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On 7 January 2022, a Mw 6.6 earthquake struck Menyuan County in the Qinghai province of China and the earthquake caused severe damage to infrastructures. In this study, the performance of the high-rate global navigation satellite system (GNSS) on real-time source modeling of the 2022 Mw 6.6 Menyuan earthquake was validated. We conducted the warning magnitude calculation, centroid moment tensor (CMT) inversion, and static fault slip distribution inversion using displacements collected from 14 1-Hz GNSS stations. Our results indicate that the warning magnitude derived from the peak ground displacement (PGD) first exceeds Mw 6.0 approximately 9 s after the earthquake and tends to be stable after about 45 s. The derived finally stable magnitude is Mw 6.5, which is near the USGS magnitude of Mw 6.6. Based on the inverted CMT and static fault slip distribution results, it can be determined that the 2022 Menyuan earthquake is a left-lateral strike-slip event after about 20 s of the earthquake. Although the fault slips, inverted with the 30-s smoothed coseismic offsets, are unstable after about 40 s, all the inverted slip models after that time present the obvious surface rupture and the most fault motions are concentrated between the depth of 0 km and 8 km. Compared with the results inverted with the 30-s smoothed coseismic offsets, the CMT and fault slips inverted with the 70-s smoothed coseismic offsets are more stable. The results obtained in this study indicate that the high-rate GNSS has the potential to be used for real-time source modeling for earthquakes with a magnitude less than 7; the stability of the inverted CMT and fault slips can be improved by using the coseismic offsets averaged by a relatively long-time sliding window. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On May 21, 2021, a Mw 7.4 earthquake struck the Maduo County in Qinghai province of China. The earthquake was well recorded by the surrounding high-rate Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) stations. In addition to GPS, GLONASS and BDS2 observations, these stations also recorded the latest BDS3 and Galileo observations. The performance of high-rate single-GNSS and fusion of multi-GNSS on warning magnitude calculation, rapid centroid moment tensor inversion and static fault slip inversion are well investigated in this study. The results demonstrate that within a short period of time (5 min), Precise Point Positioning (PPP) displacements of BDS3 alone are better than those of BDS2 alone, while the individual displacement accuracies of BDS3, GPS and Galileo are comparable. When BDS3 and BDS2 data are combined, the combined BDS accuracy is slightly better than that of GPS or Galileo alone. Compared with the single-GNSS displacements, the fusion of GPS + GLONASS + Galileo + BDS3/2 (GREC) can achieve the highest accuracy with standard deviation values of 0.25 cm, 0.22 cm and 0.53 cm in north, east and up components, respectively. For the warning magnitude estimation, BDS3 alone, BDS2 alone, combined BDS3/2, combined GPS + BDS3/2, Galileo alone and GREC all show comparable performance. The results of centroid moment tensor inversion and static fault slip inversion are related to the station distribution. When the same stations are used, the inverted centroid moment tensors and static fault slips of a single GNSS are very similar to the multi-GNSS inversion results, but the multi-GNSS centroid moment tensor series and fault slips appear to be more stable when the observation quality of a single GNSS such as GLONASS, is relatively low. The results obtained in this study imply that GPS, BDS3, Galileo and combined multi-GNSS have the potential to be used for the earthquake early warning and rapid earthquake source modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We combine measurements of ground deformation from Synthetic Aperture Radar images, high‐rate Global Navigation Satellite System and tele‐seismic waveforms to study the rupture kinematics of the Madoi Earthquake, which occurred in eastern Tibet on 21 May 2021 and reached a moment magnitude Mw 7.4. The data show nearly pure left‐lateral motion along a 170 km long rupture and a total duration of 36 s. The earthquake initiated near the middle of the main segment and evolved in a bilateral slip pulse rupture which propagated at a sub‐Rayleigh speed of 2.6–2.8 km/s. In our model, slip is concentrated at depth of less than ∼15 km and reaches a maximum of 4.2 m. The rupture arrested ∼10 s after branching on the extensional splay faults at both extremities. The branching onto the splay faults and the eventual arrest of the rupture is used to provide constraints on the fault frictional properties. Plain Language Summary: The M7.4 Madoi Earthquake, which occurred in eastern Tibet on 21 May 2021 is the largest event since the 2008, M8.0 Wenchuan earthquake. It therefore generated widespread interests among the Chinese public and scientific community. Here, we model the temporal evolution of fault slip during the earthquake using geodetic and seismic observations. Our study reveals a slip‐pulse that ruptured a 170 km long fault system, extending from the surface to about 15 km at depth, with horizontal shear slip of up to 4.2 m. The rupture initiated near the middle of the ruptured fault, propagated bi‐laterally along the fault trace, and ended after branching on splay‐faults. Forking seems to have arrested the rupture. The Madoi Earthquake relates to the eastward extrusion of Tibet which is driven by the northward indentation of India into Eurasia. Key Points: The 2021 Mw 7.4 Madoi Earthquake ruptured bilaterally for about 170 km with most of slip being concentrated at less than 15 km depthThe rupture was arrested after propagating on splay faultsPropagation along the most misoriented splay fault suggests a dynamic friction possibly as low as 0.05 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 20 April 2013, a moment magnitude (Mw) 6.6 earthquake occurred in the Lushan region of southwestern China and caused more than 190 fatalities. In this study, we use geodetic data from nearly 30 continuously operating global positioning system (GPS) stations, two periods of leveling data, and interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) observations to image the coseismic deformation of the Lushan earthquake. By using the Helmert variance component estimation method, a joint inversion is performed to estimate source parameters by using these GPS, leveling, and InSAR data sets. The results indicate that the 2013 Lushan earthquake occurred on a blind thrust fault. The event was dominated by thrust faulting with a minor left-lateral strike–slip component. The dip angle of the seismogenic fault was approximately 45.0°, and the fault strike was 208°, which is similar to the strike of the southern Longmenshan fault. Our finite fault model reveals that the peak slip of 0.71 m occurred at a depth of ~12 km, with substantial slip at depths of 6–20 km. The estimated magnitude was approximately Mw 6.6, consistent with seismological results. Furthermore, the calculated static Coulomb stress changes indicate that the 2013 Lushan earthquake may have been statically triggered by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]