Study on co-seismic ionospheric disturbance of Alaska earthquake on July 29, 2021 based on GPS TEC

Abstract

With the rapid development of space geodetic information technology, the Global Positioning System (GPS) has been widely used in seismology and space environmental research. Typically, the occurrence of a large earthquake will lead to some changes in the ionosphere, this phenomenon is called coseismic ionospheric disturbances (CIDs). In this contribution, differential slant total electron content (dSTEC) is used to study the anomalous characteristics of the ionosphere. First, based on the ionospheric dSTEC time series and two-dimensional disturbance detection, the temporal and spatial characteristics of ionospheric disturbances can be accurately analysed. Secondly, using wavelet transform spectrum analysis and disturbance propagation velocity, it can be determined that the disturbance sources of this earthquake can be identified as acoustic wave, gravity wave and Rayleigh wave. Finally, in order to further clarify the direction of the earthquake disturbance, this study focuses on proposing an innovative method for the disturbance propagation direction, and determines that there are two directions of the propagation of the CIDs of the Alaski earthquake.