Focal mechanism and source determination of the Padang Lawas earthquake april 30, 2020, using moment tensor inversion

¹ Research and Development Centre, Meteorological Climatology and Geophysical Agency (BMKG), Jl. Angkasa I No.2 Kemayoran, Jakarta Pusat, 10610, Indonesia
² Meteorological, Climatological And Geophysical Regional I (BBMKG Wilayah I), Medan, 20131, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: prasetyo.agung@bmkg.go.id

Abstract

The earthquake focal mechanism is one of the essential parameters in understanding the characteristics of an earthquake source. For example, the earthquake mainshock at the Padang Lawas Regency and South Tapanuli Regency on April 30, 2020, caused some damage to houses, schools, and mosques, especially in the South Tapanuli Regency. BMKG released the first information that the earthquake was 1.17N, 99.53E, 24 kilometers northwest of Padang Lawas, North Sumatra province, at a depth of 10 kilometers, Thursday (30/4/2020) at 15.20.25 Local Time with a magnitude of 5.6. The purpose of this study is to determine the focal mechanism of the Padang Lawas earthquake mainshock on April 30, 2021, and determine the fault nodal plane that best suits local tectonic conditions. We used the moment tensor inversion method by using waveform velocity data from the BMKG mini regional station seismic network installed in 2019 and close to the epicenter, namely TTSM, PLSM, LTSM, and RRSI. We also used the velocity model from AK135. In this study, we applied the filter technique using a Butterworth bandpass filter with a lower limit of 0.05 Hz, an upper limit of 0.10 Hz, and a cut frequency of 0.13 Hz. The result of the moment tensor inversion shows the variance of the observation and calculation data is 0.3824. The earthquake source parameters show that the Nodal I plane with strike/dip/slip values is 100.1/88.3/7.5 and the Nodal II plane with strike/dip/slip values is 9.9/82.5/178.3. The value of Seismic Moment (Mo) is 0.4653E+17 Nm or Mw 5. Based on the distribution of aftershocks and the mechanism pattern of the Tapanuli earthquake source on April 30, 2020, it is consistent with the nodal plane II. The mechanism is in the form of a strike-slip fault and corresponds to the movement mechanism of the Sumatran fault system in the Toru segment. Therefore, the tectonic conditions in the southern part of Padang Lawas Regency and South Tapanuli Regency are classified as active. Thus, the government and society need to be aware and make mitigation efforts against the impact of the next earthquake in the future.