Earthquake Detection with Seismic Exploration Method

Abstract

Seismic exploration technology has been widely used in petroleum exploration and engineering fields, but it has received little attention for the study of structural changes and detection after earthquake. In this paper, at first we analyzed the data obtained in 2008 from trenches, coring, well logging and geophysical exploration after/during the Wenchuan Ms8.0 earthquake. The results show that the Wenchuan earthquake was formed by cryptoexplosion process which was gradually triggered from the southwest to the northeast. The energy of cryptoexplosion includes two aspects, one of which is underground supercritical fluid phase explosion, and the second is discharge lightning of underground negative charge accumulation. From seismic section, we identified the characteristics of underground changes caused by cryptoexplosion. Lastly, seismic exploration carried out in the Japan South Sea was further compared and it also has underground cryptoexplosion characteristics. This means that genetic mechanism of earthquake is not mainly caused by structural movement but mainly by underground explosion. These results show that seismic exploration is very effective in identifying the underground explosion characteristics caused by earthquake.