Rapid shortening in convergent mountain belts is often accommodated by slip on faults at multiple levels in upper crust, but no geodetic observation of slip at multiple levels within hours of a moderate earthquake has been shown before. Here we show clear evidence of fault slip within a shallower thrust at 5–10 km depth in SW Taiwan triggered by the 2016 Mw 6.4 MeiNong earthquake at 15–20 km depth. We constrain the primary coseismic fault slip with kinematic modeling of seismic and geodetic measurements and constrain the triggered slip and fault geometry using synthetic aperture radar interferometry. The shallower thrust coincides with a proposed duplex located in a region of high fluid pressure and high interseismic uplift rate, and may be sensitive to stress perturbations. Our results imply that under tectonic conditions such as high‐background stress level and high fluid pressure, a moderate lower crustal earthquake can trigger faults at shallower depth.
Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry (InSAR) is a geodetic tool widely applied in the studies of earth-surface deformation. This technique has the benefits of high spatial resolution and centimetre-scale accuracy. Differential SAR interferometry (DInSAR) is used to measure ground deformation with repeat-pass SAR images. This study applied DInSAR and persistent scatterers InSAR (PSInSAR) for detecting land subsidence in the Pingtung Plain, southern Taiwan, between 1995 and 2000. In recent years, serious land subsidence occurred along coastal regions of Taiwan as a consequence of over-pumping of underground water. Results of this study revealed that the critical subsidence region is located on the coast near the estuary of Linpien River. It is also found that subsidence was significantly higher during the dry season than the wet season. The maximum annual subsidence rate of the dry season is up to -11.51 cm/year in critical subsidence region and the vertical land movement rate is much slower during the wet season. The average subsidence rates in wet and dry seasons are -0.31 and -3.37 cm/year, respectively. As a result, the subsidence rate in dry seasons is about 3 cm larger than in wet seasons.
In order to provide a detailed vertical velocity field in southernmost Longitudinal Valley where shows a complex threefault system at the plate suture between Philippine Sea plate and Eurasia, we conducted leveling and GPS measurements, compiled data from previous surveys and combined them into a single data set. We compiled precise leveling results from 1984 to 2009, include 5 E-W trending and one N-S trending routes. We calculated the GPS vertical component from 10 continuous stations and from 89 campaign-mode stations from 1995 to 2010. The interseismic vertical rates are estimated by removing the co-and post-seismic effects of major large regional and nearby earthquakes. A stable continuous station S104 in the study area was adopted as the common reference station. We finally establish a map of the interseismic vertical velocity field. The interseismic vertical deformation was mainly accommodated by creeping/thrusting along two east-dipping strands of the three-fault system: the Luyeh and Lichi faults. The most dominant uplift of 30 mm yr-1 occurs at the hanging wall of the Lichi fault on the western Coastal Range. However the rate diminishes away from the fault in the hanging wall. The Quaternary tablelands inside of the Longitudinal Valley reveals uplift with a rate of 5-10 mm yr-1. Outside of the tablelands, the rest of the Longitudinal Valley flat area indicates substantial subsidence of-10 to-20 mm yr-1. Finally, it appears that the west-dipping blind fault under the eastern side of the Central Range does not play a significant role on interseismic deformation with subsidence rate of-5 to-10 mm yr-1 .
The ascending and descending InSAR deformations derived from ALOS-2 and Sentinel-1 satellite SAR images and GPS displacements are used to estimate the fault model of the 2018 Mw 6.4 Hualien earthquake. The sinistral strike-slip fault dipping to the west with a high dip angle of 89.4° and a rake angle of 201.7° is considered as the seismogenic fault of this event. This seismogenic fault also triggered the ruptures of the Milun fault, which dips to the east with a dip angle of ~72°, and an unknown west-dipping fault with a dip angle of 85.2°. Two predicted faulting models indicate that the InSAR deformation fields include more postseismic slip than those of the GPS data. The north segment of the Milun fault and west-dipping fault have been triggered by the rupture of the seismogenic fault, but the postseismic slip occurred only in the south segment of the Milun fault. The InSAR-derived co-seismic and postseismic faulting model suggests that the significant slip concentrates at depths of 2.4–15.0 km of the main fault, 0.0–14.0 km of the Milun fault. Only minor slip is detected on the west-dipping fault. The maximum fault slip of ca. 2.1 m is located at the depth of ca. 2.4 km under the Meilun Tableland. The Coulomb failure stress (CFS) change calculated by the co-seismic and postseismic faulting model shows that there is a significant CFS increase in the east of the south segment of the Milun fault, but few of the aftershocks occur in this area, which indicates a high risk of future seismic hazard.
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