Origin time 09:40:39 UTC Areas affected Mongolia Date 9 July 1905 | Magnitude 8.0 MW Depth 15,000 m | |
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The 1905 Tsetserleg earthquake occurred in or near the Tsetserleg Sum of Khövsgöl Province in Mongolia on 9 July 1905. The earthquake has been estimated at 7.9 to 8.3 on the moment magnitude scale.
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Background
The Tsetserleg earthquake is believed to be a strike-slip rupture of a branch of the Bolnai Fault, extending about 190 km. The fault displacement during the earthquake was greater than 5 m, and the duration is estimated at about one minute. However, this interpretation is contested; field surveys after the earthquake show a complex rupture not necessarily characteristic of a strike-slip mechanism.
The Tsetserleg earthquake was followed two weeks later by the Bolnai earthquake, and is considered a part of the same general crustal movement.
Damage
There are few records of the immediate effects of the earthquake due to the remoteness of Outer Mongolia in 1905. However, rockslides were reported in the nearby mountains, and supposedly "two lakes, each of eight acres in size, disappeared".