The rupture process of the Hualien M 7.3 sequence on April 3, 2024

Abstract

The Hualien M 7.3 earthquake on April 3, 2024, was a significant and strong earthquake in Taiwan, China in the past two decades. The rupture process of the main shock and strong aftershocks is of great significance to the subsequent seismic activity and seismogenic tectonic research. Based on local strong-motion data, we used the IDS (Iterative Deconvolution and Stacking) method to obtain the rupture process of the mainshock and two strong aftershocks on the 23rd. The rupture of the mainshock was mainly unilateral, lasting 31 s, with a maximum slip of 2 m, and the depth of the large slip zone is about 41-49 km. There is a clear difference between the rupture depth of the main shock and the two strong aftershocks. The depths of the large slip zones of the latter two are 3-9 km and 8-10 km, respectively. There is also a significant difference in the seismogenic fault between the mainshock and the aftershocks, and we believe that there are two seismogenic fault zones in the study area, the deep and the shallow fault zone. The slip of the deep faults activates the shallow faults.

Keywords

Hualien earthquake / Rupture process / IDS method / Focal mechanism

Data and resources

Taiwan, China's strong-motion waveform data and corresponding station parameters were accessed through the CWA's GDMS-2020 platform (https://gdms.cwa.gov.tw/catalogDownload.php). The CWA's earthquake catalog can be downloaded at https://scweb.cwa.gov.tw/en-us/earthquake/data. The focal mechanism catalog of mainshock and strong aftershocks can be browsed and downloaded through the National Earthquake Science Data Center (https://data.earthquake.cn/datashare /report.shtml?PAGEID=earthquake_dzzyjz). The focal mechanism of the mainshock is also determined by the USGS (https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/), GFZ (https://geofon.gfz-potsdam.de/) and the GCMT (https://www.globalcmt.org/). The IDS method in obtaining earthquake rupture process is available through the website https://pku-geophysics-source.group/htmls/models.html. The distribution of the Coulomb stress change caused by the M7.3 earhtquake was calculated by using the Coulomb3.3 sofewave (https://temblor.net/coulomb/). Most of the pictures in this article were produced using GMT drawing software (Wessel et al., 2013). Funding was provided by the Earthquake Spark Technology Project XH23051B.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Zhigao Yang: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Huifang Chen: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Software, Validation.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Author agreement and acknowledgement

The authors of this article all agree for this publication. This study is sponsored by the Earthquake Spark Technology Project (XH23051B).

References

[1] An Y., Wang D., Ma Q., Xu Y., Li Y., Zhang Y., Liu Z., Huang C., Su J., Li J., Li M., Chen W., Wan Z., Kang D., Wang B., 2023. Preliminary report of the september 5, 2022 MS 6.8 luding earthquake, Sichuan, China. Earthquake Res. Adv. 3 (1), 100184.

[2] Central Weather Administration, 2012. Central weather administration seismographic network. Int. Federation Digital Seismograp. Networks. https://doi.org/10.7914/SN/T5.

[3] Dai D., Yang Z., Sun L., 2023. Rupture process of the MS6.9. Menyuan, Qinghai, earthquake on January 8, 2022. In: Acta Seismologica Sinica, vol. 45, pp. 814-822. https://doi.org/10.11939/jass.20220032,5.

[4] Duputel Z., Rivera L., Kanamori H., Hayes G., 2012. W phase source inversion for moderate to large earthquakes (1990-2010). Geophys. J. Int. 189 (2), 1125-1147.

[5] Dziewonski A., Chou T., Woodhouse J., 1981. Determination of earthquake source parameters from waveform data for studies of global and regional seismicity. J. Geophys. Res. 86, 2825-2852. https://doi.org/10.1029/JB086iB04p02825.

[6] Ekström G., Nettles M., Dziewonski A., 2012. The global CMT project 2004-2010: centroid-moment tensors for 13,017 earthquakes. Phys. Earth Planet. In. 200- 201, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pepi.2012.04.002.

[7] Han G., Dai D., Li Y., Xi N., Sun L., 2024. Rapid report of the december 18, 2023 MS 6.2 Jishishan earthquake, Gansu, China. Earthquake Res. Adv. 4 (2), 100287.

[8] Han Y., Zang Y., Meng L., Wang Y., Deng S., Ma Y., Xie M., 2022. A summary of seismic activities in and around China in 2021. Earthquake Res. Adv. 2 (3), 100157.

[9] Ishikawa Y., Bai L., 2024. The 2024 Mj 7.6 Noto Peninsula, Japan earthquake caused by the fluid flow in the crust. Earthquake Res. Adv. 4 (3), 100292.

[10] Kanamori H., Rivera L., 2008. Source inversion of W phase: speeding up seismic tsunami warning. Geophys. J. Int. 175 (1), 222-238.

[11] Kato A., 2024. Implications of fault-valve behavior from immediate aftershocks following the 2023 M6.5 earthquake beneath the Noto Peninsula, Central Japan. Geophys. Res. Lett. 51 (1), e2023GL106444.

[12] Kuo-Chen H., Guan Z., Sun W., Jhong P., Brown D., 2018. Aftershock sequence of the 2018 Mw 6.4 Hualien earthquake in eastern Taiwan from a dense seismic array data set. Seismol Res. Lett. 90 (1), 60-67.

[13] Lee S., Lin T., Liu T., Wong T., 2018. Fault-to-Fault jumping rupture of the 2018 Mw 6.4 hualien earthquake in eastern Taiwan. Seismol Res. Lett. 90 (1), 30-39.

[14] Lo Y.-C., Yue H., Sun J., Zhao L., Li M., 2019. The 2018 Mw6.4 Hualien earthquake: Dynamic slip partitioning reveals the spatial transition from mountain building to subduction. Earth Planet Sci. Lett. 524, 115729.

[15] Toda S., Stein R.S., Sevilgen V., Lin J., 2011. Coulomb 3.3 Graphic-rich deformation and stress-change software for earthquake, tectonic, and volcano research and teaching-user guide. U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2011-1060 63 available at: https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2011/1060/.

[16] Tang C.-H., Lin Y.N., Tung H., Wang Y., Lee S.-J., Hsu Y.-J., Shyu J.B.H., Kuo Y.-T., Chen H.-Y., 2023. Nearby fault interaction within the double-vergence suture in eastern Taiwan during the 2022 Chihshang earthquake sequence. Commun. Earth Environ. 4 (1).

[17] Wang X., Zhao C., 2023. Rupture process of the january 8, 2022, Menyuan M 6.9 earthquake. Earthquake Res. Adv. 3 (4), 100268.

[18] Wells D., Coppersmith K., 1994. New empirical relationships among magnitude, rupture length, rupture width, rupture area, and surface displacement. Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 84 (4), 974-1002.

[19] Wessel P., Smith W., Scharroo R., Luis J., Wobbe F., 2013. Generic mapping tools:improved version released, EOS trans. AGU 94 (45), 409-410. https://doi.org/10.1002/2013EO450001.

[20] Yang Z., Xu T., Liang J., Deng W., Zhang J., Xu J., 2022a. Focal mechanism product of China earthquake networks center. [EB/OL]. https://doi.org/10.12080/nedc.11.ds.2022.0005orCSTR:12166.11.ds.2022.0005.https://data.earthquake.cn/datashare/report.shtml?PAGEID=earthquake_dzzyjz,2022.

[21] Yang Z., Dai D., Zhang Y., Zhang X., Liu J., 2022b. Rupture process and aftershock focal mechanisms of the 2022 M6.8 Luding earthquake in Sichuan. Earthq. Sci. 35 (6), 474-484.

[22] Yang Z., Xu T., Liang J., 2024. Towards fast focal mechanism inversion of shallow crustal earthquakes in the Chinese mainland. Earthquake Res. Adv. 4 (2), 100273.

[23] Zhang Y., Wang R., Chen Y., 2015. Stability of rapid finite-fault inversion for the 2014 Mw 6.1 South Napa earthquake. Geophys. Res. Lett. 42 (23), 10, 263-210,272.

[24] Zhang Y., Wang R., Zschau J., Chen Y., Parolai S., Dahm T., 2014a. Automatic imaging of earthquake rupture processes by iterative deconvolution and stacking of high-rate GPS and strong motion seismograms. J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth 119 (7), 5633-5650.

[25] Zhang Y., Wang R., Chen Y., Xu L., Du F., Jin M., Tu H., Dahm T., 2014b. Kinematic rupture model and hypocenter relocation of the 2013 Mw 6.6 lushan earthquake constrained by strong-motion and teleseismic data. Seismol Res. Lett. 85 (1), 15-22.

[26] Zhao D., Qu C., Shan X., Bürgmann R., Gong W., Tung H., Zhang G., Song X., 2021. Multifault complex rupture and afterslip associated with the 2018 Mw 6.4 Hualien earthquake in northeastern Taiwan. Geophys. J. Int. 224 (1), 416-434.

[27] Zhao D., Qu C., Shan X., Bürgmann R., Gong W., Tung H., Zhang G., Song X., Qiao X., 2021. Multifault complex rupture and afterslip associated with the 2018 Mw 6.4 Hualien earthquake in northeastern Taiwan. Geophys. J. Int. 224 (1), 416-434.

[28] Zhao X., Duputel Z., Yao Z., 2017. Regional W-phase source inversion for moderate to large earthquakes in China and neighboring areas. J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth 122 (12), 10, 052-010,068.

[29] Zheng X., Zhang Y., Qiang M., Wang R., 2018. Fast inversion of rupture process based on strong motion data and the feasibility of its automation. Chin. J. Geophys. 61 (10), 4021-4036. https://doi.org/10.6038/cjg2018M0029 (in Chinese).

[30] Zheng X., Zhang Y., Wang R., Zhao L., Li W., Huang Q., 2020. Automatic inversions of strong-motion records for finite-fault models of significant earthquakes in and around Japan. J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth 125 (9).