GPS time-series and its response to M_S=8.1 Kunlunshan earthquake

Introduction With the implementation of the National Climbing Program and ″Crustal Movement Obser- vation Network of China″, the GPS observation has extended widely. At present, GPS monitoring network consists of 25 reference stations, 56 movable stations and more than 1000 regional sta- tions. The reference stations begin their continuous GPS observations from the middle of March 1999. The research in this paper analyzed the law for the coordinate variation of each reference station…

GPS time-series and its response to Ms=8.1 Kunlunshan earthquake

In this paper, observation data in 25 GPS reference stations of China have been analyzed by calculating GPS position coordinate time-series with GIPSY. Result shows there is an obvious trend variation in such time-series. The trend variations of time series along the longitude and latitude coordinate reflect the motion of each position in the global-plate, in which the trend variation in the vertical direction reveals some large-scale construction information or reflects the local movement around the positions. The analysis also shows that such time-series have a variation cycle of nearly 1.02 a, but the reason still remains to be further studied. At the end of this paper, response of the time-series to Ms=8.1 Kunlunshan earthquake was analyzed, and the seismogenic process of Ms=8.1 Kunlunshan earthquake, according to the time proceeding and the feature of anomaly, was divided into 3 phases-changes in blocks with forces, strain accumulation, quick accumulation and slow release of energy. At the initial stage of seismogenic process of Ms=8.1 earthquake and at the imminent earthquake, coseismic process as well as during the post earthquake recovery, anomaly in vertical direction is always in a majority. The anomalous movement in vertical direction at the initial stage resulted in a blocking between faults, while at the middle stage of seismogenic process, the differential movement between blocks are in a majority, which is the major reason causing energy accumulating at the blocking stage of faults.