Coseismic and Early Postseismic Deformation of the 2020 Mw 6.4 Petrinja Earthquake (Croatia) Revealed by InSAR

Abstract

The largest earthquake (Mw 6.4) in northwestern Croatia ruptured the faults near the city of Petrinja on 29 December 2020, at 11:19 UTC. The epicenter was located ~3 km southwest of Petrinja, ~40 km southeast of Zagreb, the capital of the Republic of Croatia. Here we investigated the geometric and kinematic properties of the 2020 Mw 6.4 Petrinja earthquake using a joint inversion of ascending and descending interferograms from three tracks of Sentinel-1 Single-Look Complex (SLC) images. The coseismic and early postseismic surface displacements associated with the Petrinja earthquake were imaged using standard DInSAR and SBAS time-series InSAR methods, respectively. The distributed slip model was inverted based on the ground surface displacements with maximum slip patch in 5 km depth. The early postseismic deformation occurred on the northwestern extent of coseismic slip, and it cannot be well modeled by the coseismic model. We thus suggested that the postseismic deformation was caused by a combined effect of the postseismic afterslips and aftershocks occurring in this area. Based on the inverted slip model, we calculated the Coulomb stress change in the region, and found a good correlation between positive Coulomb failure stress ∆CFS and the distribution of aftershocks. Based on these results, we identified which faults are more active, and then better estimated the seismic hazards in the region.

Keywords

• Petrinja earthquake
• InSAR
• coseismic slip
• postseismic deformation
• Coulomb stress change