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:
Drilling
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Earthquakes
Earthquakes, seismology
Exact sciences and technology
Geology
Internal geophysics
Marine
Samples
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