Seismological and tectonic setting of the 21 September 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake, Taiwan

✍ Scribed by Lew, Marshall ;Naeim, Farzad ;Huang, Sampson C. ;Lam, Howard K. ;Carpenter, Lauren D.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 476 KB
• Volume: 9
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1062-8002
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1794(200005)9:2<73::aid-tal145>3.0.co;2-t

✦ Synopsis

The 21 September 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake struck the island nation of Taiwan with a severe intensity on a fault that was not believed to be very active. The earthquake rupture was a shallow focus event within the island on a thrust fault. This is atypical of most earthquakes in the area, which are centered offshore in the ocean to the East. However, Taiwan has had a history of significant on-shore earthquake events in the twentieth century. The Central Weather Bureau of Taiwan had established an extensive digital network of accelerographs throughout the island that provided a large suite of strong motion data. In the near field, ground motions of up to 1 g were measured. In general, the ground motions on the hanging wall were greater than those on the foot wall of the Chelungpu thrust fault.