Enregistrements sismologiques de l'explosion sur le site de l'usine AZF (Toulouse,France)Seismological records of an explosion at the AZF chemical complex in Toulouse,France

This study presents a detailed analysis of the seismic records of a strong explosion that occurred on 21 September 2001 at a chemical complex located south of Toulouse, France, and provoked important damages. The explosion, which is equivalent to a 3.4 magnitude earthquake, has been recorded at most of the stations of the National Seismological Network, as well as at a station under test at the ‘Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées’, 4.2 km away from the epicentre. The main seismic phases are interpreted using the known crustal structures, and a modelling with synthetic seismograms is performed. To cite this article: A. Souriau et al., C. R. Geoscience 334 (2002) 155–161.     

Earthquake mechanisms of the Adriatic Sea and Western Greece: implications for the oceanic subduction-continental collision transition

We present 21 focal solutions (magnitude > 5.5) reliably computed by body-wave modelling for the western Hellenic arc from Yugoslavia to the southern Peloponnese. Mechanisms located within the Aegean show normal faulting, the T-axis trending N-S in the centre and parallel to the active boundary in the external part. Mechanisms associated with the Keffalinia fault are consistent with dextral strike-slip motion. Reverse mechanisms located along the active boundary are remarkably consistent and do not depend on the nature of the active boundary (continental collision or oceanic subduction). The consistency in azimuth of the slip vectors and of the GPS velocity relative to Africa, all along the active boundary, suggests that the deformation is related to the same motion. The discrepancy between seismic-energy release and the amount of shortening confirms that the continental collision is achieved by seismic slip on faults but the oceanic subduction is partially aseismic. The northward decrease in velocity between continental collision and oceanic subduction suggests the continental collision to be a recent evolution of the active subduction.     

The February 1996 earthquake sequence in the eastern Pyrenees: first results

An earthquake with local magnitude (ML) 5.2 occurred February 18, 1996 in the eastern Pyrenees (France) near the town of Saint-Paul de Fenouillet. This event is the first of this magnitude in France to be well recorded instrumentally. Less than 24 hours after the main shock, we installed a temporary network of 30 seismological stations in the epicentral area to record the aftershock sequence. In this paper, we analyse the main shock and present the 37 largest aftershocks (1.8 Ml 3.4) in the two months following the main shock. These events are located using data from the permanent Pyrenean seismological network and the temporary network when available. We also determined eight fault plane solutions using the P-wave first motions. The main shock and the aftershocks are located inside the small Agly massif. This Hercynian structure sits some 8 km north of the North Pyrenean Fault, which is usually considered to be the suture between the Iberian and Eurasian plates. The mechanism of the main shock is a left-lateral strike-slip on an E–W trending fault. The fault plane solutions of the aftershocks are mostly E–W striking reverse faults, in agreement with the general north-south shortening of the Pyrenees. The aftershocks located down to 11 km depth, indicating that the Agly massif is deeply fractured. The main interpretations of these results are: (i) The main shock involved an E–W trending fault inside the highly fractured Agly massif, relaying the North Pyrenean Fault which had, at least in the last 35 years, a poor seismic activity along this segment; (ii) The Saint-Paul de Fenouillet syncline to the north and the North Pyrenean Fault to the south delimit a 15 km wide senestral shear zone. Such a structure is also suggested by the highly fractured pattern of the Agly massif and by small en echelon faults and secondary folds in the Saint-Paul de Fenouillet syncline; (iii) we suggest that the North Pyrenean Frontal Thrust, located less than 10 km north of the Agly massif, has a ramp geometry at depth below the Agly massif.     

Pilot project for intensive surveillance of hail events in Terres de Ponent (Lleida)

Hail is one of the most fearsome meteorological phenomena for agricultural areas. The harvest of the whole year can be destroyed in only a few minutes. A pilot project to characterise hail events and identify hail with the help of radar observations is described in this paper. This pilot project was carried out in Terres de Ponent, an area of about 200,000 ha in Lleida (Catalonia), in the NE of the Iberian Peninsula.The aim of the project was to characterise hail events, directly by radiosounding data and radar images, and indirectly by the evaluation of the radiosonde forecasted by the Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) Mesoscale Atmospheric Simulation System (MASS) and several instability indices. In the first stage of the project several instability indices were calculated during the 5 months of the campaign and a comparison of these indices with those obtained with radiosounding data from Barcelona and Zaragoza was performed. An operative image of the probability of hail distribution in Catalonia (every 6 min, hourly and daily) was also made using the Waldvogel method for its detection. As a starting point, an empirical fit of POH (probability of hail) obtained recently in the Netherlands (POH = 0.319 + 0.133·ΔH, where ΔH is the difference between the 45 dBZ echo top height from radar image and the isozero forecast). Complementary to this, to detect the hail at the beginning of spring, the process was repeated with the 35 dBZ echo top.In a second stage of the project, the calculated POH was compared with the hail events measured by 171 hailpads of the observational network of the Agrupació de Defensa Vegetal (ADV) of Terres de Ponent and a new fit of the POH formula was obtained. It was also the aim of this second stage to validate the forecasted radiosoundings by the NWP MASS model in Lleida and Barcelona. Finally, a comparison between the radiosounding data from Barcelona, Lleida and Zaragoza was made to verify which radiosounding (Barcelona or Zaragoza) is more representative of the Lleida area.