Determination of earthquake early warning parameters, τc and Pd, for southern California

We explore a practical approach to earthquake early warning in southern California by determining a ground-motion period parameter  τ _c   and a high-pass filtered displacement amplitude parameter Pd from the initial 3 s of the P waveforms recorded at the Southern California Seismic Network stations for earthquakes with M > 4.0. At a given site, we estimate the magnitude of an event from  τ _c   and the peak ground-motion velocity ( PGV ) from Pd . The incoming three-component signals are recursively converted to ground acceleration, velocity and displacement. The displacements are recursively filtered with a one-way Butterworth high-pass filter with a cut-off frequency of 0.075 Hz, and a P -wave trigger is constantly monitored. When a trigger occurs,  τ _c   and Pd are computed. We found the relationship between  τ _c   and magnitude ( M ) for southern California, and between Pd and PGV for both southern California and Taiwan. These two relationships can be used to detect the occurrence of a major earthquake and provide onsite warning in the area around the station where onset of strong ground motion is expected within seconds after the arrival of the P wave. When the station density is high, the methods can be applied to multistation data to increase the robustness of onsite early warning and to add the regional warning approach. In an ideal situation, such warnings would be available within 10 s of the origin time of a large earthquake whose subsequent ground motion may last for tens of seconds.     

Resolution and significance assessment of precursory changes in mean earthquake magnitudes

The Loma Prieta earthquake (magnitude 7.0), which occurred in October 1989 in central California, was preceded by a period during which the mean magnitude of background seismicity in a small region near the eventual epicentre was abnormally low. This period may have begun as early as 1979, and it continued until mid-1988, after which the mean magnitude increased to a higher than normal value until the main earthquake. These changes were observed in the seismicity of an area 40  km in radius, centred on the Loma Prieta epicentre, and are consistent with the predictions of fracture mechanics studies. The 1988 change correlates with a reported change in long-term strain.
  A procedure has been developed for resolving such temporal changes in seismicity using CUSUM statistics. It demonstrates that the anomaly was highly significant, on the basis of analyses of two independent catalogues. There was also a significant anomaly before the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
  The hypothesis that large earthquakes are preceded by periods in which the mean magnitude of background activity is abnormally low, in the immediate vicinity of the eventual epicentre, is a tantalizing one. The analysis tool examined here may be useful for resolving such changes. Care needs to be taken, however, in routine surveillance of earthquake populations that contain large aftershock sequences.     

Reply to comment by A. Douglas on 'Systematic determination of earthquake rupture directivity and fault planes from analysis of long-period P-wave spectra'

We respond to the comments by Douglas regarding our earlier paper by emphasizing that our automated method was intended to distinguish between the primary and auxiliary fault planes in earthquake focal mechanisms and does not always produce reliable results for rupture velocity and rupture length.     

Comment on 'Systematic determination of earthquake rupture directivity and fault planes from analysis of long-period P-wave spectra' by L. M. Warren and P. M. Shearer

Warren and Shearer describe a method of estimating the duration of P pulses radiated by earthquakes, on the assumption that the source is a unilateral fracture. The estimates are made in the frequency domain. The estimates obtained by Warren and Shearer for seven of the earthquakes are compared to durations estimated here in the time domain; the time-domain measurements being made on broad-band seismograms (∼0.1–4.0 Hz) derived by filtering from short-period recordings. Overall, the time-domain method indicates that the pulse duration of the earthquakes studied here range from 2.0 to 7.6 s, whereas the estimates from the results of Warren and Shearer range from 7.1 to 9.8 s. This suggests that the method of Warren and Shearer cannot resolve pulse lengths less than about 7 s. The suggestion is supported by the estimates of the duration of rupture—fault length/speed of rupture—implied by the results of Warren and Shearer. For, although the estimated fault-length ranges from 0.8 km to over 40 km most rupture durations are around 8 s.     

中国城市标度律及标度因子时空特征

城市标度律刻画了城市系统中城市要素与人口数量之间的规模缩放关系,但标度律在中国城市系统中的适用性和意义尚不明确。本文采用中国275个地级及以上城市数据,探究不同城市要素与人口规模的标度关系,并从时空维度探究标度因子的时空演化规律。结果表明：作为典型的快速城市化发展中国家,中国城市发展符合标度律,且呈现出与发达国家不同的特征：中国城市人口集聚带来的经济产出集聚效应显著,而土地利用、基础设施与公共服务的规模经济效应还有待增强。部分基础设施、生活设施要素与人口规模呈超线性或线性关系,与预期的次线性相悖,基础教育、医疗等要素的标度因子则远低于发达国家的次线性阈值,反映了公共资源向大城市聚集、不同规模城市发展不平衡等快速城镇化进程中城市系统的独特性。标度因子的区域分异反映城市发展协调程度差异,其中东北地区不同规模城市差异最为显著。主要城市要素标度因子随时间的变化表明,中国大城市的经济产出集聚效应在2009年最为显著,而后略有下降;中国大城市土地扩张总体上自2000年以来持续加速,2008年以后仍维持在较高水平,管控城市特别是大城市的外延式扩张、提高土地利用效率具有紧迫性。中国城市标度律研究有助于认知快速城市化地区城市系统特征和演化规律,为实现区域协调发展与落实新型城镇化发展战略提供支持。