A comparison of the sedimentary records of the 1960 and 2010 great Chilean earthquakes in 17 lakes: Implications for quantitative lacustrine palaeoseismology

Seismically‐induced event deposits embedded in the sedimentary infill of lacustrine basins are highly useful for palaeoseismic reconstructions. Recent, well‐documented, great megathrust earthquakes provide an ideal opportunity to calibrate seismically‐induced event deposits for lakes with different characteristics and located in different settings. This study used 107 short sediment cores to investigate the sedimentary impact of the 1960 M_w 9·5 Valdivia and the 2010 M_w 8·8 Maule earthquakes in 17 lakes in South‐Central Chile (i.e. lakes Negra, Lo Encañado, Aculeo, Vichuquén, Laja, Villarrica, Calafquén, Pullinque, Pellaifa, Panguipulli, Neltume, Riñihue, Ranco, Maihue, Puyehue, Rupanco and Llanquihue). A combination of image analysis, magnetic susceptibility and grain‐size analysis allows identification of five types of seismically‐induced event deposits: (i) mass‐transport deposits; (ii) in situ deformations; (iii) lacustrine turbidites with a composition similar to the hemipelagic background sediments (lacustrine turbidites type 1); (iv) lacustrine turbidites with a composition different from the background sediments (lacustrine turbidites type 2) and (v) megaturbidites. These seismically‐induced event deposits were compared to local seismic intensities of the causative earthquakes, eyewitness reports, post‐earthquake observations, and vegetation and geomorphology of the catchment and the lake. Megaturbidites occur where lake seiches took place. Lacustrine turbidites type 2 can be the result of: (i) local near‐shore mass wasting; (ii) delta collapse; (iii) onshore landslides; (iv) debris flows or mudflows; or (v) fluvial reworking of landslide debris. On the contrary, lacustrine turbidites type 1 are the result of shallow mass wasting on sublacustrine slopes covered by hemipelagic sediments. Due to their more constrained origin, lacustrine turbidites type 1 are the most reliable type of seismically‐induced event deposits in quantitative palaeoseismology, because they are almost exclusively triggered by earthquake shaking. Moreover, they most sensitively record varying seismic shaking intensities. The number of lacustrine turbidites type 1 linearly increases with increasing seismic intensity, starting with no lacustrine turbidites type 1 at intensities between V½ and VI and reaching 100% when intensities are higher than VII½. Combining different types of seismically‐induced event deposits allows the reconstruction of the complete impact of an earthquake.     

Effect of Overstrength on the Seismic Behaviour of Multi-Storey Regularly Asymmetric Buildings

In past years, seismic response of asymmetric structures has been frequently analysed by means of single-storey models, because of their simplicity and low computational cost. However, it is widely believed that use of more realistic multi-storey models is needed in order to investigate effects of some system characteristics (such as overstrength, higher modes of vibration, etc.) that make behaviour of multi-storey schemes different from that of single-storey systems. This paper examines effects of the overstrength in element cross-sections on the seismic behaviour of multi-storey asymmetric buildings. It is shown that in actual buildings this characteristic, which is sometimes very variable both in plan and along the height of the building, may lead to distributions of ductility demands different from those expected according to the results from single-storey models. Consequently, torsional provisions, which aim at reducing ductility demands of single-storey asymmetric systems to those of the corresponding torsionally balanced systems, should be re-checked in light of the behaviour of realistic multi-storey buildings.     

Increasing the detail of European land use/cover data by combining heterogeneous data sets

ABSTRACT

Data on land use and land cover (LULC) are a vital input for policy-relevant research, such as modelling of the human population, socioeconomic activities, transportation, environment, and their interactions. In Europe, CORINE Land Cover has been the only data set covering the entire continent consistently, but with rather limited spatial detail. Other data sets have provided much better detail, but either have covered only a fraction of Europe (e.g. Urban Atlas) or have been thematically restricted (e.g. Copernicus High Resolution Layers). In this study, we processed and combined diverse LULC data to create a harmonised, ready-to-use map covering 41 countries. By doing so, we increased the spatial detail (from 25 to one hectare) and the thematic detail (by seven additional LULC classes) compared to the CORINE Land Cover. Importantly, we decomposed the class ‘Industrial and commercial units’ into ‘Production facilities’, ‘Commercial/service facilities’ and ‘Public facilities’ using machine learning to exploit a large database of points of interest. The overall accuracy of this thematic breakdown was 74%, despite the confusion between the production and commercial land uses, often attributable to noisy training data or mixed land uses. Lessons learnt from this exercise are discussed, and further research direction is proposed.     

Diel feeding of the transparent goby Aphia minuta (Pisces,Gobiidae) in the Northwestern Adriatic Sea in spring time

The present study provides the first estimate of the daily ration for a goby species in the Mediterranean Sea, using a new approach to determine the mass of fish stomach contents through the sum of individual prey dry mass derived indirectly from prey size. Diel feeding activity and daily ration of the pelagic goby Aphia minuta were studied under natural conditions in the coastal waters off Comacchio (Northwestern Adriatic Sea) during the spring season. A total of 318 individuals of A. minuta, collected by 14 trawls carried out on 4 consecutive days, was examined for gut contents. The diel pattern of the vacuity index and the stomach fullness index indicated that A. minuta has nocturnal feeding behaviour. The daily ration, computed over a period of 16 h, was equivalent to 2.23% wet body mass.     

Use of seismic data from similar regions

Attention is first focused on the probability distributions of the exceedance rates of given earthquake magnitudes when the generation process is idealized as Poisson. But data on significant disturbances are always scarce. Local-seismicity assessment is hence guided by information from tectonically similar areas, but ordinarily the guidance is intuitive. Bayesian statistics constitute the tool to do this rationally. Two more alternatives are presented and illustrated here. The approach is extended to a generating process that includes the Poisson as a special case.     

Large roots dominate the contribution of trees to slope stability

Tree roots provide surface erosion protection and improve slope stability through highly complex interactions with the soil due to the nature of root systems. Root reinforcement estimation is usually performed by in situ pullout tests, in which roots are pulled out of the soil to reliably estimate the root strength of compact soils. However, this test is not suitable for the scenario where a soil progressively fails in a series of slump blocks – for example, in unsupported soils near streambanks and road cuts where the soil has no compressive resistance at the base of the hillslope. The scenario where a soil is unsupported on its downslope extent and progressively deforms at a slow strain rate has received little attention, and we are unaware of any study on root reinforcement that estimates the additional strength provided by roots in this situation. We therefore designed two complementary laboratory experiments to compare the force required to pull the root out. The results indicate that the force required to pull out roots is reduced by up to 50% when the soil fails as slump blocks compared to pullout tests. We also found that, for slump block failure, roots had a higher tendency to slip than to break, showing the importance of active earth pressure on root reinforcement behaviour, which contributes to reduced friction between soil and roots. These results were then scaled up to a full tree and tree stand using the root bundle and field-measured spatial distributions of root density. Although effects on the force mobilized in small roots can be relevant, small roots have virtually no effect on root reinforcement at the tree or stand scale on hillslopes. When root distribution has a wide range of diameters, the root reinforcement results are controlled by large roots, which hold much more force than small roots. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spotless flares and the associated radio continuum emission

We studied 24 spotless flares of Ha importance 1 which occurred during the 21st cycle of solar activity. The spotless flares could be grouped in three categories according to their location and time history of the associated active region. Our association of the flares with radio events was based on relative timing and on the flare importances. Weak microwave gradual rise and fall events were frequently recorded during the occurrence of the spotless flares. A few flares from our sample could be associated with impulsive and complex microwave bursts. Only in one case an association of a spotless flare with a significant metric type II/IV event seems to be justified.Proceedings of the Second CESRA Workshop on Particle Acceleration and Trapping in Solar Flares, held at Aubigny-sur-Nère (France), 23–26 June, 1986.     

Mineral fibres and environmental monitoring:A comparison of different analytical strategies in New Caledonia

Covered by ultrabasic units for more than a third of its surface,the New Caledonia(South West Pacific)is one of the largest world producers of Ni-ore from lateritic deposits.Almost all outcrops of geological units and open mines contain serpentine and amphibole,also as asbestos varieties.In this geological context,in which weathering processes had a great contribution in the production and dispersion of mineral fibres into the environment,the development of a routinely analytical strategy,able to discriminate an asbestiform fibre from a non-harmful particle,is a pivotal requisite.However,the acquisition of all these parameters is necessary for determining the risk associated to fibres exposition.A multidisciplinary routinely approach,based on the use of complementary simply-to-use but reliable analytical methods is the only possible strategy.In addition,the instrumental apparatus must be easily transportable on the field,directly on the mining site.The employment of specialized tools such as Polarized Light Microscopy associated to Dispersion Staining method(PLM/DS)and portable Raman spectroscopy for identification of environmental asbestos,are proved extremely effective in the improvement of the performance and rapidity of data acquisition and interpretation.Both PLM/DS and handheld Raman devices confirmed to be discriminant in the detection and characterization of asbestos fibres for both serpentine and amphibole.Furthermore,these techniques proved extremely effective even in the presence of strongly fibrous and altered samples.     

Seismic Anisotropy Observations in the Mexicali Valley,Baja California,México

A study of seismic anisotropy was performed using data from earthquakes of the Mexicali Valley. The investigated region encompasses the Cerro Prieto Geothermal Field (CPGF), one of the most important fields in the world. The results showed that at most of our stations the average polarization directions of the fast S waves range from N14°W to N17°E. A N-S polarization direction was obtained for the whole area by averaging the polarization directions from all stations used. In terms of the EDA hypothesis, this average trend agrees with the postulated state of stress for southern California, and with fault plane solutions for events of the Mexicali Valley. Notorious deviations from the N-S global trend were found southeast of the CPGF, with polarization trends between N25°E and N67°E, and in the geothermal field, with polarization directions between N7°W and N14°W. The polarization results for these zones indicated stress conditions that are different from the more regional stress pattern. The delay times that were measured between the fast and slow shear waves reached values of up to 0.6 sec, with a mean value of 0.35 sec. Consistent with our polarization results, the larger delay times (0.2–0.6 sec) were found in the CPGF. Smaller or null values were observed at the periphery of the study area. No temporal trends in the delay times were apparent, as shown by data from the two stations that recorded the larger number of events. Overall, we conclude that the splitting effects of this study result from a shallow anisotropy volume. The splitting results are thus interpreted as caused by the preferred orientation of vertical fluid-filled microcracks aligned in a direction that is parallel to the regional stress field. The stronger splitting effects that were observed in the area of the CPGF were found consistent with the geothermal reservoir that is embedded in the sedimentary cover of the zone, at depths of 1 to 4–5 km from the surface. We thus believe that such marked splitting effects have a direct relation with the reservoir of the CPGF.We are grateful to Miguel Navarro, Tito Valdez, and Manuel Luna for their contribution in the operation of RANM and for processing and cataloguing the strong-motion data. Ignacio Méndez and Francisco Farfán helped us with data from the RESNOM system. The study benefited from funding provided by CICESE and from grants awarded by CONACYT to Luis Munguía (Grants F195T and PCCNCNA-031339).