS7.5 Kangding earthquake in1955. The Coulomb failure stress changes also shows the subsequent MS5.8 earthquake was triggered by the MS6.3earthquake.

Some Problems Concerning Geologic Structure with Double Layers in Urban Underground Lifeline Engineering

Underground lifeline engineering (ULE for short) in modern city demands the appreciation of an active fault in buried bedrock . Generally speaking , a large number of urban geological textures of a basement may all be simplified into a dual geological texture model , i. e., the upper part of the basement consists of loose covering layer and the lower part consists of bedrock . The study of an active fault should include three parts of contents , i . e ., to determine the lower time limit of activity of the fault , and the time limit must be recognized by both of designing engineers and geologists ; on the basis of the studies of repetition periods of earthquake occurrence to deter mine whether the fault moves or not during the allowed time of efficacy of buildings and constructions ; for the sake of engineering practice , the active rate of the fault must be given . The fault with different active mechanism has different effects on the ULE . The authors studied the effect of lateral non-uniform overburden site on the ULE by means of the supersonic earthquake modelling . Owing to the lateral non - uniformity of the covering sediments , there occurs an obvious jump of amplitude of the seismic wave propagation near the contact surface between two different sedi ments . In addition , from the modelling experiment curves it may be seen that the different focus mechanisms and different medium characters may also exert an effect in different degrees .

Late Quaternary Activity of the Central-North Segment of the Taihang Mountains Piedmont Fault Zone

The location and late Quaternary activity of the Central-North Segment of the Taihang Mountains Piedmont fault zone have been studied by shallow seismic survey and combined drill exploration.Our results show that the Baoding-Shijiazhuang fault and the Xushui fault were active in the late Pleistocene,but the south Xushui fault has been inactive since the late Pleistocene.The maximum magnitude of potential earthquake of the faults is 6.0.