A Preliminary Tomography Inversion Study on the Palu Koro Fault, Central Sulawesi Using BMKG Seismic Network

Abstract

The Palu Koro Fault, which frequently causes solid and destructive earthquakes, is the most exciting aspect of Central Sulawesi’s tectonics. We used local earthquake data from the area in this preliminary study. Our preliminary investigation entails analyzing local seismic data and estimating the velocity structure and hypocenter location using a tomographic approach that employs P-wave arrival times from the Agency for Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics earthquake observation network from 2010 to 2019. We use a 1-D initial velocity structural model in this tomographic inversion method, and the results are evaluated using the checkerboard test, derivative weight sum, and ray hit count. To the west and east of the Palu Koro Fault area, preliminary tomographic inversion results show a relatively high seismic velocity. These areas are interpreted as West Sulawesi Mandala and East Sulawesi Mandala Poso Fault and Wekuli Fault. The low-velocity anomaly is found near the Palu Koro Fault. Because of the high-speed thrusting, the relocated hypocenters also clustered around the Palu Koro Fault area. In the following activity, we will determine the speed structure of the S wave, which is expected to provide better geological information in the interpretation.