Search

The Türkiye-Syria earthquake doublet of 6 February 2023 (Mw 7.8 at 01:17 UTC and Mw 7.6 at 10:24 UTC) resulted in extensive damage and tens of thousands of casualties. We present the surface displacements of the two earthquakes from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) offset tracking measurements. We extracted the geometric parameters of the rupture faults from the surface displacements and early aftershock distribution, based on which we inverted the coseismic slip distributions. We then calculated Coulomb stress to investigate the triggering relationship between the earthquakes and stress transfer to neighbouring faults and regions. The coseismic ruptures of the earthquake doublet were predominantly left-lateral strike-slip motions distributed between 0 and 15 km depth. The maximum fault slip reached > 8 m (Mw 7.8) and almost 10 m (Mw 7.6). The coseismic deformation and fault slip motion are consistent with the overall westward extrusion of the Anatolian Plate relative to the Eurasian and Arabian plates. The Mw 7.8 earthquake increased Coulomb failure stress at the hypocenter of the Mw 7.6 earthquake, implying that the Mw 7.8 event had a strong positive causative effect. Moreover, coseismic stress perturbations revealed a positive Coulomb stress effect on the middle Puturge Fault, northern Dead Sea Fault Zone (DSFZ), Yesemek Fault, Antakya Fault, and Turkoglu Fault, indicating an increasing seismic hazard in these regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2019 Ridgecrest, California earthquake sequence ruptured along a complex fault system and triggered seismic and aseismic slips on intersecting faults. To characterize the surface rupture kinematics and fault slip distribution, we used optical images and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) observations to reconstruct the displacement caused by the earthquake sequence. We further calculated curl and divergence from the north-south and east-west components, to effectively identify the surface rupture traces. The results show that the major seismogenic fault had a length of ~55 km and strike of 320 ° and consisted of five secondary faults. On the basis of the determined multiple-fault geometries, we inverted the coseismic slip distributions by InSAR measurements, which indicates that the Mw7.1 mainshock was dominated by the right-lateral strike-slip (maximum strike-slip of ~5.8 m at the depth of ~7.5 km), with a small dip-slip component (peaking at ~1.8 m) on an east-dipping fault. The Mw6.4 foreshock was dominated by the left-lateral strike-slip on a north-dipping fault. These earthquakes triggered obvious aseismic creep along the Garlock fault (117.3° W–117.5° W). These results are consistent with the rupture process of the earthquake sequence, which featured a complicated cascading rupture rather than a single continuous rupture front propagating along multiple faults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We obtained high-resolution (10 m) horizontal displacement fields from pre- and post-seismic Sentinel-2 optical images of the 2018 Mw7.5 Palu earthquake using subpixel image correlation. From these, we calculated the curl, divergence, and shear strain fields from the north-south (NS) and east-west (EW) displacement fields. Our results show that the surface rupture produced by the event was distributed within the Sulawesi neck (0.0974–0.6632°S) and Palu basin (0.8835–1.4206°S), and had a variable strike of 313.0–355.2° and strike slip of 2.00–6.62 m. The NS and EW displacement fields within the Palu basin included fine-scale displacements in both the near- and far-fault, the deformation patterns included a small restraining bend (localized shortening), a distributed rupture zone, and a major releasing bend (net extension) from the curl, divergence, and shear strain. Surface rupture was dominated by left-lateral strike-slip from initiation to termination, with a localized normal slip component peaking at ~3.75 m. The characteristics and geometric variation of the ruptured fault controlled both the formation of these surface deformation patterns and sustained supershear rupture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the crustal deformation and interseismic fault coupling along the strike-slip Kunlun fault, northern Tibet, whose western segment ruptured in the 2001 Mw 7.8 Kokoxili earthquake. We first integrated published Global Positioning System (GPS) velocity solutions and calculated strain rate fields covering the Kunlun fault. Our results show abnormally high post-earthquake strain rate values across the ruptures; furthermore, these exceed those in pre-earthquake data. Together with two tracks of interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) observations (2003–2010) and position time-series data from two continuous GPS sites, we show that the postseismic deformation of the Kokoxili earthquake may continue up to 2014; and that the postseismic transients of the earthquake affect the 2001–2014 GPS velocity solutions. We then processed the GPS data observed in 2014–2017 and obtained a dense interseismic velocity field for the northern Tibet. Using a fault dislocation model in a Bayesian framework, we estimated the slip rates and fault coupling on the Kunlun fault in 1991–2001 and 2014–2017. Results show an increase of slip rates and eastward migration of high fault coupling on the Kunlun fault after 2001. We propose the temporal variations are a result of the eastward accelerating movement, as a whole, of the Bayanhar block, whose boundaries were decoupled by several large earthquakes since 1997. Moreover, our results show the accumulated elastic strains along the Alake Lake-Tuosuo Lake segments could be balanced by an Mw 7.4–7.7 earthquake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]