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On April 20, 2013, an M7.0 earthquake occurred in Ya'an-Lushan region, Sichuan Province, China, killing and injuring more than one thousand people. Therefore, it is critical to outline the areas with potential aftershocks before reconstruction and re-settlement as to avoid future disasters. Based on the elastic dislocation theory and multi-layered lithospheric model, we calculate the co- and post-seismic stress changes caused by the Wenchuan and Lushan earthquakes to discuss the relationship between M7.9 Wenchuan earthquake and M7.0 Lushan earthquake, the influences on the distribution of aftershock caused by the Lushan earthquake, and the stress changes on major faults in this region. It is shown that the Coulomb failure stress increment on the hypocenter of Lushan earthquake caused by the Wenchuan earthquake is about 0.0037-0.0113 MPa. And the possible maximum value (0.0113 MPa) is larger than the threshold of stress triggering. Therefore, the occurrence of Lushan earthquake is probably effectively promoted by the Wenchuan earthquake. The aftershock distribution is well explained by the co-seismic stress changes of Lushan earthquake. By the two ends of the rupture of Lushan earthquake with increased Coulomb failure stress, a lack of aftershock recordings indicates the high seismic hazard. The stress accumulation and corresponding seismic hazard on the Kangding-Dafu segment of the Xinshuihe fault, the Beichuan-Yingxiu fault, the Pengxian-Guanxian fault, and the Ya'an fault are further increased by the Lushan earthquake and post-seismic process of Wenchuan earthquake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On April 20, 2013 at 8:02 am, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake occurred in Lushan County, Sichuan Province, China, which induces massive landslides, causes great losses to life and property. Based on the locations of aftershocks provided by the China Earthquake Network Center and the characteristic of Longmenshan active faults system, combined with the current preliminary focal mechanism solution, the fault rupture direction is determined. With the finite fault inversion method, we invert the rupture process of the Lushan M7.0 earthquake by teleseismic waveforms data. The inversion results indicate that the main shock is dominated by thrust fault component and the rupture initiated at depth of 15 km, and most of slip ruptured around the hypocenter with the peak slip of about 1.5 m. Most of rupture slips released at the first 20 s and the main rupture occurred at the first 10 s after the onsets of the mainshock. Most of seismic energy released near the hypocenter with a length of 28 km, especially on both sides of the hypocenter with the range of 20 km, and the seismic energy released relatively smaller in other areas. There is a large area with weak slip between the main rupture and another two asperities on both sides of the hypocenter; it may imply that the accumulated strain on the rupture fault has not been completely released. Therefore, there is a significant possibility of having strong aftershocks in the areas where energy is not fully released. This is also the main reason why there are a lot of moderate to strong aftershocks in the Lushan aftershock sequence. In addition, there is an earthquake vacant zone with a length of about 50 km between the Wenchuan M7.9 earthquake and this event, which is of high earthquake risk and is deserved to be paid close attention to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]