Contributions to the spectral theory of seismic sources and determination of the parameters of earthquake foci

A spectral theory of seismic sources is developed which treats earthquake foci as band-pass filters. This concept is applied to focal mechanisms of the type double-couple with moment, and the obtained spectral function of the source is compared with those obtained by other authors. Finally some formulae for the determination of geometric and dynamic source parameters from the bandpass parameters are presented.     

Hypercube-Based Visualization Architecture for Web-Based Environmental Geospatial Information Systems

The geospatial field significantly influences the development of the environmental domain, including a wide range of geospatial and cartographic information systems, such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Multimedia Atlas Information Systems (MAIS) and more recently web-based GIS (Web-GIS). In this context, we introduce web-based environmental geospatial information systems (Web-EGIS) as a special case of Web-GIS, aiming to integrate the functionalities of geospatial information systems with the enormous quantity of specialized, distributed and highly heterogeneous environmental geo-referenced data and services. We define three main characteristics of the Web-EGIS. The first is a generic hypercube-based data organization and visualization. The next characteristic is a standard-based, three-tier service-oriented architecture. The third and last characteristic is the traceability of the architectural and design decisions, for which we introduce the new concept of an ‘Environmental Application Context’, arguing that not only the functional but also the non-functional requirements (NFRs) have an important role in defining the architecture, software components and data services of such systems. In a nutshell, a Web-EGIS is characterized by a coherent user experience through the hypercube-based visualization concept, technically supported by a service-oriented architecture that is structured according to an extensive analysis of NFRs. On this basis, we introduce the Geodata visualization and interactive training environment (GeoVITe) Platform for Interdisciplinary Environmental Research as a reference implementation of a Web-EGIS with its basic design requirements, integrative hypercube-based visualization for heterogeneous data sources, extended web cartography functionalities, and its de facto system architecture. The concept of the hypercube-based visualization is better transferred to the system architecture by understanding the ‘Environmental Application Context’ of this particular Web-EGIS, which also makes it easier to maintain and enhance. The resulting system is a support platform for research activities in the environmental domain.     

Possible Cause-Effect Relationships Between Vrancea (Romania) Earthquakes and Some Global Geophysical Phenomena

The possibility that the Earth's tides are a triggering factor of Vrancea subcrustal earthquakes is investigated in the first part of this paper. A possible correlation between Vrancea subcrustal earthquakes and geomagnetic jerks is demonstrated in the second part. The last part of the paper presents a number of results concerning a possible relationship between the regularities of strong Vrancea subcrustal seismicity and the Chandler nutation parameters. An attempt is made to integrate all of these phenomena in a more general framework that takes into account physical processes in the Earth mantle and core. A long-term prediction of the next strong Vrancea earthquake is finally attempted.     

The 1998 Hida Mountain, Central Honshu, Japan, earthquake swarm: Double-difference event relocation, frequency–magnitude distribution and Coulomb stress changes

By using the double-difference relocation technique, we have determined the fine structure of seismicity during the 1998 Hida Mountain earthquake swarm. The distribution of seismic activity defines two main directions (N–S and E–W) that probably correspond to the regional stress pattern. The detailed structure of seismicity reveals intense spatio-temporal clustering and earthquake lineations. Each cluster of events contains a mainshock and subsequent aftershock activity that decays according to the Omori law. The seismicity and the b-value temporal and spatial patterns reflect the evolution of the static stress changes during the earthquake swarm. About 80% of the swarm's best-relocated events occur in regions of increased ΔCFF. The smaller value of b found in the northern part of the swarm region and a larger b-value observed to the south, for the same period of time, could be well explained by the static stress changes caused by the larger events of the sequence. We argue that the state of stress in the crust is the main factor that controls the variation of b-value.     

Towards Better WMS Maps Through the Use of the Styled Layer Descriptor and Cartographic Conflict Resolution for Linear Features

Abstract

Mercator depicted Croatia on several general maps. In accordance with the level of geographical knowledge, map scales and technical possibilities of the time, Mercator provided a relatively detailed depiction of basic geographical features on these maps. His interest in mapping Croatia was probably motivated by the fact that the Venetian Republic, the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire had fought over this area in the sixteenth century, contributing to the fragmentation of the medieval Croatian State, while at the same time facilitating economic, religious, linguistic, artistic and scientific communication between Central, South East and Mediterranean Europe. Mercator paid special attention to toponyms that enabled geographical objects to be identified and the decoding of cartographic contents. Research into Mercator’s maps has shown that geographical names, among other things, clearly indicate the sources of spatial data that he used. Additionally, geographical names on Mercator’s maps are significant indicators of the linguistic and cultural contacts that were particularly prominent in border areas, for example, along the eastern Adriatic coast, or the courses of the Danube, Sava and Drava.     

Data replenishment of five moderate earthquake sequences in Japan,with semi-automatic cluster selection

Missing early aftershocks following relatively large or moderate earthquakes can cause significant bias in the analysis of seismic catalogs. In this paper, we systematically address the aftershock missing problem for five earthquake sequences associated with moderate-size events that occurred inland Japan, by using a stochastic replenishing method. The method is based on the notion that if a point process (e.g., earthquake sequence) with time-independent marks (e.g., magnitudes) is completely observed, it can be transformed into a homogeneous Poisson process by a bi-scale empirical transformation. We use the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) earthquake catalog to select the aftershock data and replenish the missing early events using the later complete part of each aftershock sequence. The time windows for each sequence span from 6 months before the mainshock to three months after. The semi-automatic spatial selection uses a clustering method for the epicentral selection of earthquakes. The results obtained for the original JMA catalog and replenished datasets are compared to get insight into the biases that the missing early aftershocks may cause on the Omori-Utsu law parameters’ estimation, characterizing the aftershock decay with time from the mainshock. We have also compared the Omori-Utsu law parameter estimates for two datasets following the same mainshock; the first dataset is the replenished sequence, while the second dataset has been obtained by waveform-based analysis to detect early aftershocks that are not recorded in the JMA catalog. Our results demonstrate that the Omori-Utsu law parameters estimated for the replenished datasets are robust with respect to the threshold magnitude used for the analyzed datasets. Even when using aftershock time windows as short as three days, the replenished datasets provide stable Omori-Utsu law parameter estimations. The p-values for all the analyzed sequences are about 1.1 and c-values are significantly smaller compared to those of original datasets. Our findings prove that the replenishment method is a fast, reliable approach to address the missing aftershock problem.     

Place cookies and setting spiders in dream cartography

This article contributes to understanding the difference between objective space and subjective place. New data models and visual methods, which make possible the comparison between dream settings, are necessary to an exploratory analysis of dreams. The subjective perception of settings is decomposed by studying dream reports, by applying a survey, and by considering related scientific literature. This leads to the construction of two data models, which are applied in dream cartography. The place cookie model features the dreamer's familiarity with the setting, being visualized in the form of concentric circles. The setting spider model is based on 26 variables, extensively characterizing the setting. These are grouped into eight factors, and visualized in a compact radar chart with eight “legs.” As a superordinate system of the setting spider, the event spider is developed, describing the whole dream scene. The proposed models and visualization methods can be transferred for real‐life events (settings).     

Prediction of the strong earthquakes in Vrancea,Romania, using the CN algorithm

The application of the CN algorithm to a new earthquake catalogue, for the period from 1932 to 1993, obtained by merging Romanian and U.S.S.R. data, allows us to monitor, on the intermediate time scale, the preparation of strong, intermediate-depth earthquakes in the Vrancea region. Four of the five strong earthquakes with a magnitude above 6.4 are predicted, the total duration of the Time of Increased Probability of the occurrence of an earthquake (TIP) occupies 21.7% of the time interval under consideration, i.e., about 2.5 years for each strong earthquake.     

Prediction of strong earthquakes in Vrancea,Romania, using the CN algorithm

The application of the CN algorithm to a new earthquake catalogue, for the period from 1932 to 1993, obtained by merging Romanian and U.S.S.R. data, allows us to monitor, on the intermediate time scale. the preparation of strong, intermediate-depth earthquakes in the Vrancea region. Four of the five strong earthquakes with magnitudes above 6.4 are predicted. The total duration of the Time of Increased Probability (TIP) of the occurrence of an earthquake (TIP) occupies 21.7% of the time interval under consideration, i.e., about 2.5 years for each strong earthquake.