Source parameters of the earthquakes of the Baikal rift system

Abstract

The dynamic parameters of the earthquake source—the seismic moment, the moment magnitude, the source radius, the stress drop, and the amplitude of displacement—are determined by the amplitude Fourier spectra of the body shear waves (S-waves) for 62 earthquakes of the Baikal rift system with the energy class of K P = 9.1–15.7. In the calculations I used the classical Brune model. The seismic moment of the earthquakes being investigated changes from 3.65 × 1011 N m to 1.35 × 1018 N m, and the radii of earthquake sources vary from 390 m to 1.84 km. The values of the drop in stress Δσ grow with an increase in the seismic moment up to 1.7 × 108 Pa. For the group of weak earthquakes (M w = 1.7–3.3), extremely low values of the drop in stress 103–104 Pa are observed. The maximum amplitude of displacement in the source amounts to 5.95 m. The empirical equations between the seismic moment and the other dynamic parameters of the source are determined. The regional dependence of the seismic moment and energy class is obtained: log M 0 ± 0.60 = 1.03K P + 3.17. The character of the relationship between the seismic moment and the corner frequency indicates that the classical scaling law of the seismic spectrum for the earthquakes in question is not fulfilled. The obtained estimates of the dynamic parameters are in satisfactory agreement with the published data concerning the analogous parameters of the other rift zones, which reflects the general regular patterns of the destruction of the lithosphere and the seismicity in the extension zones of the lithosphere.