Slip zone and energetics of a large earthquake from the Taiwan Chelungpu-fault Drilling Project

Determining the seismic fracture energy during an earthquake and understanding the associated creation and development of a fault zone requires a combination of both seismological and geological field data. The actual thickness of the zone that slips during the rupture of a large earthquake is not k...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature 2006-11, Vol.444 (7118), p.473-476
Main Authors: Soh, Wonn, Hung, Jih-Hao, Ma, Kuo-Fong, Wu, Hung-Yu, Yeh, Eh-Chao, Sone, Hiroki, Song, Yen-Fang, Tanaka, Hidemi, Song, Sheng-Rong, Wang, Chien-Ying, Tsai, Yi-Ben, Mori, Jim, Kuo, Li-Wei
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Boreholes
Cores
Drilling
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Earthquakes
Earthquakes, seismology
Energy dissipation
Exact sciences and technology
Fault lines
Geology
Humanities and Social Sciences
Internal geophysics
letter
Marine
multidisciplinary
Particle size
Samples
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Seismic activity
Seismology
Tectonics. Structural geology. Plate tectonics
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Summary:Determining the seismic fracture energy during an earthquake and understanding the associated creation and development of a fault zone requires a combination of both seismological and geological field data. The actual thickness of the zone that slips during the rupture of a large earthquake is not known and is a key seismological parameter in understanding energy dissipation, rupture processes and seismic efficiency. The 1999 magnitude-7.7 earthquake in Chi-Chi, Taiwan, produced large slip (8 to 10 metres) at or near the surface, which is accessible to borehole drilling and provides a rare opportunity to sample a fault that had large slip in a recent earthquake. Here we present the retrieved cores from the Taiwan Chelungpu-fault Drilling Project and identify the main slip zone associated with the Chi-Chi earthquake. The surface fracture energy estimated from grain sizes in the gouge zone of the fault sample was directly compared to the seismic fracture energy determined from near-field seismic data. From the comparison, the contribution of gouge surface energy to the earthquake breakdown work is quantified to be 6 per cent.
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
1476-4679
DOI:10.1038/nature05253