Effects of Earth's layered structure, gravity and curvature on coseismic deformation

Abstract

The effects of Earth's layered structure, gravity and curvature on coseismic deformation are systematically quantified for all fundamental point sources and some finite-fault sources, respectively. The point-source simulations show that the layering effect (about ≤25 per cent) is significantly higher than the gravity effect (about ≤11 per cent) and the curvature effect (about ≤5 per cent). A case study on the 2011 Mw 9.0 Tohoku earthquake is made to quantify the uncertainties of the dislocation models of large earthquakes, in which the three different effects are neglected. Finally, it is investigated how geodetic finite-fault slip inversions are affected by neglecting the layering effect.