Use of microtremor measurement for assessing site effects in Northern Belgium – interpretation of the observed intensity during the MS = 5.0 June 11 1938 earthquake

To provide quantitative information on site effects in the northern part of Belgium, forty-seven H/V microtremor measurements were performed with 5 second seismometers over an area of about 15.000 km². Most of the results show a northward regular increase of the fundamental period in agreement with the augmentation of the Mesozoic and Cainozoic soft sedimentsthickness from a few meters 40 km south of Brussels to 900 m at the Netherlands-Belgium border. The measured resonance frequency values wereconsistent with theoretical computations performed at different sites onthe basis of existing information and shallow seismic experiments. At oneparticular site (Uccle) where borehole data were available, microtremor measurements using an array of four seismological stations with differentapertures allowed to obtain the low frequency part of the Rayleigh wave dispersion curve, extending the range covered by the analysis of surfacewaves artificially generated. The Vs profile derived from the surface waveinversion corroborates the 1 Hz natural frequency of the site. Comparison of these results with the macroseismic information concerning the M_S = 5.0 1938 earthquake which occurred 50 km west of Brussels,confirmed the hypothesis that the geological structure of the Brabant massifis likely to control damage distribution during such an earthquake. Comparisonbetween the intensity map of the 1938 earthquake and the resonance period ofsediments obtained by our microtremor study shows a clear relation betweenthe two parameters. During the 1938 earthquake, site effects played a prominent role due to the dimension of the source whose corner frequency wasabout 1 Hz.     

Carbon-Oxidizing and Sulfate-Reducing Bacteria in Mozhaisk Reservoir Soils

The population and distribution of carbon-oxidizing and sulfate-reducing bacteria in the soils of the Mozhaisk Reservoir are studied.     

Spectroscopy of astrophysic al plasmas in the laboratory

Francis Keenan and Steven Rose examine how and why astrophysicists use plasma in the laboratory to mimic accretion processes in stars.     

SH Wave Propagation in Viscoelastic Media

When comparing solutions for the propagation of SH waves in plane parallel layered elastic and viscoelastic (anelastic) media, one of the first things that becomes apparent is that in the elastic case the location of the saddle points required to obtain a high frequency approximation are located on the real p axis. This is true of the branch points also. In a viscoelastic medium this is not typical. The saddle point corresponding to an arrival lies in the first quadrant of the complex p-plane as do the branch points. Additionally, in the elastic case the saddle point and branch points lie on a straight line drawn through the origin (the positive real axis in the complex p-plane), while in the viscoelastic case this is generally not the case and the saddle point and branch points lie in such a manner as to indicate the degree of their complex values.In this paper simple SH reflected and transmitted particle displacement arrivals due to a point torque source at the surface in a viscoelastic medium composed of a layer over a half space will be considered. The path of steepest descent defining the saddle point in the first quadrant will be parameterized in terms of a real variable and the high frequency solutions and intermediate analytic results obtained will be used to formulate more specific constraints and observations regarding saddle point location relative to branch point locations in the complex p-plane.As saddle point determination for an arrival is, in general, the solution of a non-linear equation in two unknowns (the real and imaginary parts of the complex saddle point p ₀), which must be solved numerically, the use of analytical methods for investigating this problem type is somewhat limited.Numerical experimentation using well documented solution methods, such as Newton's method, was undertaken and some observations were made. Although fairly basic, they did provide for the design of algorithms for the computation of synthetic traces that displayed more efficient convergence and accuracy than those previously employed. This was the primary motivation for this work and the results from the SH problem may be used with minimal modifications to address the more complicated subject of coupled P-SV wave propagation in viscoelastic media.Another reason for revisiting a problem that has received some attention in the literature was to approach it in a fairly comprehensive manner so that a number of specific observations may be made regarding the location of the saddle point in the complex p-plane and to incorporate these into computer software. These have been found to result in more efficient algorithms for the SH wave propagation and a significant enhancement of the comparable software in the P-SV problem.     

Ambiguous Moment Tensors and Radiation Patterns in Anisotropic Media with Applications to the Modeling of Earthquake Mechanisms in W-Bohemia

Anisotropic material properties are usually neglected during inversions for source parameters of earthquakes. In general anisotropic media, however, moment tensors for pure-shear sources can exhibit significant non-double-couple components. Such effects may be erroneously interpreted as an indication for volumetric changes at the source. Here we investigate effects of anisotropy on seismic moment tensors and radiation patterns for pure-shear and tensile-type sources. Anisotropy can significantly influence the interpretation of the source mechanisms. For example, the orientation of the slip within the fault plane may affect the total seismic moment. Also, moment tensors due to pure-shear and tensile faulting can have similar characteristics depending on the orientation of the elastic tensor. Furthermore, the tensile nature of an earthquake can be obscured by near-source anisotropic properties. As an application, we consider effects of inhomogeneous anisotropic properties on the seismic moment tensor and the radiation patterns of a selected type of micro-earthquakes observed in W-Bohemia. The combined effects of near-source and along-path anisotropy cause characteristic amplitude distortions of the P, S1 and S2 waves. However, the modeling suggests that neither homogeneous nor inhomogeneous anisotropic properties alone can explain the observed large non-double-couple components.The results also indicate that a correct analysis of the source mechanism, in principle, is achievable by application of anisotropic moment tensor inversion.     

Are open fractures necessarily aligned with maximum horizontal stress?

Fluid flow in fractured rock is an increasingly central issue in recovering water and hydrocarbon supplies and geothermal energy, in predicting flow of pollutants underground, in engineering structures, and in understanding large-scale crustal behaviour. Conventional wisdom assumes that fluids prefer to flow along fractures oriented parallel or nearly parallel to modern-day maximum horizontal compressive stress, or S_Hmax. The reasoning is that these fractures have the lowest normal stresses across them and therefore provide the least resistance to flow. For example, this view governs how geophysicists design and interpret seismic experiments to probe fracture fluid pathways in the deep subsurface. Contrary to these widely held views, here we use core, stress measurement, and fluid flow data to show that S_Hmax does not necessarily coincide with the direction of open natural fractures in the subsurface (>3 km depth). Consequently, in situ stress direction cannot be considered to predict or control the direction of maximum permeability in rock. Where effective stress is compressive and fractures are expected to be closed, chemical alteration dictates location of open conduits, either preserving or destroying fracture flow pathways no matter their orientation.     

Ar/Ar ages of tephras intercalated in astronomically tuned Neogene sedimentary sequences in the eastern Mediterranean

We present new ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar data for sanidine and biotite derived from volcanic ash layers that are intercalated in Pliocene and late Miocene astronomically dated sequences in the Mediterranean with the aim to solve existing inconsistencies in the intercalibration between the two independent absolute dating methods. ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar sanidine ages are systematically younger by 0.7-2.3% than the astronomical ages for the same ash layers. The significance of the discrepancy disappears except for the upper Ptolemais ashes, which reveal the largest difference, if an improved full error propagation method is applied to calculate the absolute error in the ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar ages. The total variance is dominated by that of the activity of the decay of ⁴⁰K to ⁴⁰Ar (∼70%) and that the amount of radiogenic ⁴⁰Ar_p in the primary standard GA1550 biotite (∼15%). If the ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar ages are calculated relative to an astronomically dated standard, the influence of these parameters is greatly reduced, resulting in a more reliable age and in a significant reduction of the error in ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dating.Astronomically calibrated ages for Taylor Creek Rhyolite (TCR) and Fish Canyon Tuff (FCT) sanidine are 28.53±0.02 and 28.21±0.04 Ma (±1 S.E.), respectively, if we start from the more reliable results of the Cretan A1 ash layer. The most likely explanation for the large discrepancy found for the younger Ptolemais ash layers (equivalent to FCT of 28.61 Ma) is an error in the tuning of this part of the sequence.     

Using Eigenpattern Analysis to Constrain Seasonal Signals in Southern California

— Earthquake fault systems are now thought to be an example of a complex nonlinear system (Bak, et al., 1987; Rundle and Klein, 1995). The spatial and temporal complexity of this system translates into a similar complexity in the surface expression of the underlying physics, including deformation and seismicity. Here we show that a new pattern dynamic methodology can be used to define a unique, finite set of deformation patterns for the Southern California Integrated GPS Network (SCIGN). Similar in nature to the empirical orthogonal functions historically employed in the analysis of atmospheric and oceanographic phenomena (Preisendorfer, 1988), the method derives the eigenvalues and eigenstates from the diagonalization of the correlation matrix using a Karhunen-Loeve expansion (KLE) (Fukunaga, 1970; Rundle et al., 2000; Tiampo et al., 2002). This KLE technique may be used to determine the important modes in both time and space for the southern California GPS data, modes that potentially include such time-dependent signals as plate velocities, viscoelasticity, and seasonal effects. Here we attempt to characterize several of the seasonal vertical signals on various spatial scales. These, in turn, can be used to better model geophysical signals of interest such as coseismic deformation, viscoelastic effects, and creep, as well as provide data assimilation and model verification for large-scale numerical simulations of southern California.     

Dynamic performance of twin curved cable‐stayed bridges

The dynamic behaviour of two curved cable‐stayed bridges, recently constructed in northern Italy, has been investigated by full‐scale testing and theoretical models. Two different excitation techniques were employed in the dynamic tests: traffic‐induced ambient vibrations and free vibrations. Since the modal behaviour identified from the two types of test are very well correlated and a greater number of normal modes was detected during ambient vibration tests, the validity of the ambient vibration survey is assessed in view of future monitoring. For both bridges, 11 vibration modes were identified in the frequency range of 0ndash;10Hz, being a one‐to‐one correspondence between the observed modes of the two bridges. Successively, the information obtained from the field tests was used to validate and improve 3D finite elements so that the dynamic performance of the two systems were assessed and compared based on both the experimental results and the updated theoretical models. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.