Upper Mantle Velocity Structure Estimated From Ps-Converted Wave Beneath the North-Eastern Japan Arc

Summary. The upper boundary of the descending oceanic plate is located by using PS -waves (converted from P to S at the boundary) in the Tohoku District, the north-eastern part of Honshu, Japan. the observed PS-P time data are well explained by a two-layered oceanic plate model composed of a thin low-velocity upper layer whose thickness is less than 10 km and a thick high-velocity lower layer; the upper and lower layers respectively have 6 per cent lower and 6 per cent higher velocity than the overriding mantle. the estimated location of the upper boundary is just above the upper seismic plane of the double-planed deep seismic zone. This result indicates that events in the upper seismic plane, at least in the depth range from 60 to 150 km, occur within the thin low-velocity layer on the surface of the oceanic plate.     

ScS wave splitting of deep earthquakes around Japan

ScS wave splitting of five deep earthquakes in subduction zones near Japan is investigated using horizontal seismograms recorded al JMA stations. For each earthquake, we clearly observe uniform ScS wave splitting in all stations over Japan, especially for the events located south of Honshu in 1982, 1984 and 1993. However, the directions of fast-polarized waves of these events differed by a maximum of about 50° from one another. The orientation of fast-polarized waves in the 1982 event was NNW-SSE; those in the two later events WNW-ESE. We also recognize this discrepancy in the results of the analysis of the 1971 Sea of Okhotsk event reported by Fukao (1984). The Sakhalin Islands event in 1990 reveals a linear particle motion without such a change in direction of the second arrivals, implying no anisotropy. These observations are interpreted as indicating an anisotropic region within the slab near the earthquake sources but not beneath the receivers, since the orientations of fast-polarized waves recorded at each station are not common to all the earthquakes. Furthermore, we consider that anisotropy exists non-uniformly within the slab. The event in 1982, which occurred in almost the same area as those in 1984 and 1993, showed a fast direction different from the events in 1984 and 1993. The 1982 event was 179 km deep, but the two later events were at 398 km and 360 km, respectively. The fast direction observed from the 1982 event is parallel to the fossil plate motion, whereas those from the events in 1984 and 1993 are parallel to the compression axis within the subducting slab. The depth of 400 km is a phase boundary, where olivine changes to β spinel. We consider that the most likely cause of the change in anisotropy direction is the re-orientation of crystals associated with the phase change of olivine to β spinel due to subduction of the slab.     

ScSp observed on North Island, New Zealand: implications for subducting plate structure

Seismic phase conversions provide important constraints on the layered nature of subduction zone structures. Recordings from digital stations in North Island, New Zealand, have been examined for converted ScS ‐to‐ p ( ScSp ) arrivals from deep (>150 km) Tonga–Kermadec earthquakes to image layering in the underlying Hikurangi subduction zone. Consistent P ‐wave energy prior to ScS has been identified from stations in eastern and southern North Island, where the subducted plate interface is at a depth of between 15 and 30 km. Two ScS precursors are observed. Ray tracing indicates that the initial precursor ( ScSp ₁) corresponds to conversion from the base of an 11–14 km thick subducting Pacific crust. The second precursor is interpreted as a conversion from the top of the subducting plate. The amplitude ratio, ScSp ₁: ScS , increases from 0.10 to 0.19 from northern to southern North Island. This is within the range expected from a simple first‐order velocity discontinuity at an oceanic Moho. A 1–2 km thick layer of low‐velocity sediment at the top of the subducting plate is required to explain the remaining ScSp waveform. Our results imply that the abnormally thick Hikurangi–Chatham Plateau has been subducting beneath New Zealand for at least 2.9 Myr, thus explaining the high uplift rates observed across eastern North Island.     

State of stress in the Southern Tyrrhenian subduction zone from fault-plane solutions

In this paper we present revised locations and original focal mechanisms computed for intermediate and deep earthquakes that occurred within the Southern Tyrrhenian subduction zone between 1988 and 1994, in order to improve our knowledge of the state of stress for this compressional margin. In particular, we define the stress distribution within a large portion of the descending slab, between 40 and about 450 km depth. The seismicity distribution reveals a continuous 40–50 km thick slab that abruptly increases its dip from subhorizontal in the Ionian Sea to a constant 70° dip in the Tyrrhenian. We computed focal mechanisms for events with magnitudes ranging from 2.7 and 5.7, obtaining the distribution of P - and T -axes for many events for which centroid moment tensor (CMT) solutions are not available, thus enabling the sampling of a larger depth range compared to previous studies. We define three portions of the slab characterized by different distributions of P - and T -axes. A general down-dip compression is found between 165 and 370 km depth, whereas in the upper part of the slab (40–165 km depth) the fault-plane solutions are strongly heterogeneous. Below 370 km the P -axes of the few deep events located further to the north have a shallower dip and are not aligned with the 70° dipping slab, possibly suggesting that they belong to a separated piece of subducted lithosphere. There is a good correspondence between the depth range in which the P -axes plunge closer to the slab dip (∼ 70°) and the interval characterized by the highest seismic energy release (190–370 km).     

Double seismic zones and stresses of intermediate depth earthquakes

Summary. Data from Japanese local seismograph networks suggest that the stresses in double seismic zones are in-plate compression for the upper zone and in-plate tension for the lower zone; the stresses do not necessarily appear to be down-dip. It may therefore be possible to identify other double seismic zones on the basis of data which indicate that events with differing orientations of in-plate stresses occur in a given segment of slab.
A global survey of published focal mechanisms for intermediate depth earthquakes suggests that the stress in the slab is controlled, at least in part, by the age of the slab and the rate of convergence. Old and slow slabs are under in-plate tensile stresses and the amount of in-plate compression in the slab increases with increasing convergence rate or decreasing slab age. Young and fast slabs are an exception to this trend; all such slabs are down-dip tensile. Since these slabs all subduct under continents, they may be bent by continental loading. Double seismic zones are not a feature common to all subduction zones and are only observed in slabs which are not dominated by tensile or compressive stresses.
Unbending of the lithosphere and upper mantle phase changes are unlikely to be the causes of the major features of double zones, although they may contribute to producing some of their characteristics. Sagging or thermal effects, possibly aided by asthenospheric relative motion, may produce the local deviatoric stresses that cause double zones.     

Subduction beneath western South America: evidence from converted phases

Summary. There are two conflicting models for the dip of the subduction zone beneath central Peru and beneath central Chile. One model, based primarily on the distribution of hypocentres thought to be most reliably located, postulates a shallow (∼ 10°) dip for the downgoing plate. The second model, re-examined in this paper and based chiefly on an analysis of ScSp converted phases, postulates a normal (∼ 30°) dip for the subduction.
A detailed examination of ScSp data for central Peru and central Chile shows that ScSp arrivals can be identified on all seismograms on which the predicted signal/noise ratio is greater than 1, and the measured amplitude ratios of ScSp to ScS imply a normal dip for the conversion interfaces. The characteristics of the ScSp arrivals in these regions are virtually identical to those for ScSp arrivals in southern Peru, where a well-defined Benioff zone and the calculated ScSp -conversion region both imply a normal dip for the subduction. Hence ScSp observations in South America support the model of an approximately constant dip of subduction from central Peru to central Chile to a depth of at least 120 km, and impose a constraint that must be satisfied by any satisfactory tectonic model for these regions.     

The deep seismicity of the Tyrrhenian Sea

The study reappraises the deep seismicity of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Careful examination of the quality of reported hypocentres shows that the earthquakes define a zone dipping NW, about 200 km along strike, 50 km thick, and reaching a depth of about 500 km. The zone is slightly concave to the NW at a depth of 300 km, but, contrary to many previous reports, is not tightly concave, nor are there significant spatial gaps in the seismicity, which is effectively continuous with depth. Seismicity is, however, concentrated in the depth interval 250–300 km, where the dip of the seismic zone changes from 70° (above 250 km) to a more gentle dip of 45° at greater depths. Seven fault-plane solutions are available for the largest earthquakes in this depth interval, all of them consistent with a P -axis down the dip of the seismic zone, and all of them requiring movement on faults out of the plane of the subducting slab.
Two deep earthquakes near Naples lie well outside the main zone of activity; for one of which a fault-plane solution is available that has a P -axis not aligned with the dip of the seismic zone. The tightly concave slab-geometry favoured by other reports is supported mainly by the location of these events near Naples, which we think may represent deformation in a separate, probably shallower dipping, piece of subducted lithosphere.
The lack of shallow seismicity, and particularly of thrust faulting earthquakes, at the surface projection of the Benioff zone suggests that active subduction has ceased. Estimates of the convergence rate responsible for subduction in the last 10 Myr far exceed the present convergence rate of Africa and Eurasia, suggesting that the subduction was related instead to the stretching and thinning of the crust in the Tyrrhenian Sea.     

On the resolving power of tomographic images in the Aegean area

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The imaging of upper mantle heterogeneity by seismic tomography is strongly limited by the uneven global distribution both of seismic recording stations and earthquake sources. This can result in a loss of resolution and significance in the final image, particularly when a sparse data set contains few ray paths which intersect at sufficiently high angles in the volume of interest. In order to investigate the theoretical resolving power of a previously published tomographic image of the Aegean area, synthetic tests of the inversion procedure using a ray-path matrix obtained in this previous study for local and teleseismic P -waves were carried out. The aim was to examine the extent to which the shape of a synthetic lithospheric slab penetrating to different depths is inherently distorted by the tomographic imaging procedure, and to compare the synthetic tomographic images with the results from the actual inversion. The distortion is found to take the form of an artificial stretching of the lithospheric slab. The maximum 'stretching factor', as indicated by the downdip displacement of the peak amplitude of the synthetic high-velocity anomaly, is found to be a factor of 2 or so, though the distortion is usually less than this. The peak amplitude of the tomographic image of a lithospheric slab is found from the inversion of traveltime data to be at depths at or below 400 km. This indicates that the high-velocity lithospheric slab in the Aegean penetrates deeper than the Benioff zone seismicity of about 200 km. However, no constraints of the maximum depth of penetration could be established with the data set used in the present work.     

Modelling the effect of atmospheric pressure variations on gravity

Summary. The 1973 Hawaii earthquake occurred north of Hilo, at a depth of 40 to 50km. The location was beneath the east flank of Mauna Kea, a volcano dormant historically, but active within the last 4000 yr. Aftershocks were restricted to a depth of 55–35km. The event and its aftershock sequence are located in an area not normally associated with the seismicity of the Mauna Loa and Kilauea calderas. The earthquake was a double event, the epicentres trending NE-SW. The events were of similar size and faulting mechanism. The fault plane solutions obtained by seismic waveform analysis are a strike-slip fault striking EW and dipping 55° S, the auxiliary plane a NS vertical plane with a faulting plunge of 35°. The axis of maximum compressive stress is aligned with the direction of the gravity gradient associated with the island of Hawaii. The fault plane striking EW parallels a surface feature, the Mauna Kea east rift zone. The earthquakes were clearly not associated with volcanic activity normally associated with Mauna Loa and Kilauea and may indicate a deep seated prelude to a resumption of activity at Mauna Kea.     

A hypothesis for the seismogenesis of a double seismic zone

The seismogenesis of a double seismic zone, in particular the lower layer of a double seismic zone, has not been adequately explained in the literature. On the basis of seismic data and geothermal structures along three well-studied cross-sections in the Kuril-Kamchatka and Japan subduction zones, we investigate the temperature/pressure conditions associated with seismogenic structures of the double seismic zones. the corresponding T/P loci seem to suggest that earthquakes observed in the lower layer and in the lower part (below approximately 130 ± 20 km) of the top layer of a double seismic zone were caused by metastable phase transition-a mechanism similar to that responsible for deep-focus earthquakes only at lower temperature/pressure conditions. Under this hypothesis, the wedge-shaped configuration of a double seismic zone is interpreted to represent the loci of the kinetic boundary of the phase transition. According to theoretical/experimental studies and the constraints imposed by our observations, a likely candidate for such a phase transition is the metastable Al-rich enstatite decomposing into the assemblage of Al-poor enstatite plus garnet. Earthquakes in the upper part of the top layer were most probably due to conventional mechanisms such as dehydration of subducted materials and/or facies change from basalt to eclogite. That the top layer involves more than one seismogenic mechanism is also implied by the distinct behaviour of seismicity in the vicinity of 130 ± 20 km. Because the presence of deviatoric stress is critical to the reaction rate of a metastable phase transition, it is inferred that single seismic zones are also caused by the same mechanisms, except that the implicit layer of a supposed double seismic zone is missing, due to the insufficient amount of appropriate metastable minerals or to the lack of appropriate deviatoric stresses in the source region.     

The transition from subduction to continental collision: crustal structure in the North Canterbury region, New Zealand

The North Canterbury region marks the transition from Pacific plate subduction to continental collision in the South Island of New Zealand. Details of the seismicity, structure and tectonics of this region have been revealed by an 11-week microearthquake survey using 24 portable digital seismographs. Arrival time data from a well-recorded subset of microearthquakes have been combined with those from three explosions at the corners of the microearthquake network in a simultaneous inversion for both hypocentres and velocity structure. The velocity structure is consistent with the crust in North Canterbury being an extension of the converging Chatham Rise. The crust is about 27 km thick, and consists of an 11 km thick seismic upper crust and 7 km thick seismic lower crust, with the middle part of the crust being relatively aseismic. Seismic velocities are consistent with the upper and middle crust being composed of greywacke and schist respectively, while several lines of evidence suggest that the lower crust is the lower part of the old oceanic crust on which the overlying rocks were originally deposited.
The distribution of relocated earthquakes deeper than 15 km indicates that the seismic lower crust changes dip markedly near 43S. To the south-west it is subhorizontal, while to the north-east it dips north-west at about 10. Fault-plane solutions for these earthquakes also change near 43S. For events to the south, P -axes trend approximately normal to the plate boundary (reflecting continental collision), while for events to the north, T -axes are aligned down the dip of the subducted plate (reflecting slab pull). While lithospheric subduction is continuous across the transition, it is not clear whether the lower crust near 43S is flexed or torn.     

Stresses due to phase changes in subduction zones and an empirical equation of state for the mantle

Summary. An empirical equation of state, assuming mineralogical equilibrium, is developed for the top 700 km of the mantle. Assuming a uniform viscosity, this equation of state is used to show that the stresses due to the changes in phase induced in a descending lithospheric plate in a subduction zone are an order of magnitude larger than those due to the negative buoyancy of the slab in the asthenosphere. The stresses predicted are well within the power law creep region for likely mantle materials and so the effective viscosity will vary within the slab. Consequently the stresses will be smaller than those of 7.0 × 10⁸N/m² obtained here using uniform viscosities. These stresses are relatively compressional near the sides of the slab and tensional in the centre.     

The lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary beneath the western United States

S receiver functions from 67 broad-band seismic stations in the western United States clearly reveal the existence of a mantle discontinuity with velocity reduction downward, which we interpret as the lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary (LAB). The average depth of the LAB is ∼70 km. The boundary is relatively sharp with an overall sharpness of less than 20 km. The boundary is more prominent south of the Mendocino Triple Junction, where the Farallon Plate has completely subducted. This may indicate partial melts at the base of the lithosphere caused by the upwelling of the asthenospheric flow through the slab window. A double low velocity zone is observed at base of the lithosphere beneath southern Sierra Nevada, implying a second melting zone at a depth of ∼100 km, well correlated with previous studies of lithospheric delamination in the area.     

What can be learned from rotational motions excited by earthquakes?

One answer to the question posed in the title is that we will have more accurate data for arrival times of SH waves, because the rotational component around the vertical axis is sensitive to SH waves although not to P-SV waves. Importantly, there is another answer related to seismic sources, which will be discussed in this paper.
Generally, not only dislocations commonly used in earthquake models but also other kind of defects could contribute to producing seismic waves. In particular, rotational strains at earthquake sources directly generate rotational components in seismic waves. Employing the geometrical theory of defects, we obtain a general expression for the rotational motion of seismic waves as a function of the parameters of source defects.
Using this expression, together with one for translational motion, we can estimate the rotational strain tensor and the spatial variation of slip velocity in the source area of earthquakes. These quantities will be large at the edges of a fault plane due to spatially rapid changes of slip on the fault and/or a formation of tensile fractures.     

Geometry and brittle deformation of the subducting Nazca Plate, Central Chile and Argentina

We use data from the Chile Argentina Geophysical Experiment (CHARGE) broad-band seismic deployment to refine past observations of the geometry and deformation within the subducting slab in the South American subduction zone between 30°S and 36°S. This region contains a zone of flat slab subduction where the subducting Nazca Plate flattens at a depth of ∼100 km and extends ∼300 km eastward before continuing its descent into the mantle. We use a grid-search multiple-event earthquake relocation technique to relocate 1098 events within the subducting slab and generate contours of the Wadati-Benioff zone. These contours reflect slab geometries from previous studies of intermediate-depth seismicity in this region with some small but important deviations. Our hypocentres indicate that the shallowest portion of the flat slab is associated with the inferred location of the subducting Juan Fernández Ridge at 31°S and that the slab deepens both to the south and the north of this region. We have also determined first motion focal mechanisms for ∼180 of the slab earthquakes. The subhorizontal T -axis solutions for these events are almost entirely consistent with a slab pull interpretation, especially when compared to our newly inferred slab geometry. Deviations of T -axes from the direction of slab dip may be explained with a gap within the subducting slab below 150 km in the vicinity of the transition from flat to normal subducting geometry around 33°S.     

Lithospheric structure of the Arabian and Eurasian collision zone in eastern Turkey from S-wave receiver functions

Crustal and upper-mantle seismic discontinuities beneath eastern Turkey are imaged using teleseismic S -to- P converted phases. Three crustal phases are observed: the Moho with depth ranging between 30 and 55 km, indicating variable tectonic regimes within this continental collision zone; an upper-crustal discontinuity at approximately 10 km depth; and various crustal low-velocity zones, possibly associated with recent Quaternary volcanism. Imaging of the upper mantle is complicated by the 3-D geometry of the region, in particular due to the Bitlis–Zagros suture zone. However, several upper-mantle S -to- P converted phase are identified as being the signature of the lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary (LAB). The inferred LAB for the Eastern Anatolian Accretionary Complex indicates that eastern Turkey has an anomalously thin (between ∼60 and 80 km) lithosphere which is consistent with an oceanic slab detachment model. The observed LAB phases for the Arabian shield and Iranian plateau indicate that lithospheric thickness for these stable regions is on the order of 100 to 125 km thick, which is typical of continental margins.     

The Zihuatanejo, Mexico, earthquake of 1994 December 10 (M= 6.6): source characteristics and tectonic implications

An analysis of the Zihuatanejo, Mexico, earthquake of 1994 December 10 ( M = 6.6), based on teleseismic and near-source data, shows that it was a normal-faulting, intermediate-depth ( H = 50 ± 5 km) event. It was located about 30 km inland, within the subducted Cocos plate. The preferred fault plane has an azimuth of 130°, a dip of 79° and a rake of −86°. The rupture consisted of two subevents which were separated in time by about 2 s, with the second subevent occurring downdip of the first. The measured stress drop was relatively high, requiring a Δσ of about a kilobar to explain the high-frequency level of the near-source spectra. A rough estimate of the thickness of the seismogenic part of the oceanic lithosphere below Zihuatanejo, based on the depth and the rupture extent of this event, is 40 km.
This event and the Oaxaca earthquake of 1931 January 15 ( M = 7.8) are the two significant normal-faulting, intermediate-depth shocks whose epicentres are closest to the coast. Both of these earthquakes were preceded by several large to great shallow, low-angle thrust earthquakes, occurring updip. The observations in other subduction zones show just the opposite: normal-faulting events precede, not succeed, updip, thrust shocks. Indeed, the thrust events, soon after their occurrence, are expected to cause compression in the slab, thus inhibiting the occurrence of normal-faulting events. To explain the occurrence of the Zihuatanejo earthquake, we note that the Cocos plate, after an initial shallow-angle subduction, unbends and becomes subhorizontal. In the region of the unbending, the bottom of the slab is in horizontal extension. We speculate that the large updip seismic slip during shallow, low-angle thrust events increases the buckling of the slab, resulting in an incremental tensional stress at the bottom of the slab and causing normal-faulting earthquakes. This explanation may also hold for the 1931 Oaxaca event.     

Aseismic fault movement before the 1995 Kobe earthquake detected by a GPS survey: implication for preseismic stress localization?

By inversion analysis of the baseline changes and horizontal displacements observed with GPS (Global Positioning System) during 1990–1994, a high-angle reverse fault was detected in the Shikoku-Kinki region, southwest Japan. The active blind fault is characterized by reverse dip-slip (0.7±0.2  m yr⁻¹ within a layer 17–26  km deep) with a length of 208±5  km, a (down-dip) width of 9±2  km, a dip-angle of 51°±2° and a strike direction of 40°±2° (NE). Evidence from the geological investigation of subfaults close to the southwestern portion of the fault, two historical earthquakes ( M _L=7.0, 1789 and 6.4, 1955) near the centre of the fault, and an additional inversion analysis of the baseline changes recorded by the nationwide permanent GPS array from 18 January to 31 December 1995 partially demonstrates the existence of the fault, and suggests that it might be a reactivation of a pre-existing fault in this region. The fact that hardly any earthquakes ( M _L>2.0) occurred at depth on the inferred fault plane suggests that the fault activity was largely aseismic. Based on the parameters of the blind fault estimated in this study, we evaluated stress changes in this region. It is found that shear stress concentrated and increased by up to 2.1 bar yr⁻¹ at a depth of about 20  km around the epicentral area of the 1995 January 17  Kobe earthquake ( M _L=7.2, Japan), and that the earthquake hypocentre received a Coulomb failure stress of about 5.6 bar yr⁻¹ during 1990–1994. The results suggest that the 1995  Kobe earthquake could have been induced or triggered by aseismic fault movement.     

Small-scale mantle flows and induced lithospheric stress near island arcs

Summary. This paper explores the middle ground between complex thermally-coupled viscous flow models and simple corner flow models of island arc environments. The calculation retains the density-driven nature of convection and relaxes the geometrical constraints of corner flow, yet still provides semianalytical solutions for velocity and stress. A novel aspect of the procedure is its allowance for a coupled elastic lithosphere on top of a Newtonian viscous mantle. Initially, simple box-like density drivers illustrate how vertical and horizontal forces are transmitted through the mantle and how the lithosphere responds by trench formation. The flexural strength of the lithosphere spatially broadens the surface topography and gravity anomalies relative to the functional form of the vertical flow stresses applied to the plate base. I find that drivers in the form of inclined subducting slabs cannot induce self-driven parallel flow; however, the necessary flow can be provided by supplying a basal drag of 1–5 MPa to the mantle from the oceanic lithosphere. These basal drag forces create regional lithospheric stress and they should be quantifiable through seismic observations of the neutral surface. The existence of a shallow elevated phase transition is suggested in two slab models of 300 km length where a maximum excess density of 0.2 g cm⁻³ was needed to generate an acceptable mantle flow. A North New Hebrides subduction model which satisfies flow requirements and reproduces general features of topography and gravity contains a high shear stress zone (75 MPa) around the upper slab surface to a depth of 150 km and a deviatoric tensional stress in the back arc to a depth of 70 km. The lithospheric stress state of this model suggests that slab detachment is possible through whole plate fracture.     

New insight into the crust and upper mantle structure under Alaska

To better understand the seismic structure of the subducting Pacific plate under Alaska, we determined the three-dimensional P-wave velocity structure to a depth of approximately 200 km beneath Alaska using 438,146 P-wave arrival times from 10,900 earthquakes. In this study an irregular grid parameterization was adopted to express the velocity structure under Alaska. The number of grid nodes increases from north to south in the study area so that the spacing between grid nodes is approximately the same in the longitude direction. Our results suggest that the subducting Pacific slab under Alaska can be divided into three different parts based on its geometry and velocity structure. The western part has features similar to those in other subduction zones. In the central part a thick low-velocity zone is imaged at the top of the subducting Pacific slab beneath north of the Kenai Peninsula, which is believed to be most likely the oceanic crust plus an overlying serpentinized zone and the coupled Yakutat terrane subducted with the Pacific slab. In the eastern part, significant high-velocity anomalies are visible to 60–90 km depth, suggesting that the Pacific slab has only subducted down to that depth.