• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.488-505
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• 2007

The purposes of this research are twofold; 1) to verify spatial differences of tectonic movement using the spatial distribution of earthquakes, and 2) to infer mechanisms that generate spatial accumulation patterns of earthquakes in the Korean Peninsula. The first part of this sequential paper (Park, 2007) argues that the Korean Peninsula consists of four geostructural regions in which tectonic deformation and consequent geomorphological development patterns are different from each other Since this conclusion has been made by terrain analyses alone, it is necessary to verify this suggestion using other independent geophysical data. Because earthquakes are results of movement and deformation of land masses moving in different directions, the distribution of earthquake epicenters may be used to identify the direction and rates of land mass movement. This paper first analysed the spatial distribution of earthquakes using spatial statistics, and then results were compared with the spatial arrangement of geostructural regions. The spatial distribution of earthquakes in the Korean Peninsula can be summarized as the followings; firstly, the intensity of earthquakes shows only weak spatial dependency, and shows large difference even at adjacent regions. Secondly, the epicenter distribution has a clear spatial accumulation pattern, even though the intensity of earthquake shows a random pattern. Thirdly, the high density area of earthquakes shows a clear 'L' shape, passing through Pyeongannam-do, centered at Pyeongyang, and Hwanghae-do, Seosan and Pohang. The correlation coefficient between the density of earthquakes and distance from geostructral region boundaries is much higher than those between the density of fault lines and distance from tectonic division boundaries. Since fault lines and tectonic divisions in the Korean Peninsula are the results of long-term geological development, there is an apparent scale discrepancy to find significant correlations with earthquakes. This result verifies the research hypothesis that the Korean Peninsula is divided into four geostructral regions in which each has its own moving direction and spatial deformation characteristics. The existence of geostructural regions is also supported by the movement parrerns of land masses estimated from the GPS measurements. This conclusion is expected to provide a new perspective to understand the geomorphological developments and the earthquake occurrences in the Korean Peninsula.