Coseismic deformation of the 2020 Yutian MW 6.4 earthquake from Sentinel-1A and the slip inversion

Abstract

A remarkable earthquake struck Yutian, China on June 26th, 2020. Here, we use Sentinel-1 images to investigate the deformation induced by this event. We invert the InSAR observations using a two-step approach: a nonlinear inversion to constrain fault geometries with uniform slip based on the rectangular plane dislocation in an elastic half-space, followed by a linear inversion to retrieve the slip distribution on the fault plane. The results show that the maximum LOS displacement is 22.6 ​cm, and the fault accessed to the ruptured characteristics of normal faults with the minor left-lateral strike-slip component. The fault model indicates a 210° strike. The main rupture zone concentrates in the depth of 5–15 ​km, and the fault slip peaks at 0.89 ​m at the depth of 9 ​km. Then, we calculate the variation of the static Coulomb stress based on the optimal fault model, the results suggest that the Coulomb stress of the Altyn Tagh fault and other neighboring faults has increased and more attention should be paid to possible seismic risks.