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.     

Extracting coseismic deformation of the 1997 Mani earthquake with differential interferometric SAR

Introduction The development and application of Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) have a close relationship with the sensors development of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). The conception of SAR is proposed comparatively to the real aperture radar antenna. It is well known that the longer the antenna is, the higher the observation resolution will be. Just limited by the length of the antenna, the resolution of real aperture radar is generally very low and cannot meet the r…     

地形变场与现代地壳垂直运动及地震活动关系初探(Ⅰ)——地形变场的计算方法和物理意义

地震与地壳形变有着密切的关系 ,但台站地倾斜资料空间连续性不好 .为此在场分析的基础上 ,利用逐步订正法将地倾斜观测资料内插到 1°× 1°的经纬度网格点 ,引入曲面总曲率的概念计算格点上的Gauss曲率 ,并推广到格点化的有限区域上得到表征曲面形态和变形强度的地表形变场 .结果表明 :该方法可以合理地弥补资料不连续的缺陷 ,并在地表形变场上捕捉到一些关键的地表形变特征 ,如地凸区、地凹区、鞍形场等 .为地震分析和预报中如何拓展和利用大范围时空信息提供了一种有益的思路 .     

基于高温高压岩石破裂实验结果对中强地震前震中附近区域部分地震学现象的初步解释

依据高温高压岩石破裂实验结果并结合理论分析，对 附近区域不同深度温压条件下岩石变形破坏性质及破坏失稳的力学行为进行了研究，在一次应力加载循环中，发生破坏的部位随时间具有向深部下迁的趋势。考虑到深度温压条件下岩石的渐进式破坏行为及突发失稳，对主震前震中附近区域小地震活动的增强、平静、活化等现象，以及b值等时间序列参数变化的可能机理进行初步探讨，并简单讨论了两类平静和两类b值变化的可能原因。     

Establishment of a Non-Permanent GPS Network to Monitor the Recent NE-SW Deformation in the Granada Basin (Betic Cordillera,Southern Spain)

The Granada Basin (Central Betic Cordillera), one of the most seismically active areas of the Iberian Peninsula, is currently subjected to NW-SE compression and NE-SW extension. The present day extension is accommodated by normal faults with various orientations but particularly with a NW-SE strike. At the surface, these active NW-SE normal faults are mainly concentrated on the NE part of the Basin. In this part we have selected a 15-km long segment where several active normal faults crop out. Using the marine Tortonian rocks as a reference, we have calculated a minimum extensional rate of 0.15-0.30 mm/year. The observed block rotation, the listric geometry of faults at depth and the distribution of seismicity over the whole Basin, indicate that this rate is a minimum value. In the framework of an interdisciplinary research project a non-permanent GPS-network has been established in the central sector of Betic Cordillera to monitor the crustal deformations. The first two observation campaigns were done in 1999 and 2000.     

Precursory seismic crustal deformation in the area of southern Albanides

On the basis of growing evidence thatstrong earthquakes are preceded by a periodof accelerating seismicity of moderatemagnitude earthquakes, an attempt is madeto search for such seismicity pattern in NWAegean area. Accelerating seismic crustaldeformation has been identified in the areaof southern Albanides mountain range(border region between Greece, formerYugoslavia and Albania). Based on certainproperties of this activity and on itssimilarity with accelerating seismicdeformation observed before a strongearthquake which occurred in the sameregion on 26 May 1960 (M = 6.5), we canconclude that a similar earthquake may begenerated in the same region during thenext few years. This conclusion is inagreement with independent results whichhave been derived on the basis of the timepredictable model.     

Estimates of lichen growth–rate in northern Sweden

Two lichenometric techniques were compared in a study of lichen growth–rate in northern Sweden. The first technique, based on the maximum lichen diameter on glacier moraines, was identical to the technique used in the 1970s, whereas the other utilized the lichen diameter measured on 100 randomly selected boulders. The results indicate that it does not matter which technique is chosen, as long as the technique is used consistently on both the calibration surfaces and the surfaces to be dated. The use of data from both the 1970s and the 2000s increased the number of calibration surfaces available. The new calibration curve indicates that the age of Little Ice Age moraines was underestimated by up to about 30 years in the study conducted in the 1970s.