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An Analysis of Ground Movements and Deformations from 13-Year GPS Observations before and during the July 2019 Ridgecrest, USA Earthquakes

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Abstract

Earthquakes with magnitudes Mw = 6.4 and Mw = 7.1 occurred in July 2019, one after the other with an interval of 34 hours, several kilometers apart, near the town of Ridgecrest, Kern County, California, USA. There was a moderate shock with a magnitude of Mw = 5.8 in 1995 in the immediate vicinity of the epicenters of the future earthquakes. A strong earthquake with Mw = 7.4 occurred about a hundred kilometers to the north in 1872. To study the seismic deformation process in connection with these events, data from continuous GPS observations at 51 station were used, with a daily recording interval. The initial observation epoch was 13 years prior to the latest events (July 2006), and the final epoch was about a month (August 2019) after those. The study area has a diameter of about 250 km and includes the epicenters of modern and historical earthquakes. Digital models of the distribution of horizontal, total shear and dilatation deformations were obtained for each day of observations. Incorporation of the time sequence of the obtained models into an accelerated kinematic visualization of the seismic deformation process (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343577013_Ridgecrest_total_shear_strain_and_seismicity_evolution) revealed some interesting features. The onset of shear deformation extremum was close to the time of the moderate earthquake (Mw = 5.2), which occurred 10 years before the events of 2019, about 70 km from it, and which presumably initiated the trigger mechanism of the future seismic rupture with the beginning of the development of a weakened elongated zone in the area of the Coso volcanic field. The area of anomalous shear spread in the direction of the future events and reached their epicenters at the time of the main shocks. An analysis of the space-time distribution of the length of the surface displacement vectors showed the possibility of determining the location of a future strong event based on long-term continuous GPS observations in seismic areas.

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Funding

The work was carried out within the framework of the state assignment of the Geophysical Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia.

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  1. Geophysical Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Molodezhnaya 3, 119296, Moscow, Russia

    V. I. Kaftan

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  1. V. I. Kaftan
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Kaftan, V.I. An Analysis of Ground Movements and Deformations from 13-Year GPS Observations before and during the July 2019 Ridgecrest, USA Earthquakes. J. Volcanolog. Seismol. 15, 97–106 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0742046321010115

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