Relocation of the 2012 M s6.6 Xinjiang Xinyuan earthquake sequence

• DOI: 10.1007/s11430-013-4755-6
• Publication Date: 2013-12-14T03:44:24Z
• Authors: LiHua Fang; JianPing Wu; ChangZai Wang; WeiLai Wang; Ting Yang
• Keywords: 01 natural sciences; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

At 05:07 AM on June 30, 2012 (Beijing time), an Ms6.6 earthquake (hereafter referred to as Xinyuan earthquake) occurred at the junction of Xinyuan County, Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture and Hejing County, Bayinguoleng Mongol Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The location of the main shock determined by China Earthquake Network Center is 43.4°N, 84.8°E and focal depth is 7 km. By the end of 08:00 AM on July 23, 501 aftershocks were recorded, of which 9 aftershocks with magnitude larger than ML4.0, and the largest magnitude of the aftershocks is ML4.9. The earthquake affected a large area, such as Yili, Urumqi, Shihezi, Karamay and so on. According to the statistics from Department of Civil Affairs, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, 155 thousand people were affected, with a direct economic loss of nearly 2 billion yuan (RMB). Xinyuan earthquake occurred in the northern Tianshan fault zone near the Kashi River fault. Seismic activity in the Kashi River fault is strong. More than three earthquakes with magnitude larger than 7 in the past 200 years have occurred near the Kashi River fault. These strong earthquakes are March 8, 1812 Nilka M8.0 earthquake, December 23, 1906 Manas M7.7 earthquake, March 10, 1944 Xinyuan M7.2 earthquake (Figure 1). We quickly relocated the aftershock sequences after the earthquake. Our new results provide important reference information for the study of seismogenic structure, the analysis of the spatial and temporal characteristics of the aftershock activity, and the determination of aftershock activity trend.