Special Session     Thu-31 Jul     AM2   10:30 – 12:30     MR2

SS04: Late Breaking Session: M7.7 Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar) Earthquake


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Invited Talk
Supershear rupture and its interpretation for the 2025 Mw7.7 Mandalay, Myanmar Earthquake
Shengji WEI, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore;
Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing

shjwei@ntu.edu.sg

Biography

Dr. Shengji WEI is a Principal Investigator at the Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS), as well as an Associate Professor at the Asian School of the Environment (ASE), both at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He is also a visiting scientist at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chiense Academic of Sciences. Before joining NTU in 2014, he completed his post-doctorate training at the Seismological Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. He obtained his bachelor and PhD degrees in geophysics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2004 and 2009, respectively.

He has broad interests in plate tectonics with focus on earthquake source and velocity structure studies. His research experiences cover both natural and man-made earthquakes. His approach to resolving the kinematic nature of earthquakes involves a combination of geodesy, geology, and seismology to better constrain the spatial-temporal evolution of seismic rupture properties. Besides reconciling various datasets, he has also developed techniques that allow waveform inversion/modelling to be extended to a higher frequency (e.g. > 1Hz) range of relevance for damage assessment. In recent years, his group initiated and maintained strong research programs with SE Asia collaborators, such as in Indonesia and Myanmar.


Supershear rupture and its interpretation for the 2025 Mw7.7 Mandalay, Myanmar Earthquake

Understanding the relationship between earthquake rupture dynamics and fault structure is fundamental to earthquake physics. The 2025 Mw7.8 Myanmar earthquake is a valuable case to advance this understanding. Here we show that the Mw7.8 Myanmar earthquake produced the longest inland rupture of near 500 km along the Sagaing fault passing through the seismic gap between Mandalay and Naypyidaw, with a fairly simple surface trace. The initial sub-shear bilateral rupture accelerated to a supershear speed as it propagated towards south and sustained for more than 200 km, as constrained by multiple seismic observations and analysis. The supershear segment coincides with complicated fault related structure. We propose that the combination of a simple fault geometry, sedimentary basin and this fault related complicated fault structure enabled the sustained supershear rupture. Our findings emphasize that observations and models encompassing more comprehensive fault related structure are crucial for advancing earthquake cycle simulations and improving seismic hazard assessments.





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