ALBERT

Description: The Castrovillari scarps (Cfs) are located in northern Calabria (Italy) and consist of three main WSW-dipping fault scarps resulting from multiple rupture events. At the surface, these scarps are defined by multiple breaks in slope. Despite its near-surface complexity, the faults likely merge to form a single normal fault at about 200 m depth, which we refer to as the Castrovillari fault. We present the results of a multidisciplinary and multiscale study at a selected site of the Cfs with the aim to (i) characterize the geometry at the surface and at depth and (ii) obtain constraints on the fault slip history. We investigate the site by merging data from quantitative geomorphological analyses, electrical resistivity and ground penetrating radar surveys, and palaeoseismological trenching along a ~40 m high scarp. The closely spaced investigations allow us to reconstruct the shallow stratigraphy, define the fault locations, and measure the faulted stratigraphic offsets down to 20 m depth. Despite the varying resolutions, each of the adopted approaches suggests the presence of sub-parallel fault planes below the scarps at approximately the same location. The merged datasets permit the evaluation of the fault array (along strike for 220 m within a 370-m-wide zone). The main fault zone consists of two closely spaced NW–SE striking fault planes in the upper portion of the scarp slope and another fault at the scarp foot. The 3-D image of the fault surfaces shows west to southwest dipping planes with values between 70° and 80°; the two closely spaced planes join at about 200 m below the surface. The 8-to-12-m-high upper fault, which shows the higher vertical displacements, accommodated most of the deformation during the Holocene. Results from the trenching analysis indicate a minimum slip per event of 0.6 m and a maximum short-term slip rate of 0.6 mm yr –1 for the Cf. The shallow subsurface imaging techniques are particularly helpful in evaluating the possible field uncertainties related to postfaulting modification by erosional/depositional/human processes, such as within stream valleys and urbanized zones.

Description: Geodetic, geologic and palaeomagnetic data reveal that Oregon (western USA) rotates clockwise at 0.3 to 1.0° Ma –1 (relative to North America) about an axis near the Idaho–Oregon–Washington border, while northeast Washington is relatively fixed. This rotation has been going on for at least 15 Ma. The Yakima fold and thrust belt (YFTB) forms the boundary between northern Oregon and central Washington where convergence of the clockwise-rotating Oregon block is apparently accommodated. North–south shortening across the YFTB has been thought to occur in a fan-like manner, increasing in rate to the west. We obtained high-accuracy, high-density geodetic GPS measurements in 2012–2014 that are used with earlier GPS measurements from the 1990s to characterize YFTB kinematics. The new results show that the deformation associated with the YFTB starts at the Blue Mountains Anticline in northern Oregon and extends north beyond the Frenchman Hills in Washington, past the epicentre of the 1872 M w 7.0 Entiat earthquake to 49°N. The north–south strain rate across the region is 2 to 3 x 10 –9 yr –1 between the volcanic arc and the eastern edge of the YFTB (241.0°E); east of there it drops to about 10 –9 yr –1 . At the eastern boundary of the YFTB, faults and earthquake activity are truncated by a north-trending, narrow zone of deformation that runs along the Pasco Basin and Moses Lake regions near 240.9°E. This zone, abutting the Department of Energy Hanford Nuclear Reservation, accommodates about 0.5 mm yr –1 of east to northeast shortening. A similar zone of N-trending transpression is seen along 239.9°E where there is a change in the strike of the Yakima folds. The modern deformation of the YFTB is about 600 km wide from south to north and internally may be controlled by pre-existing crustal structure.

Description: In order to characterize the subsurface structure of the Jakarta Basin, Indonesia, a dense portable seismic broad-band network was operated by The Australian National University (ANU) and the Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG) between October 2013 and February 2014. Overall 96 locations were sampled through successive deployments of 52 seismic broad-band sensors at different parts of the city. Oceanic and anthropogenic noises were recorded as well as regional and teleseismic earthquakes. We apply regularized deconvolution to the recorded ambient noise of the vertical components of available station pairs, and over 3000 Green's functions were retrieved in total. Waveforms from interstation deconvolutions show clear arrivals of Rayleigh fundamental and higher order modes. The traveltimes that were extracted from group velocity filtering of fundamental mode Rayleigh wave arrivals, are used in a 2-stage Transdimensional Bayesian method to map shear wave structure of subsurface. The images of S wave speed show very low velocities and a thick basin covering most of the city with depths up to 1.5 km. These low seismic velocities and the thick basin beneath the city potentially cause seismic amplification during a subduction megathrust or other large earthquake close to the city of Jakarta.

Description: Earth's free oscillations excited by a mega-thrust earthquake were observed by a continent-scale array of groundwater monitoring sites for the first time. After the occurrence of the 2011 Tohoku M w 9.0 earthquake, water level records at 43 out of 216 wells in the China mainland revealed long-period free oscillation signals. In the time domain, these free oscillations exhibit globe circling Rayleigh surface waves. In some single wells, even the globe-circling Rayleigh wave R7 was visible, which travels three times around the Earth after the first arrival and appears about 10 hr after the earthquake occurrence in the present case. The spectral analysis shows that the principal oscillatory fluctuations seen in the water level records correspond to the spheroidal modes 0 S l ( l  = 2–31 for frequencies between 0.3 and 5.0 mHz) of the Earth's free oscillation. Especially at quiet sites, the spheroidal modes at very low frequencies (〈1.5 mHz) can be identified with high signal-to-noise ratios. Using signal enhancement methods (product spectrum over 43 wells), even the gravest modes of these oscillations can be detected. The results suggest that groundwater level arrays can be considered as a low-cost complementary tool to study the Earth's free oscillations excited by great earthquakes. Additionally, the site-specific aquifer response may provide further insight into local hydrogeological conditions.

Description: To refine the 3-D seismic velocity model in the greater Parkfield, California region, a new data set including regular earthquakes, shots, quarry blasts and low-frequency earthquakes (LFEs) was assembled. Hundreds of traces of each LFE family at two temporary arrays were stacked with time–frequency domain phase weighted stacking method to improve signal-to-noise ratio. We extend our model resolution to lower crustal depth with LFE data. Our result images not only previously identified features but also low velocity zones (LVZs) in the area around the LFEs and the lower crust beneath the southern Rinconada Fault. The former LVZ is consistent with high fluid pressure that can account for several aspects of LFE behaviour. The latter LVZ is consistent with a high conductivity zone in magnetotelluric studies. A new Vs model was developed with S picks that were obtained with a new autopicker. At shallow depth, the low Vs areas underlie the strongest shaking areas in the 2004 Parkfield earthquake. We relocate LFE families and analyse the location uncertainties with the NonLinLoc and tomoDD codes. The two methods yield similar results.

Description: We propose a procedure for uncertainty quantification in Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Analysis (PTHA), with a special emphasis on the uncertainty related to statistical modelling of the earthquake source in Seismic PTHA (SPTHA), and on the separate treatment of subduction and crustal earthquakes (treated as background seismicity). An event tree approach and ensemble modelling are used in spite of more classical approaches, such as the hazard integral and the logic tree. This procedure consists of four steps: (1) exploration of aleatory uncertainty through an event tree, with alternative implementations for exploring epistemic uncertainty; (2) numerical computation of tsunami generation and propagation up to a given offshore isobath; (3) (optional) site-specific quantification of inundation; (4) simultaneous quantification of aleatory and epistemic uncertainty through ensemble modelling. The proposed procedure is general and independent of the kind of tsunami source considered; however, we implement step 1, the event tree, specifically for SPTHA, focusing on seismic source uncertainty. To exemplify the procedure, we develop a case study considering seismic sources in the Ionian Sea (central-eastern Mediterranean Sea), using the coasts of Southern Italy as a target zone. The results show that an efficient and complete quantification of all the uncertainties is feasible even when treating a large number of potential sources and a large set of alternative model formulations. We also find that (i) treating separately subduction and background (crustal) earthquakes allows for optimal use of available information and for avoiding significant biases; (ii) both subduction interface and crustal faults contribute to the SPTHA, with different proportions that depend on source-target position and tsunami intensity; (iii) the proposed framework allows sensitivity and deaggregation analyses, demonstrating the applicability of the method for operational assessments.

Description: At 155 km, the Pärvie fault is the world's longest known endglacial fault (EGF). It is located in northernmost Sweden in a region where several kilometre-scale EGFs have been identified. Based on studies of Quaternary deposits, landslides and liquefaction structures, these faults are inferred to have ruptured as large earthquakes when the latest ice sheet disappeared from the region, some 9500 yr ago. The EGFs still exhibit relatively high seismic activity, and here we present new earthquake data from northern Sweden in general and the Pärvie fault in particular. More than 1450 earthquakes have been recorded in Sweden north of 66° latitude in the years 2000–2013. There is a remarkable correlation between this seismicity and the mapped EGF scarps. We find that 71 per cent of the observed earthquakes north of 66° locate within 30 km to the southeast and 10 km to the northwest of the EGFs, which is consistent with the EGFs’ observed reverse faulting mechanisms, with dips to the southeast. In order to further investigate the seismicity along the Pärvie fault we installed a temporary seismic network in the area between 2007 and 2010. In addition to the routine automatic detection and location algorithm, we devised a waveform cross-correlation technique which resulted in a 50 per cent increase of the catalogue and a total of 1046 events along the Pärvie fault system between 2003 and 2013. The earthquakes were used to establish an improved velocity model for the area, using 3-D local earthquake tomography. The resulting 3-D velocity model shows smooth, minor velocity variations in the area. All events were relocated in this new 3-D model. A tight cluster on the central part of the Pärvie fault, where the rate of seismicity is the highest, could be relocated with high precision relative location. We performed depth phase analysis on 40 of the larger events to further constrain the hypocentral locations. We find that the seismicity on the Pärvie fault correlates very well with the mapped surface trace of the fault. The events do not align along a well-defined fault plane at depth but form a zone of seismicity that dips between 30° and 60° to the southeast of the surface fault trace, with distinct along-strike variations. The seismic zone extends to approximately 35 km depth. Using this geometry and earthquake scaling relations, we estimate that the endglacial Pärvie earthquake had a magnitude of 8.0 ± 0.4.

Description: During the 20th century, a series of devastating earthquakes occurred along the North Anatolian Fault. These generally propagated westwards, such that the main fault segment beneath the Marmara Sea appears as a seismic gap. For the nearby megacity Istanbul, rapid seismic hazard assessment is currently of great importance. A key issue is how a strong earthquake in the Marmara Sea can be characterized reliably and rapidly using the seismic network currently operating in this region. In order to investigate this issue, several scenario earthquakes on the main Marmara fault are simulated through dynamic modelling based on a 3-D structure model. The synthetic datasets are then used to reconstruct the source processes of the causal events with a recently developed iterative deconvolution and stacking method based on simplified 1-D Earth structure models. The results indicate that, by using certain a priori information about the fault geometry and focal mechanism, the tempo-spatial slip patterns of the input scenarios can be well resolved. If reasonable uncertainties are considered for the a priori information, the key source parameters, such as moment magnitude, fault size and slip centroid, can still be estimated reliably, while the detailed tempo-spatial rupture pattern may reveal significant variations. To reduce the effect induced by employing the inaccurate event location and focal mechanism, a new approach for absolute source imaging is proposed and tested. We also investigate the performance of the new source imaging tool for near real-time source inversion under the current network configuration in the Marmara Sea region. The results obtained are meaningful particularly for developing the rapid earthquake response system for the megacity Istanbul.

Description: Geodynamic models predict that rifting of thick, ancient continental lithosphere should not occur unless it is weakened by heating and magmatic intrusion. Therefore, the processes occurring along sections of the western branch of the East African Rift, where ~150 km thick, Palaeoproterozoic lithosphere is rifting with no surface expression of magmatism, are a significant challenge to understand. In an attempt to understand the apparently amagmatic extension we probed the regional uppermost mantle for signatures of thermal alteration using compressional ( Vp ) and shear ( Vs ) wave speeds derived from Pn and Sn tomography. Pervasive thermal alteration of the uppermost mantle and possibly the presence of melt can be inferred beneath the Rungwe volcanic centre, but no signatures on a similar scale were discerned beneath amagmatic portions of the western rift branch encompassing the southern half of the Lake Tanganyika rift and much of the Rukwa rift. In this region, Vp and Vs wave speeds indicate little, if any, heating of the uppermost mantle and no studies have reported dyking. Vp / Vs ratios are consistent with typical, melt-free, olivine-dominated upper mantle. Although our resolution limit precludes us from imaging potential localised magmatic intrusions with dimensions of tens of kilometres, the absence of surface volcanism, the amagmatic upper crustal rupture known to have occurred at disparate locations on the western branch, the presence of lower crustal seismicity and the low temperatures implied by the fast seismic wave speeds in the lower crust and uppermost mantle in this region suggests possible amagmatic extension. Most dynamic models predict that this should not happen. Indeed even with magmatic intrusion, rifting of continental lithosphere 〉100 km thick is considered improbable under conditions found on Earth. Yield strength envelopes confirm that currently modelled stresses are insufficient to produce the observed deformation along these portions of the rift system. Stresses arising from the gravitational force related to the uplift of the East African Plateau provide only one-eighth of the minimum stress necessary to produce observed lower crustal earthquakes in the western branch. We expect that some of this disparity may be accounted for by considering smaller scale bending stresses and dynamic feedbacks between brittle and elastic deformation and between faulting, topography and weathering that are not currently included in models of the East African Rift.

Description: Differential traveltimes of P4KP and PKP waves are used in an attempt to constrain the topography of the core–mantle boundary (CMB) in localized areas. For epicentral distances of approximately 150°, PKP and P4KP follow the same path through the crust and mantle and differ only in the core, since P4KP reflects three times at the underside of the CMB. Hence traveltime differences should only be due to the path differences in the core. We use array techniques in order to enhance the signal to noise ratio and confirm the slowness and backazimuth of the P4KP waves. Data from the Gräfenberg Array in southern Germany yield a total of 27 events with observable P4KP waves. We find most traveltime residuals between theoretical and observed P4KP minus PKP arrival time generally within a range of ±7 s. A ray tracing method is used to model the deviations of traveltimes due to changes of CMB depth at the reflection points of the P4KP waves. It is not possible to explain the observed traveltime residuals with changes in depth of the CMB only; in several cases, the residuals are too large to be caused by CMB topography alone. Due to the expected coinciding ray paths of PKP and P4KP, the remaining variations are unlikely to be produced by heterogeneities in the lowermost mantle, and so remain for the moment unaccounted for. We find that the reflection coefficient of P4KP undergoes a polarity reversal for some scenarios of lower mantle velocities and densities and the observed P4KP polarity at this distance range can therefore help to investigate the lowermost mantle in addition to CMB topography.