The 2024 ML 4.6 Liupanshui, Guizhou, China, Shallow Earthquake Was Likely Triggered by Coal Mining Activity

Abstract On 24 July 2024, an ML 4.6 earthquake occurred at 26.27° N, 104.74° E in Liupanshui City, Guizhou Province, China. The strongest ground shaking was felt in Fa’er Town, an area with several coal mines. To explore the seismogenic mechanism of this event, we analyzed broadband seismic waveforms from the China National Seismic Network to determine its source parameters, including its focal mechanism, centroid depth, and horizontal location. Because the earthquake was very close to the mining areas, we then constructed an elastic finite-element model to calculate the change in Coulomb failure stress (ΔCFS), aiming to evaluate the impact of mining activities on this event. The results show that the Liupanshui earthquake exhibited a thrust-slip focal mechanism with a centroid depth of ∼2 km. The relocated hypocenter was located directly beneath the coal mining area. Although the calculated ΔCFS in this region was relatively modest (∼4.5 kPa), the shallow depth and spatial correlation strongly suggest that the earthquake was likely induced by local mining activities.