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Source Characteristics and Path Attenuation for the Yangbi, China Seismic Sequence in 2021

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Abstract

On 21 May 2021, an M 6.4 earthquake occurred in Yangbi county, west of Yunnan Province, China. The Yangbi seismic sequence was initiated on 18 May and reached its climax as the occurrence of the M 6.4 mainshock. It was a typical foreshock-mainshock-aftershock sequence. A total of 1043 strong-motion recordings during 44 events from this sequence were selected and utilized for the spectral decomposition to separate the path attenuation and source spectra. The path attenuation curves are overall close to the simplest distance decay form described by R−1. The path attenuations were further represented by the combination of the geometric spreading and anelastic attenuation. Geometric spreading of R−0.37 was retrieved, indicating slower distance decay at local distances. The larger area close to the epicenter tends to undergo strong ground shaking. The quality factors obtained were regressed as Qs(f) = 64.27f 0.76 in the frequency range of 0.25–20 Hz, lower than those reported for the whole Yunnan region, indicating faster attenuation at large distances in the study region. The seismic moments, corner frequencies, and stress drops were estimated from the inverted source spectra. The stress drops for the Yangbi seismic sequence were mainly in the range of 0.5–3.0 MPa. The mainshock had the largest stress release (~ 2.7 MPa). The strong foreshocks and aftershocks with Mw ≥ 5.0 had higher stress drops (~ 1.5–2.5 MPa) than those of small events with Mw < 5.0 (~ 0.1–1.5 MPa). We inferred that the strong foreshocks and aftershocks with high stress releases may not rupture the same fault activated by the mainshock, while they may occur in various fault branches.

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Data availability

Strong-motion data at strong-motion stations in this study were derived from the China Strong Motion Network Center at the Institute of Engineering Mechanics, China Earthquake Administration; contact the email csmnc@iem.ac.cn for data application. Strong-motion data at seismic intensity stations in this study were derived from the Yunnan Earthquake Agency; contact the email hxmcjw@163.com for data application. The earthquake epicenters, focal depths, and magnitude (M) were derived from the China Earthquake Network Center (CENC; www.csndmc.ac.cn, last accessed June 2021). Moment magnitude Mw in the Global Centroid Moment Tensor catalogue was obtained from https://www.globalcmt.org/CMTsearch.html. The β, α, and ρ were derived from the CRUST 1.0 model available at https://igppweb.ucsd.edu/~gabi/crust1.html.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Editor Yangfan Deng and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments which help us a lot to improve the quality of our manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province (No. LH2020E021), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. U1901602), and the Key R&D Project of the Department of Science and Technology of Jilin Province (Nos. 20200403161SF and 20210203145SF).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering, Jilin Jianzhu University, Changchun, 130000, China

    Ying Zhou & Tianming Miao

  2. Institute of Engineering Mechanics, China Earthquake Administration, Harbin, 150080, China

    Hongwei Wang & Ruizhi Wen

  3. Key Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Vibration of China Earthquake Administration, Harbin, 150080, China

    Hongwei Wang & Ruizhi Wen

  4. Yunnan Earthquake Agency, Kunming, 650224, China

    Jianwen Cui

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  1. Ying Zhou
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Correspondence to Hongwei Wang.

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Zhou, Y., Wang, H., Wen, R. et al. Source Characteristics and Path Attenuation for the Yangbi, China Seismic Sequence in 2021. Pure Appl. Geophys. 179, 2721–2733 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-022-03077-x

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