Work

Sensitivity of GGP superconducting gravimeters in detecting pre-seismic gravity anomalies

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Pre-seismic anomalies are attracting more and more attention in seismology. However, this issue has not been thoroughly researched. Superconducting gravimeters have high observation accuracy (10 −9 ∼ 10 −10 m/s 2 ) and can be used to study low-frequency pre-seismic gravity anomalies (the contribution of the internal mass redistribution). We extracted the pre-seismic gravity anomalies of 2010 Maule earthquake ( M w 8.8) and 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake ( M w 9.0) from the data of Global Geodynamics Project network. Through power spectrum density analysis and band-pass filtering of the gravity data, we found pre-seismic gravity anomalies continued for 126 h before the Maule earthquake, and the maximum reached 6 μgal. For the Tohoku-Oki earthquake, the pre-seismic anomalies continued for 89 h before the main shock, and the maximum anomaly was 26.5 μgal. Furthermore, all the SGs in Europe had detected clear pre-seismic gravity changes more than 3 μgal, but some other stations not. This discrepancy may be due to differences in local geological structure and sensitivity, despite the gravimeters having the same observation accuracy. From the results of great earthquakes, we found the gravimeters in Europe have a high sensitivity in detecting pre-seismic gravity anomalies.

Source: Advances in Space Research

DOI: 10.1016/j.asr.2025.12.025

Authors: Jie Dong, Baogui Ke, Lingbo Yin

Institution: Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping

Language: English

Topic: Earthquake Detection and Analysis

Subfield: Geophysics

Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $2,780

Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China, State Key Laboratory of Geo-Information Engineering, National University's Basic Research Foundation of China, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities