Fisher's behaviour with individual vessel quotas—Over-capacity and potential rent: Five case studies

Internationally, individual vessel quotas (IVQ) have become an increasingly popular management tool. The main attraction of IVQs is the incentives they create for cost savings, autonomous capacity adjustment and, subsequently, rent generation. In this paper, the extent to which different IVQ systems have facilitated resource rent generation and capacity adjustment in five European countries—Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the UK—is examined. The potential economic rents and the capacity reduction necessary to achieve these rents in each of the fisheries are also estimated. Reasons why IVQs have not achieved their potential economic benefits in these fisheries are also examined.     

Formation and development of normal-fault calderas and the initiation of large explosive eruptions

The ring fractures that form most collapse calderas are steeply inward-dipping shear fractures, i.e., normal faults. At the surface of the volcano within which the caldera fault forms, the tensile and shear stresses that generate the normal-fault caldera must peak at a certain radial distance from the surface point above the center of the source magma chamber of the volcano. Numerical results indicate that normal-fault calderas may initiate as a result of doming of an area containing a shallow sill-like magma chamber, provided that the area of doming is much larger than the cross-sectional area of the chamber and that the internal excess pressure in the chamber is smaller than that responsible for doming. This model is supported by the observation that many caldera collapses are preceded by a long period of doming over an area much larger than that of the subsequently formed caldera. When the caldera fault does not slip, eruptions from calderas are normally small. Nearly all large explosive eruptions, however, are associated with slip on caldera faults. During dip slip on, and doming of, a normal-fault caldera, the vertical stress on part of the underlying chamber suddenly decreases. This may lead to explosive bubble growth in this part of the magma chamber, provided its magma is gas rich. This bubble growth can generate an excess fluid pressure that is sufficiently high to drive a large fraction of the magma out of the chamber during an explosive eruption. Received: 2 January 1997 / Accepted: 22 April 1998     

The seismic velocity structure north of Iceland from joint inversion of local earthquake data

The tectonics of North Iceland is dominated by interaction of the Iceland hot spot and the mid-oceanic Kolbeinsey Ridge. Transform movement along the transition zone, often called Tjörnes Fracture Zone, and the seismicity it generates has been documented in the past. This study uses the seismicity data of the permanent South Iceland Lowland (SIL) network to quantify velocity structure from travel time inversion. The SIL seismic dataset is capable of illuminating parts of the region in a 3D seismic velocity inversion, primarily between 7 and 12 km depth, with less resolution elsewhere because of the sparse setup of the monitoring network. The problem has been analysed in 1, 2 and 3 dimensions and evaluated with 4 different inversion tools. The study reports a correlation of a seismic velocity anomaly in compressional wave velocity v _p and shear wave velocity v _s with the Husavik-Flatey fault and a further subsurface lineament stretching between the islands of Flatey and Grimsey. Finally, our results support a decrease of crustal thickness between the mainland and the island of Grimsey.     

Probabilistic model for eruptions and associated flood events in the Katla caldera,Iceland

Eruptions in the subglacial Katla caldera, South Iceland, release catastrophic jokulhlaups (meltwater floods). The ice surface topography divides the caldera into three drainage sectors (Ko, So and En sectors) that drain onto Myrdalssandur, Solheimasandur and Markarfljot plains, respectively. In historical times, floods from the Ko sector have been dominant, with only two recorded So events. Geological records indicate that floods from the En sector occur every 500–800 years. A probabilistic model for an eruption is formulated in general terms by a stochastic parameter that simulates a series giving the time interval in years between two consecutive events. The model also contains a Markovian matrix that controls the location of the event and thereby what watercourse is hit by the flood. A record of Katla eruptions since the 8th and the 9th century a.d., and geological information of volcanogenic floods towards the west over the last 8,000 years is used to calibrate the model. The model is then used to find the probabilities for floods from the three sectors: Ko, So and En. The simulations predict that the most probable eruption interval for the En sector and the So sector is several times smaller than the average time interval, implying infrequent periods of high activity in these sectors. A correlation is found between the magnitude of eruptions and the following time intervals. Using the statistical approach and considering this magnitude–time interval correlation, the probability of an eruption in Katla volcano is considered to be 20% within the next 10 years. This compares to a probability of 93% if only a simple average is considered. These probabilities do not take account of long-term eruption precursors and should therefore be regarded as minimum values.     

Focusing patterns of seismicity with relocation and collapsing

Seismicity is generally concentrated on faults or in fault zones of varying, sometimes complex geometry. An earthquake catalog, compiled over time, contains useful information about this geometry, which can help understanding the tectonics of a region. Interpreting the geometrical distribution of events in a catalog is often complicated by the diffuseness of the earthquake locations. Here, we explore a number of strategies to reduce this diffuseness and hence simplify the seismicity pattern of an earthquake catalog. These strategies utilize information about event locations contained in their overall catalog distribution. They apply this distribution as an a priori constraint on relocations of the events, or as an attractor for each individual event in a collapsing scheme, and thereby focus the locations. The latter strategy is not a relocation strategy in a strict sense, although event foci are moved, because the movements are not driven by data misfit. Both strategies simplify the seismicity pattern of the catalog and may help to interpret it. A synthetic example and a real-data example from an aftershock sequence in south west Iceland are presented to demonstrate application of the strategies. Entropy is used to quantify their effect.     

Ellipticity corrections for seismic phases

The advent of broad-band seismology has meant that use is being made of a wide range of seismic phases, for many of which ellipticity corrections have not been readily available. In particular, when many seismic phases are used in location schemes, it is important that the systematic effects of ellipticity are included for each phase.
An efficient and effective procedure for constructing ellipticity corrections is to make use of the ray-based approach of Dziewonksi & Gilbert (1976), as reformulated by Doornbos (1988), in conjunction with the rapid evaluation of traveltimes and slownesses for a given range using the tauspline procedure of Buland & Chapman (1983).
Ellipticity coefficients have been tabulated for a wide range of seismic phases and are available in electronic form. The ellipticity correction procedures have been extended to include an allowance for diffraction phenomena, for example P _diff, S _diff diffracted along the core-mantle boundary. Corrections for additional phases can be generated by building the ellipticity coefficients from suitable combinations of the coefficients for different phase segments.     

Emplacement and arrest of sheets and dykes in central volcanoes

Sheet intrusions are of two main types: local inclined (cone) sheets and regional dykes. In Iceland, the inclined sheets form dense swarms of (mostly) basaltic, 0.5–1 m thick sheets, dipping either at 20–50° or at 75–90° towards the central volcano to which they belong. The regional dykes are (mostly) basaltic, 4–6 m thick, subvertical, subparallel and form swarms, less dense than those of the sheets but tens of kilometres long, in the parts of the volcanic systems that are outside the central volcanoes. In both types of swarms, the intrusion intensity decreases with altitude in the lava pile. Theoretical models generally indicate very high crack-tip stresses for propagating dykes and sheets. Nevertheless, most of these intrusions become arrested at various crustal depths and never reach the surface to supply magma to volcanic eruptions. Two principal mechanisms are proposed to explain arrest of dykes and sheets. One is the generation of stress barriers, that is, layers with local stresses unfavourable for the intrusion propagation. The other is mechanical anisotropy whereby sheet intrusions become arrested at discontinuities. Stress barriers may develop in several ways. First, analytical solutions for a homogeneous and isotropic crust show that the intensity of the tensile stress associated with a pressured magma chamber falls off rapidly with distance from the chamber. Thus, while dyke and sheet injection in the vicinity of a chamber may be favoured, dyke and sheet arrest is encouraged in layers (stress barriers) at a certain distance from the chamber. Second, boundary-element models for magma chambers in a mechanically layered crust indicate abrupt changes in tensile stresses between layers of contrasting Young’s moduli (stiffnesses). Thus, where soft pyroclastic layers alternate with stiff lava flows, as in many volcanoes, sheet and dyke arrest is encouraged. Abrupt changes in stiffness between layers are commonly associated with weak and partly open contacts and other discontinuities. It follows that stress barriers and discontinuities commonly operate together as mechanisms of dyke and sheet arrest in central volcanoes.