Shallow destructive earthquakes

Depths of earthquake occurrence and large slip distribution are critical for seismic hazard assessment.Numerous examples show that earthquakes with similar magnitudes,however,can result in significantly different ground shaking and damage.One of the critical factors is that whether the large slip was generated near the ground surface.In this article,we reviewed two aspects that are important on this regard,shallow slip deficit and nucleation depth.Understanding how shallow future earthquakes may nucleate in particular regions,such as shale gas fields,is critical for hazard assessment.Whether or not a strong earthquake may slip significantly at shallow depths(less than 3 km)plays crucial rules in seismic hazard preparation and should be further investigated by integrating high-resolution fault zone observations,dynamic rupture simulation,and fault zone properties.Moreover,precisely resolving shallow depth and slip distribution of earthquakes demands InSAR and/or other image data that can better capture the near-fault deformation to constrain the source parameters of earthquakes.

Ground motion prediction equations based on shallow crustal earthquakes in Georgia and the surrounding Caucasus

Strong ground motions caused by earthquakes with magnitudes ranging from 3.5 to 6.9 and hypocentral distances of up to 300km were recorded by local broadband stations and three-component accelerograms within Georgia’s enhanced digital seismic network.Such data mixing is particularly effective in areas where strong ground motion data are lacking.The data were used to produce models based on ground-motion prediction equations(GMPEs),one benefit of which is that they take into consideration information from waveforms across a wide range of frequencies.In this study,models were developed to predict ground motions for peak ground acceleration and 5%-damped pseudo-absolute-acceleration spectra for periods between 0.01 and 10 s.Short-period ground motions decayed faster than long-period motions,though decay was still in the order of approximately 1/r.Faulting mechanisms and local soil conditions greatly influence GMPEs.The spectral acceleration(SA)of thrust faults was higher than that for either strike-slip or normal faults but the influence of strike-slip faulting on SA was slightly greater than that for normal faults.Soft soils also caused significantly more amplification than rocky sites.

Geographical distribution of hypocentral depths of Chinese earthquakes

The hypocentral depths of more than 200 Chinese earthquakes, of magnitudes from M 8.6 to M 3.0, are calculated from macroseismic data carried on earthquake catalogs, by using the formula for macroseismic hypocentral depths and the formula for general solution of macroseismic hypocentral depths. The results are plotted on maps to show their geographical distribution. It can be seen that most Chinese earthquakes are shollow ones. Of the 200 earthquakes calculated, 162(81.0%) hypocenters are shallower than 9 km, of which 111 (55.5%) hypocenters are shallower than 5 km. Such shallow earthquakes are mostly distributed in the provinces near to the North South Earthquake Belt, while the rest are scattered in the other provinces(except Zhejiang province). Earthquakes of medium(between 10 and 20 km) depth are relatively few (32 in number, 15.0%); they are distributed along the North South Earthquake Belt, and the western part of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and in provinces Shaanxi, Shanxi and Shandong (along the Tanlu Fracture Zone, crossing the sea to northeast China). Deep earthquakes are rare, being scattered in south Yunnan and the east end of Inner Mongolia Uygur Autonomous Region.

An overview on shallow strong earthquake activity and earthquake live losses of Chinese mainland in the centenary from 1901 to 2001

This paper reviews and analyses briefly the general characteristics of shallow strong earthquakes (MS≥6.0, focal depth h≤70 km) in space, time and magnitude and earthquake fatalities of Chinese mainland in the centenary from 1901 to 2001. During the period from 1901 to 2001, there occurred about 420 strong shallow earthquakes with magnitude MS≥6.0, 88% of them occurred in the western part of the Chinese mainland, which might be related to the strong deformation and motion of the active blocks in the western part. The average focal depth (25 km) in the western part is deeper than that (16 km) in the eastern part, which might be related to obviously thicker crust in the western part. The inhomogeneous distribution of focal depths with the depth profile is related to the variation of frictional and rheologic characteristics with depth in the crust. The shallow strong earthquake activity of Chinese mainland shows a tempo-spatial clustering process. The relation between earthquake magnitude MS and cumulative frequency Nc is lgNc=8.64–0.99MS. About 600 000 people died in the earthquakes of Chinese mainland from 1901 to 2001, the most serious earthquake live losses occurred in Hebei Province (250 723 people died) and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (246 269 died). There is no a statistically linear relationship between earthquake live losses and magnitudes. The statistical relationship between the earthquake deaths D and cumulative frequency Nc is lgNc=2.40–0.39lgD, which shows a fractal distribution.