Earthquake hazard contributions from the Myanmar Universities Seismic Experiment (MUSE): Installing a dense seismic array in Yangon during COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Yangon has a population of over seven million and is one of the fastest growing cities in Myanmar. Like many of Myanmar's large cities, it is located in close proximity to the Sagaing fault, a major strike-slip fault in Southeast Asia that has historically produced magnitude >7 earthquakes. In addition, the Indo-Myanmar region hosts complex tectonics related to the subduction of the India plate beneath the Burma microplate and large magnitude earthquakes are expected for the locked part of the subduction system. An improved assessment of the ground motions that may occur during a large earthquake rupture can lead to better city planning and management to help prevent the loss of life and property in Myanmar's expanding population centers. This requires an improved understanding of the subsurface and geologic structures that underlie the major cities. As part of the Myanmar Universities Seismic Experiment (MUSE) project, 11 professors and students in Yangon were remotely trained during the COVID-19 lockdown on the installation of nodal seismic stations. We have recorded data at 110 three-component nodes from the IRIS PASSCAL instrument center. Instruments were deployed along three densely spaced seismic profiles in one of the first US-based international efforts of this kind. Data recording started on 21 March 2020 and continued for ~30 days. Following a similar study in Los Angeles, California, we will use receiver function computed from recordings of eight teleseismic earthquakes to determine the depth to basement beneath Yangon. These results and other seismological analyses will aid in providing better estimates of ground shaking in the event of moderate-large earthquakes. © 2021 Society of Exploration Geophysicists First International Meeting for Applied Geoscience & Energy