Rapid report of the 8 January 2022 M_(S)6.9 Menyuan earthquake,Qinghai,China

The M_(S)6.9 Menyuan earthquake in Qinghai Province,west China is the largest earthquake by far in 2022.The earthquake occurs in a tectonically active region,with a background b-value of 0.87 within 100 km of the epicenter that we derived from the unified catalog produced by China Earthquake Networks Center since late 2008.Field surveys have revealed surface ruptures extending 22 km along strike,with a maximum ground displacement of 2.1 m.We construct a finite fault model with constraints from In SAR observations,which showed multiple fault segments during the Menyuan earthquake.The major slip asperity is confined within 10 km at depth,with the maximum slip of 3.5 m.Near real-time back-projection results of coseismic radiation indicate a northwest propagating rupture that lasted for~10 s.Intensity estimates from the back-projection results show up to a Mercalli scale of IX near the ruptured area,consistent with instrumental measurements and the observations from the field surveys.Aftershock locations(up to January 21,2022)exhibit two segments,extending to~20 km in depth.The largest one reaches M_(S)5.3,locating near the eastern end of the aftershock zone.Although the location and the approximate magnitude of the mainshock had been indicated by previous studies based on paleoearthquake records and seismic gap,as well as estimated stressing rate on faults,significant surfacebreaching rupture leads to severe damage of the high-speed railway system,which poses a challenge in accurately assessing earthquake hazards and risks,and thus demands further investigations of the rupture behaviors for crustal earthquakes.

Source of the 2019 M_(W)6.9 Banten Intraslab earthquake modelled with GPS data inversion

The 2019 M_(W)6.9 Banten Intraslab earthquake occurred at~100 km to the northeast of the Sunda Trench with two nodal plane models estimated by the Global Centroid-Moment-Tensor(GCMT)Project with a strike of 200°and a dip of 65°.Continuous GPS data from 11 GPS sites were used to model the source of the earthquake in three-components.The coseismic displacements and its uncertainties are obtained from the coordinates of these GPS sites from 7 days before to 7 days after the earthquake.The coseismic slip is the inversion result of those displacements based on the best fit in an elastic half-space.The maximum displacement is~5 cm with a large uncertainty that is comparable to the amplitude of displacement.A seismic moment of the best model(strike of 65°and dip of 54°)is 2.79×10^(19) Nm or equivalent to M_(W)6.89.The fault model of the earthquake is highly presumed as a continuation of Sumatran Fault Zone.