Weak-contrast reflection/transmission coefficients in weakly anisotropic elastic media: P-wave incidence

We present approximate displacement and energy PP and PS reflection/transmission coefficients for weak-contrast interfaces in general weakly anisotropic elastic media. The coefficients were obtained by applying first-order perturbation theory and then expressed in a compact and relatively simple form. The formulae can be used for arbitrary orientations of the incidence plane and interface, without the need to transform the elasticity parameters to a local Cartesian coordinate system. The accuracy of the approximate formulae is illustrated for the PS reflection coefficient for two synthetic models. For these models, we also study the possibility of using the approximate PP reflection coefficient in the inverse problem.     

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.     

Slow-ridge/hotspot interactions from global gravity, seismic tomography and 87Sr/86Sr isotope data

Among the mantle hotspots present under oceanic areas, a large number are located on—or close to—active oceanic ridges. This is especially true in the slow-spreading Atlantic and Indian oceans. The recent availability of worldwide gravity grids and the increasing coverage of geochemical data sets along active spreading centres allow a fruitful comparison of these data with global geoid and seismic tomography models, and allow one to study interactions between mantle plumes and active slow-spreading ridges. The observed correlations allow us to draw preliminary conclusions on the general links between surficial processes, which shape the detailed morphology of the ridge axes, and deeper processes, active in the upper mantle below the ridge axial domains as a whole. The interactions are first studied at the scale of the Atlantic (the Mid-Atlantic Ridge from Iceland to Bouvet Island) from the correlation between the zero-age free-air gravity anomaly, which reflects the zero-age depth of the ridge axis, and Sr isotopic ratios of ridge axis basalts. The study is then extended to a more global scale (the slow ridges from Iceland to the Gulf of Aden) by including geoid and upper-mantle tomography models. The interactions appear complex, ranging from the effect of large and very productive plumes, almost totally overprinting the long-wavelength segmentation pattern of the ridge, to that of weaker hotspots, barely marking some of the observables in the ridge axial domain. Intermediate cases are observed, in which hotspots of medium activity (or whose activity has gradually decreased) located at some distance from the ridge axis produce geophysical or geochemical signals whose variation along the axis can be correlated with the geometry of the plume head in the upper mantle. Such observations tend to preclude the use of a single hotspot/ridge interaction model and stress the need for additional observations in various plume/ridge configurations.     

Station threshold bias in short-period amplitude distance and station terms used to compute body-wave magnitudes mb

A cause of bias in estimates of distance and station terms used to compute seismic magnitudes ( m _b) is demonstrated in a comparative study on the world amplitude–distance curve. This bias results from the presence of station thresholds in the measurement and reporting of seismic amplitudes and is analogous to that known to be present in routinely computed magnitudes. Distance terms corresponding to low amplitudes such as in the core shadow will tend to be positively biased as are station terms for stations with high thresholds.     

Core–mantle boundary deformations and J2 variations resulting from the 2004 Sumatra earthquake

The deformation at the core–mantle boundary produced by the 2004 Sumatra earthquake is investigated by means of a semi-analytic theoretical model of global coseismic and postseismic deformation, predicting a millimetric coseismic perturbation over a large portion of the core–mantle boundary. Spectral features of such deformations are analysed and discussed. The time-dependent postseismic evolution of the elliptical part of the gravity field ( J ₂) is also computed for different asthenosphere viscosity models. Our results show that, for asthenospheric viscosities smaller than 10¹⁸ Pa s, the postseismic J ₂ variation in the next years is expected to leave a detectable signal in geodetic observations.     

New approach in the kinematic k−2 source model for generating physical slip velocity functions

In an attempt to improve the ground motion modelling, the characteristics of the slip velocity functions (SVF) generated using the kinematic k ⁻² source are investigated and compared to the dynamic solutions proposed in the literature. Several numerical simulations were performed to test the influence of the model parameters on the SVF modelling. Overall, the shapes of SVF are very complex and exhibit a large variability in time and space. However, we found out that the mean SVF is a simple boxcar with duration equal to the largest rise time value. In the areas of weak slip, the SVFs are characterized by the existence of negative values, whereas in large slip areas, the SVF is more impulsive. Overall, on the examples investigated, the SVFs modelled with this k ⁻² source model are different from a typical Kostrov's solution. The critical analysis of the kinematic k ⁻² source led us to identify the Fourier decomposition of the slip to be responsible for these difficulties, and to propose a new recombination scheme. It consists of adding a positive correction to the Fourier slip components. The slip is described as the sum of positive contributions at various scales. The SVFs modelled using this new scheme are greatly improved. Moreover, through several parametrical analyses performed to qualify this new approach, we show that the SVF are corrected while preserving the essential quality of the k ⁻² modelling, that is, the ω² spectral shape and C _d apparent directivity of the synthetic accelerograms. Strong ground motion modelling in the near-fault region was made and numerical ground motion parameters were compared to the empirical relationships. We show that predicted peak ground motion is consistent with near-source attenuation laws.