Passive seismic experiment and ScS wave splitting in the southwestern subbasin of South China Sea

Abstract

The seismic experiment of 3D array of OBS in the southwestern sub-basin of the South China Sea (SCS) is briefly introduced in this paper. The data analysis of broadband OBS shows that totally 93 earthquakes with magnitude of Ms 6.0-6.9 and 10 earthquakes with magnitude above Ms 7.0 were recorded in high quality during this experiment, especially the catastrophic earthquake Ms 9.0 occurred in the east sea area of Japan on March 11, 2011. The anisotropy parameters inversion of ScS wave of four events above Ms 7.0 indicates that the fast direction of shear wave is N58°E parallel to the ceased spreading ridge of the southwestern sub-basin of SCS (the slow direction is S35°E perpendicular to the spreading ridge), which means the spreading ridge is under compressing stress at present and the cessation of seafloor spreading is related to such stress field as well. © 2012 The Author(s).