Numerical simulation study on the spontaneous rupture process and its influencing factors of the 2001 MS 8.1 Kunlun earthquake in China

Abstract

On November 14, 2001, the MS 8.1 Kunlun earthquake occurred in the west of Kunlun Mountain pass in the East Kunlun fault zone of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China. The field investigation and the results of kinematic inversion indicate that it is a strike-slip earthquake with a complex rupture process. The study of the spontaneous rupture process of this earthquake and its influencing factors is of great significance for understanding the occurrence mechanism of continental large earthquakes. First, based on the results of geological survey and kinematic inversion, a three-dimensional non-planar fault model is established. Then, using the curved-grid finite difference method (CG-FDM), the dynamic rupture process of the 2001 MS 8.1 Kunlun earthquake is numerically reproduced by adjusting the parameters for numerical simulation experiments. On this basis, the influence of background stress field, fault geometry and friction coefficient on the surface slip distribution, seismic moment rate function and rupture velocity are discussed respectively. The results show that the important reasons for the super-long rupture scale and super-shear rupture velocity of this earthquake may be the clockwise rotation of the maximum horizontal principal compressive stress along the NNE ∼ NE direction and the low friction coefficient distribution on the whole fault surface. The difference between the dynamic and static friction coefficients along the fault strike may be non-uniform, and it may be larger on the main fault than that on the secondary fault. This will result in a higher level of stress drop on the main fault, leading to the occurrence of super-shear rupture and the slip distribution with the Kusai Lake as the macroseismic epicenter. The large local geometric variation along the strike of the main fault may also have some influence on the distribution of co-seismic slip and the location of the super-shear rupture. In addition, the numerical simulation results in this paper confirm the conclusion that the East Kunlun fault zone has low friction coefficient.