Abstract
An Mw 5.7 earthquake occurred in Xegar, Tingri Basin, Tibetan Plateau, on 20 March 2020. Determining the precise focal mechanism solution is helpful for understanding the seismogenic mechanism and the geodynamic process of this earthquake. Here, we used Sentinel-1A data to obtain line-of-sight coseismic deformation. Fault geometric parameters and coseismic slip distribution can be estimated with the Bayesian method and the steepest descent method, respectively. The inversions show that the strike of the seismogenic fault is ~ 330.0°, with a dip angle of ~ 62.7°. The main rupture zone covers an area of ~ 5 × 5 km2. Only one slip asperity appears at a depth of 1.9–5.0 km, the maximum slip on the fault is 0.98 m at a depth of 3.26 km, with a centroid location of 87.40° E, 28.66° N, and the mean rake angle is ~ −104.6°. The results reveal that this earthquake is dominated by normal faulting, and the derived seismic moment is ~ 3.23 × 1017 Nm (Mw 5.6). Furthermore, it is found that the 2015 Mw 7.9 Gorkha earthquake played a key role in triggering the 2020 Mw 5.7 Xegar earthquake based on calculation of the coseismic and postseismic Coulomb failure stress with different viscosities and depths.
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Data Availability
The datasets used during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are deeply indebted to the editor and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive reviews and comments. Thanks to the European Space Agency for providing free Sentinel-1A SAR data. Most figures are plotted using the Generic Mapping Tools (Wessel et al. 2013).
Funding
This research was co-supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFC1503605); the Hebei Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics (No. FZ212201); State Key Laboratory of Geodesy and Earth's Dynamics, Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. SKLGED2021-4-1).
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Li, C., Li, Q., Tan, K. et al. Ground Deformation and Source Fault Model of the Mw 5.7 Xegar (Tibetan Plateau) 2020 Earthquake, Based on InSAR Observation. Pure Appl. Geophys. 179, 3589–3603 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-022-03161-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-022-03161-2