Coda-Q before and after the 1986 Andreanof Islands earthquake

Coda-Q values before and after the May 7, 1986 Andreanof Islands earthquake in the central Aleutian subduction zone were calculated from microearthquake seismograms on the basis of Aki's single backscattering model. Digital waveforms from 329 microeathquakes in 5.4 years before the mainshock and 40 aftershocks recorded by 11 stations of the Central Aleutians Seismic Network were utilized. Before the mainshock, coda-Q in the rupture zone west of the mainshock epicenter was 15% higher than theQ outside the rupture zone to the west. A lowQ in the region east of the mainshock epicenter is inferred, but lacks solid evidence. The highQ region accords with the part of the rupture zone where most seismic moment was released. During approximately two months after the mainshock, coda-Q in the rupture zone decreased about 10%. PrecursoryQ changes were not found in the 5.4 years before the mainshock. It is deduced that a coda-Q precursor, if it existed, was of small magnitude (<10%), or its duration was either shorter than one year or longer than four years.     

The reservoir-associated earthquakes of April 1983 in western Thailand: Source modeling and implications for induced seismicity

On 22 April 1983, a very large area of Thailand and part of Burma were strongly shaken by a rare earthquake (m _b=5.8,M _s=5.9). The epicenter was located at the Srinagarind reservoir about 190 km northwest of Bangkok, a relatively stable continental region that experienced little previous seismicity. The main shock was preceded by some foreshocks and followed by numerous aftershocks. The largest foreshock ofm _b=5.2 occurred 1 week before the main shock, and the largest aftershock ofm _b=5.3 took place about 3 hours after the main shock. Focal mechanisms of the three largest events in this earthquake sequence have been studied by other seismologists using firts-motion data. However, the solutions for the main shock and the largest aftershock showed significant inconsistency with known surface geology and regional tectonics. We reexamined the mechanisms of these three events by using teleseismicP-andS-waveforms and through careful readings ofP-wave first motions. The directions of theP axes in our study range from NNW-SSE to NNE-SSW, and nodal planes strike in the NW-SE to about E-W in agreement with regional tectonics and surface geology. The main shock mechanism strikes 255°, dips 48°, and slips 63.5°. The fault motions during the main shock and the foreshock are mainly thrust, while the largest aftershock has a large strike-slip component. The seismic moment and the stress drop of the mainshock are determined to be 3.86×10²⁴ dyne-cm and 180 bars, respectively. The occurrence of these thrust events appears to correlate with the unloading of the Srinagarind reservoir. The focal depths of the largest foreshock, the main shock, and the largest aftershock are determined to be 5.4 km, 8 km, and 22.7 km, respectively, from waveform modeling and relative location showing a downward migration of hypocenters of the three largest events during the earthquake sequence. Other characteristics of this reservoir-induced earthquake sequence are also discussed.     

Triggered earthquakes and deep well activities

Earthquakes can be triggered by any significant perturbation of the hydrologic regime. In areas where potentially active faults are already close to failure, the increased pore pressure resulting from fluid injection, or, alternatively, the massive extraction of fluid or gas, can induce sufficient stress and/or strain changes that, with time, can lead to sudden catastrophic failure in a major earthquake. Injection-induced earthquakes typically result from the reduction in frictional strength along preexisting, nearby faults caused by the increased formation fluid pressure. Earthquakes associated with production appear to respond to more complex mechanisms of subsidence, crustal unloading, and poroelastic changes in response to applied strains induced by the massive withdrawal of subsurface material. As each of these different types of triggered events can occur up to several years after well activities have begun (or even several years after all well activities have stopped), this suggests that the actual triggering process may be a very complex combination of effects, particularly if both fluid extraction and injection have taken place locally. To date, more than thirty cases of earthquakes triggered by well activities can be documented throughout the United States and Canada. Based on these case histories, it is evident that, owing to preexisting stress conditions in the upper crust, certain areas tend to have higher probabilities of exhibiting such induced seismicity.     

Use of the mantle magnitudeM m for the reassessment of the moment of historical earthquakes

The mantle magnitudeM _m is used on a dataset of more than 180 wavetrains from 44 large shallow historical earthquakes to reassess their moments, which in many cases had been previously estimated only on the basis of the earthquake's rupture area. We provide 27 new or revised values ofM _o, based on the spectral amplitudes of surface waves recorded at a number of stations, principally Uppsala and Pasadena. Among them, and most significantly, we document a large low-frequency component to the source of the 1923 Kanto earthquake: the low-frequency seismic moment is 2.9×10²⁸ dyn-cm, in accord with geodetic observations. On the other hand, we revise downwards the seismic moment of the 1906 Ecuador event, which did not exceed 6×10²⁸ dyn-cm.Finally, the study of the 1960 Chilean and 1964 Alaskan earthquakes whose exceptionally large moments are properly retrieved throughM _m measurements, serves proof that this approach performs flawlessly even for the very greatest earthquakes, and is therefore successful in its goal to avoid the saturation effects plaguing any magnitude scale measured at a fixed period.     

Chaotic seismic faulting with a mass-spring model and velocity-weakening friction

We present a systematic analysis of the dynamical behavior introduced by fault zone heterogeneities, using a simple mass-spring model with velocity-weakening friction. The model consists of two sliding blocks coupled to each other and to a constant velocity driver by clastic springs. The state of this system can be characterized by the positions of the two blocks relative to the driver. Symmetry stabilizes the system and generates only cyclic behavior. For an asymmetric system where the frictional forces for the two blocks are not equal, the solutions exhibit chaotic behavior. The transition from stable cyclic behavior to chaos is characterized by the period-doubling route to chaos. Lyapunov exponents are computed to quantify the deterministic chaos and to locate the onset of the chaotic evolution in parameter space. In many examples of deterministic chaos, chaotic behavior of a low-order system implies chaos in similar higher order systems. Thus, our results provide substantial evidence that crustal deformation is an example of deterministic chaos.     

东北深,浅源地震的相关活动

本文讨论了东北深、浅源地震在时间上、强度上的相关活动特点,认为东北地震是太平洋板块俯冲与亚欧板块挤压作用的结果。东北深震超前于浅源地震活动,可为浅源地震监测预报提供信息。     

Rupture segmentation and assessment of probabilities of seismic potential on the Xiaojiang fault zone

Spatial distribution of sources of strong and large earthquakes on the Xiaojiang fault zone in eastern Yunnan is studied according to historical earthquake data. 7 segments of relatively independent sources or basic units of rupture along the fault zone have been identified preliminarily. On every segment, time intervals between main historical earthquakes are generally characterized by “time-predictable” recurrence behavior with indetermination. A statistic model for the time intervals between earthquakes of the fault zone has been preliminarily established. And a mathematical method has been introduced into this paper to reckon average recurrence interval between earthquakes under the condition of having known the size of the last event at a specific segment. Based on these, ranges of the average recurrence intervals given confidence have been estimated for events of various sizes on the fault zone. Further, the author puts forward a real-time probabilistic model that is suitable to analyze seismic potential for individual segments along a fault zone on which earthquake recurrence intervals have been characterized by quasi-time-predictable behavior, and applies this model to calculate conditional probabilities and probability gains of earthquake recurring on the individual segments of the Xiaojiang fault zone during the period from 1991 to 2005. As a consequence, it has shown that two parts of this fault zone, from south of Dongchuan to Songming and from Chengjiang to Huaning, have relatively high likelihoods for strong or large earthquake recurring in the future. The Chinese version of this paper appeared in the Chinese edition ofActa Seismologica Sinica,15, 322–330, 1993.     

2016年度呼图壁地下天然储气库对周缘微地震活动性的影响

呼图壁储气库是中国目前存储量最大的天然气储气库,位于新疆准噶尔盆地南缘,北天山山前坳陷带内的呼图壁背斜上.储气库靠近百万人口大城市乌鲁木齐,气库的注放气活动对其周缘地震活动的长期影响是事关生产和生活的重要安全问题.本文以呼图壁储气库为中心,在86.5°E—87.5°E,43.5°N—44.5°N的范围内,基于新疆维吾尔自治区地震局在该区域建立的密集流动台阵数据,应用模板匹配滤波技术对2016年全年的波形数据进行搜索识别,检测到遗漏地震事件151个,完善扩充了原有地震目录,使得该区域完备震级由1.1降到约0.7.通过分析新目录中404个地震的时空分布规律,我们发现2016年,即气库建成第三年以后,储气库的气压变化依然会影响周缘地区的地震活动.当储气库的气压增大到超过约22 MPa的阈值后,较小的气压波动也会导致该区域地震活动性明显增强;气压变化对距储气库中心最远约40 km范围内区域的地震活动存在较为明显的影响.