Relationship between regional stress field variation and earthquake activities from GPS data

Abstract

The relationship between the earth stress field, earth surface displacement field and the gravity variation is deduced. Algorithms based on the boundary element method to compute the earth stress variation using the earth surface displacement is discussed. The stress field variation in Jiashi region, Xinjiang, China is obtained from the GPS data observed in 1997 and 1998, respectively, and the relationship among the local stress field variation, seismic activities and fault tectonic activities is discussed.