Fault plane parameters of Tancheng M8½ earthquake on the basis of present-day seismological data

The great Tancheng earthquake of M8½ occurred in 1668 was the largest seismic event ever recorded in history in eastern China. This study determines the fault geometry of this earthquake by inverting seismological data of present-day moderate-small earthquakes in the focal area. We relocated those earthquakes with the double-difference method and found focal mechanism solutions using gird test method. The inversion results are as follows: the strike is 21.6°, the dip angle is 89.5°, the slip angle is 170°, the fault length is about 160 km, the lower-boundary depth is about 32 km and the buried depth of upper boundary is about 4 km. This shows that the seismic fault is a NNE-trending upright right-lateral strike-slip fault and has cut through the crust. Moreover, the surface seismic fault, intensity distribution of the earthquake, earthquake-depth distribution and seismic-wave velocity profile in the focal area all verified our study result.