2025 magnitude 7.7 Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar)
Snapshots of simulated ground motions produced by the 2025 magnitude 7.7 Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar) supershear earthquake. The time relative to the origin time is shown in the bottom left corner of each panel. The seismic wavefield is simulated using the U.S. Geological Survey Finite Fault Model, a regional 3D velocity model (Wang et al., 2019), and SPECFEM3D. The earthquake epicenter is shown as a gray star, the portion of the Sagaing fault (Mandalay, Burma) on which slip is prescribed is shown as a black line. Positive and negative vertical ground motion velocities (cm/s) are colored red and blue, respectively.
Improving seismic hazard estimates with ground-motion simulations
On 28 March 2025, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake occurred near Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar), rupturing over 460 km of the Sagaing fault and reaching supershear rupture speeds exceeding the local shear wave speed at the depth of rupture (USGS Finite Fault Model). Supershear ruptures amplify ground shaking at large distances from the ruptured fault, which are further modified by heterogeneous Earth structure to produce complex patterns of ground shaking across continental scales. Preliminary ground-motion simulations underway at the USGS aim to incorporate a growing body of seismological observations to understand the roles of source, path, and site effects contributing to observed ground shaking during the 2025 Mandalay earthquake, including amplified ground motions felt in Bangkok, Thailand, over 1,000 km away from the earthquake hypocenter. We use the rapidly published USGS finite fault model, ... [full article]
Contributed by
H.L. Kehoe1, O.S. Boyd1, A.M. Dunham2, E. Bozdağ3,4, M.P. Moschetti1, E.A. Wirth2, and W.J. Stephenson1
1U.S. Geological Survey, Geologic Hazards Science Center, Golden, CO, USA
2U.S. Geological Survey, Earthquake Science Center, Seattle, WA, USA
3Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, USA
4Department of Geophysics, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, USA
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