Reply to “Discussion 1 on ‘Introspection on improper seismic retrofit of Basilica Santa Maria di Collemaggio after 2009 Italian earthquake' by G.P.Cimellaro, A.M.Reinhorn and A.De Stefano” by Vincenzo Ciampi

The authors thank the discusser for his interest and careful review of the paper and his valuable comments.They also welcome this discussion,because it gives the authors the opportunity to clarify several points which were not explained in sufficient detail in the paper,due to space limitations. The paper does not provide any personal or professional criticism of the discusser or his work and if any statement may have raised an ambiguous interpretation,this should be clarified and dismissed.Any inaccuracy in the reference's citation was not intentional.Some of the authors do not speak Italian;therefore they could not read directly and understand the paper cited by the discusser,which is in Italian.     

DEVELOPMENT OF RIVER AND ESTUARY SEDIMENT MODELS──Response to the discussion by C. B. Singh and L. K. Ghosh

Mr. Singh and Mr. Ghosh have carefully reviewed and made valuable suggestions and comments. Theauthor would like to express his gratitude to them. The explanations to the comments and some detailsof the model development are as follows.1 MATHEMATICAL MODEL ON SUSPENDED SEDIMENT TRANSPORTATIONThere are three types of models on sediment transportation, i.e. for simulating (1) bedload; (2)suspended sediment; and (3) all sediment including bedload and suspended sediment. In t…     

Structure and physical properties of the garth＇s interior

The studies on the structure and physical properties of the Earth‘s interior done by Chinese geophysicists from 1999 to 2002 were reviewed in this paper. It includes several research areas: the structure of the Earth‘s interiors using seismic tomography, anisotropy of the upper mantle in China and its adjacent areas, quality factor Qβ for S waves, subduction zone, mantle discontinuities, physical properties of Earth‘s materials and others. The review concerns mainly the contents, the methods and the results of the studies. It can be seen that new progress in the study on the structure and physical properties of the Earth‘s interior has been made in the last 4 years in China. It is shown on three aspects: advancement made on some preexistent areas; pioneering on some new fields and new methods adopted.     

Reply to “Discussion 2 on ‘Introspection on improper seismic retrofit of Basilica Santa Maria di Collemaggio after 2009 Italian earthquake' by G.P.Cimellaro, A.M.Reinhorn and A.De Stefano” by Enzo Cartapati

The authors thank the discusser for the additional information,which is provided related to the historical interventions of the church through the centuries.This information was known to the authors,however they decided not to include it in the paper because of lack of space.Additional details regarding the retrofit interventions of the church can also be found in the MCEER report regarding the L'Aquila earthquake (Cimellaro et al.,2010).     

Major Earthquakes in and Around Yunnan Province and Variations of Astronomical Time-Latitude Residuals Determined by Yunnan Observatory

In this paper,the features of medium-term anomalies for strong earthquakes and the criteria for the prediction of such earthquakes are discussed,as well as the feasibility of applying the anomalies of astronomical time-latitude residuals to earthquake prediction and their limitation when applied to imminent-term prediction.The criteria used to identify the anomalies of time-latitude residuals for M≥6.0 earthquakes in Yunnan Province and for M≥7.0 earthquakes around Yunnan are also discussed.The last strong earthquake in the data used for testing passed the whole process of earthquake prediction practice.In addition,some special features of the case in which anomalies appeared but no strong earthquake followed are also discussed.     

Some Fundamental Problems of Geodynamics and Application of Earth Observations by Space-Based Measurements

Although great-progress has been made in the earth sciences,some fundamental problems of geodynamics remain unsolved.They are concerned with the whole earth as well as regional tectonics,such as the west Pacific and Qinghai-Xizhang plateau.The new generation of earth observation by space-based measurement will contribute to solving these problems of geodynamics.In this regard,some specific plans about application of these techniques are suggested in this paper.     

Precipitation variation in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau recorded by the tree rings since 850 AD and its relevance to the Northern Hemisphere temperature

With their high resolution and reliability, tree rings play a very important role in global climate change study. The long tree-ring chronology is considered as one of the most important information sources to study the climatic change in the past several thousands years. In recent years, the tree-ring researches in China have made great progress, and the temperature and precipita- tion in some areas were reconstructed[1-20] which on- tributed to the global change studies in China. Due to the…     

Influence of seismicity parameter uncertainty on seismic hazard estimation of cities and towns

Introduction In his Doctor thesis, PAN (2000) has roughly studied some about the influence of parameter uncertainty on seismic hazard analysis. The aim of this paper is especially to study the uncertainty influence extent of seismic hazard analysis result in a spot, owing to the uncertainty of seismicity parameters induced by variational statistical time ranges of various statistical regions in the whole country. The authors have inquired into the uncertain extents of influence of seismic p…     

Estimation of characteristic parameters in region-time-length algorithm and its application

On the basis of gap's temporal-spatial characteristics in and around source area before an earthquake, we propose a method to estimate characteristic parameters (characteristic distance and time) in the region-time-length (RTL) algorithm and introduce the method of correlation coefficient developed by some authors in 2006 to determine the characteristic parameters. The anomalous seismic activities before four moderately strong earthquakes occurred in the northwestern and southwestern China in recent years are studied by the two methods. The results show that the method to estimate characteristic parameters advanced in this paper is a simple one, which possesses a physical meaning and is well applicable to the four moderately strong earthquakes studied.     

Group Strong Earthquakes and Triggering by Tidal Stress

The results obtained using the group model of earthquakes generated in tectonic blocks are fur ther used in this paper to analyze the relationship between the Ms ≥ 7.0 events in Chinese ma inland and the modulation and triggering from the earth tides. The research shows that the Ms 7.0 events in Chinese mainland have been significantly triggered by the tidal stress, especially within the active period with group strong earthquakes. In the quiescence period of strong earthquakes, no Ms7.0 events were triggered, while within the active period, over 82.4% of strong earthquakes took place within a special moon phase, which is 36.4 % higher than the average. Therefore, the modulation and triggering of tidal stress can be used to distinguish the active periods and to forecast the time of the strong earthquakes within the active period. The relationship between the tidal triggering and the tectonic dynamic condition is investigated and the mechanism of the modulation is simulated with the group model of earthquakes generated in tectonic blocks.     

Design of controlled elastic and inelastic structures

One of the founders of structural control theory and its application in civil engineering,Professor Emeritus Tsu T.Soong,envisioned the development of the integral design of structures protected by active control devices.Most of his disciples and colleagues continuously attempted to develop procedures to achieve such integral control.In his recent papers published jointly with some of the authors of this paper,Professor Soong developed design procedures for the entire structure using a design-redesign proce...     

eshless Method for Acoustic and Elastic Modeling

Wave equation method is one of the fundamental techniques for seismic modeling and imaging. In this paper the element-free-method (EFM) was used to solve acoustic and elastic equations.The key point of this method is no need of elements, which makes nodes free from the elemental restraint. Besides, the moving-least-squares (MLS) criterion in EFM leads to a high accuracy and smooth derivatives. The theories of EFM for both acoustic and elastic wave equations as well as absorbing boundary conditions were discussed respectively. Furthermore, some pre-stack models were used to show the good performance of EFM in seismic modeling.     

Estimation of characteristic parameters m region-time-length algorithm and its application

On the basis of gap＇s temporal-spatial characteristics in and around source area before an earthquake, we propose a method to estimate characteristic parameters （characteristic distance and time） in the region-time-length （RTL） algorithm and introduce the method of correlation coefficient developed by some authors in 2006 to determine the characteristic parameters. The anomalous seismic activities before four moderately strong earthquakes occurred in the northwestern and southwestern China in recent years are studied by the two methods. The results show that the method to estimate characteristic parameters advanced in this paper is a simple one, which possesses a physical meaning and is well applicable to the four moderately strong earthquakes studied.     

Damage to urban buildings in zones of intensities Ⅷ and Ⅶ during the Wenchuan earthquake and discussion on some typical damages

The outline and typical characteristics of damages to building in Jiangyou city and Anxian county(intensity VⅢ), Mianyang city and Deyang city(intensity VII) are introduced in the paper.The damage ratios, based on the sample statistics of multi-story brick buildings together with multi-story brick buildings with RC frame at first story(BBF), are presented.Then some typical damages, such as horizontal cricks of brick masonry buildings, X-shaped cricks on the walls under windows, the damages to columns, beams...     

Causes and solutions of overshoot and undershoot and end swing in Hilbert-Huang transform

Introduction Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) is a great break in processing nonlinear and non-stationary data and can be successfully used in many science domains. There are mainly two parts in this method. The first part is to decompose the original data into several intrinsic mode functions (IMF) with the empirical mode decomposition (EMD). IMF components are derived from the original data directly according to the local characteristics in the data under some rules, so that IMF are poste…     

Tomographic investigation of the upper crustal structure and seismotectonic envi—ronments in Yunnan Province

Investigation has been made for the upper crust structure and seismotectionic environments in Yunnan Province using the plentiful DSS data of the four profiles.The derived velocity model has a good relationship with the ex-posed basins,uplifts and faults.The low velocity anomaly corresponding to the volcano also has been revealed.There exits a prominent lateral inhomogeneity within the upper crust of Yunnan region.The depth of crystalline basement generally ranges from 0km to 5km,and the bedrocks are exposed on the ground directly in some places,nevertheless the thickness of sedimentary cover also can reack to 8km or even 12km at some targe depressions.Although the Changning-Shuangjiang fault is a boundary between two first class tectonic units,its incision depth within the crust maybe shallow.On the other hand,known as the plates‘seam,the Honghe fault has a distinct evi-dence of extending into the mid-lower crust.The widely spread activity of the volcanoes in the geological era has a close relationship with the earthquake‘s occurrence nowadays.Despite of the ceasing of the volcanoes in some places on the ground,the material in the mid-lower crst is still active,and there still exists strong upward stress-As the ceasing of the volcanoes on the surface,most parts of the power from the lower crust and the upper mantle cannot be released;therefore it accumulates at some appropriate tectonic locations.Moreover,the saturation of the water from the basin,the action of other fluids,and the effects of the outer stress maybe another direct reason ac-count for the strong earthquakes‘occurrence in Yunnan region.     

Geochemistry and spatial distribution of OIB and MORB in A’nyemaqen ophiolite zone: Evidence of Majixue-shan ancient ridge-centered hotspot

The mafic volcanic association is made up of OIB, E-MORB and N-MORB in the A'nyemaqen Paleozoic ophiolites. Compared with the same type rocks in the world, the mafic rocks generally display lower Nb/U and Ce/Pb ratios and some have Nb depletion and Pb enrichment. The OIB are LREE-enriched with (La/Yb)N =5―20, N-MORB are LREE-depleted with (La/Yb)N = 0.41―0.5. The OIB are featured by incompatible element enrichment and the N-MORB are obviously depleted with some metasomatic ef- fect, and E-MORB are geochemically intermediated. These rocks are distributed around the Majixue- shan OIB and gabbros in a thickness greater than a thousand meters and transitionally change along the ophiolite extension in a west-east direction, showing a symmetric distribution pattern as centered by the Majixueshan OIB, that is, from N-MORB, OIB and E-MORB association in the Dur'ngoi area to OIB in the Majixueshan area and then to N-MORB, OIB and E-MORB assemblage again in the Buqing- shan area. By consideration of the rock association, the rock spatial distribution and the thickness of the mafic rocks in the Majixueshan, coupled with the metasomatic relationship between the OIB and MORB sources, it can be argued that the Majixueshan probably corresponds to an ancient hotspot or an ocean island formed by mantle plume on the A'nyemaqeh ocean ridge, that is the ridge-centered hotspot, tectonically similar to the present-day Iceland hotspot.     

Essential Features of Tectonic Movement Revealed by Crustal Vertical Deformations in the Mainland of China

Based on the precise reieveling data of more than 260,000 km carried out from 1950 to 1991 in the Chinese mainland,recent crustal vertical movement is studied.By means of some quantitative indices,such as the pattern of crustal vertical movement,the intensity of differential movement,the maximum gradient and its distribution,etc.,the properties of movements are analyzed on a large scale.The results suggest that all the properties have a profound tectonic background of their own and are closely related to the zoning and seismic activity of active subplates.The driving force for the movement comes mainly from the northward push of the India plate acting on the Eurasia plate.The effects of motions of the Pacific and Philippine Sea plates in the east are much less significant.