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.     

Spatial and temporal variability of pore‐water pressures in residual soil slopes in a tropical climate

It is critical to understand and quantify the temporal and spatial variability in hillslope hydrological data in order to advance hillslope hydrological studies, evaluate distributed parameter hydrological models, analyse variability in hydrological response of slopes and design efficient field data sampling networks. The spatial and temporal variability of field‐measured pore‐water pressures in three residual soil slopes in Singapore was investigated using geostatistical methods. Parameters of the semivariograms, namely the range, sill and nugget effect, revealed interesting insights into the spatial structure of the temporal situation of pore‐water pressures in the slopes. While informative, mean estimates have been shown to be inadequate for modelling purposes, indicator semivariograms together with mean prediction by kriging provide a better form of model input. Results also indicate that significant temporal and spatial variability in pore‐water pressures exists in the slope profile and thereby induces variability in hydrological response of the slope. Spatial and temporal variability in pore‐water pressure decreases with increasing soil depth. The variability decreases during wet conditions as the slope approaches near saturation and the variability increases with high matric suction development following rainfall periods. Variability in pore‐water pressures is greatest at shallow depths and near the slope crest and is strongly influenced by the combined action of microclimate, vegetation and soil properties. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

中国西南及邻区上地幔P波三维速度结构/

利用ISC报告以及中国和NEIC基本测震台网报告中的80974条P波初至到时资料（地震数为7053，台站数为165，且地震和台站都分布在研究区内），对中国西南及邻区（北纬10～36、东经70～110）的深至400km的上地幔三维速度结构进行了研究，分辨率达22．初步结果表明:①研究区速度的横向不均匀性，虽随深度增加而减弱，但至400km深度时仍很明显；②在北纬16和24的纵剖面上，可以看到与印度板块向东和欧亚板块相碰撞挤压相对应的速度结构，以及印度板块与欧亚板块速度结构的差异．在东经90的纵剖面上，与印度板块向北俯冲到欧亚板块（青藏高原）之下相对应的速度结构也比较明显；③在90ｋｍ深度的横剖面上，由缅甸的密支那至越南的洞海的低速条带，可能与红河断裂带有关；④ 提出并使用了能够更为准确直观地描述分辨率好坏的图示方法．      

中国与美国西部平均构造剪应力值的比较

提出了一种估计一个地区平均构造剪应力值的方法．用这种方法，选取哈佛大学公布的1977～1999年共15 993次地震的矩张量数据，估计了美国西部19个地区、中国和邻区43个地区(每个地区为1010范围)的平均环境剪应力值．结果表明，美国西部南加州西部海域和南加州应力最高，达13.7和12.0 MPa，然后向北、向南和向东逐渐递减，但最小也达8.7 MPa，是最高值的63%．中国新疆西北部地区和西藏察隅地区应力水平最高，达17.2和12.9 MPa，比美国高．中国的华北、云南、四川、台湾和美国南加州的应力水平差不多．中国南北地震带的应力水平为13 MPa左右，比南加州略高．两个重要地区的平均剪应力值分布图，提供了地学的基本数据．这些结果可为研究地震活动的大背景提供依据，对研究强地面运动参数(如峰值加速度及反应谱等)的衰减关系也是有用的．      

用应变积累释放模型研究中国大陆地块分区地震活动

依据活动地块假说及活动边界的划分，对中国大陆地震活动进行分区．在此基础上，应用应变积累释放模型，通过地震应变积累释放的计算，研究了中国大陆各活动地块分区的地震活动性，初步探讨了各地块的地震活动阶段划分．此外，还对应变积累释放模型的应用前提条件进行了必要的讨论，并对模型结果中可能出现的问题给予一定分析．      

Bedrock structure in Adapazari, Turkey—a possible cause of severe damage by the 1999 Kociaeli earthquake

The 1999 Kocaeli earthquake brought serious damage to downtown of Adapazari. To study why strong motions were generated at the town, a bedrock structure was investigated on the basis of Bouguer gravity anomaly, and SPAC and H/V analyses of microseisms. It was revealed that, the basin consists of three narrow depressions of bedrock with very steep edges, extending in E–W or NE–SW directions along the North Anatolia faults, and the depth to bedrock reaches 1000 m or more. Downtown of Adapazari is located 1–2 km apart from the basin-edge. It is considered that, the specific configuration of bedrock amplifies ground motions at the downtown area by focusing of seismic waves and/or interference between incident S-waves and surface-waves secondarily generated at the basin-edge. Studying 3D bedrock structure is an urgent issue for microzoning an urban area in a sedimentary basin.     

Effective stress analyses of liquefaction-induced deformation in river dikes

A series of effective stress analyses is carried out on the seismic performance of river dikes based on the case histories during the 1993 Hokkaido-Nansei-oki and 1995 Hyogoken-Nambu earthquakes in Japan. Seven case histories selected for the analyses involve a crest settlement ranging from none to 2.7 m in the dikes 3–6 m high with evidence of liquefaction at foundation soil. The effective stress model used is based on a multiple shear mechanism and was developed by one of the authors. The soil parameters are evaluated based on the site investigation and laboratory test results. The results of the analyses are basically consistent with the observed performance of the river dikes. In particular, the effective stress model shows a reasonable capability to reproduce the varying degree of settlements depending on the geotechnical conditions of foundation soils beneath the dikes. The analyses also indicate that the effect of a cohesive soil layer mixed with the liquefiable sand layers beneath the dikes can be a primary factor for reducing the liquefaction-induced deformation of dikes.     

Efficient methods for solving water flow in variably saturated soils under prescribed flux infiltration

The non-linear solvers in numerical solutions of water flow in variably saturated soils are prone to convergence difficulties. Many aspects can give rise to such difficulties and in this paper we address the gravity term and the prescribed-flux boundary in the Picard iteration. The problem of the gravity term in the Picard iteration is iteration-to-iteration oscillation as the gravity term is treated, by analogy with the time-step advance technique, ‘explicitly’ in the iteration. The proposed method for the gravity term is an improvement of the ‘implicit’ approach of Zhang and Ewen [Water Resour. Res. 36 (2000) 2777] by extending it to heterogeneous soil and approximating the inter-nodal hydraulic conductivity in the diffusive term and the gravity term with the same scheme. The prescribed-flux boundary in traditional methods also gives rise to iteration-to-iteration oscillation because there is no feedback to the flux in the solution at the new iteration. To reduce such oscillation, a new method is proposed to provide such a feedback to the flux. Comparison with traditional Picard and Newton iteration methods for a wide range of problems show that a combination of these two proposed methods greatly improves the stability and consequently the computational efficiency, making the use of small time step and/or under-relaxation solely for convergence unnecessary.     

Predicting average annual groundwater levels from climatic variables: an empirical model

On the basis of one-dimensional theoretical water flow model, we demonstrate that the groundwater level variation follows a pattern similar to recharge fluctuation, with a time delay that depends on the characteristics of aquifer, recharge pattern as well as the distance between the recharge and observation locations. On the basis of a water budget model and the groundwater flow model, we propose an empirical model that links climatic variables to groundwater level. The empirical model is tested using a partial data set from historical records of water levels from more than 80 wells in a monitoring network for the carbonate rock aquifer, southern Manitoba, Canada. The testing results show that the predicted groundwater levels are very close to the observed ones in most cases. The overall average correlation coefficient between the predicted and observed water levels is 0.92. This proposed empirical statistical model could be used to predict variations in groundwater level in response to different climate scenarios in a climate change impact assessment.     

Interpretation of charging on fracture or frictional slip surface of rocks

Fracturing and frictional sliding of quartz and granite under dry condition generates fractoluminescence, charged particle emission and electromagnetic radiation. Various kinds of experiments indicate that surface charge density on fracture or frictional slip surface of quartz and granite is 10⁻⁴ to 10⁻² C/m² which is larger than bound charges induced by the disappearance of piezoelectricity due to the release of stress. Hole and electron trapping centers, which is found in semiconductor devices with the Si–SiO₂ system, are causes of surface charging on fracture or frictional slip surface of quartz crystal. The quantity of the surface charge is enough to cause corona discharge that can generate earthquake lights. The mechanism considering the hole and electron trapping centers has a probability to explain why non-piezoelectric minerals or rocks generate electromagnetic phenomena. It can be one of origins of seismo-electromagnetic phenomena (SEP).