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The 2018 February 6 M w 6.3 Hualien earthquake caused severe localized damage in Hualien City, located 20 km away from the epicentre. The damage was due to strong (>70 cm s−1) and sharp (duration ∼2.5 s) velocity pulses. The observed peak ground-motion velocity in Hualien City symmetrically decays with distance from the nearby Milun fault. Waveforms observed on the opposite sides of the fault show reversed polarity on the vertical and N–S components while the E–W component is almost identical. None of the published finite-fault slip models can explain the spatially highly localized large velocity pulses. In this study, we show that an M w 5.9 strike-slip subevent on the Milun fault at 2.5 km depth, rupturing from north to south at ∼0.9 V s speed, combined with site effects caused by surficial layers with low S-wave speed, can explain the velocity pulses observed at the dense strong-motion network stations. This subevent contributes only 25 per cent of the total moment of the 2018 Hualien earthquake, suggesting that a small local slip patch near a metropolis can dominate the local hazard. Our result strongly suggests that seismic hazard assessments should consider large ground-motion variabilities caused by directivity and site effects, as observed in the 2018 Hualien earthquake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advances in observational, theoretical and computational technologies have made it possible for automatic, real-time solutions of the focal mechanisms of earthquake point sources. However, for earthquakes of moderate and greater magnitudes, the complexity of the source kinematic processes often requires additional characteristics on the source rupture in order to make seismotectonic inferences and to explain the observed directivity effects of the radiation of seismic energy. We develop an efficient and effective approach to determining the average finite-rupture models of moderate earthquakes by fitting synthetic and recorded broadband waveforms. A Green's tensor database is established using 3-D structural model with surface topography to enable rapid evaluations of accurate synthetic seismograms needed for source parameter inversions without the need for high-performance computing. We take a two-step strategy: In the first step, a point-source model is determined by a grid search for the best fault-plane solution. Then, taking the two nodal planes in the point-source model as candidates of the actual fault plane, a second grid search is carried out over a suite of simplified finite-rupture models to determine the optimal direction and speed of the integrated rupture of the finite source. We applied our method to four moderate events (MW ≈ 6) in southeastern Taiwan. Results show that our technique provides an effective choice in semi-automatic, near real-time determinations of finite-source parameters for earthquake hazard assessment and mitigation purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have developed a real-time moment tensor monitoring system (RMT) which takes advantage of a grid-based moment tensor inversion technique and real-time broad-band seismic recordings to automatically monitor earthquake activities in the vicinity of Taiwan. The centroid moment tensor (CMT) inversion technique and a grid search scheme are applied to obtain the information of earthquake source parameters, including the event origin time, hypocentral location, moment magnitude and focal mechanism. All of these source parameters can be determined simultaneously within 117 s after the occurrence of an earthquake. The monitoring area involves the entire Taiwan Island and the offshore region, which covers the area of 119.3°E to 123.0°E and 21.0°N to 26.0°N, with a depth from 6 to 136 km. A 3-D grid system is implemented in the monitoring area with a uniform horizontal interval of 0.1° and a vertical interval of 10 km. The inversion procedure is based on a 1-D Green's function database calculated by the frequency–wavenumber (fk) method. We compare our results with the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) catalogue data for earthquakes occurred between 2010 and 2012. The average differences between event origin time and hypocentral location are less than 2 s and 10 km, respectively. The focal mechanisms determined by RMT are also comparable with the Broadband Array in Taiwan for Seismology (BATS) CMT solutions. These results indicate that the RMT system is realizable and efficient to monitor local seismic activities. In addition, the time needed to obtain all the point source parameters is reduced substantially compared to routine earthquake reports. By connecting RMT with a real-time online earthquake simulation (ROS) system, all the source parameters will be forwarded to the ROS to make the real-time earthquake simulation feasible. The RMT has operated offline (2010–2011) and online (since January 2012 to present) at the Institute of Earth Sciences (IES), Academia Sinica (http://rmt.earth.sinica.edu.tw). The long-term goal of this system is to provide real-time source information for rapid seismic hazard assessment during large earthquakes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY The 1909 April 14 Taiwan earthquake caused significant damage in Taipei. Most of the information on this earthquake available until now is from the written reports on its macro-seismic effects and from seismic station bulletins. In view of the importance of this event for assessing the shaking hazard in the present-day Taipei, we collected historical seismograms and station bulletins of this event and investigated them in conjunction with other seismological data. We compared the observed seismograms with those from recent earthquakes in similar tectonic environments to characterize the 1909 earthquake. Despite the inevitably large uncertainties associated with old data, we conclude that the 1909 Taipei earthquake is a relatively deep (50-100 km) intraplate earthquake that occurred within the subducting Philippine Sea Plate beneath Taipei with an estimated MW of 7 ± 0.3. Some intraplate events elsewhere in the world are enriched in high-frequency energy and the resulting ground motions can be very strong. Thus, despite its relatively large depth and a moderately large magnitude, it would be prudent to review the safety of the existing structures in Taipei against large intraplate earthquakes like the 1909 Taipei earthquake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Microearthquakes with magnitude down to 0.3 were detected by the Taiwan Chelungpu-fault Drilling Project Borehole Seismometers (TCDPBHS). Despite the large coseismic slip of 12 m at the drill site during the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake, our studies show very little seismicity near the TCDPBHS drill site 6 yr after the Chi-Chi main shock. The microearthquakes clustered at a depth of 9-12 km, where the Chelungpu thrust fault turns from a 30° dipping into the horizontal decollement of the Taiwan fold-and-thrust tectonic structure. Continuous GPS surveys did not observe post-slip deformation at the larger slip region and no seismicity was observed near the drill site. Therefore we suggest that the thrust belt above the decollement is locked during this interseismic period. We further investigated source parameters of 242 microearthquakes by fitting ω−2-shaped Brune source spectra to our observation data using a frequency-independent Q model. We find that the static stress drop increases significantly with increasing seismic moment. However, due to the intense debate on this topic of scaling-relations and the related self-similarity of earthquakes, we further improve the data analysis and correct for path and site effects using the Projected Landweber Deconvolution (PLD) method for events within some clusters. The PLD method analyses the source time functions of the larger and the smaller event by an iterative technique. As a result we received source dimensions and stress drops of larger events including path and site effect corrections. The results from the PLD method are less scattered and also show a positive relation between static stress drop and seismic moment. We find a similar positive trend for the apparent stress scaling with seismic moment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Theoretical and observational evidence implies that variable rupture velocity may be associated with high fault slip and high moment release rates during earthquakes. We investigate this relationship for the 2008 Mw 7.9 Wenchuan China, Earthquake, which appears to have experienced a highly variable moment release rate. We used an empirical Green's function (EGF) deconvolution analysis of teleseismic waveforms to retrieve the primary rupture characters for this event. Based on field observations and the deconvolved source-time function from thrust and strike-slip EGFs, we divided the ruptured fault into three segments, allowing us to determine the spatial slip distribution with different average rupture velocities on each segment. We deployed a grid search analysis, in which we integrated the teleseismic waveform inversion and forward modelling of the regional surface wave to determine the optimum rupture speed in each fault segment. Our result shows that the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake had slip amplitude, direction and rupture velocity that were highly spatially variable. The earthquake initially ruptured with nearly pure thrust motion and a slow rupture velocity of 1.7 km s-1. Then, the rupture speed increased up to 3.1-3.3 km s-1 and produced the largest slip on the second segment, where two parallel faults ruptured simultaneously. Rupture velocity then slowed down to 2.5-2.9 km s-1 on the final segment, which underwent primarily strike-slip motion. In total, the fault extended 300 km with an average rupture speed in the range of 2.6-2.9 km s-1. The high rupture speed (close to the shear wave velocity) in the second segment may be related to the simultaneous rupture of the two parallel faults on well-established pre-existing structures. The spatial distribution of rupture velocity and slip are likely related to the strongly rotational and 3-D deformation in the eastern Tibetan Plateau margin, which leads to the heterogeneous stress field of the Longmen Shan region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]