Faulting Processes of Large Earthquakes in the Baikal Rift Zone and Implications for Rift Development

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This proposal seeks funding to study the faulting processes of six large earthquakes with magnitudes between 6.5 and 7.9 that have occurred with the Baikal rift zone between 1950 and 1967. This will be accomplished through waveform modeling of regional and teleseismic body waves and surface wave analysis. Additional constraints on fault geometry and the rupture process will be obtained from available geological and geophysical studies of the rift. The earthquakes of interest occurred in regions of the rift that are contemporaneously in different stages of evolution, ranging from the well established central rift graben to incipient rifting at 121 degrees E, where no extensional features appear at the surface. Study of the faulting processes within each region of the rift will lead to a better understanding of how faulting in a rift evolves and will allow comparison of these regions with other continental rifts that are in different stages of evolution. In addition, analysis of the 1957 M=7.9 Muya, Siberia earthquake, one of the largest earthquakes to have occurred in an intraplate setting since 1900, will provide important information for seismic hazard assessment in other regions of continental rifting.