1. US Geological Survey, MS-999, 345 Middlefield Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA
2. Department of Geological Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
3. Department of Geosciences, Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA

Correspondence to: Tom Parsons¹ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to T.P. (Email: tparsons@usgs.gov).

Abstract

On 12 May 2008, the devastating magnitude 7.9 (Wenchuan) earthquake struck the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, collapsing buildings and killing thousands in major cities aligned along the western Sichuan basin in China. After such a large-magnitude earthquake, rearrangement of stresses in the crust commonly leads to subsequent damaging earthquakes^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}. The mainshock of the 12 May earthquake ruptured with as much as 9 m of slip along the boundary between the Longmen Shan and Sichuan basin, and demonstrated the complex strike–slip and thrust motion⁶ that characterizes the region^{7, 8}. The Sichuan basin and surroundings are also crossed by other active strike–slip and thrust faults. Here we present calculations of the coseismic stress changes that resulted from the 12 May event using models of those faults, and show that many indicate significant stress increases. Rapid mapping of such stress changes can help to locate fault sections with relatively higher odds of producing large aftershocks.

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