An
earthquake
An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...
measuring 5.8 struck the province of
Sichuan
Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...
in China at 22:55
local time (14:55
UTC), 17 June 2019.
and
Gong counties in
Yibin were particularly affected. 13 people died and more than 200 others were injured.
Tectonic setting
Sichuan lies within the zone of complex tectonics caused by the continuing convergence of the
Indian Plate
The Indian Plate (or India Plate) is a minor tectonic plate straddling the equator in the Eastern Hemisphere. Originally a part of the ancient continent of Gondwana, the Indian Plate broke away from the other fragments of Gondwana , began mov ...
with the
Eurasian Plate
The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia), with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent and ...
. The
active faulting in this area relates to the eastward movement of material away from the
Tibetan Plateau
The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the Ti ...
, which has been uplifted by this
collision. The largest structure in the area is the
Longmenshan Fault, movement on which was responsible for the M7.9
2008 Sichuan earthquake.
[
]
Earthquake
Based on the focal mechanism
The focal mechanism of an earthquake describes the deformation in the source region that generates the seismic waves. In the case of a fault-related event it refers to the orientation of the fault plane that slipped and the slip vector and is ...
the earthquake was a result of oblique-slip faulting, dominantly reverse faulting with a component of strike-slip.[ Further analysis suggests that the initial movement was on a reverse fault followed by rupture along a shallow strike-slip fault. The reverse fault movement matches well with the known stress field in the area, but the strike-slip fault is less favourably orientated, suggesting the presence of elevated pore pressures due to water injection associated with ]solution mining
In-situ leaching (ISL), also called in-situ recovery (ISR) or solution mining, is a mining process used to recover minerals such as copper and uranium through boreholes drilled into a deposit, ''in situ''. In situ leach works by artificially disso ...
of rock salt
Halite (), commonly known as rock salt, is a type of salt, the mineral (natural) form of sodium chloride ( Na Cl). Halite forms isometric crystals. The mineral is typically colorless or white, but may also be light blue, dark blue, purple, pi ...
.Interferometric synthetic-aperture radar Interferometric synthetic aperture radar, abbreviated InSAR (or deprecated IfSAR), is a radar technique used in geodesy and remote sensing. This geodetic method uses two or more synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images to generate maps of surface defor ...
(InSAR) data indicate that the reverse fault was shallow enough to be intersected by the openhole sections of some of the injection wells.
Damage
More than 20,000 houses were badly damaged and some roads, communication infrastructure and hydroelectric power plants were also reported to be affected.
See also
* List of earthquakes in 2019
{{Infobox earthquakes in year, year=2019, location_map=Earth, location_map_places=
{{Location map~, Earth, mark = Green pog.svg, lat_deg = 28.261, lon_deg = 104.984
{{Location map~, Earth, mark = Green pog.svg, lat_deg = 32.970, lon_deg = 130.469
...
* List of earthquakes in China
This is a List of earthquakes in China, part of the series of lists of disasters in China. China has been the location of some of the most deadly earthquakes in history. The deadliest was the 1976 Tangshan earthquake with 300,000+ deaths. Earthq ...
* List of earthquakes in Sichuan
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sichuan Earthquake, 2019
2019 earthquakes
2019
File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...
June 2019 events in China
Yibin
2019 disasters in China