Earthquake Cycle Deformation Associated With the 2021 M_W 7.4 Maduo (Eastern Tibet) Earthquake: An Intrablock Rupture Event on a Slow‐Slipping Fault From Sentinel‐1 InSAR and Teleseismic Data

Abstract

It has been recognized that the continents do not deform like the oceans and continental deformation represents a significant departure from the kinematic rules of plate tectonics (England & McKenzie, 1982;Tapponnier & Molnar, 1976). However, the kinematics and dynamics of continental tectonics are still unclear. Despite decades of study, large continental earthquakes continue to surprise us, for example, by occurring in unexpected locations (e.g., the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence, Ross et al., 2019), or exhibiting remarkable complexity (e.g., the 2016 M W 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake, Hamling et al., 2017). On 21 May 2021, a strong (M W ∼ 7.4) earthquake (referred to here as the Maduo earthquake) hit Maduo County in eastern Tibetan Plateau, rupturing a fault away from the main crustal block boundaries hypothesized for this region. We measure and model the coseismic,

Strain Threshold for the Formation of Coseismic Surface Rupture

“…Therefore, the eastward decrease of the threshold cannot be ascribed to the rock lithology. The threshold variation cannot be ascribed to the strain rate either, because the inverted coseismic slip rates are very similar (0.2–0.3 m/s) among all measurement sites (Fang et al., 2022). It is noted that the Kunlunshankou‐Jiangcuo Fault, the causative fault of the Maduo earthquake, connects with the Eastern Kunlun Fault at its western end and terminates at its eastern end (coincident with the Maduo eastern rupture end) where the slip accumulation is negligible (Figures 2a and 2b; Li et al., 2023; Pan et al., 2022); therefore, such fault is likely developed by progressive eastward propagation, and accordingly its slip accumulation and structural maturity should decrease toward the east (e.g., Manighetti et al., 2001; Perrin et al., 2016).…”

“…Along the rupture length, a 20 km‐long secondary branch at its easternmost section, and several minor secondary branches between E15 (i.e., 15 km east of the epicenter) and E35 km, were involved as well. The coseismic slip rate was loosely determined to be (at most) 0.4 m/s near E30 km, decreasing to <0.1 m/s at either end (Fang et al., 2022).…”

Multi‐Scale Rupture Growth With Alternating Directions in a Complex Fault Network During the 2023 South‐Eastern Türkiye and Syria Earthquake Doublet

“…We applied a standardized data processing workflow for our potency‐density tensor approach that has been applied to earthquakes in different tectonic regimes (Fan et al., 2022; Fang et al., 2022; Hicks et al., 2020; Hu et al., 2021; Shimizu et al., 2020; Tadapansawut et al., 2021; Yagi et al., 2023; Yamashita, Yagi, Okuwaki, Shimizu, et al., 2022). We used the vertical component of teleseismic P ‐waveforms from a total of 39 and 37 stations for the M W 7.9 and M W 7.6 earthquakes, respectively (Figures S1 and S2 in Supporting Information ).…”

Multi-scale rupture growth with alternating directions in a complex fault network during the 2023 south-eastern Türkiye and Syria earthquake doublet

“…We apply a standardized data processing workflow for our potency-density tensor approach that has been applied to earthquakes in different tectonic regimes (Shimizu et al, 2020;Tadapansawut et al, 2021;Hu et al, 2021;Fan et al, 2022;Fang et al, 2022;Hicks et al, 2020;Yamashita, Yagi, Okuwaki, Shimizu, et al, 2022;Yagi et al, 2023). We use the vertical component of teleseismic P -waveforms from a total of 39 and 37 stations for the M 7.7 and M 7.6 earthquakes, respectively (Figs.…”