Ruptures in a Highly Fractured Upper Crust

The 1999 Chiayi M 6.4 earthquake sequence that occurred about one month after the 1999 Chi-Chi M 7.6 earthquake is remarkably similar to the Ruey-Li M 6.2 earthquake sequence which occurred one year before the big Chi-Chi event. Both sequences were energetic and short in duration; with events confined in small source volumes, and the fault-plane orientation of individual events in these sequences varied abruptly during the development of the dynamic rupture. Both occurred on the southern extension of the large Chelungpu rupture causal to the Chi-Chi event, and in an area of highly fractured upper crust. We consider that this faulting behavior is due to the rupture-induced dynamic stress that interacts with the pre-existing highly fractured upper crust and continually perturbs the local stress field. This phenomenon appears to be typical of particularly active plate boundary regions with a highly fractured upper crust under intense tectonic loading.