Paleoearthquakes and long-term seismic regime in the Longmenshan fault zone, Southwest China

Resumo

The collected paleoseismological data about the ancient earthquakes are analyzed for the zone of the Wenchuan earthquake. Four earthquakes with magnitude М = 8.0 occurred over a period of 10000 years and two earthquakes with magnitude 7.5 occurred over 1200 years. The obtained data allowed us to reconstruct the long-term seismic regime within the studied territory by constructing the frequency–magnitude relationship based on the instrumental, historical, and paleoseismological data.