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Persistent URL http://purl.org/net/epubs/work/53552
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Record Id 53552
Title Low Frequency 3D Wave Propagation Modeling of the Ms 8 Wenchuan 12 05 2008 Earthquake
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Abstract The seismic potential of southern China is associated with the collision between the Indian and the Eurasian plates. This is manifested in the Western Sichuan Plateau (eastern Tibetan Plateau) by several, seismically active system of faults, such as the Longmenshan. The seismicity observed on the Longmenshan fault includes recent historical events with magnitudes up to 6.5, and the one of 12 05 2008 Ms 8 (Mo 1.15 1021 N m thrust mechanism), the so-called Wenchuan earthquake. In this work, as a part of an ongoing research programme, a recently optimized 3D seismic wave propagation parallel finite difference code was used to obtain low frequency, f <= 0.3 Hz, 3D synthetic seismograms for the aforementioned Wenchuan earthquake. The code was run on KanBalam (UNAM, Mexico) and HECToR (UK National Supercomputing Service) supercomputers. The modeling included the USGS 40 x 315 km2 kinematic description of the earthquake´s rupture, embedded in a 2400 x 1600 x 300 km3 physical domain, spatially discretized at 1 km in the three directions and a temporal discretization of 0.03s. The compression and shear wave velocities and densities of the geological structure utilized to characterize the domain were obtained from recently published geophysical studies performed in the Sichuan region. The comparisons between observed and synthetic seismograms, for several station sites of the Seismological and Accelerographic Networks of China, such as MZQ, GYA and TIY located at about 90, 500 and 1200 km respectively from the epicenter of the Wenchuan event, are satisfactory. In addition, comparisons of maximum synthetic displacements with Differential SAR interferometry (DINSAR) ground deformation imagery, as well as of maximum velocity synthetic patterns with Mercalli Modified Isoseist of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, are satisfactory. 3D visualizations of the propagation of the event were also obtained, which clearly show the source rupture directivity effects of the Ms 8 Wenchuan event. Our results, partially explain the modification of the topography, and the extensive damage observed on the infrastructure and towns located on top and in the neighborhood of the Wenchuan earthquake rupture zone.
Organisation CSE , CSE-CEG , CSE-HEC , STFC
Keywords Engineering , Natural environment
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Language English (EN)
Type Details URI(s) Local file(s) Year
Journal Article Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 100, no. 5B (2010): 2561-2573. doi:10.1785/0120090240 2010