Stress transfer and its implication for earthquake hazard on the Kunlun Fault, Tibet

Abstract

8The 1600-km-long Kunlun Fault striking E-W to WNW-ESE had long been 9 recognized as one of the major left-lateral strike-slip faults bounding the Tibetan Plateau, 10 and ranked one of the most active faults in China continent. During the past hundred years, 11 over twenty strong earthquakes occurred along and near the Kunlun Fault, including six 12 large earthquakes (M>7). Since some major highly-populated and industrialized cities are 13 close to the Kunlun Fault, understanding of stress transfer and earthquakes migration along 14 the Kunlun Fault is most important for assessing seismic hazard in this region. In this 15 study, by integrating coseismic effect, viscoelastic relaxation and tectonic loading, we 16 studied the evolution of the regional Coulomb stress field by analyzing a sequence of 17 strong earthquakes along the Kunlun Fault. We studied the stress evolution over one 18 century by analysing a sequence of five earthquakes (M≥7)

Coulomb Stress Change Sensitivity due to Variability in Mainshock Source Models and Receiving Fault Parameters: A Case Study of the 2010-201. Christchurch, New Zealand, Earthquakes

“…Since the influence from the curvature of Earth's free surface is small for this local study (Xiong et al 2010), the Earth surface is treated as flat in our model. The parameters of our multilayered model in Table 1 are based on Crust 2.0.…”

“…In general, μ′ is set to be different values for different types of faults. Xiong et al (2010) set μ′ to a high value (0.8) for thrust faults, a moderate value (~0.6) for normal faults, and a lower value (0.2~0.4) for strike-slip faults. Since the 2010 Canterbury earthquake mainshock is primarily a strike-slip event (with some thrust component), we have set μ′ at 0.4 in the previous calculations.…”

“…In this paper we will concentrate on how applicable the static Coulomb stress triggering mechanism is to the 2011 Christchurch aftershock and examine the sensitivity of the stress changes to mainshock slip distribution and aftershock fault orientation. The Coulomb stress theory has been broadly applied in aftershock studies (e.g., King et al 1994;Parsons et al 1999;Toda et al 1998;Ma et al 2005), earthquake sequencing (Stein et al 1997;Xiong et al 2010;Nalbant et al 1998) and the triggering of large to moderate earthquakes (Parsons et al 2000). Previous studies (e.g., Harris 1998Harris , 2000Freed 2004;King et al 1994;Stein 1999) proposed a Coulomb stress change of 0.01 MPa to be the threshold for potential earthquake triggering.…”

Stress evolution and seismic hazard on the Maqin-Maqu segment of East Kunlun Fault zone from co-, post- and interseismic stress changes

“…The increased stress raised the probability of earthquake occurrences on the MMS segment, and thus also potential seismic hazards. Moreover, Xiong et al (2010) studied the process of stress transfer on the Kunlun Fault, Tibet, and outlined two main regions with high probability of seismic hazard, including the MMS. The CFS on the MMS was estimated to increase with maximum Coulomb stress (>0.4 MPa) at its western extremity by the coseismic and post-seismic stress changes since 1937 Tuosuo Lake earthquake.…”

Transient postseismic mantle relaxation following 2004 Sumatra earthquake: implications of seismic vulnerability in the Andaman-Nicobar region

“…The studies by Freed and Lin (2001) show that, within a few years following an earthquake, the postseismic stress changes in upper crust can be as large as the stress released by the leading earthquake itself (Xiong et al, 2010;Deng et al, 1999). Monitoring such changes is crucial for characterizing the regional, seismic hazard (Hearn, 2001).…”