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The Outer Western Carpathians represent an accretionary wedge of the Alpine-Himalayan orogenic zone in central Europe, where the Mesozoic and Cenozoic sedimentary (flysch) rocks were deformed and thrust over the European foreland during the Paleogene and Neogene. The thrusting processes terminated in the Upper Miocene, and the contemporary instrumental earthquake distribution records suggest that OWC are already stabilized and belong to the European Plate. This hilly to mountainous region has been intensively affected by various types of shallow slides, debris flows as well as deep-seated slope failures of different magnitudes. Due to the lack of direct evidence of intense seismicity, the permafrost thawing on a turn of the Pleistocene and intense rainfalls in the Holocene have been considered as their principal triggers. However, our current research revealed landforms attributed to the coseismic Holocene polyphase strike-slip faults´ surface ruptures. The associated coseismic sedimentary structures include injected sand and flame structures of fluviolacustrine sediments, large angular boulders in riverbed fluvial sediments, etc. Alongside with those structures and landforms, we documented also evidence for coseismic slope failures in the close surrounding of the faults near Lidečko Village and in the summit area of the Javorníky Mts. in the E part of the Czech Republic and north-western Slovakia, respectively. Several distinct faulting phases with offsets up to a few meters were dated from ca. 10.000 14C ka up to 1240 14C ka BP. Morphological analysis of LiDAR digital elevation models with a 1 m resolution revealed clustered populations of prehistoric presumably coseismic landslides that accompany the fault traces at both sites for a distance up to a couple of kilometres. Field inspections allowed description of their source zones, which were usually several meters up to first tens of meters deep and up to 500 m long. The landslide masses travelled for a distance up to 1-2 km, while being often transformed to debris flows and rock avalanches. They are characteristic with their distinctly depleted source zones at generally gentle slopes ranging from 8 to 20°. The contribution presents the faulting styles, particular events and associated coseismic landslide characteristics in detail and broader regional context, providing the first comprehensive evidence for possible coseismic origin of the deep-seated slope failures in the Outer Western Carpathians.The research was supported by the international bi-lateral project “Earthquake-triggered landslides in recently active and stabilized accretionary wedges” of the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR 22-24206J) and the Taiwanese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST 111-2923-M-008-006-MY3).

Groundwater has been over-pumped and excessive use during the past decades due to the lack of sufficient surface water caused by rapid economic developments and growing population, especially in the central part of Taiwan. The alluvial fan of the Cho-Shui River in Western Taiwan suffers the most serious land subsidence hazard with a maximum subsidence rate in excess of 3 cm/yr which is affecting the transportation infrastructures across the land subsidence area. The long-term spatial land subsidence variation from 1995 to 2020 reveals that the center of land subsidence area changed significantly with time from the coastal area to inland area. The decreasing of land subsidence could obviously be detected by the velocity profile along the Taiwan High Speed Rail during different time periods from geodetic measurements. Not only the vertical displacement increases the risk on potential damage on transportation infrastructures across the land subsidence bowls but also the induced additional horizontal displacement owing to the vertical subsidence could result in the unexpected risk for the infrastructure. In this study, we used the technique of multi-temporal InSAR to calculate the vertical deformation and the east-west deformation combined with the velocity field of the ascending and descending orbits. Three large-scale subsidence bowls are detected and accompanied by maximum additional horizontal deformation of ~8 mm/yr than that predicted by tectonic movement outside of the subsidence bowl. This additional E-W displacement is the major risk concerns of the N-S trending Taiwan High Speed Rail.

Slow-moving landslides can transform into catastrophic landslides at certain conditions. In recent decades, catastrophic landslides around the world have caused widespread damage to buildings and threatened human lives. Thus, the detection of surface displacement variation and the definition of precursory motion for extensive slow-moving landslides become a primary goal of current researches. This study dedicates to detect and monitor surface displacement of multiple slow-moving landslide areas in Taiwan by the multitemporal interferometric SAR (MTInSAR) technique. A new package was established to generate interferograms of multiple slow-moving landslide areas at the same time. Thus, the surface displacement information in large spatial coverage and a long period of time can be obtained efficiently. The landslide characteristics in space and time domain of those slow-moving landslides were investigated and analyzed. Especially, the significant acceleration movements of certain slow-moving landslides were observed and agreed with the in situ monitoring data. The results of this study provide important information of landslide hazard assessment and show the opportunity of detecting the landslide precursory motions by the MTInSAR technique in the future.

While intraslab events in subducting oceanic slabs have been widely studied, intraslab earthquakes in slabs of continent-oceanic transition zones, where lithospheric rheology differs, remain little understood. Here, we investigate the 2006 Pingtung (southwestern Taiwan) offshore intraslab earthquake doublet (Mw 7.0 and Mw 6.9), striking around the northern Manila subduction zone, where the highly thinned continental crust subducts. The two main shocks were at the depth of ~40 – 60 km, below the local MOHO, and ~8 minutes apart. The several source models that have been proposed vary, and do not consider all available observations. In this study, we incorporate comprehensive datasets, including teleseismic body waves, regional broadband, near-field strong motion waveforms, and high-rate GNSS, to propose a new source model, and further discuss source characteristics in the regional tectonic context. We first determine a reliable near-field velocity model and the frequency ranges for waveform inversions by path calibration based on inverting a nearby Mw 5.6 aftershock. We then constrain the multiple point sources (MPS) solutions for both events. The location and fault planes from MPS are used to resolve slip distributions by finite fault inversions. We finally validate this slip model by the static coseismic displacement observed by the dense, near-field campaign GNSS and precise leveling. Our results show that the Mw 7.0 normal event ruptured a west-dipping fault at the depth of ~40 km, characterized by at least two major asperities. This rupture was followed by the deeper Mw 6.9 strike-slip event, located ~40 km to the north. The earthquake sequence was located around a failed rift indicated by seismic tomography and likely represented a reactivation of the faults formed in the mantle lithosphere during the continental rifting in the northern South China Sea margin. The doublet’s complex mechanisms could be explained by stress fields imposed by the subducting transitional crust.

This dataset provides supporting to the research of the 2022Hormozgan doublet earthquakes occurred in southwest Iran. And it mainly includes the coseismic and interseismic surface deformation fields in the seismic zone, the estimated faulting model, and the Coulomb failure stress change on the seismogenic fault of the second main shock due to the first main shock.

The 2019 Mw 6.1 Castillejos earthquake occurred in the Zambales range of the central Luzon Island in Philippines. No active fault was reported around the seismogenic zone according to previous investigations. This earthquake draws attention for assessment in seismic risk along the Marikina Valley fault system (MVFS) near the Manila dense metropolitan population. The Coulomb failure stress (CFS) change on the MVFS is estimated by the coseismic faulting model derived from the inversion of coseismic deformation field observed from the Differential Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar using both the Advanced Land Observing Satellite-2 and Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images. The predicted CFS change is less than 0.5 kPa that implies insignificant Coulomb stress accumulation on the MVFS after the Mw 6.1 Castillejos event. However, the recorded 14 moderate and strong earthquakes in and around the Luzon islands caused significant CFS drop on the MVFS. This might delay the occurrence of the earthquake for 0.2–50 yr on the MVFS.

The 2017 Mw 7.3 Sarpol-e Zahab earthquake is the largest instrumentally recorded event to have ruptured in the Zagros Fold-thrust belt. In this study, we perform multi-temporal interferometry analysis using Sentinel-1 SAR data to investigate changes in postseismic ground deformation at the Earth’s surface and interpret this change in terms of various models including kinematic afterslip, stress-driven afterslip and viscoelastic response. We show that the kinematic afterslip model can explain the postseismic deformation spatiotemporally, while the stress-driven afterslip model tends to underestimate the earlier deformation in the western part of the postseismic deformation field. The viscoelastic response, however, is negligible with the best-fitting viscosity which is on the order of 1019 Pa s. By an integrated analysis of geodetic inversion results, geological cross-section data, regional stratigraphic column and local structures, we infer that the spatial heterogeneity of frictional property of fault plane and/or more complex geological structures may explain the underfitting between the earlier postseismic deformation and the corresponding stress-driven afterslip models. Because the coseismic rupture propagated along a basement-involved fault while the postseismic slip was more likely activated the frontal structures and/or shallower detachments in the sedimentary cover, the 2017 Sarpol-e Zahab earthquake may be evidence of a typical event which contributes both of the thick- and thin-skin shortening of Zagros in both seismic and aseismic way.

SUMMARYAn earthquake with a magnitude of Ms 6.0 and shallow focal depth of ∼4 km struck the Changning county, Sichuan province, China on 2019 June 17. The hypocentre is located in the fold-and-thrust belt with plentiful shale gas and salt mine resources. One hypothesis is that the shallow fault could be affected by the artificial pressure water injection including the disposal of wastewater, fracking shale gas extraction and salt mining in Changning area. In this study, SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) images, historical earthquakes, aftershocks and seismic reflection data were collected to jointly investigate the characteristics of the 2019 Changning earthquake. The source model inferred from the InSAR coseismic deformation observation reveals that the 2019 Changning earthquake is attributed to a blind fault dipping to southwest with dominant thrust and sinistral strike slip. Moreover, a small shallow fault developing within the Changning anticline was triggered by the main shock, which contributed to the surface displacements as observed in the north of the epicentre. The estimated maximum slip of 0.49 m is located at the depth of ∼1.9 km, ∼9 km northwest of the epicentre. The Coulomb failure stress change caused by the previous two large earthquakes, which occurred in the hydraulic fracturing area, suggesting that they have little effect on the initial rupture of the 2019 Changning earthquake. Despite this, they have a positive triggering effect on the fault rupture in the northwest of the seismogenic fault. In addition, the analysis on the relation between the positive Coulomb failure stress change and the aftershocks suggests that the aftershocks may have different motion patterns from the main shock. The analysis also shows the earthquakes occurrence in the seismogenic zone may be affected by the high pore pressure due to the long-term injection of salt mining for more than three decades.

We use interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) observations to investigate the fault geometry and afterslip evolution within 3 years after the mainshock. The postseismic observations favor a ramp-flat structure in which the flat angle should be lower than 10°. The postseismic deformation is dominated by afterslip while the viscoelastic response is negligible. A multi-segment stress-driven afterslip model (hereafter called SA-2 model) with depth-varying frictional properties explains better the spatiotemporal evolution of the postseismic deformation than a two-segment stress-driven afterslip model (hereafter called SA-1 model). Although the SA-2 model does not improve the misfit significantly, this multi-segment fault with depth-varying friction is more physically plausible given the depth-varying mechanical stratigraphy in the region. Compared to the kinematic afterslip model, the mechanical afterslip models with friction variation tend to underestimate early postseismic deformation to the west, which may indicate a more complex fault friction than we expected. Both of the kinematic and stress-driven models can resolve downdip afterslip, although it would be affected by data noises and model resolution. The transition depth of the sedimentary cover-basement interface inferred by afterslip models is ∼12 km in the seismogenic zone, which coincides with the regional stratigraphic profile. Because the coseismic rupture propagated along a basement-involved fault while the postseismic slip may activate the frontal structures and/or shallower detachments in the sedimentary cover, the 2017 Sarpol-e Zahab earthquake may act as a typical event which contributes to both of the thick- and thin-skinned shortening of the Zagros in both seismic and aseismic way.

A new interpretation of the 2016 Meinong earthquake is proposed based on the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites, high-rate GPS and strong motion data. The fault geometry is firstly estimated by the Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) surface deformation data. Then, the coseismic rupture process is inferred through the 1-Hz GPS and strong motion data based on the estimated fault geometry parameters. The InSAR-derived best-fitting fault geometry model suggests that the preferred fault strike and dip angles are 271.7° and 22.7°, respectively. The inferred fault rupture model indicates that the coseismic fault rupture is a mixed motion of thrust and left-strike slip with the maximum slip of ~ 1.0 m, and the high slip area is located at 9–16 km underground. The snapshots demonstrate that the coseismic fault rupture propagation is along the northwest direction, with the entire duration of ~ 16 s. Besides, the InSAR-derived faulting model reflects that the InSAR observation includes the deformation caused by aseismic slip and aftershock. However, the InSAR-derived fault geometry model can significantly contribute to the estimation of the rupture process based on the high-rate GPS and strong motion data.

We here present an example of the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake with its coseismic surface deformation mapped by the ALOS-2 satellite both in the right- and left-looking observation modes. It provides the opportunity to reveal the coseismic surface deformation and to explore the performance of the unusual left-looking data in faulting model inversion. Firstly, three tracks (ascending and descending right-looking and descending left-looking) of ALOS PALSAR-2 images are used to extract the surface deformation fields. It suggests that the displacements measured by the descending left-looking InSAR coincide well with the ascending right-looking track observations. Then, the location and strike angle of the fault are determined from the SAR pixel offset-tracking technique. A complicated four-segment fault geometry is inferred for explaining the coseismic faulting of the Kumamoto earthquake due to the interpretation of derived deformation fields. Quantitative comparisons between models constrained by the right-looking only data and by joint right- and left-looking data suggest that left-looking InSAR could provide comparable constraints for geodetic modelling to right-looking InSAR. Furthermore, the slip model suggests that the series of events are dominated by the dextral strike-slip with some normal fault motions. The fault rupture initiates on the Hinagu fault segment and propagates from southwest to northeast along the Hinagu fault, then transforms to Futagawa fault with a slip maximum of 4.96 m, and finally ends up at ~7 km NW of the Aso caldera, with a rupture length of ~55 km. The talent of left-looking InSAR in surface deformation detection and coseismic faulting inversion indicates that left-looking InSAR can be effectively utilized in the investigation of the geologic hazards in the future, same as right-looking InSAR.

The outward expansion of the northeastern Iranian Plateau is mainly accommodated by a series of widely distributed range-normal thrust and range-parallel strike-slip faults. However, the role of the strike-slip faults in this region's strain-partitioning kinematics remains unclear. The occurrence of the 5 April 2017 Mw 6.1 Mashhad earthquake provides us a rare opportunity to study this topic because this earthquake struck the southern Binalud Mountains, which are experiencing an oblique convergence between the northward-moving Lut Block and the NW-striking Binalud and Kopeh Dagh mountain ranges. We process two paired ascending and descending Sentinel-1A radar-image observations to determine the relative contributions from the dip and strike-dip subcomponents in such an oblique collisional domain. The interferograms along the line-of-sight direction and their converted horizontal and vertical displacements indicate that a thrust with a right-lateral strike-slip fault controlled the rupture process of the Mashhad earthquake, with the maximum dextral shearing and vertical displacements reaching 19.5 cm and 14 cm, respectively. Coseismic surface deformation measurements are also used to estimate the fault geometry and invert the slip distribution along the underlying seismogenic fault. Our best-fit faulting model suggests that the coseismic rupture occurred on a fault plane with a dip angle of 37.5° and strike angle of 324°. The strike-slip subcomponent was more significant than the dip-slip, approaching ∼95 cm, and the dip-slip varied from 10 cm to 47 cm. The seismic-moment release of our preferred fault model is 1.71 × 1018 Nm, equivalent to a Mw 6.16 earthquake event. We also use the preferred fault model to calculate the Coulomb failure stress (CFS) change at the nearby receiver faults. Combined with an analysis of historical earthquakes and the consistent dextral river deflections along the strike-slip fault systems of the southern Binalud and Kopeh Dagh Mountains, we speculate that the seismogenic structure that triggered the Mashhad earthquake should have been one strand fault of the NW–SE-striking Kashafrud fault system. The strike-slip faults in NE Iran play an important role in accommodating the lateral transport of crustal material from the convergence front of the Lut Block and Binalud fragments and providing commonly distributed anticlockwise rotation around a vertical axis.

On 6 February 2018 at 23:50 local time, a Mw 6.4 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan. We characterize the instantaneous surface ground motion and the permanent displacement induced by this event from continuous GPS data and SAR images within a short time after the mainshock. We use high-rate GPS positioning techniques to obtain epoch-by-epoch positions peak ground displacement to assess potential seismic damage. The maximum coseismic GPS horizontal displacement of about 450 mm trending to the northeast is observed at the station HUAL located on the hanging wall of the Milun fault. The PEPU located on the footwall of the Milun fault shows a coseismic horizontal displacement of 280 mm trending to the southwest and a coseismic uplift of about 70 mm. Moreover, ascending and descending tracks of ALOS-2 and Sentinel-1 SAR images are processed to estimate coseismic surface deformation along the line-of-sight (LOS) toward the satellite. Then, wide coverage from east-west and uplift components of surface deformation is fulfilled by combining the LOS displacement from ascending and descending interferograms. The main deformation area revealed by both GPS results and D-InSAR interferograms is concentrated around the Milun and Lingding faults. Significant uplift on the footwall of the northern Lingding Fault implies that the Milun fault and an unknown westdipping fault close to the Lingding fault were triggered. Both the two nodal planes of the Mw 6.4 Hualien event could be different with the kinematic behavior of the Milun fault and Lingding fault. Thus we suggest that slip on multiple faults was triggered during the 0206 event.

We found some obvious abnormal strain induced by heavy rainfall from borehole strainmeters deployed in Western Taiwan. The strain induced by rainfall can be divided into two parts, one is the quick response for extra loads of rainwater on the ground, and another one is the slow response for rainwater infiltrating into the strata. The quick and slow rainfall responses of areal strain data are analyzed using the technique of recursive digital filtering. Moreover, the rainfall impact functions of the studied stations are calculated using deconvolution. We found, in most cases, the response strain will reach the maximum in half an hour after heavy rainfall, and then show an exponential decay, it might persist more than 200 h depending on the hydrogeological condition around the station. Whereas the river flowing beside the station will help accelerating the runoff dispersion and reducing rainfall decay time in the hill or mountain region. We also compare the results after calibration in term of isotropic and vertical coupling individually. We found that the response strains are smaller in vertical coupling rather than isotropic coupling. The effects of debris avalanches caused by intensive rainfall in the mountain areas can be viewed as two types of rock deformation: generated only under the influence of rainfall and generated by the increased load in the river channels due to rainfall-induced landslides or debris flow. When the cumulative rainfall exceeds a certain threshold, the strain response curves show a noticeable anomaly likely due to the effects of the debris flow events in places prone to landslides.

Balancing the demand of groundwater resources and the mitigation of land subsidence is particularly important, yet challenging, in populated alluvial fan areas. In this study, we combine multiple monitoring data derived from Multi-Temporal InSAR (MTI), GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), precise leveling, groundwater level, and compaction monitoring wells, in order to analyze the relationship between surface displacement and groundwater level change within the alluvial fan of the Choshui River in Taiwan. Our combined time-series analyses suggest, in a yearly time scale, that groundwater level increases with the vertical surface displacement when the effect of pore water pressure dominates. Conversely, this relationship is negative when the effect of water-mass loading predominates over pore water pressure. However, the correlation between the vertical surface displacement and the groundwater level change is consistently positive over the time scale of two decades. It is interpreted that the alluvial fan sequence in the subsurface is not fully elastic, and compaction is greater than rebound in this process. These findings were not well reported and discussed by previous studies because of insufficient monitoring data and analyses. Understanding the combined effect of groundwater level change and vertical surface displacement is very helpful for management of land subsidence and usage of groundwater resources. The spatial and temporal integration of multi-sensors can be applied to overcome the limitations associated with the single technique and provides further insights into land surface changes, particularly in highly populated alluvial fan areas.

The paper presents an estimation of the Earth’s crustal motion from the continuous GPS data at 6 stations (MTEV, MLAY, DBIV, TGIV, SMAV and SLAV) in the Northwestern and at PHUT (Hanoi) station using GAMIT/GLOBK software. The absolute displacements of the Earth’s crust at 7 stations in the IGS14 frame are respectively: 34.10±0.71 mm/yr (DBIV), 34.31±0.65 mm/yr (PHUT), 34.51±0.75 mm/yr (SMAV), 34.55±0.80 mm/yr (MLAY), 34.80±0.72 mm/yr (TGIV), 34.93±0.99 mm/yr (SLAV) and 35.59±0.73 mm/yr (MTEV), in the southeastward with the azimuth range 104-108o. The Son La fault is a right-lateral slip fault with a shear amplitude of ~1.5 mm/yr. The Lai Chau-Dien Bien fault is a left-lateral slip fault with a shear amplitude of ~1.9 mm/yr. Although the absolute velocities at the DBIV, SMAV, SLAV, TGIV and MLAY stations are evaluated with the error

The main objective of this study is to present the progress and state-of-the-approaches of PSInSAR with Sentinel-1 radar images to detect the creeping activity of the potential large landslides revealed by LiDAR in the mountainous area of the slate belt in central Taiwan. We choose Qingjing and Lushan area to process the Multi-Temporal InSAR (MTI) to capture the signals the creeping activity associated with the heavy rainfall events. First, we carry out the feasibility analysis to predict whether the MTI analysis is suitable for detecting the potential persistent scatterers (PS) and test the sensitivity with the effect of layover and shadowing resulted from mountainous topography in central Taiwan. In addition, we also take the effect of land cover on PS distributions into account. Second, we set a threshold of LOS (line of sight) velocity of creeping activity to assess the state of activity. Then we make a Vslope for projection of the LOS velocity along the down-slope direction for steep slope located in the potential landslide area. Furthermore, both the ascending and descending orbits are used to get two LOS velocities which allows us to resolve the E–W and vertical velocity components in order to compare with the tectonic motion due to the mountain building process in slate belt. Finally, the analysis in time series of PSInSAR is carried out for the evolution of creeping events in study area. In this study, we also want to improve the efficiency of remote sensing products for operational monitoring with integration of SAR/InSAR products with numerical and analytical geotechnical models for stability analysis of large potential landslide area detected by geomorphological features from LiDAR-derived DEM.

Zagros foreland basin is the most important oil-gas foreland basin in the world. At least 60 oil and gas fields have been found. Therefore, research in this area will enrich the petroleum geological information of the foreland basin as an important basis for oil and gas exploration. First, we conduct 2D restoration of Lorestan salient in North Zagros Mountain Belt with 2DMove to test the rationality of the equilibrium profile and understand the structural evolution of the Lorestan salient. Base on the 2D restoration, faults evolved in the ways of in-sequence and out-of-sequence, many faults have breached the cover layer from basement then produced anticline, in the earlier stage of deformation. Anaran anticline and Kabir Kuh anticline caused by the thrusts that displacement along the thrust are 5769 m and 11496 m, respectively. The Vardalan, Dareh Baneh and Naft Anticline also produced by the basement thrust later, this result suggest that surface topography and anticline are highly associated with basement thrust. Second, using the Move2017-Surface to establish the 3D structural model to observe the lateral variation of the strata, some strata have lateral variation, the Mishan formation is absent in the NW but gradually appear to the SE and the Triassic carbonates thickness decreases from almost 1000 m in the southwest to 200 m in the northeast. This reduction in thickness may associated with late Triassic normal faulting and erosion. Third, we project the earthquake on the cross section to understanding the relation between earthquake distribution and tectonic patterns. Based on the analysis of seismicity and geological profiles, earthquake focal mechanisms are mostly reverse faulting with NW–SE strikes and the distribution is over whole horizontal Zagros belt but concentrated in depth of 5~16 km. In addition, larger magnitude earthquakes mainly distribute in southwest Lorestan, it implies that it is the main regime of active tectonics.

International audience; An examination of repeating earthquakes in eastern Taiwan revealed previously unrecognized quasiperiodic repetition of aseismic creep along two reverse faults in an active suture zone. Using 202 ML 2.0 to 4.6 repeating earthquake sequences (RES) during the period from 2000 to 2011, we studied where and how certain faults creep. The RES were found to be highly concentrated in the southern segment of the Longitudinal Valley fault (LVF) and in the northern segment of the Central Range fault (CRF). They are mainly located at a depth of 10-25 km and show strong regional differences in creep behavior. Using the moment release rate of RES and geodetically derived long-term slip rate, we re-estimate the empirical relationship between deep creep and seismic moment for creeping sections in eastern Taiwan. For the 30-km-long LVF, the creep rate increased dramatically from 1.5 to 12.3 cm/year under the influence of the ML 6.4 Chengkung earthquake of 2003. For the 80-km-long CRF, the high creep rate of 4.3 cm/year appears to have been stable over time and is descriptive of a previously unrecognized deep structure underneath the eastern flank of the Central Range. The quasiperiodic pulsing of the deep slip rate has a predominant interval of 1 year for both segments. After the ML 6.4 event, the predominant interval for the creeping LVF halved in duration. The time-dependent aseismic slip showed a strong correlation with the creepmeter data, suggesting that the positing of a common mechanism is needed to connect the surface and deep creep variation.

We establish the three-dimensional stratigraphic architecture of the Taipei Basin and its spatiotemporal palaeoenvironmental development during the past 50 kyr by analysing 36 borehole cores and 177 age dates. We calculate the rates of basin subsidence from the borehole data at depths where radiocarbon age dates are available. Our results indicate that, during the eustatic sea level falling period (35–20 ka), low rates of sediment supply and/or rapid basin subsidence controlled sedimentation, leading to a change in the depositional environment from gravelly braided rivers, through sandy braided rivers, to meandering rivers with falling eustatic sea level. During the early stage of eustatic sea level rise (∼20–10.2 ka), balanced rates of sediment supply, eustasy and basin subsidence maintained the meandering river environment. Rapid sea level rise led to the initial appearance of estuarine facies at ∼10.2 ka and widened the distribution of the estuarine environment after 8.5 ka; however, the coeval phases of rapid basin subsidence ∼10.6–10.2 ka and 9–8.5 ka promoted the first appearance and widening of the estuary, respectively. After 7 ka, when the eustatic sea level and rate of basin subsidence remained relatively stable, sufficient sediment supply gradually infilled the estuary. The established stratigraphy improves our understanding of the factors controlling stratigraphic development in marine-influenced inland half grabens, specifically in the Taipei Basin with high rates of sediment supply. Accommodation space in the Taipei Basin was governed by eustatic fluctuations with modulations by basin subsidence and sediment supply since the last glacial period.

The 2015 Mw 7.8 Gorkha, Nepal, earthquake produced a $$\sim $$ 140 km rupture on the Main Himalaya Thrust (MHT) fault at the convergence zone of the Indian and Eurasian plates. The coseismic surface deformation, fault slip model and induced stress change are comprehensively investigated with the geodetic observations in this study. The surface deformation is mapped by the combination of the GPS observations with the descending and ascending track ALOS-2/PALSAR-2 SAR images. An improved forward modeling of the surface displacement considering the effect of topographic variation on the geodetic data inversion is developed, and applied to determine the fault geometry and slip distribution associated with the event. The derived faulting model shows that the thrusting motion occurs on a fault plane with a low dip of $$\sim \,6.2^{\circ }$$ , and the significant slip concentrates at depths of 5–13 km. More than 90% of the seismic moment is released on the middle fault segment with a maximum slip of $$\sim $$ 6.7 m. Two significant slip deficit zones located on the northwest and southeast of the fault are recognized from the source model. The shallow portion of the Main Frontal Thrust fault with little slip during the event is considered as the lower edge of the locked zone, which plays an important role in accommodating the convergence between the Eurasia and India plates. The change in Coulomb failure stress shows a significant increase for the slip deficits and the locked zone on the Himalayan front, which indicates that the accumulated strain on the MHT fault has been partially alleviated by the major quake and the aftershock sequence, but will continue to balance the slip deficit and high stress regimes, and drive the seismicity in the Himalayan front.

Coseismic surface deformation imaged through Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) measurements was used to estimate the fault geometry and slip distribution of the 2017 Mw 6.5 Ormoc Earthquake along a creeping segment of the Philippine Fault on Leyte Island. Our best fitting faulting model suggests that the coseismic rupture occurred on a fault plane with high dip angle of 78.5° and strike angle of 325.8°, and the estimated maximum fault slip of 2.3 m is located at 6.5 km east-northeast of the town of Kananga. The recognized insignificant slip in the Tongonan geothermal field zone implies that the plastic behavior caused by high geothermal gradient underneath the Tongonan geothermal field could prevent the coseismic failure in heated rock mass in this zone. The predicted Coulomb failure stress (CFS) change shows that a significant positive CFS change occurred along the SE segment of central Philippine fault with insignificant coseismic slip and infrequent aftershocks, which suggests an increasing risk for future seismic hazard.