The 1998 Papua New Guinea Earthquake and its Fault Plane Estimated from Relocated Aftershocks

The 1998 Papua New Guinea earthquake of Mw 7.0 occurred near the Wewak trench where the North Bismarck plate is subducting beneath the Australian plate. Its mechanism is thrust-type, and one of the nodal planes is almost parallel to the plate interface. To determine which of the two nodal planes of the main shock is the fault plane, we relocated the main shock and aftershocks using a method of modified joint hypocenter determination. We combined and employed two types of data in this study. Firstly, we used data reported by the National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which includes three stations at the northeastern edge of Irian Jaya and one station in northern Papua New Guinea, from which the epicentral distances are less than 2 degrees. Secondly, in addition to the above permanent-station data, we used data from temporary aftershock observations near the epicentral area around the Sissano Lagoon carried out by TSUJI et al. (1998). Using three-component seismometers, they carried out observations from August 2 to October 2, 1998 at three sites. Although the network did not record the main shock and immediate aftershocks, the data obtained by temporary observation sites can clearly assist in identifying their absolute locations, since it is possible to apply the joint hypocenter determination (JHD) method. Hypocenters were relocated between the coastline and the Wewak trench, distributed along a nodal plane dipping shallowly to the southwest. Therefore, we can conclude that this nodal plane is the main shock fault and that the 1998 Papua New Guinea earthquake was an interplate earthquake between the North Bismarck and Australian plates.