Ms Fangqin Chen

Seismotectonics of Killer Quakes in China

Over the last century, the Chinese have been devastated by some of the most disastrous earthquakes in the world. This project looked into the reasons behind such great damage through the basic physical principles behind earthquakes, as well as the seismotectonics specific to the Tibetan region.
A large amount of deadly earthquakes are those occurred on a thrust or reverse fault, around the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau.Through seismotectonic analysis of the region, we suggested two factors driving great earthquakes. The earthquakes on the northern-eastern edge is primarily driven by the extrusion of the microplate between two strike-slip faults towards the east-north-east. The earthquakes on the southern-eastern edge typically have slip lines radial to the edge of the plateau. A plausible explanation is that the gravity acts on the higher footwalls at the fault surface around the edge of the plateau and causes the hanging wall to collapse over the footwall.