Observation of Long Supershear Rupture During the Magnitude 8.1 Kunlunshan Earthquake
- 8 August 2003
- journal article
- other
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 301 (5634) , 824-826
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1086832
Abstract
The 2001 Kunlunshan earthquake was an extraordinary event that produced a 400-km-long surface rupture. Regional broadband recordings of this event provide an opportunity to accurately observe the speed at which a fault ruptures during an earthquake, which has important implications for seismic risk and for understanding earthquake physics. We determined that rupture propagated on the 400-km-long fault at an average speed of 3.7 to 3.9 km/s, which exceeds the shear velocity of the brittle part of the crust. Rupture started at sub–Rayleigh wave velocity and became supershear, probably approaching 5 km/s, after about 100 km of propagation.Keywords
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