SOURCE PARAMETERS OF THE CANGWU MS5.4 EARTHQUAKE, 31 JULY, 2016

On July 31^st, 2016, an earthquake of M_S5.4 occurred in Cangwu County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, which is the first M_S ≥ 5.0 earthquake in coastal areas of southern China in the past 17a. The moderate earthquake activities have come into a comparatively quiet period in coastal areas of southern China for decades, so the study about the Cangwu M_S5.4 earthquake is very important. However, differernt research institutions and scholars have got different results for the focal depth of the Cangwu M_S5.4 earthquake. For this reason, we further measured the focal depth by using CAP method and sPL phase method. sPL phase was first put forward by Chong in 2010. It is often observed between P and S wave of continental earthquakes with epicentral distance of about 30km to 50km. The energy of sPL phase is mainly concentrated on the radial component. Arrival time difference between sPL phase and direct P wave is insensitive to epicentral distancs, but increases almost linearly with the increase of focal depth. Based on these characteristics and advantages, sPL phase method is chosen to measure the focal depth of Cangwu M_S5.4 earthquake in the paper. First of all, we selected the broadband waveform data through seismic stations distributed mainly in Guangxi and adjacent provinces from Data Management Centre of China National Seismic Network and Guangxi Earthquake Networks Center. And an appropriate velocity model of Cangwu area was constructed by the teleseismic receiver function method. Then, the focal mechanism and focal depth of Cangwu M_S5.4 earthquake were determined by using the CAP(Cut and Paste)method. Next, we compared the synthetic waveforms simulated by F-K forward method of different focal depth models with the actual observed waveforms. According to the difference of arrival times between sPL and Pg phases, we finally obtained the focal depth of Cangwu earthquake. The results show that the focal depth is 11km measured by CAP method and 9km by sPL phase method. Based on the focal mechanism solution, isoseismal shapes, aftershocks distributions and investigation on spot, we conclude that the Cangwu M_S5.4 earthquake is a left-lateral strike-slip earthquake which occurred in the upper crust. Our preliminary analysis considers that the seismogenic structure of Cangwu earthquake is a north-northwest branch fault, and the control fault of this earthquake is the Hejie-Xiaying Fault.