Mechanical model of precursory source process for strong earthquakes in western Yunnan area—concept and numerical simulation |
| |
| Authors: | You-Jin Su Feng-Tong Yan |
| |
| Institution: | 1. Scismological Bureau of Yunnan Province, 650041, Kunming, China
|
| |
| Abstract: | The strong earthquakes in western Yunnan area, mainly occur along great interplate strike-slip faults and have a dominant depth-layer about 10–20 km; the seismic rupture is characterized by strike-slip rupture. Considering the Yunnan lithospheric structure and dynamic background, we think that earthquakes occurring at this area might have such a kind of nucleation process: because of the multi-layers and heterogeneities of lithospheric structure, a zone of concentrated shear strain or of slip might be formed at the moderate or deep portions of lithosphere, and spread upward along faulting boundary, toward the earth’s surface under the background field of tectonic movement of lithospheric plates. The slip front will encounter the maximum shear resistance zone on the fault surface in this process, be barried and blocked, and form a seismic gap. With the increase of tectonic load, this slip zone will continuously spread forward, traverse and lead to instable crack of the whole blocked zone, and cause a great earthquake. We have derived an approximate integral equation describing this seismic process; the numerical results show that the model has an instable nonlinear accelerating evolution period which might have important significance for the generation of earthquake precursors. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
| 本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录！ |
|
