Earthquake Focal Mechanisms of Non-Normal Type in the South Baikal Basin

Abstract

––Earthquake focal mechanisms that are atypical for the South Baikal basin, which is under the extension of the Earth’s crust in the NW-SE direction, are analyzed. Atypical mechanisms are understood as focal solutions of strike-slip and reverse fault types, as well as solutions with normal fault movements along NW-trending planes transverse to the main structures of the basin. Whereas normal faults along NE-trending planes dominate, 29% of solutions from the sample of focal mechanisms are of non-normal fault type, of which 18% account for strike-slip faults and their combinations with other types of displacements (with a normal or reverse component) and reverse faults (with a strike-slip component) – 11%. Such displacements occur predominantly along NW-trending planes, as well as along submeridional and sublatitudinal ones, and strike-slip movements are characterized by right-lateral displacement along NW and submeridional planes, and, accordingly, left-lateral displacement along sublatitudinal and some NE planes. Earthquakes with atypical mechanisms are distributed almost throughout the entire basin, but it is necessary to note an increase in their number on its southwestern termination (the Kultuk segment) and on the eastern side of the Central Basin. In the current field of crustal extension, transverse shears play the role of transfer faults, accommodating differences in the rates and vectors of deformation of local blocks within the basin, and on a regional scale between neighboring rift basins.