On August 8, 2017, a strong earthquake of M7.0 occurred in Jiuzhaigou County, Aba Prefecture, northern Sichuan. The earthquake occurred on a branch fault at the southern end of the eastern section of the East Kunlun fault zone. In the northwest of the aftershock area is the Maqu-Maqin seismic gap, which is in a locking state under high stress. Destructive earthquakes are frequent along the southeast direction of the aftershocks area. In Songpan-Pingwu area, only 50~80km away from the Jiuzhaigou earthquake, two M7.2 earthquakes and one M6.7 earthquake occurred from August 16 to 23, 1976. Therefore, the Jiuzhaigou earthquake was an earthquake that occurred at the transition part between the historical earthquake fracture gap and the neotectonic active area. Compared with other M7.0 earthquakes, there are few moderate-strong aftershocks following this Jiuzhaigou earthquake, and the maximum magnitude of aftershocks is much smaller than the main shock. There is no surface rupture zone discovered corresponding to the M7.0 earthquake. In order to understand the feature of source structure and the tectonic environment of the source region, we calculate the parameters of the initial earthquake catalogue by Loc3D based on the digital waveform data recorded by Sichuan seismic network and seismic phase data collected by the China Earthquake Networks Center. Smaller events in the sequence are relocated using double-difference algorithm; source mechanism solutions and centroid depths of 29 earthquakes with M_L≥3.4 are obtained by CAP method. Moreover, the source spectrum of 186 earthquakes with 2.0≤M_L≤5.5 is restored and the spatial distribution of source stress drop along faults is obtained. According to the relocations and focal mechanism results, the Jiuzhaigou M7.0 earthquake is a high-angle left-lateral strike-slip event. The earthquake sequence mainly extends along the NW-SE direction, with the dominant focal depth of 4~18km. There are few shallow earthquakes and few earthquakes with depth greater than 20km. The relocation results show that the distribution of aftershocks is bounded by the M7.0 main shock, which shows obvious segmental characteristics in space, and the aftershock area is divided into NW segment and SE segment. The NW segment is about 16km long and 12km wide, with scattered and less earthquakes, the dominant focal depth is 4~12km, the source stress drop is large, and the type of focal mechanism is complicated. The SE segment is about 20km long and 8km wide, with concentrated earthquakes, the dominant depth is 4~12km, most moderate-strong earthquakes occurred in the depth between 11~14km. Aftershock activity extends eastward from the start point of the M7.0 main earthquake. The middle-late-stage aftershocks are released intensively on this segment, most of them are strike-slip earthquakes. The stress drop of the aftershock sequence gradually decreases with time. Principal stress axis distribution also shows segmentation characteristics. On the NW segment, the dominant azimuth of P axis is about 91.39°, the average elevation angle is about 20.80°, the dominant azimuth of T axis is NE-SW, and the average elevation angle is about 58.44°. On the SE segment, the dominant azimuth of P axis is about 103.66°, the average elevation angle is about 19.03°, the dominant azimuth of T axis is NNE-SSW, and the average elevation angle is about 15.44°. According to the fault profile inferred from the focal mechanism solution, the main controlling structure in the source area is in NW-SE direction, which may be a concealed fault or the north extension of Huya Fault. The northwest end of the fault is limited to the horsetail structure at the east end of the East Kunlun Fault, and the SE extension requires clear seismic geological evidence. The dip angle of the NW segment of the seismogenic fault is about 65°, which may be a reverse fault striking NNW and dipping NE. According to the basic characteristics of inverse fault ruptures, the rupture often extends short along the strike, the rupture length is often disproportionate to the magnitude of the earthquake, and it is not easy to form a rupture zone on the surface. The dip angle of the SE segment of the seismogenic fault is about 82°, which may be a strike-slip fault that strikes NW and dips SW. The fault plane solution shows significant change on the north and south sides of the main earthquake, and turns gradually from compressional thrust to strike-slip movement, with a certain degree of rotation.

The attenuation characteristics and site response are calculated respectively for each individual tectonic unit in Sichuan (Sichuan Basin,west Sichuan plateau and Panzhihua-Xichang area),using digital waveform data recorded by regional seismic networks and relevant seismic phase data collected from China Seismograph Network.The frequency dependent Q(f) is obtained by the iterative grid-search technique described by Atkinson and Mereu based on trilinear geometrical spreading model.The source spectra are determined by the model of Brune and the site responses of seismic stations are derived by Moya's method using genetic algorithms.Comparison to conventional M_L estimates shows that the network local magnitude bias is quite significant at low and intermediate magnitudes.The bias at the j^th station for the i^th event is defined as ΔM_ij=M_ij-M_i, where ΔM_ij is the station magnitude and M_i the network-average value.For comparison,we mapped the spatial distribution of biases by digital seismograms recorded from 10535 earthquakes of magnitude 2.5≤M_L≤4.9 that occurred in Sichuan from January 1,2009 to June 30,2015.Based on the above data,the attenuation characteristics,site response and their effects on magnitude determination in Sichuan are analyzed.Our results demonstrate that the associated model for regional quality factor for frequencies can be expressed as Q₁(f)=450.6f^{0.513 4} for Sichuan Basin,Q₂(f)=136.6f^{0.581 3} for west Sichuan Plateau and Q₃(f)=101.9f^{0.666 3} for Panzhihua-Xichang area.Site response results indicate that different stations show different amplifications.Maps of biases appear to be different,but with similar dominant spatial distribution.For stations in Sichuan Basin,their greater magnitudes are functions of low attenuation in structure and amplification effects of both seismic stations and basin effects.For stations in west Sichuan Plateau,the possible causes of these lower magnitudes are severe dependence upon source region due to extreme lateral variations in either structure or path effect attenuation.For stations in Panzhihua-Xichang area,broken medium caused by strong tectonic activity or large earthquakes and heat flow up-welling along active faults may be the main reasons of low magnitude values when earthquakes occur in western Sichuan and eastern Tibetan region.And the greater magnitudes for earthquakes along the Longmen Mountains appear to be well correlated with edge effect of sedimentary basin on strong ground motion.In our study,stations magnitude biases appear to be extremely correlated with tectonic structures and different regions when seismic rays passing through,magnitudes are affected significantly by lateral variations in attenuation characters rather than site responses.