Time-space evolution characteristics of abrupt variation of wave velocity ratio in the seismogenic process of recent strong earthquakes in Yunnan area

ＴｉｍｅｓｐａｃｅｅｖｏｌｕｔｉｏｎｃｈａｒａｃｔｅｒｉｓｔｉｃｓｏｆａｂｒｕｐｔｖａｒｉａｔｉｏｎｏｆｗａｖｅｖｅｌｏｃｉｔｙｒａｔｉｏｉｎｔｈｅｓｅｉｓｍｏｇｅｎｉｃｐｒｏｃｅｓｏｆｒｅｃｅｎｔｓｔｒｏｎｇｅａｒｔｈｑｕａｋｅｓｉｎＹｕｎｎａ...

Time space evolution characteristics of abrupt variation of wave velocity ratio in the seismogenic process of recent strong earthquakes in Yunnan area

Within a short period of 7 months from July 12, 1995 to February 3, 1996, three earthquakes occurred continually to west Menglian in the border area of China-Myanmar (M=7.3), in Wuding county M=6.5 and in Lijiang (M=7.0) in Yunnan area. In this paper, the authors have studied the time-space evolution characteristics of wave velocity ratio (γ) in observed at 5 single stations and the average value of several stations before the recent strong earthquakes. It is discovered that 5–8 years before the earthquake with M=7, source precursors of long-medium term, with high (low) drastic variations of wave velocity ratio, appeared within 120 km from the epicenters, and the source precursors of long-medium term entered into medium-short term stage when the amplitude of wave velocity ratio suddenly increased (decreased) or times of earthquake increase drastically. Three to five years before M=6 earthquakes, source precursors of long-medium term and near field precursors of long-medium term, with abrupt velocity change of high values, appeared within 40 and 150 km; however, the indicator is not clear in the period of transition to medium-short stage. The anomaly of γ within 150 km from the epicenter reaches as much as 3.0, while the maximum value is 2.36 in the area 250 km away, showing the characteristics that the shorter the distance the bigger the abrupt change. Namely, the anomalous amplitudes of source precursors and near field precursors are 20%–60% bigger than that of far precursors. The reliability of abrupt variation data of γ and its physical mechanism have also been explored in this paper. This subject is supported by the Chinese Joint Seismological Science Foundation.