Modeling Locations with Enhanced Earth’s Crust Deformation during Earthquake Preparation near the Kamchatka Peninsula

Abstract

In seismically active regions of the Earth, to which the Kamchatka peninsula refers, pre-seismic anomalies are recorded in different geophysical fields. One of such fields is the acoustic emission of rocks, the anomalies of which are recorded 1–3 days before earthquakes at the distance of the first hundreds of kilometers from their epicenters. Results of joint acoustic-deformation measurements showed that growth of geoacoustic radiation intensity occurs during the increase in the level of deformations in rock masses by more than one order compared to the background values. Simulation studies of the areas with increased deformation are realized to understand the causes of anomalous acoustic-deformation disturbance occurrences before strong earthquakes. The model is based on the assumption that the Earth’s crust in the first approximation can be considered as a homogeneous isotropic elastic half-space, and an earthquake source can be considered as a displacements along a rectangular fault plane. Based on these assumptions, deformation regions of Earth’s crust were modeled during the preparations of two earthquakes with local magnitudes ML≈5 occurred on the Kamchatka Peninsula in 2007 and 2009. The simulation results were compared for the first time with the data of a laser strainmeter-interferometer installed at the Karymshina observation site (52.83∘ N, 158.13∘ E). It was shown that, during the preparation of the both earthquakes, the Karymshina observation site was within the region of shear deformations ≈10−7, which exceeded the tidal ones by an order. On the whole, simulation results corresponded to the results of the natural observations. Construction of an adequate model for the generation of acoustic-deformation disturbances before strong earthquakes is topical for the development of an early notification system on the threat of catastrophic natural events.