Improved source parameter constraints for five undersea earthquakes from north component of GRACE gravity and gravity gradient change measurements

Abstract

Abstract The innovative processing of Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) data using only the north component of gravity change and its corresponding gravity gradient changes allows the enhancement of the spatial resolution for coseismic deformation signals. Here, we report the study of five undersea earthquakes using this technique: the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, the 2007 Bengkulu earthquake, the 2010 Maule, Chile earthquake, the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, and the 2012 Indian Ocean earthquakes. By using the high spherical harmonic degree (up to degree 96) data products and the associated GRACE data processing techniques, the retrieved north component of gravity change is up to − 34 ± 1.4 μ Gal for the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, which illustrates by far the highest amplitude of the coseismic signal retrieved from satellite gravimetry among previous studies. We creatively apply the localized spectral analysis as an efficient method to empirically determine the practical spherical harmonic truncation degree. By combining least squares adjustment with the simulated annealing algorithm, point source parameters are estimated, which demonstrates the unique constraint on source model from GRACE data compared to other data sources. For the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, GRACE data produce a shallower centroid depth (9.1 km), as compared to the depth (28.3 km) from GPS data. For the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, the GRACE-estimated centroid location is southwest of the GPS/seismic solutions, and the slip orientation is about 10° clockwise from the published GPS/seismic slip models. We concluded that these differences demonstrate the additional and critical offshore constraint by GRACE on source parameters, as compared to GPS/seismic data.