The presence, characteristics and earthquake implications of the St. Lawrence fault zone within and near Lake Ontario (Canada–USA)

Questions persist concerning the earthquake potential of the populous and industrial Lake Ontario (Canada–USA) area. Pertinent to those questions is whether the major fault zone that extends along the St. Lawrence River valley, herein named the St. Lawrence fault zone, continues upstream along the St. Lawrence River valley at least as far as Lake Ontario or terminates near Cornwall (Ontario, Canada)–Massena (NY, USA). New geological studies uncovered paleotectonic bedrock faults that are parallel to, and lie within, the projection of that northeast-oriented fault zone between Cornwall and northeastern Lake Ontario, suggesting that the fault zone continues into Lake Ontario. The aforementioned bedrock faults range from meters to tens of kilometers in length and display kinematically incompatible displacements, implying that the fault zone was periodically reactivated in the study area. Beneath Lake Ontario the Hamilton–Presqu'ile fault lines up with the St. Lawrence fault zone and projects to the southwest where it coincides with the Dundas Valley (Ontario, Canada). The Dundas Valley extends landward from beneath the western end of the lake and is marked by a vertical stratigraphic displacement across its width. The alignment of the Hamilton–Presqu'ile fault with the St. Lawrence fault zone strongly suggests that the latter crosses the entire length of Lake Ontario and continues along the Dundas Valley.The Rochester Basin, an east–northeast-trending linear trough in the southeastern corner of Lake Ontario, lies along the southern part of the St. Lawrence fault zone. Submarine dives in May 1997 revealed inclined layers of glaciolacustrine clay along two different scarps within the basin. The inclined layers strike parallel to the long dimension of the basin, and dip about 20° to the north–northwest suggesting that they are the result of rigid-body rotation consequent upon post-glacial faulting. Those post-glacial faults are growth faults as demonstrated by the consistently greater thickness, unit-by-unit, of unconsolidated sediments on the downthrown (northwest) side of the faults relative to their counterparts on the upthrown (southeast) side. Underneath the western part of Lake Ontario is a monoclinal warp that displaces the glacial and post-glacial sediments, and the underlying bedrock–sediment interface. Because of the post-glacial growth faults and the monoclinal warp the St. Lawrence fault zone is inferred to be tectonically active beneath Lake Ontario. Furthermore, within the lake it crosses at least five major faults and fault zones and coexists with other neotectonic structures. Those attributes, combined with the large earthquakes associated with the St. Lawrence fault zone well to the northeast of Lake Ontario, suggest that the seismic risk in the area surrounding and including Lake Ontario is likely much greater than previously believed.     

Behaviour of a rupture of the 21 June 2000 earthquake in South Iceland as revealed in an asphalted car park

A major earthquake (M=6.6) occurred on 21 June 2000, in South Iceland. This paper presents an unusual example of left-lateral strike-slip displacement recorded in a newly asphalted car park surface through a mechanically consistent pattern of open fissures and pressure ridges resulting from simple shear and rotation. Measurement of these features allows accurate reconstruction of the local deformation. The behaviour of the asphalt layer resembles that of analogue physical models, especially in terms of rotations induced by shear deformation. It is finally shown that through a wide range of scales some basic patterns associating rotation and opposite senses of strike-slip exist in the South Iceland Seismic Zone.     

Static deformation of two welded monoclinic elastic half-spaces due to a long inclined strike-slip fault

Static deformation of two monoclinic elastic half-spaces in welded contact due to a long inclined strike-slip fault situated in one of the half-spaces is studied analytically and numerically. Closed-form algebraic expressions for the displacement at any point of the medium are obtained. The variation of the displacement at the interface with the horizontal distance from the fault is studied. The effect of anisotropy on the displacement field is examined. It is found that while the anisotropy of the source half-space has a significant effect on the displacement at the interface, the anisotropy of the other half-space has only a marginal effect.     

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。     

南海地球物理场特征及基底断裂体系研究

南海海域主体可划分为南海北缘、中西沙、南沙南海海盆四块，各块具有明显不同的重磁场特征。反演得到的莫霍面总体趋势由陆向洋抬升，反映陆壳、拉伸陆壳、过渡壳、洋壳的分布。东沙高磁异常含一定的高频成份，与新生代玄武岩及中生代岩浆岩有关，而其低频成份可能反映了发育的下地壳高速层，南海海域断裂极为发育，可分为北东向断裂组、东西向断裂组、北西向断裂组和南北向断裂组，南海北缘、南缘均以北东向张性断裂与北西向张剪性、剪性断裂为主要格架，形成了、南北分带、东西分块”构造格局。     

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.     

A rifted inside corner massif on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 5°S

The structure of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 5°S was investigated during a recent cruise with the FS Meteor. A major dextral transform fault (hereafter the 5°S FZ) offsets the ridge left-laterally by 80 km. Just south of the transform and to the west of the median valley, the inside corner (IC – the region bounded by the ridge and the active transform) is marked by a major massif, characterized by a corrugated upper surface. Fossil IC massifs can also be identified further to the west. Unusually, a massif almost as high as the IC massif also characterizes the outside corner (OC) south of the inactive fracture zone and to the east of the median valley. This OC massif has axis-parallel dimensions identical to the IC massif and both are bounded on their sides closest to the spreading axis by abrupt, steep slopes. An axial volcanic ridge is well developed in the median valley both south of the IC/OC massifs and in an abandoned rift valley to the east of the OC massif, but is absent along the new ridge-axis segment between the IC and OC massifs. Wide-angle seismic data show that between the massifs, the crust of the median valley thins markedly towards the FZ. These observations are consistent with the formation of the OC massif by the rifting of an IC core complex and the development of a new spreading centre between the IC and OC massifs. The split IC massif presents an opportunity to study the internal structure of the footwall of a detachment fault, from the corrugated fault surface to deeper beneath the fault, without recourse to drilling. Preliminary dredging recovered gabbros from the scarp slope of the rifted IC massif, and serpentinites and gabbros from the intersection of this scarp with the corrugated surface. This is compatible with a concentration of serpentinites along the detachment surface, even where the massif internally is largely plutonic in nature.     

对燕山辽西地区构造格局的认识和讨论

燕山辽西地区的盖层可分两个构造层,由燕辽复向斜和秦皇岛背形相互叠加,并相应发育两期推覆构造。复向斜范围包括内蒙地轴和燕山沉降带,是由长条形的三个背斜和二个向斜相间,及配套的EW向纵断裂、SN向横断裂和NE向、NW向的共轭断裂组成。著名的尚义-宽城-凌源-朝阳-北票断裂是复向斜及其次级背斜的轴部纵断裂,以南大岭组、窑坡组和北票组作为其裂隙充填物。燕山EW向断裂南北对冲现象是复向斜纵断裂放射状排列并向核部推覆的反映。复向斜的形成机制完全符合纵弯褶皱作用下岩石的变形原理,是西伯利亚板块和华北板块碰撞的结果;秦皇岛背形的形成是后期太平洋板块俯冲在欧亚板块之下所致。     

Stochastic Structural Modeling

A consistent stochastic model for faults and horizons is described. The faults are represented as a parametric invertible deformation operator. The faults may truncate each other. The horizons are modeled as correlated Gaussian fields and are represented in a grid. Petrophysical variables may be modeled in a reservoir before faulting in order to describe the juxtaposition effect of the faulting. It is possible to condition the realization on petrophysics, horizons, and fault plane observations in wells in addition to seismic data. The transmissibility in the fault plane may also be included in the model. Four different methods to integrate the fault and horizon models in a common model is described. The method is illustrated on an example from a real petroleum field with 18 interpreted faults that are handled stochastically.