Analysis of Mw 7.2 2014 Molucca Sea Earthquake and Its Aftershocks

摘要

A Mw 7.2 earthquake struck an area in the Molucca Sea region on November 15, 2014, and was followed by more than 300 aftershocks until the end of December 2014. This earthquake was the second largest event in the Molucca Sea during the last decade and was well recorded by local networks. Although the seismicity rate of the aftershocks was declining at the end of 2014, several significant earthquakes with magnitude (Mw) larger than five still occurred from January to May 2015 within the vicinity of the mainshock location. In this study, we investigated the earthquake process and its relation to the increasing seismicity in the Molucca Sea within six months after the earthquake. We utilized teleseismic double-difference hypocenter relocation method using local, regional, and teleseismic direct body-wave arrival times of 514 earthquakes from the time of mainshock occurrence to May 2015. Furthermore, we analyzed the focal mechanism solutions from the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED), Japan. From our results, we observed that aftershocks propagated along the NNE-SSW direction within a 100 km fault segment length of the Mayu Ridge. The highest number of the aftershocks was located in the SSW direction of the main event. The aftershocks were terminated at around 60 km depth, which may represent the location of the top of the Molucca Sea Plate (MSP). Between January and May 2015, several significant earthquakes propagated westward and were extended to the Molucca Sea slab. From focal mechanism catalog, we found that the mainshock mechanism was reverse with strike 192o and dip 55o. While most of the large aftershock mechanisms were consistent with the main event, several aftershocks had reverse, oblique mechanisms. Stress inversion result from focal mechanism data revealed that the maximum stress direction was SE and was not perpendicular with fault direction. We suggest that the non-perpendicular maximum stress caused several aftershocks with oblique mechanisms.