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Zhang CY, Jia K, Wang HH and Hao M (2025). Is there accelerated crustal deformation before large earthquakes? a case study of strong intra-plate earthquakes in china. Earthq Sci 38.
Citation: Zhang CY, Jia K, Wang HH and Hao M (2025). Is there accelerated crustal deformation before large earthquakes? a case study of strong intra-plate earthquakes in china. Earthq Sci 38.
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Is There Accelerated Crustal Deformation Before Large Earthquakes? A Case Study of Strong Intra-Plate Earthquakes in China

  • 1.

    School of Automation, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710129, China

  • 2.

    The Second Monitoring and Application Center, China Earthquake Administration, Xi’an 710054, China

More Information
  • Corresponding author:

    Jia Ke, email: jk@nwpu.edu.cn

  • Available Online: 20 Jun 2025
    Abstract
  • Key points:
    • No pre-slip acceleration phenomena were observed in 15 intraplate earthquakes in mainland China. • After categorizing the faults, no features were found apart from the sinusoidal periodicity. • The stacking results of individual earthquakes are easily influenced by nearby signals.

    The existence of a detectable precursory phase of fault slip preceding major earthquakes has been a subject of ongoing debate for decades. A recent study (Bletery and Nocquet, 2023) demonstrated exponential acceleration of fault slip prior to large earthquakes. Conversely, (Hirose et al., 2024) reported no such phenomenon when analyzing tiltmeter data. Furthermore, their analysis focused predominantly on subduction zone earthquakes, with limited consideration of intraplate earthquake scenarios. In this study, we examined 15 significant intraplate earthquakes in China and found no clear evidence of deformation acceleration prior to these events. We also investigated several key factors contributing to uncertainties in this approach. Our findings suggest that the exponential acceleration phenomenon is associated with specific earthquake characteristics and is influenced by the spatial distribution of proximal seismic signals.

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    • References (24)
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