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Mechanisms of Transient Postseismic Deformation Following the 2001 Mw 7.8 Kunlun (China) Earthquake

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Abstract

Using global positioning system (GPS) technology, significant postseismic surface displacements were observed within the first 4 months after the 2001 Mw 7.8 Kunlun earthquake which occurred in China. In this study, we investigated the mechanisms that may have possibly contributed to the postseismic deformations that have been observed. Based on the modeling results, we find that an afterslip model can interpret postseismic displacements in the near field even when the fault plane is extended to the bottom of the crust (~70 km). Models based on the viscoelastic relaxation theory showed a large discrepancy in the spatial pattern of the deformation compared with what has been observed. Thus, we infer that both mechanisms cannot interpret the observed postseismic deformation independently. A combination of afterslip and viscoelastic relaxation can further improve the data fit, especially at sites far from the fault. With maximum afterslip of ~0.4 m occurring at a depth of 10 km in the central section, the combined model shows that the estimated afterslip occurred mostly on and below the coseismic rupture plane, as well as on its eastern extension. The estimated moment released by the afterslip in the first 4 months is almost 40% of that released by the coseismic slip. The best-fitting viscoelastic relaxation model shows a “weak” upper mantle with a viscosity of ~1.0 × 1018 Pa s. The combined model also suggests the existence of a lower crust with viscosity larger than 1.0 × 1018 Pa s, although it cannot be constrained accurately.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Y. J. Hsu for valuable suggestions that contribute to the improvement of the initial manuscript. We are grateful to Dr. C. Lasserre for kindly providing the digital coseismic slip model of the Kunlun earthquake. We thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor Dr. E. Carminati for their valuable comments, and Dr. J. X. Cai for carefully polishing up the paper. This study was supported by the Knowledge Innovation Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX3-SW-153) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (40474028; 40604004).The figures were made using free GMT (Generic Mapping Tools) software (Wessel and Smith, 1991).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Dynamic Geodesy, Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430077, China

    Faqi Diao & Xiong Xiong

  2. Graduate University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100038, China

    Faqi Diao

  3. GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, 14473, Potsdam, Germany

    Rongjiang Wang

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  1. Faqi Diao
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  2. Xiong Xiong
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Correspondence to Faqi Diao.

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Diao, F., Xiong, X. & Wang, R. Mechanisms of Transient Postseismic Deformation Following the 2001 Mw 7.8 Kunlun (China) Earthquake. Pure Appl. Geophys. 168, 767–779 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-010-0154-5

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