Abstract: We analyse relative changes of the seismic strain release (At value) in west China before and after strong earthquakes with magnitude equal or greater than M_S7.0, which occurred in the Bayan Har block after 1996. The results show that there is significant tempo-spatial correlation among strong earthquakes, and most earthquakes with magnitude bigger than M_S6.0 occur in the areas where the At values are significantly high. Evaluation of the strong earthquake prediction using this method shows that the triggering role among strong earthquakes is more significant for earthquakes with magnitude M_S6.0~6.9 than those greater than M_S7.0 in 3 years. Possible preliminary mechanism has also been proposed.

Key words: Strong earthquake triggering, At value, The Bayan Har block