Recent movement changes of main fault zones in the Sichuan-Yunnan region and their relevance to seismic activity

Abstract

The Wenchuan earthquake occurred near the “triple junction” linking the Bayan Har block, the South China block, and the Sichuan-Yunnan rhombic block, and its influences on the surrounding blocks and the main fault zones in the Sichuan-Yunnan region, i.e., the block boundary zone, cannot be ignored. In this paper, changes of movement and stress of the fault zones before and after a strong earthquake were simulated based on the GPS repetition survey results recently obtained during 1999–2007, 2009–2011, and 2011–2013 with a two-dimensional finite-element contact model and the “block-loading” method. The results show that, before the Wenchuan earthquake, the movement of the Longmenshan fault zone was very slow and its compressive stress accumulated rapidly; after the Wenchuan earthquake, movements toward the E-SSE direction of the Bayan Har, southwestern Yunnan, and rhombic blocks were enhanced, and the dextral and horizontal compressive speeds and annual accumulative compressive stress of the Longmenshan fault zone increased markedly by factors of 4.5, 2.1, and 2.5, respectively. The southern Xianshuihe, Anninghe, Zemuhe, Daliangshan, and Lijiang-Xiaojinhe fault zones accumulated compressive stress rapidly, forming enhanced compressive stress zones along a NE strike crossing the central part of the Sichuan-Yunnan region. The tensional movement of the Xianshuihe fault zone was enhanced and the slip movement in the central part of the zone was reversed in a short time. The changes are tightly related to the medium-intensity earthquakes that occurred during the same period in this region, revealing that the spatial migration of seismic activity is related to changes of movement of the blocks.