Doppler effect of the rupture process of the great M_W7.9 Wenchuan earthquake

In this study we performed a classical spectrum analysis of seismic waveforms recorded at far field stations of the great M_W7.9 Wenchuan earthquake to observe the shifts of the corner frequency with azimuth due to the Doppler effect. Our results show that this damaging great earthquake had a dominating rupture propagation direction of 64.0°. The equivalent radius of the fault rupture surface was estimated to be 33 km, yielding the rupture area of about 3 500 km². Thus the length of the rupture fault surface is about 230 km if the depth (or width) extent is 15 km. The computer program developed in this study can quickly provide the information about the source of a future large (damaging) earthquake, which could be very useful for predicting aftershocks and planning the rescue operations.