A Preliminary Study on the Probabilistic Estimation of Deaths from Future Earthquakes in North China

During the period from 1800 to 1989,the degree of fatalities(?from earthquakes in North China(Lat.34.0°-42.0°N,Long.107.5°-125.0°E)varied exponentially with the frequency of earthquake events(N),namely:N=37.71 exp(-0.72?(E-logD,D:deaths).For the periods from 1988 to 1998 and from 1999 to 2009,the probabilities for earthquakes to cause one thousand or more deaths in North China are estimated to be 0.37 and 0.50,respectively,by using the Gumbel's extreme value theory.     

A crustal seismic velocity model for the UK, Ireland and surrounding seas

A regional model of the 3-D variation in seismic P -wave velocity structure in the crust of NW Europe has been compiled from wide-angle reflection/refraction profiles. Along each 2-D profile a velocity–depth function has been digitised at 5 km intervals. These 1-D velocity functions were mapped into three dimensions using ordinary kriging with weights determined to minimise the difference between digitised and interpolated values. An analysis of variograms of the digitised data suggested a radial isotropic weighting scheme was most appropriate. Horizontal dimensions of the model cells are optimised at 40 × 40 km and the vertical dimension at 1 km. The resulting model provides a higher resolution image of the 3-D variation in seismic velocity structure of the UK, Ireland and surrounding areas than existing models. The construction of the model through kriging allows the uncertainty in the velocity structure to be assessed. This uncertainty indicates the high density of data required to confidently interpolate the crustal velocity structure, and shows that for this region the velocity is poorly constrained for large areas away from the input data.