The El Salvador earthquakes of January and February 2001: context, characteristics and implications for seismic risk

The small Central American republic of El Salvador has experienced, on average, one destructive earthquake per decade during the last hundred years. The latest events occurred on 13 January and 13 February 2001, with magnitudes M_w 7.7 and 6.6, respectively. The two events, which were of different tectonic origin, follow the patterns of the seismicity of the region although neither event has a known precedent in the earthquake catalogue in terms of size and location. The earthquakes caused damage to thousands of traditionally built houses and triggered hundreds of landslides, which were the main causes of fatalities. The earthquakes have clearly demonstrated trends of increasing seismic risk in El Salvador due to rapid population expansion in areas of high shaking and landslide hazard, exacerbated by deforestation and uncontrolled urbanisation. The institutional mechanisms required for the control of land use and building practice are very weak and present a major obstacle to risk mitigation.     

Validation through HVSR measurements of a method for the quick detection of site amplification effects from intensity data: an application to a seismic area in Northern Italy

An instrumental validation is attempted of an innovative approach devoted to the quick individuation, from macroseismic data, of site amplification phenomena able to significantly modify seismic hazard levels expected on the basis of average propagation effects only. According to this methodology, two evaluations of hazard are performed at each investigated locality: the former, obtained by epicentral intensity data ‘reduced’ at the site through a probabilistic attenuation function and, the latter, computed by integrating such data with seismic effects actually observed at the site during past earthquakes. The comparison, for each locality, between these two hazard estimates allow to orientate the identification of those sites where local amplifications of earthquake ground motion could be significant. In order to check such methodology, indications obtained in this way from macroseismic data are compared with the estimates of transfer functions performed through the HVSR technique applied to microtremors. Results concerning municipalities located in a seismic area of Northern Italy indicate a good agreement between macroseismic and instrumental estimates.     

The use of modern statistical theories in the assessment of earthquake hazard, with application to quiet regions of eastern North America

It is generally accepted that both deterministic and statistical approaches are useful for the characterization of earthquake hazard. Although the most reliable estimates of seismic hazard can only be based on an improved understanding of the earthquake mechanism, efficient utilization of the appropriate methods provided by recent statistical theories is also important in seismic risk analysis. This is especially true in regions where the connection between seismicity and geologic structure is tenuous at best. We are particularly interested in developing better statistical treatments of data for regions with little known seismic activity. To this end, we have applied three statistical methods to the historical record of seismicity in relatively quiet regions of eastern North America. These are: (1) the threshold method for tail inference, a new theory for modeling earthquakes with sizes above a given threshold, (2) the ‘bootstrap’ technique in which the characteristics of an unknown population are simulated by replacing the true population by an estimated one, and (3) a technique to estimate the number of earthquakes below a given size, in order to compensate for the under-reporting of small earthquakes in most catalogs. A combination of these techniques has been used to estimate the probabilities of future large earthquakes for the regions studied. Because of limitations imposed by existing catalogs, the size estimate used has been maximum intensity.     

Modes of raising northeastern Tibet probed by explosion seismology

New wide-angle reflection and refraction seismic data provide constraints on the structure of the upper lithosphere, and test models of its evolution to raise the northeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau. Amplitudes observed for reflections from the crust-mantle boundary are sufficiently large to suggest that there is no significant partial melt in the deep crust. The data show an increase of the crustal thickness between terranes from north of the Kun Lun Fault into the Qang Tang of central Tibet, and a contrast among their intracrustal images and compositions. In the north, P and S velocities are consistent with a dominantly felsic composition and show that only the upper crust thickened. South of the Kun Lun Fault a thicker crust made of two layers could result from the superposition of the originally thin crust of the Bayan Har terrane on the lower part of the crust of the domain to the north, which upper crust it shoved and thickened. Different modes of crustal thickening, either by thickening of individual layers or superpositions and imbrication among them appear to work jointly to raise the topography.     

Most likely locations of large earthquakes in the Kanto and Tokai areas, Japan, based on the local recurrence times

We examined the hypothesis that minima in local recurrence time, T_L, or equivalently maxima in local probability, P_L, may map asperities in the Kanto and Tokai areas of Japan, where the earthquake catalog of the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED) is complete at the M=1.5 (M1.5) level. We mapped T_L (P_L) based on the a- and b-values of the nearest earthquakes within 20 km of every node of a grid spaced 0.01° for M7 target events. Only earthquakes within the top 33 km were used. The b-values increase strongly with depth, in several areas. Therefore, some of the T_L (P_L) anomalies are not revealed if data from the entire crustal seismogenic zone are mixed. Thus, we mapped T_L (P_L) separately for the top 15 km and the rest of the depth range, as well as for the entire seismogenic crust. The resulting T_L- and P_L-maps show that approximately 12% of the total area shows anomalously short recurrence times. Out of six shallow target events with M≥6.5 and which occurred since 1890, five are located within the anomalous areas with T_L <450 years. We interpret this to mean that areas with anomalously short T_L map asperities, which are more likely than other areas to generate future target events. The probability that this result is due to chance is vanishingly small. The great Kanto rupture of 1923 appears to have initiated in the most significant asperity we mapped in the study area. One anomaly is located in the northeastern part of the area of the proposed future rupture of the Tokai earthquake, and another one at its southwestern corner. The absolute values of T_L calculated are uncertain because they depend on the size of the volume used for the calculation.     

辽宁城市活断层探测思路与方法探讨

介绍了开展地震活断层探测的意义及在辽宁省开展地震活断层探测的必要性，对在辽宁城市开展活断层探测的基本思路和方法进行了探讨，选取沈阳，抚顺作为试点城市，设定目标区和目标断裂，分别对活断层危险性，危害性和深部发震构造环境进行评价。在断裂探测过程中，确定初步探测和详细探测两个阶段，主要采用人工地震方法并结合钻探，地震划分结果，对目标区内的目标断裂进行评价。     

数字地震仪的发展历史及展望

地震仪经历了光点，模拟和数字的变化，数字地震仪本身由16位发展到24位，其附属设备（电缆，检波器）也是到了不同程度的发展。近年来，I／O等公司利用MEMS技术研制了新型地震检波器，这一新的发展对于地震采集尤其是多分量采集带来重要影响。     

Seismic evaluation of existing nuclear facility using ambient vibration test to characterize dynamic behavior of the structure and microtremor measurements to characterize the soil: a case study

The methods used for a building seismic hazard evaluation are presented with the associated results. The goals of the study are (1) to check the soil nature and the existence or not of a possible site effect around the installation and (2) to characterize the dynamic behavior of the building using ambient vibration records.

The results of the soil study with the Nakamura method are very difficult to interpret because they are not stable in space and time. The spectral ratios method has been used with regional earthquake records. The results of the application of this method allowed us to conclude that the installation was free of site effect.

The ambient vibration measurements on the building brought the conclusion to determine the first and second modes of the structure. These results have been used to calibrate numerical model. The modal shapes in plan (high roof) and in elevation (main column) have been evaluated. The damping of the building has been computed using ambient vibration records.     

Spatial variation of seismic motion induced by propagation of body waves

Spatial variation of earthquake ground motion is an important phenomenon that cannot be ignored in the design and safety of strategic structures. Several models have been developed to describe this variation using statistical, mathematical or physical approaches. The latter approach is not specific to an event. A recent contribution, which uses such an approach and called complete stochastic deamplification approach (CSDA), was developed [1]. The aim of this paper is to analyze the spatial variation of earthquake motion induced by the propagation of body waves using the CSDA. Coherency functions are evaluated for the cases of SH–SV–P waves propagating through stratified soil. Results obtained show that the variation of the coherency function is not the same for vertical and horizontal components and that the motion is more coherent at depth than at the free surface. In fact, we found that the rate of decrease with frequency and distance is not the same if P–SV waves propagate through stratified soil.     

Comparison of Seismic Dispersion and Attenuation Models

The frequency-dependent attenuation of seismic waves causes decreased resolution of seismic images with depth, and the difference in transmission losses induces amplitude variations with offset. Transmission losses may occur due to friction or fluid movement, or may result from scattering in thin-layer. Whatever the physical mechanism, they can often be conveniently described using an empirical formulation wherein the elastic moduli and propagation velocity are complex functions of frequency.We have compiled and compared algebraically and numerically eight different models involving complex velocity: the Kolsky-Futterman model, the power-law model, Kjartansson's model, Müller's model, Azimi's second and third model, the Cole-Cole model, and the standard linear-solid model.For two different parameter sets, the attenuation and phase velocity are computed in the seismic frequency band, and the plane-wave propagation of a Ricker wavelet for the other models is compared with that for the Kolsky-Futterman model. The first parameter set consists of parameters for each of the models calculated from expressions given in the appendix. These expressions make the different models behave similarly to the KF model. The second parameter set consists of model parameters that are numerically adapted to the KF model.By selecting proper parameters, all models, except the standard linear-solid model, show behavior similar to that of the Kolsky-Futterman model. The SLS model behaves differently from the other models as the frequency goes to zero or infinity. Broadband measurement data is needed to select a specific model for a given seismic experiment.