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Relocation of the Yushu M S7.1 earthquake and its aftershocks in 2010 from HypoDD

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Abstract

After the Yushu M S7.1 earthquake on April 14, 2010, a large number of aftershocks were recorded by the surrounding permanent network and temporary seismic stations. Due to the distribution of stations, knowledge about velocity structure, the reliability of seismic phases, and so on, the location result from conventional method is usually of low precision, from which it is difficult to recognize the spatial and temporal distribution and the trends of aftershock activity. In this paper, by using teleseismic waveforms recorded by permanent station, the seismic velocity structure beneath the vicinity is obtained from receiver function stacking and inversion methods. And the Yushu earthquake sequences are relocated from seismic phase data by HypoDD. The results show that the Yushu M S7.1 earthquake occurred at 13 km depth; the aftershock sequences were distributed mainly in the NWW along the Garzê-Yushu fault, and most aftershocks were concentrated in a 100 km length and 5–20 km depth. Combined with the velocity structure, it can be inferred that the earthquake mainly destroys the high-velocity layer of the upper crust. In the west of the seismic fault near (33.3°N, 96.2°E), the aftershock sequences were distributed like a straight column, suggesting there was a comminuted break from 25km depth to the ground.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geophysics, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing, 100081, China

    WeiLai Wang, JianPing Wu, LiHua Fang & ChangZai Wang

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  1. WeiLai Wang
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  2. JianPing Wu
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  3. LiHua Fang
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Correspondence to WeiLai Wang.

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Wang, W., Wu, J., Fang, L. et al. Relocation of the Yushu M S7.1 earthquake and its aftershocks in 2010 from HypoDD. Sci. China Earth Sci. 56, 182–191 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-012-4450-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-012-4450-z

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