Resolving rupture processes of great earthquakes has fundamental importance to the study of earthquake physics, rupture dynamics, fault zone structure, and evolving processes. It also plays an essential role in earthquake hazard estimation, emergency response and seismic hazard mitigation. This paper reviews the major progress of the earthquake rupture process studies in the last decades, with an emphasize on the research directions of the department geophysics of Peking University including real-time response, back-projection techniques, geodetic data analysis, joint inversion and inversion in complex earth medium. We discussed the advantages and limitations of tradition methods; proposed a systematic and integrated approach from fast-response to detailed study. We also raised perspectives of using source models for ground motion prediction and the possibility of full-dynamic inversion.

Figure 1. The timeline of big earthquake studies is presented as a non-linear time scale. Research orientations, disaster types, available data, inversion and modeling results are plotted in each row. The approximated time scale of different data and results are marked as braces. Regimes of automatic and humancontrolled results are marked as gray areas.

Figure 5. Resolution of teleseismic dynamic waves, regional dynamic waves, geodetic static data and joint using all datasets are presented as triangular diagrams in each panel.

Yue H, Zhang Y, Ge Z, Wang T, Zhao L. 2020. Resolving rupture processes of great earthquakes: Reviews and perspective from fast response to joint inversion.Science China Earth Sciences, 63(4): 492–511, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-019-9549-1