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Shallow-focus seismicity and tectonic structure of the Sea of Japan

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Abstract

The analysis of the available seismological data on the Sea of Japan region made it possible to prepare the first complete unified catalog of earthquakes with M ⩾ 3.0 and h ⩽ 60 km for the period of 1975–2010. Four maps of epicenters for different depth intervals (0–10, 11–20, 21–30, and 31–60 km) and three sublatitudinal sections 1° wide are constructed. The analysis includes the structural features and the probable tectonic nature of the seismoactive zone along the underwater margin or borderland of the Japan-Sakhalin island arc: the regional or, more exactly, megaduplex of compression faults determined by the crust sliding in the back part of the frontal deep-seated thrust. The crustal seismicity in the southeastern margin of the Korean Peninsula (the Sino-Korean Shield) is likely related to the Tsushima and Ullyndo faults. It is assumed that it may provoke block, potentially thsunamigenic landslides in the southern and eastern cirques of the Ullyndo Basin incised into the underwater delta of the Huanghe River.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Marine Geology and Geophysics, Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Nauki 1B, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 693022, Russia

    I. N. Tikhonov & V. L. Lomtev

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  1. I. N. Tikhonov
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  2. V. L. Lomtev
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Correspondence to I. N. Tikhonov.

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Original Russian Text © I.N. Tikhonov, V.L. Lomtev, 2013, published in Tikhookeanskaya Geologiya, 2013, Vol. 32, No. 5, pp. 67–78.

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Tikhonov, I.N., Lomtev, V.L. Shallow-focus seismicity and tectonic structure of the Sea of Japan. Russ. J. of Pac. Geol. 7, 346–357 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1819714013050072

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1819714013050072

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