Determination of earthquake epicentres based upon invariant quantities of GRACE strain gravity tensors

Farzam Fatolazadeh,Rahim Javadi Azar,Kalifa Goïta

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-64560-w

Abstract

Investigation of regional and temporal variations in Earth’s gravitational field that are detected by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) twin-satellites may be useful in earthquake epicentre determinations. This study focuses on monthly spherical harmonic coefficients that were extracted from GRACE observations, which were corrected for hydrological effects to determine earthquake epicentres. For the first time, we use the concept of deformation of Earth’s gravity field to estimate invariant components of strain tensors. Four different earthquakes (Iran, China, Turkey, Nepal) were analysed that occurred between 2003 and 2015 and under different hydrological regimes. Wavelet analysis was explored as a means of refining and reconstructing tectonic signals forming the disturbance gravitational potential tensor in the GRACE gravity field models. Dilatation and maximum shear were extracted from these tensors and used to map earthquake epicentre locations. Both components reached their maxima during months of the earthquakes (respectively, 11.78 and 4.93, Bam earthquake; 61.36 and 169.10, Sichuan-Gansu border earthquake; 2415.80 and 627.93, Elazig earthquake; 98.71 and 157.37, Banepa earthquake). For the aforementioned earthquakes, we estimated their respective epicentres in the ranges: φ = 29°–29.5° λ = 58.5°–59°; φ = 32.5°–33° λ = 105.5°–106°; φ = 38.5°–39° λ = 39.5°–40°; and φ = 27.5°–28° λ = 85°–85.5°. Overall, these results agree well with values from other sources. The advance that is provided by our method compared to other research is the ability of determining earthquake epicentres with magnitudes ≤7.5 based upon GRACE observations. However, the approach is of limited use for very deep earthquakes.

Highlights

Investigation of regional and temporal variations in Earth’s gravitational field that are detected by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) twin-satellites may be useful in earthquake epicentre determinations
A new era in earthquake science debuted with the launch of twin-satellites in 2002, i.e., GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment), which is based upon gravimetric measurements
Two main questions are of interest: Is it possible to determine an earthquake epicentre using GRACE data? If yes, how do the magnitude and depth of the earthquake influence the process? Our objective is to propose an alternative method for locating lower magnitude earthquake epicentres based upon the deformational strain in gravity space that can be observed from satellite gravity data

Summary

Introduction

Investigation of regional and temporal variations in Earth’s gravitational field that are detected by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) twin-satellites may be useful in earthquake epicentre determinations. Earthquakes are natural geophysical processes that occur in certain locations across the surface of the globe These seismic disturbances are found at the boundaries between tectonic plates (inter-plate) and in rift zones within plates (intra-plate). Sun and Okubo[6] used dislocation theory for the first time to determine that on average, GRACE could detect an earthquake with a minimum magnitude of 7.5 on the Richter scale. Numerous studies following this idea investigated deformations in the form of surface displacements due to different earthquakes. All of these studies used analytical models or observations to understand tectonic deformation that was related to earthquakes

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