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Frequency characteristics and far-field effect of gravity perturbation before earthquake

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Abstract

We used high-pass filtering and the Fourier transform to analyze tidal gravity data prior to five earthquakes from four superconducting gravity stations around the world. A stable gravitational perturbation signal is received within a few days before the earthquakes. The gravitational perturbation signal before the Wenchuan earthquake on May 12, 2008 has main frequency of 0.1–0.3 Hz, and the other four have frequency bands of 0.12−0.17 Hz and 0.06−0.085 Hz. For earthquakes in continental and oceanic plate fault zones, gravity anomalies often appear on the superconducting gravimeters away from the epicenter, whereas the stations near the epicenter record small or no anomalies. The results suggest that this kind of gravitational perturbation signals correlate with earthquake occurrence, making them potentially useful earthquake predictors. The far-field effect of the gravitational perturbation signals may reveal the interaction mechanisms of the Earth’s tectonic plates. However, owing to the uneven distribution of gravity tide stations, the results need to be further confirmed in the future.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Mr. Peter Wolf (Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodsie, Germany) for providing data and Richard Bayless for suggestions. We also wish to thank to the editors and reviewers for comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geosciences and info-physics, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

    Jian-Ke Qiang, Kai Lu, Qian-Jiang Zhang, Kai-Feng Man, Jun-Ying Li, Xian-Cheng Mao & Jian-Qing Lai

  2. The Key Laboratory of Metallogenic Prediction of Nonferrous Metals of Ministry of Education, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

    Jian-Ke Qiang, Xian-Cheng Mao & Jian-Qing Lai

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  1. Jian-Ke Qiang
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  2. Kai Lu
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  3. Qian-Jiang Zhang
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Correspondence to Kai Lu.

Additional information

This work was financially supported by the National Science Fund of China Project (Nos. 41174104 and 41472301) and the Project of Innovation-driven Plan in Central South University (No. 2015CX008).

Qiang Jian-Ke received his Ph.D. from China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) in 2006. His main research interests are forward modeling and inversion imaging of EM, magnetic, and gravity field and reservoir prediction.

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Qiang, JK., Lu, K., Zhang, QJ. et al. Frequency characteristics and far-field effect of gravity perturbation before earthquake. Appl. Geophys. 14, 1–9 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11770-017-0612-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11770-017-0612-2

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