• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.6_4
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• pp.1531-1544
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• 2018

We detected the coseismic ionospheric disturbance generated by the earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 and greater in Korean Peninsula. We considered the seismic events such as Gyeongju earthquake in September 2016 with magnitude 5.8, the Pohang earthquake in November 2017 with magnitude 5.4, and the underground nuclear explosion from North Korea in September 2017 with magnitude 5.7. Although all GPS stations were not detected, the ionospheric disturbance induced by these earthquakes occurred approximately 10-30 minutes and 40-60 minutes after the events. We inferred that the time difference within each variation is due to the different focal depth and the geometry of epicenter, satellite, and GPS station. In the case of the Gyeongju earthquake, the earthquake had relatively deeper depth than the other earthquakes. However, the seismic magnitude was bigger and it occurred at nighttime when the ionospheric activity was stable. So we could observe such anomalous variations. It is considered that the ionospheric disturbance caused by the difference in velocity of the upward propagating waves generated by earthquake appears more than once. Our results indicate that the detection of ionospheric disturbances varies depending on the geometry of the GPS station, satellite, and epicenter or the detection method and that the apparent growth of amplitude in the time series varies depending on the focal depth or the site-satellite-epicenter geometry.