A Mw 6.1 earthquake on 25 February 2022, at around 8:39 a.m. local time, struck Pasaman Barat Regency, West Sumatra, Indonesia, and was felt in Singapore and Malaysia. The hypocenter of this earthquake was 12 km deep and preceded by an Mw 4.9 foreshock a few minutes earlier. The earthquakes originated on a blind fault and triggered a landslide at Mount Talamau. Herein, the slip distribution and asperities along the plane fault during the earthquake were examined by teleseismic inversion and the fault location was identified by Global Gravity Model plus (GGMPlus) satellite gravity data. The slip distribution was calculated from the source parameters (strike: 136°; dip: 70°; rake: 174°) by inversion techniques based on teleseismic data. Based on the slip distribution, the earthquake was generated by stress from the Sianok fault that spread to the north and reached the uncertain fault segment in the Talamau area. In addition, the results of the First Horizontal Derivative and Second Vertical Derivative from the GGMplus data revealed a straight Simple Bouguer Anomaly pattern, confirming the existence of the uncertain Talamau fault as part of the Great Sumatra Fault. This work shows the potential application of the combination of teleseismic and gravity observation for delineating the fault structure that caused the 2022 Mw 6.1 Pasaman earthquake, which can also be applied to other locations of similar geological backgrounds.
Magnetotellurics (MT) is an important geophysical method for exploring geothermal systems, with the Earth resistivity obtained from the MT method proving to be useful for the hydrothermal imaging changes of the system. In this research, we applied the MT method to map the geothermal system of the Seulawah Agam volcano in northern Sumatra, a site intended for the construction of a geothermal power plant with an estimated energy of 230 Mwe. Herein, 3D MT measurements were carried out, covering the entire area of the volcano and the various intersecting local faults from the Seulimeum segment in the NW–SE direction. Based on Occam 2D inversion, a conductive anomaly (<10 ohm·m) near the surface was identified in response to specific manifestation areas, including the Heutsz crater on the northern side and the Cempaga crater on the southern side. A further conductive anomaly was also found at a depth of 1 km, which was presumably due to a clay cap layer covering the fluid in the reservoir layer below the surface, where the manifestation areas are formed at various locations (where faults and fractures are found) owing to the fluid in the reservoir rising to the surface. The MT modeling also revealed that the reservoir layer in Seulawah Agam lies at a depth of 2 km with a higher resistivity of 40–150 ohm·m, which is the main target of geothermal energy exploration. At the same time, the heat source zone where magma is located was estimated to lie in two locations, namely, on the northern side centering on the Heutsz crater area and the southern side in the Cempaga crater area. A clear 3D structure obtained via Occam inversion was also used to visualize the hydrothermal flow in the Seulawah Agam volcano that originates from two heat source zones, where one structure that was consistent across all models is the conductive zone that reaches a depth of 5 km in the south in response to the regional faulting of the Seulimeum segment. Based on the MT research, we concluded that the volcano has the geothermal potential to be tapped into power plant energy in the future.
13 December 2020 in Jurnal Teknologi (Sciences & Engineering)
The Great Sumatran Fault (GSF) is a 1900-km-long fault extending from Lampung, Indonesia, to India's Andaman Islands. The fault location is not only on the land but also in the marine area. Previous studies were only focused on the land area of Sumatra and Andaman Islands even though the marine fault has also impacted earthquakes and tsunamis such as in 2004. As an effort to disaster risk mitigation, this study used the gravity method to map and study the continuity of the GSF in the marine area from the Aceh Province, Indonesia, to the Andaman Islands, India. The gravity data were obtained from Topex with a resolution of 1.85 km/px. Based on the Bouguer data, the subduction zone in the western part of the Indian Ocean is observed with the anomaly of 500–700 mGal, while the residual structure of GSF, relative to the subduction zone, only comes to clarity through a horizontal derivative transformation with anomaly 130-250 mGal. To delineate the fault's geometry, the data were inverted by GRABLOX 1.6 using Singular Value Decomposition and Occam methods. The 3D modeling results also clearly show the contrast density between regional faults such as subduction zones on the Westside of the West Andaman Fault (WAF). The GSF faults can also be well demonstrated at 50 km depth. Based on these results, the gravity Topex is potentially used as a preliminary study of the GSF activity in the marine area.
1 March 2020 in IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering
The Indonesian volcano is only limited for the electrical energy capacity, but in developed countries, the volcano is not only used for power plan but also developed for the tourism industry. Jaboi is one of the volcanoes located in Sabang with a capacity of 80 MW. The five potential of geothermal spots can be used as geo-tourism tours. Besides to improve the economic sector, the main purpose of the geo-tourism is the management of the tours that will be provided for educative lessons about the friendly life in a volcanic area. In this paper, we produced the educational videos that placed on each tourist spot; the video contains including the history of the site, geological background, and also information about the risks of living in a volcanic area. The QR code program is used as a medium for data transfer that can be scanned through a smartphone. This application is widely used in tourism as an economical alternative in technology. In the several spots that difficult to access, we also produced a safe route with a QR code program. The tracks will be overlaid on the smartphone with the ‘gpx viewer’ application, which possible to download from Google Play or App Store.
8 December 2019 in INDONESIAN JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS
Gravity Satellite has been widely used in tectonic studies and regional of geological mapping. The Satellite Gravity data are provided free by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego. The data are acquired by GEOSAT and ERS-1 satellites with a 1.5 km resolution for one pixel. For a further application, the tilt derivative analytic technique was used in order to enhance linear trends of the geological structure revealed by the Bouguer anomalies. The method is represented by the value of an angle between the total horizontal and vertical derivative from the gravity data. The results show that the tilt derivative calculation has been able to map clearly some geological structures on the north of Sumatra i.e., the Aceh and the Seulimeuem segments, as well as some local faults around them. On the other hand, Banda Aceh as the capital city of Aceh Province and Pidie District is dominated by positive values of the tilt derivative anomalies. The data coincide with geological maps of both areas where they are covered by alluvial deposits. Based on the result, it can be concluded that the tilt derivative method is potentially used for quick interpretation of the satellite gravity data.