Earthquake recurrence assessment of the active Shanchiao Fault in northern Taiwan

The Shanchiao Fault is an active normal fault located in the Taipei metropolis, northern Taiwan. Faulting activities have been observed from both the long-term geological data and the short-term GPS surface deformation along the fault. Particularly, with recent studies suggesting the potential of triggering an M_w 7.0-plus earthquake, the Shanchiao Fault is posing a direct seismic threat to the most important, densely populated Taipei metropolitan area in Taiwan. As a result, this study aims to evaluate the earthquake recurrence probability of the Shanchiao Fault, in an attempt to estimate the seismic hazard and help in decision-making for the Taiwan government. Given the capability of capturing the stochastic nature of tectonic stress accumulating, this study used the Brownian model to calculate the earthquake recurrence of the Shanchiao Fault. From the analysis, the recurrence probabilities of the Shanchiao Fault are determined at 8.3 and 17.4% for the next 50 and 100 years, respectively.