Coseismic displacement fields and the slip mechanism of the 2021 Mw 6.7 Hovsgol earthquake in Mongolia constrained by Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2 InSAR

On 11 January 2021, an Mw 6.7 earthquake, which involved a complex rupture mechanism, occurred in Lake Hovsgol, Mongolia. This study measured the earthquake’s 3-D coseismic surface displacement fields using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) pairs of three radar look directions: Sentin...

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Main Authors: Taewook Kim, Hyangsun Han
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2023-12-01
Series:GIScience & Remote Sensing
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15481603.2023.2180026
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author Taewook Kim
Hyangsun Han
author_facet Taewook Kim
Hyangsun Han
author_sort Taewook Kim
collection DOAJ
description On 11 January 2021, an Mw 6.7 earthquake, which involved a complex rupture mechanism, occurred in Lake Hovsgol, Mongolia. This study measured the earthquake’s 3-D coseismic surface displacement fields using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) pairs of three radar look directions: Sentinel-1B from the descending path and Advanced Land Observing Satellite-2 from the ascending and descending paths. The three DInSARs showed that the maximum coseismic surface displacement appeared east of the Northern Hovsgol Fault (NHF), where the displacement components were 18 cm, 5 cm, and 33 cm in the east–west, north–south, and up–down directions, respectively (precision: 1.7 cm, 20.4 cm, and 5.2 cm). However, the 3-D displacements indicated that although the earthquake induced a combination of normal faulting with strike slip motions, the displacements in the north–south direction had very large uncertainty owing to the similar geometry of the InSARs in the descending path. Later, we performed inversions of the DInSAR-measured coseismic surface displacement fields in the line-of-sight direction, which assumes a fault plane’s uniform and distributed slips in analyzing the slip mechanism. We conducted slip distribution estimations on the ruptured fault plane in accordance with the optimal fault geometry and source parameters determined by the uniform slip model. Investigations revealed that, with a correlation of 95.3%, the simulated displacements from the best-fitted distributed slip model were consistent with the observed displacements from DInSARs. Besides, our slip distribution model showed two distinctive slip patches, which include differences in their magnitudes and directions on the fault plane. We also observed ruptured faults experiencing a predominant right-lateral strike slip with a significant dip slip, according to the slip distribution, which caused two distinct slips due to the dramatic bending of the fault strike. Then, by analyzing the Coulomb stress change, our findings proposed that the seismic risk potential of active faults in the Hovsgol Basin increased after the earthquake. Overall, the great potential of multi-track DInSAR observations in the identification of complex slip mechanisms was demonstrated.
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spelling doaj.art-ade3d30a59064c58ac3e66d18b400a6b2023-09-21T12:43:09ZengTaylor & Francis GroupGIScience & Remote Sensing1548-16031943-72262023-12-0160110.1080/15481603.2023.21800262180026Coseismic displacement fields and the slip mechanism of the 2021 Mw 6.7 Hovsgol earthquake in Mongolia constrained by Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2 InSARTaewook KimHyangsun Han0Kangwon National UniversityOn 11 January 2021, an Mw 6.7 earthquake, which involved a complex rupture mechanism, occurred in Lake Hovsgol, Mongolia. This study measured the earthquake’s 3-D coseismic surface displacement fields using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) pairs of three radar look directions: Sentinel-1B from the descending path and Advanced Land Observing Satellite-2 from the ascending and descending paths. The three DInSARs showed that the maximum coseismic surface displacement appeared east of the Northern Hovsgol Fault (NHF), where the displacement components were 18 cm, 5 cm, and 33 cm in the east–west, north–south, and up–down directions, respectively (precision: 1.7 cm, 20.4 cm, and 5.2 cm). However, the 3-D displacements indicated that although the earthquake induced a combination of normal faulting with strike slip motions, the displacements in the north–south direction had very large uncertainty owing to the similar geometry of the InSARs in the descending path. Later, we performed inversions of the DInSAR-measured coseismic surface displacement fields in the line-of-sight direction, which assumes a fault plane’s uniform and distributed slips in analyzing the slip mechanism. We conducted slip distribution estimations on the ruptured fault plane in accordance with the optimal fault geometry and source parameters determined by the uniform slip model. Investigations revealed that, with a correlation of 95.3%, the simulated displacements from the best-fitted distributed slip model were consistent with the observed displacements from DInSARs. Besides, our slip distribution model showed two distinctive slip patches, which include differences in their magnitudes and directions on the fault plane. We also observed ruptured faults experiencing a predominant right-lateral strike slip with a significant dip slip, according to the slip distribution, which caused two distinct slips due to the dramatic bending of the fault strike. Then, by analyzing the Coulomb stress change, our findings proposed that the seismic risk potential of active faults in the Hovsgol Basin increased after the earthquake. Overall, the great potential of multi-track DInSAR observations in the identification of complex slip mechanisms was demonstrated.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15481603.2023.2180026hovsgol earthquakeinsarsurface displacementslip distributionsentinel-1alos-2
spellingShingle Taewook Kim
Hyangsun Han
Coseismic displacement fields and the slip mechanism of the 2021 Mw 6.7 Hovsgol earthquake in Mongolia constrained by Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2 InSAR
GIScience & Remote Sensing
hovsgol earthquake
insar
surface displacement
slip distribution
sentinel-1
alos-2
title Coseismic displacement fields and the slip mechanism of the 2021 Mw 6.7 Hovsgol earthquake in Mongolia constrained by Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2 InSAR
title_full Coseismic displacement fields and the slip mechanism of the 2021 Mw 6.7 Hovsgol earthquake in Mongolia constrained by Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2 InSAR
title_fullStr Coseismic displacement fields and the slip mechanism of the 2021 Mw 6.7 Hovsgol earthquake in Mongolia constrained by Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2 InSAR
title_full_unstemmed Coseismic displacement fields and the slip mechanism of the 2021 Mw 6.7 Hovsgol earthquake in Mongolia constrained by Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2 InSAR
title_short Coseismic displacement fields and the slip mechanism of the 2021 Mw 6.7 Hovsgol earthquake in Mongolia constrained by Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2 InSAR
title_sort coseismic displacement fields and the slip mechanism of the 2021 mw 6 7 hovsgol earthquake in mongolia constrained by sentinel 1 and alos 2 insar
topic hovsgol earthquake
insar
surface displacement
slip distribution
sentinel-1
alos-2
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15481603.2023.2180026
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