Hydration and refractive indices of Holocene tephra glass in Hokkaido, Northern Japan

Refractive indices of incompletely hydrated tephra glasses vary widely. Thus, glass refractive index is not a practical indicator for identifying Holocene tephras. Hydration near the surface of tephra glass shards can be removed by either hydrofluoric acid treatment or annealing for 12 h at 400°C. The annealing procedure is a particularly reliable and simple way to dehydrate tephra glasses. Standard deviations (s) of refractive indices for glasses after 12 h annealing are small (s=0.0014–0.0018), in contrast with untreated glasses (s=0.0034–0.0405). The refractive indices of dehydrated tephra glasses are 0.006–0.014 lower than those of the untreated (hydrated) glasses. Using the 400°C 12-h annealing procedure, values for the refractive indices of eight Holocene tephras in Hokkaido were obtained. These refractive indices are useful indicators for identification and correlation of Holocene tephras.     

Moment-tensor statistics of the 1997 Long Valley microearthquake swarm

Abstract. A simple, fast, moment-tensor inversion method using bandpass-filtered P-amplitudes was used to study the moment-tensor statistics of Long Valley caldera microearthquakes. The events were recorded in the summer of 1997, during a swarm in the caldera. The swarm was associated with geodetic extension, uplift, and subsequent moderate earthquake activity. The moment tensor solutions for 1,993 events were calculated using the new method. The majority of the resulting focal mechanisms appear to be explained in terms of double couple mechanisms. Since some events did exhibit considerable deviation from double-couples, the moment data were studied for their statistical significance. The moments of the actual data were compared to the moments of synthetic data with varying degrees of random noise in their spectra. The results of this study suggested that unless data from more than 20 stations are used and the earthquake epicenter is located inside or very close to the network area, moment-tensor inversion does not correctly resolve the non-double-couple components of microearthquakes. Analysis of the inversion residuals shows that the average noise in the P-wave spectra was close to 20%. The fluctuations of the volumetric components of the moment-tensor are in good agreement with those of the synthetic pure double-couples with 20% of added noise. Thus the moment-tensor statistics suggests that little if any volume change is required to explain the observed seismic energy release in the swarm. However, the statistics do show that a significant compensated-linear-vector-dipole component maybe present in the bulk of the seismicity. Given the network used in this study, such a component could not be precisely resolved for individual earthquakes. This possibility deserves further investigation because of its bearing on the nature of fluid-fault-earthquake processes in swarms.     

Investigating Landslides Caused by Earthquakes – A Historical Review

Post-earthquake field investigations of landslide occurrence have provided a basis for understanding, evaluating, and mapping the hazard and risk associated withearthquake-induced landslides. This paper traces thehistorical development of knowledge derived from these investigations. Before 1783, historical accounts of the occurrence of landslides in earthquakes are typically so incomplete and vague that conclusions based on these accounts are of limited usefulness. For example, the number of landslides triggered by a given event is almost always greatly underestimated. The first formal, scientific post-earthquake investigation that included systematic documentation of the landslides was undertaken in the Calabria region of Italy after the 1783 earthquake swarm. From then until the mid-twentieth century, the best information on earthquake-induced landslides came from a succession ofpost-earthquake investigations largely carried out by formal commissions that undertook extensive ground-based field studies. Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, when the use of aerial photography became widespread, comprehensive inventories of landslide occurrence have been made for several earthquakes in the United States, Peru, Guatemala, Italy, El Salvador, Japan, and Taiwan. Techniques have also been developed for performing ``retrospective' analyses years or decades after an earthquake that attempt to reconstruct the distribution of landslides triggered by the event. The additional use of Geographic Information System (GIS) processing and digital mapping since about 1989 has greatly facilitated the level of analysis that can applied to mapped distributions of landslides. Beginning in 1984, syntheses of worldwide and national data on earthquake-induced landslides have defined their general characteristics and relations between their occurrence and various geologic and seismic parameters. However, the number of comprehensive post-earthquake studies of landslides is still relatively small, and one of the most pressing needs in this area of research is for the complete documentation of landslides triggered by many more earthquakes in a wider variety of environments.