The El Salvador earthquakes of January and February 2001: context, characteristics and implications for seismic risk

The small Central American republic of El Salvador has experienced, on average, one destructive earthquake per decade during the last hundred years. The latest events occurred on 13 January and 13 February 2001, with magnitudes M_w 7.7 and 6.6, respectively. The two events, which were of different tectonic origin, follow the patterns of the seismicity of the region although neither event has a known precedent in the earthquake catalogue in terms of size and location. The earthquakes caused damage to thousands of traditionally built houses and triggered hundreds of landslides, which were the main causes of fatalities. The earthquakes have clearly demonstrated trends of increasing seismic risk in El Salvador due to rapid population expansion in areas of high shaking and landslide hazard, exacerbated by deforestation and uncontrolled urbanisation. The institutional mechanisms required for the control of land use and building practice are very weak and present a major obstacle to risk mitigation.     

Validation through HVSR measurements of a method for the quick detection of site amplification effects from intensity data: an application to a seismic area in Northern Italy

An instrumental validation is attempted of an innovative approach devoted to the quick individuation, from macroseismic data, of site amplification phenomena able to significantly modify seismic hazard levels expected on the basis of average propagation effects only. According to this methodology, two evaluations of hazard are performed at each investigated locality: the former, obtained by epicentral intensity data ‘reduced’ at the site through a probabilistic attenuation function and, the latter, computed by integrating such data with seismic effects actually observed at the site during past earthquakes. The comparison, for each locality, between these two hazard estimates allow to orientate the identification of those sites where local amplifications of earthquake ground motion could be significant. In order to check such methodology, indications obtained in this way from macroseismic data are compared with the estimates of transfer functions performed through the HVSR technique applied to microtremors. Results concerning municipalities located in a seismic area of Northern Italy indicate a good agreement between macroseismic and instrumental estimates.     

The use of modern statistical theories in the assessment of earthquake hazard, with application to quiet regions of eastern North America

It is generally accepted that both deterministic and statistical approaches are useful for the characterization of earthquake hazard. Although the most reliable estimates of seismic hazard can only be based on an improved understanding of the earthquake mechanism, efficient utilization of the appropriate methods provided by recent statistical theories is also important in seismic risk analysis. This is especially true in regions where the connection between seismicity and geologic structure is tenuous at best. We are particularly interested in developing better statistical treatments of data for regions with little known seismic activity. To this end, we have applied three statistical methods to the historical record of seismicity in relatively quiet regions of eastern North America. These are: (1) the threshold method for tail inference, a new theory for modeling earthquakes with sizes above a given threshold, (2) the ‘bootstrap’ technique in which the characteristics of an unknown population are simulated by replacing the true population by an estimated one, and (3) a technique to estimate the number of earthquakes below a given size, in order to compensate for the under-reporting of small earthquakes in most catalogs. A combination of these techniques has been used to estimate the probabilities of future large earthquakes for the regions studied. Because of limitations imposed by existing catalogs, the size estimate used has been maximum intensity.     

《CT理论与应用研究》杂志新刊标和地幔速度模型的说明

在《ＣＴ理论与应用研究》杂志１９９４~２００１年本杂志“刊标”的基础上,在其上方增加了象征三维体视学成像的三角形四面体的透视图;该刊标的右下侧为医学断面成像扫描仪(包括各种Ｘ－ＣＴ机与核磁共振ＭＲＩ扫描仪等);其左下侧为三维地幔速度模型和地球核的示意图,切出有两个地幔剖面,表示纵波速度二维变化的剖面。该速度剖面系根据赵大鹏教授的理论和计算方法,按照地球上的两个大圆弧做计算和绘制的彩色图,排在本期封４:第一大圆弧,从北极经西巴基斯坦(２８°Ｎ, ６４°Ｅ)到马尔代夫群岛(３°Ｎ,７３°Ｅ);第二大圆弧从马尔代夫群岛点(３°Ｎ,７３°Ｅ)连接巴布新几内亚之南点(１２°Ｓ,１５０°Ｅ),来计算两剖面速度分布并作图的结果,其具体分布参见封４的两条彩色剖面和相应的地理位置图。由于赵教授这篇论文[１]在中国国内只有很少数图书馆收藏,在Ｅｌｓｅｖｉｅｒ Ｓｃｉｅｎｃｅ的ＥＰＳＬ网站上一般人只能查到摘要,本刊对于该地幔速度模型的制作方法和所用数据资料,该模型的优越性和特征进行了叙述,他所用的地震事件数目,多达７１２８个;用于层析反演成像的震相到时数多到近一百万条。该速度如下的特点:在所采用的速度结构中,包含用几个复杂形状的地质速度界面,如莫霍面,以及下沉板块的分界     

Ground truth seismic events and location capability at Degelen mountain, Kazakhstan

We utilized nuclear explosions from the Degelen Mountain sub-region of the Semipalatinsk Test Site (STS), Kazakhstan, to assess seismic location capability directly. Excellent ground truth information for these events was either known or was estimated from maps of the Degelen Mountain adit complex. Origin times were refined for events for which absolute origin time information was unknown using catalog arrival times, our ground truth location estimates, and a time baseline provided by fixing known origin times during a joint hypocenter determination (JHD). Precise arrival time picks were determined using a waveform cross-correlation process applied to the available digital data. These data were used in a JHD analysis. We found that very accurate locations were possible when high precision, waveform cross-correlation arrival times were combined with JHD. Relocation with our full digital data set resulted in a mean mislocation of 2 km and a mean 95% confidence ellipse (CE) area of 6.6 km² (90% CE: 5.1 km²), however, only 5 of the 18 computed error ellipses actually covered the associated ground truth location estimate. To test a more realistic nuclear test monitoring scenario, we applied our JHD analysis to a set of seven events (one fixed) using data only from seismic stations within 40° epicentral distance. Relocation with these data resulted in a mean mislocation of 7.4 km, with four of the 95% error ellipses covering less than 570 km² (90% CE: 438 km²), and the other two covering 1730 and 8869 km² (90% CE: 1331 and 6822 km²). Location uncertainties calculated using JHD often underestimated the true error, but a circular region with a radius equal to the mislocation covered less than 1000 km² for all events having more than three observations.     

Most likely locations of large earthquakes in the Kanto and Tokai areas, Japan, based on the local recurrence times

We examined the hypothesis that minima in local recurrence time, T_L, or equivalently maxima in local probability, P_L, may map asperities in the Kanto and Tokai areas of Japan, where the earthquake catalog of the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED) is complete at the M=1.5 (M1.5) level. We mapped T_L (P_L) based on the a- and b-values of the nearest earthquakes within 20 km of every node of a grid spaced 0.01° for M7 target events. Only earthquakes within the top 33 km were used. The b-values increase strongly with depth, in several areas. Therefore, some of the T_L (P_L) anomalies are not revealed if data from the entire crustal seismogenic zone are mixed. Thus, we mapped T_L (P_L) separately for the top 15 km and the rest of the depth range, as well as for the entire seismogenic crust. The resulting T_L- and P_L-maps show that approximately 12% of the total area shows anomalously short recurrence times. Out of six shallow target events with M≥6.5 and which occurred since 1890, five are located within the anomalous areas with T_L <450 years. We interpret this to mean that areas with anomalously short T_L map asperities, which are more likely than other areas to generate future target events. The probability that this result is due to chance is vanishingly small. The great Kanto rupture of 1923 appears to have initiated in the most significant asperity we mapped in the study area. One anomaly is located in the northeastern part of the area of the proposed future rupture of the Tokai earthquake, and another one at its southwestern corner. The absolute values of T_L calculated are uncertain because they depend on the size of the volume used for the calculation.     

辽宁省地震前兆台网技术改造概述

“九五”期间实施的《辽宁省地震前兆台网技术改造项目》使辽宁省地震前兆观测技术系统由模拟到数字实现了质的飞跃，本文对项目的技术思路，实施情况，取得的成果及建设特色进行了介绍。     

辽宁城市活断层探测思路与方法探讨

介绍了开展地震活断层探测的意义及在辽宁省开展地震活断层探测的必要性，对在辽宁城市开展活断层探测的基本思路和方法进行了探讨，选取沈阳，抚顺作为试点城市，设定目标区和目标断裂，分别对活断层危险性，危害性和深部发震构造环境进行评价。在断裂探测过程中，确定初步探测和详细探测两个阶段，主要采用人工地震方法并结合钻探，地震划分结果，对目标区内的目标断裂进行评价。     

地震前兆时空非均匀性指标Cv值的实验检验

在双向加载条件下，对两种构造和介质不同的岩石标本进行变形实验，测量了标本表面不同部位的应变．在此基础上，利用王晓青和陈学忠等提出的描述地震前兆非均匀分布的参量————Cv值，分析了标本变形失稳过程中应变异常的分布，以期从实验角度检验Cv值方法并探讨其物理意义．研究表明，Cv值的变化与岩石变形特征的变化有关，是描述前兆分布非均匀性的一种有效指标；Cv值在失稳发生前先异常上升，然后下降，并在Cv值恢复过程中或恢复后伴随着失稳事件的发生．因此，Cv值是一种有效的预报指标．      

非规则测区三维地震偏移的边界吸收层法

对不规则测区的地震资料直接进行三维偏移不仅可减少计算量,而且可提高偏移剖面的质量. 本文在单程波方程中增加了一项简单的阻尼因子,其作用如同在实际不规则测区的外部有一个薄吸收层. 因为波穿越这个薄层时,波场值迅速衰减,所以偏移时把吸收层外边界处的波场值取为零所产生的反射非常微弱. 又因为不规则测区零边界条件偏移程序极易编制,所以就可以实现对不规则测区的地震资料直接进行三维偏移. 通过对实际地震资料的处理,说明了该方法的有效性.