Seismic active faults in the northwestern Beijing by seismic tomography

Introduction It is well known that earthquake originates from movement of active faults. According to the professional standard issued by China Earthquake Administration (2005), active fault refers to the one that has been active since the Late Quaternary, while seismic active fault refers to the one where earthquake had occurred or might occur afterwards. In city hazard mitigation, land planning, and site determination for lifeline engineering, active fault should be kept away, so it is of …

Seismic active faults in the northwestern Beijing by seismic tomography

Using the arrival times of 197 earthquakes well recorded by the Beijing Seismic Network and the China-Germany cooperative Yanqing Digital Seismic Array in the period from October of 2001 to December of 2005, we accu- rately relocate these earthquakes by the joint-inversion program for hypocentral position and 3-D velocity structure. The distribution of hypocenters shows that there are two major seismic active belts in the northwestern Beijing. The first belt stretches from Qinghe, Wenquan to the NW direction and the second extends from Nankou, Chang- ping to the ENE direction.