Groundwater level and temperature changes following the great Tangshan earthquake of 1976 near the epicenter

Abstract

Several meters of rise in groundwater level with significant changes in groundwater temperature were observed near the epicenter of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake—an intraplate earthquake with a magnitude of M_S=7.8 that occurred in northern China. The origin of the groundwater level rise, however, remains a mystery. Studying the groundwater level rise can provide insight into the faulting process and has implications for water resources. In this study, we analyze the indications of the groundwater temperature data on the characteristics of the rising groundwater. The results show that the upward flow was maintained for approximately 5 days, and the depth of the rising groundwater was about 1–2 km. We then examine the groundwater level and temperature data with several reported models in order to explain the cause of the groundwater level rise. The results indicate that the groundwater level rise is attributable to the earthquake-induced enhancement of vertical hydraulic connection between the shallow and deep aquifers, leading to the upwelling of deep fluids that causes the groundwater levels to rise.

Keywords:

• Groundwater level and temperature response
• Tangshan earthquake
• static and dynamic strain
• liquefaction
• permeability

Acknowledgments

We thank the Editor in Chief Ramesh Singh and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, which are helpful in improving the manuscript. We thank Zhihua Ding and Ziguang Zhang for helping collect the groundwater level data. We thank Yan Xin for his valuable suggestions on the simulation.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The data used in this article are available from the corresponding author (Yuchuan Ma) upon request.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Spark Program of Earthquake Science of China (XH21046Y), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U2039205), and the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFE0109700).