Study on determination of stress level by seismic stress drops and the stress axis deflections before and after large earthquakes

Introduction The study of tectonic stress field, a major branch of the Earth science, plays an important role in geodynamics. The world stress map plan started from 1980s and was leaded by Zoback. Lots of scientists from many countries participated this plan. The plan collected global tectonic stress measurements and research results and established global stress database. The world stress map was edited based on the global stress database. The world stress map reflected feature of global li…     

Upper mantle convection beneath northwest China and its adjacent region driven by density anomaly

Introduction The northwest of China includes Tarim, Junggar and Qaidam basins, and Kunlun, Tianshan, Altun and Qilian mountains, as well as the north part of the Tibetan Plateau. For a long time, the study of lithosphere structures and dynamics in this area has been a popular topic in geoscience, and has yielded many results. For example, TANG (1994) and LI et al (1998) suppose that the tectonic structure of Tarim Basin is various with geological periods, which changes many times betwee…     

Seismic hazard of the Eastern Mediterranean

Earthquake hazard parameters such as maximum magnitude, annual mean seismic activity rate, and the Gutenberg-Richter parameter, have been evaluated for the Hellenic and Cyprean Arc regions of the Eastern Mediterranean. The applied maximum likelihood procedure permits the combination of both historical and instrumental data. The collected data from different sources cover earthquakes with magnitude ≥ 3.5 throughout the last two centuries. The historical part of the catalogue only contains the strongest events, whereas the complete part can be divided into several subcatalogues, each assumed complete above a specific threshold of magnitude. The hazard parameters assessment is performed for the two study regions. The Hellenic Arc region was found to be of higher seismicity level than the Cyprean Arc region. The number of annually expected earthquakes with magnitude ≥ 3.5 is much larger in the Hellenic Arc (56±2) than in the Cyprean Arc (35±2). The maximum magnitude calculated in the Hellenic Arc zone is 7.8±0.4 for the time period equal to the length of the catalogue, i.e., 210 years. For the Cyprean Arc zone, the maximum possible magnitude is 6.8±0.4 for the time span of 330 years.     

Errors due to the anisotropic-common-ray approximation of the coupling ray theory

The common-ray approximation eliminates problems with ray tracing through S-wave singularities and also considerably simplifies the numerical algorithm of the coupling ray theory for S waves, but may introduce errors in travel times due to the perturbation from the common reference ray. These travel-time errors can deteriorate the coupling-ray-theory solution at high frequencies. It is thus of principal importance for numerical applications to estimate the errors due to the common-ray approximation applied. The anisotropic-common-ray approximation of the coupling ray theory is more accurate than the isotropic-common-ray approximation. We derive the equations for estimating the travel-time errors due to the anisotropic-common-ray (and also isotropic-common-ray) approximation of the coupling ray theory. The errors of the common-ray approximations are calculated along the anisotropic common rays in smooth velocity models without interfaces. The derivation is based on the general equations for the second-order perturbations of travel time.     

Stress Sensitivity of Seismic and Electric Rock Properties of the Upper Continental Crust at the KTB

We test the hypothesis that the general trend of P-wave and S-wave sonic log velocities and resistivity with depth in the pilot hole of the KTB site Germany, can be explained by the progressive closure of the compliant porosity with increasingly effective pressure. We introduce a quantity θ_c characterizing the stress sensitivity of the mentioned properties. An analysis of the downhole measurements showed that estimates of the quantitiy θ_c for seismic velocities and electrical formation factor of the in situ formation coincide. Moreover, this quantity is 3.5 to 4.5 times larger than the averaged stress sensitivity obtained from core samples. We conclude that the hypothesis mentioned above is consistent with both data sets. Moreover, since θ_c corresponds approximately to the inverse of the effective crack aspect ratio, larger in situ estimates of θ_c might reflect the influence of fractures and faults on the stress sensitivity of the crystalline formation in contrast to the stress sensitivity of the nearly intact core samples. Finally, because the stress sensitivity is directly related to the elastic nonlinearity we conclude that the elastic nonlinearity (i.e., deviation from linear stress-strain relationship i.e., Hooke's law) of the KTB rocks is significantly larger in situ than in the laboratory.     

Seismicity before and after the two great Sumatra earthquakes of 2004 and 2005

The Harvard CMT catalogue contains 481 shallow earthquakes that occurred between 1 January 1977 and 30 November 2005 within a broad region defined by the geographical latitude from 3°S to 14°N and by the longitude from 91°E to 102°E. There are 230 events that occurred before the great earthquake of 26 December 2004. Their surface distribution is not uniform and the source area of the 2004 great event appears as an area of seismic quiescence with a radius of about 100 km. There are 186 events that occurred between the two great earthquakes of 26 December 2004 and 28 March 2005. Practically all of them are located to the northwest from the great earthquake of 2005, that in turn was followed by 63 events, mostly located to the southeast. The cumulative seismic moment from earthquakes before the occurrence of the great event of 2004 increased rather regularly with time, with sudden increase about twenty years and two years before the occurrence of the great event. The seismic moment of earthquakes between the two great events increased rapidly during the first ten-fifteen days, then flattened out and increased slowly with time. After the great event of 2005 the seismic moment shows quiet increase during some 115 days, then sudden jump, followed by very small activity till the end of our observations. From the spatial distribution of seismic moment of earthquakes that occurred before the great event of 2004 it follows that its largest release appeared to the southeast from the great event, around the rupture area of the great earthquake of 2005. The largest release of seismic moment from earthquakes between the two great events is observed in the vicinity of the 2004 event and further up to the north. The seismic moment from earthquakes that occurred after the great event of 2005 was mostly released in its vicinity and further down to the south.     

Seismic Moment Tensor Resolution on a Local Scale: Simulated Rockburst and Mine-induced Seismic Events in the Kopanang Gold Mine, South Africa

Seismic records contain information about the effect of the source as well as the effect of wave propagation through the rock mass. The effect of wave propagation is usually not well known as only simplified models of geological structures are available. Therefore, the information about the source retrieved by inverting seismograms may include errors due to incomplete knowledge of the rock mass along the propagation path, which in turn cause a distortion in the calculated moment tensor (MT). The distortion of the MT on a local scale was observed by inverting records of a simulated rockburst conducted at the Kopanang gold mine in South Africa. A dominant isotropic component of the explosive characteristics was found from the inversion. The deviatoric components retrieved from the blast are spurious. A test of their stability indicated that they are not significant, assuming an uncertainty above 5% for velocities and 10% for attenuation within the homogeneous model available for the mine. Thus, the retrieval of the MT from records of local networks in mines using a homogeneous model of the rock mass seems to be feasible. However, the homogeneous model of the rock mass can only be applied to close stations, within a few kilometers of the source. The seismic records from distant stations were too complex to be modelled by a homogeneous rock mass. Records of six mine-induced seismic events recorded at the Kopanang gold mine were also inverted. A vertical linear dipole along the pressure (P) axis was found for three of the events, suggesting a pillar burst. The mechanism of two events contains an isotropic implosion together with a nearly vertical dip-slip, and seems to indicate a combination of a cavity collapse with a down dip-slip along a nearly vertical fault. One event corresponds to a dipole along the tensional (T) axis. However, it is vertical, thus its association with tensile faulting of the hangingwall is uncertain.     

Seismic hazard assessment for derivation of earthquake scenarios in Risk-UE

The main features of the Risk-UE project approach to assessing the ground-shaking (and related hazards) distribution within urban areas are described, as a basis for developing seismic damage scenarios for European cities. Emphasis was placed in the project on adoption of homogeneous criteria in the quantitative treatment of seismicity and in constructing the ground-shaking scenarios, despite wide differences in amount and quality of data available for the cities involved. The initial steps of the approach include treatment of the regional seismotectonic setting and the geotechnical zonation of the urban area, while the hazard assessment itself takes the form of both a deterministic analysis, and of a probabilistic, constant-hazard spectra analysis. Systematic 1D site response analyses were used, mostly in the softer soil zones, to modify (when needed) the obtained ground motion maps. Earthquake induced hazard effects, such as liquefaction and landsliding, are also briefly dealt with at the end.     

Estimating Crustal Heterogeneity from Double-difference Tomography

Seismic velocity parameters in limited, but heterogeneous volumes can be inferred using a double-difference tomographic algorithm, but to obtain meaningful results accuracy must be maintained at every step of the computation. MONTEILLER et al. (2005) have devised a double-difference tomographic algorithm that takes full advantage of the accuracy of cross-spectral time-delays of large correlated event sets. This algorithm performs an accurate computation of theoretical travel-time delays in heterogeneous media and applies a suitable inversion scheme based on optimization theory. When applied to Kilauea Volcano, in Hawaii, the double-difference tomography approach shows significant and coherent changes to the velocity model in the well-resolved volumes beneath the Kilauea caldera and the upper east rift. In this paper, we first compare the results obtained using MONTEILLER et al.'s algorithm with those obtained using the classic travel-time tomographic approach. Then, we evaluated the effect of using data series of different accuracies, such as handpicked arrival-time differences (``picking differences'), on the results produced by double-difference tomographic algorithms. We show that picking differences have a non-Gaussian probability density function (pdf). Using a hyperbolic secant pdf instead of a Gaussian pdf allows improvement of the double-difference tomographic result when using picking difference data. We completed our study by investigating the use of spatially discontinuous time-delay data.     

2006年4月21日石棉麂子坪4.3级地震宏观考察

2006年4月21日03时18分03.7秒,石棉县发生一次ML4.3级地震,仪器测定震中位于北纬29°05′、东经102°12′,即安顺乡麂子坪南西侧。经现场实地考察确定宏观震中位于麂子坪南—紫马之间的山区地带,宏观震中烈度为Ⅳ度强(Ⅳ ),其震中区面积约100平方千米;Ⅳ度区面积约为2 000平方千米;此次地震有感区范围广泛,北至泸定、天全等县,南到冕宁、越西,西达九龙东至汉源县乌斯河镇等地,有感区面积约20 000平方千米。经调查,地震没有造成人员、牲畜等的伤亡,震害地区内个别房屋的屋瓦出现梭动。