A new moment tensor catalogue of light to moderate earthquakes in Palu-Koro and Matano faults, Sulawesi, based on the regional network in Indonesia: Fault analysis and insight

Abstract

Starting from 2009, substantial improvements in the regional seismic network operating in Sulawesi, as part of the Meteorological, Climatological, and Geophysical Agency (BMKG) station deployment, allowed us to determine earthquake mechanism for 140 shallow (5–60 km) light to moderate size (3.8 ≤ Mw ≤ 6.1) earthquakes between 2009 and 2018 along the Palu-Koro and Matano faults, through moment tensor inversion. Ten (10) out of the 140 solutions obtained in this study were found in the International Seismological Centre Bulletin and used as validation. The double-couple mechanism of the best solutions (variance reduction ≥0.4 and condition number ≤ 7.5) is further used to analyze the Palu-Koro and Matano segments. We observed that the Donggala segment of the Palu-Koro fault shows variable earthquake mechanism types. Whereas the two subsequent segments, the Palu and Saluki segments, show predominate oblique strike-slip with normal and reverse mechanisms. The Matano fault is characterized by strike-slip mechanisms, with normal mechanisms also observed. The normal mechanisms depict the pull-apart system in the Matano segment, manifested as Matano Lake. The results of this work improve our understanding of regional tectonics.