ELECTRICAL STRUCTURE OF THE 2017 MS7.0 JIUZHAIGOU EARTHQUAKE REGION AND THE EASTERN TERMINUS OF THE EAST KUNLUN FAULT |
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| Authors: | SUN Xiang-yu ZHAN Yan ZHAO Ling-qiang CHEN Xiao-bin LI Chen-xia SUN Jian-bao HAN Jing CUI Teng-fa |
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| Institution: | 1. State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing 100029, China;
2. The Second Monitoring and Application Center, China Earthquake Administration, Xi'an 710043, China;
3. Shaanxi Earthquake Agency, Xi'an 710068, China |
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| Abstract: | The East Kunlun Fault is a giant fault in northern Tibetan, extending eastward and a boundary between the Songpan-Ganzi block and the West Qinling orogenic zone. The East Kunlun Fault branches out into a horsetail structure which is formed by several branch faults. The 2017 Jiuzhaigou MS7.0 earthquake occurred in the horsetail structure of the East Kunlun Fault and caused huge casualties. As one of several major faults that regulate the expansion of the Tibetan plateau, the complexity of the deep extension geometry of the East Kunlun Fault has also attracted a large number of geophysical exploration studies in this area, but only a few are across the Jiuzhaigou earthquake region. Changes in pressure or slip caused by the fluid can cause changes in fault activity. The presence of fluid can cause the conductivity of the rock mass inside the fault zone to increase significantly. MT method is the most sensitive geophysical method to reflect the conductivity of the rock mass. Thus MT is often used to study the segmented structure of active fault zones. In recent years MT exploration has been carried out in several earthquake regions and the results suggest that the location of main shock and aftershocks are controlled by the resistivity structure. In order to study the deep extension characteristics of the East Kunlun Fault and the distribution of the medium properties within the fault zone, we carried out a MT exploration study across the Tazang section of the East Kunlun Fault in 2016. The profile in this study crosses the Jiuzhaigou earthquake region. Other two MT profiles that cross the Maqu section of East Kunlun Fault performed by previous researches are also collected. Phase tensor decomposition is used in this paper to analyze the dimensionality and the change in resistivity with depth. The structure of Songpan-Ganzi block is simple from deep to shallow. The structure of West Qinlin orogenic zone is complex in the east and simple in the west. The structure near the East Kunlun Fault is complex. We use 3D inversion to image the three MT profiles and obtained 3D electrical structure along three profiles. The root-mean-square misfit of inversions is 2.60 and 2.70. Our results reveal that in the tightened northwest part of the horsetail structure, the East Kunlun Fault, the Bailongjiang Fault, and the Guanggaishan-Dieshan Fault are electrical boundaries that dip to the southwest. The three faults combine in the mid-lower crust to form a "flower structure" that expands from south to north. In the southeastward spreading part of the horsetail structure, the north section of the Huya Fault is an electrical boundary that extends deep. The Tazang Fault has obvious smaller scale than the Huya Fault. The Minjiang Fault is an electrical boundary in the upper crust. The Huya Fault and the Tazang Fault form a one-side flower structure. The Bailongjiang and the Guanggaishan-Dieshan Fault form a "flower structure" that expands from south to north too. The two "flower structures" combine in the high conductivity layer of mid-lower crust. In Songpan-Ganzi block, there is a three-layer structure where the second layer is a high conductivity layer. In the West Qinling orogenic zone, there is a similar structure with the Songpan-Ganzi block, but the high conductivity layer in the West Qinling orogenic zone is shallower than the high conductivity layer in the Songpan-Ganzi block. The hypocenter of 2017 MS7.0 Jiuzhaigou earthquake is between the high and low resistivity bodies at the shallow northeastern boundary of the high conductivity layer. The low resistivity body is prone to move and deform. The high resistivity body blocked the movement of low resistivity body. Such a structure and the movement mode cause the uplift near the East Kunlun Fault. The electrical structure and rheological structure of Jiuzhaigou earthquake region suggest that the focal depth of the earthquake is less than 11km. The Huya Fault extends deeper than the Tazang Fault. The seismogenic fault of the 2017 Jiuzhaigou earthquake is the Huya Fault. The high conductivity layer is deep in the southwest and shallow in the northeast, which indicates that the northeast movement of Tibetan plateau is the cause of the 2017 Jiuzhaigou earthquake. |
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| Keywords: | seismogenic environment 2017 Jiuzhaigou MS7 0 earthquake 3D magnetotelluric imaging eastern terminus fault system of the East Kunlun Fault |
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