ALBERT

Description: Three-component wide-angle seismic data acquired in southern Tibet during Project INDEPTH show strong P-to-S converted reflections from reflectors that are aligned at a depth of ∼15 kilometers beneath the northern Yadong-Gulu rift. These converted reflections are locally higher in amplitude than the corresponding P-wave reflections. Modeling of reflection mode conversion as a function of incidence angle indicates that this condition obtains for a reflector that is a solid over fluid interface; it is not typical of a solid-solid interface. The likely candidates for a fluid trapped within the crystalline crust of southern Tibet are granitic magma and water (brine).

Description: The territory of Lithuania and adjacent areas of the East European Craton have always been considered a region of low seismicity. Two recent earthquakes with magnitudes of more than 5 in the Kaliningrad District (Russian Federation) on 21 September 2004 motivated re-evaluation of the seismic hazard in Lithuania and adjacent territories. A new opportunity to study seismicity in the region is provided by the PASSEQ (Pasive Seismic Experiment) project that aimed to study the lithosphere–asthenosphere structure around the Trans-European Suture Zone. Twenty-six seismic stations of the PASSEQ temporary seismic array were installed in the territory of Lithuania. The stations recorded a number of local and regional seismic events originating from Lithuania and adjacent areas. This data can be used to answer the question of whether there exist seismically active tectonic zones in Lithuania that could be potentially hazardous for critical industrial facilities. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to find any natural tectonic seismic events in Lithuania and to obtain more general view of seismicity in the region. In order to do this, we make a manual review of the continuous data recorded by the PASSEQ seismic stations in Lithuania. From the good quality data, we select and relocate 45 local seismic events using the well-known LocSAT and VELEST location algortithms. In order to discriminate between possible natural events, underwater explosions and on-shore blasts, we analyse spatial distribution of epicenters and temporal distribution of origin times and perform both visual analysis of waveforms and spectral analysis of recordings. We show that the relocated seismic events can be grouped into five clusters (groups) according to their epicenter coordinates and origin and that several seismic events might be of tectonic origin. We also show that several events from the off-shore region in the Baltic Sea (at the coasts of the Kaliningrad District of the Russian Federation) are non-volcanic tremors, although the origin of these tremor-type events is not clear.

Description: The northeastern boundary of the Tibetan high plateau is marked by a 2 km topographic drop and a coincident rapid change in crustal thickness. Surface tectonics are dominated by the Kunlun strike‐slip fault system and adjacent Kunlun concealed thrust. The main objective of the current study is to map lateral variations of seismic anisotropy parameters in this region along the linear INDEPTH IV array in order to investigate the link between surface and internal deformation in the context of crust and mantle structure. To achieve this aim, we performed Minimum‐Transverse‐Energy based SKS splitting measurements using 23 stations of the INDEPTH IV array deployed across the northeastern margin of Tibet. Average fast polarization directions and splitting time delays are obtained by averaging stacked misfit surfaces of all analyzed events at each station. The agreement of fast directions with the strikes of major active strike‐slip faults and strike‐slip focal mechanisms, but not with fossil structures such as the Jinsha suture, implies that the anisotropy records lithospheric petrofabric formed by recent deformation within the lithosphere rather than representing frozen‐in anisotropy or shear within the asthenosphere due to absolute plate motion. The distribution of large splitting delays throughout the northern plateau suggests that deformation is distributed rather than focused onto narrow shear zones associated with the Kunlun strike‐slip faults. The drop in splitting delays toward the Qaidam is then a natural consequence of the much lower degree of deformation there.

Description: Closely-spaced receiver-function profiles in the east-central India–Tibet collision zone reveal drastic west–east changes of the crustal and upper mantle structure. West of ∼91.5°E, we show the Indian crust-mantle boundary (Moho) extending subhorizontally from ∼50 km depth below sea level under the High Himalaya to ∼90 km under the central Lhasa terrane. Further north, this boundary transitions to become the top of the Indian lithospheric mantle and, becoming faint but still observable, it can be tracked continuously to ∼135 km depth near ∼31.5°N. The top of the Indian lithospheric mantle is clearly beneath the Tibetan Moho that is also a conspicuous boundary, undulatory at 60–75 km depth from the central Lhasa terrane to the north end of our profile at ∼34°N. This geometry is consistent with underthrusting of Indian lower crust and underplating of the Indian plate directly beneath southern Tibet. In contrast, east of ∼91.5°E, the Indian Moho is only seen under the southernmost margin of the Tibetan plateau, and eludes imaging from ∼50 km south of the Yarlung-Zangbo suture to the north. The Indian lower crust thins greatly and in places lacks a clear Moho. This is in contrast to our observation west of ∼91.5°E, that the Indian lower crust thickens northwards. A clear depression of the top of the Indian lower crust is also observed along west–east oriented profiles, centered above the region where the Indian Moho is not imaged. Our observations suggest that roll-back of the Indian lithospheric mantle has occurred east of ∼91.5°E, likely due to delamination associated with density instabilities in eclogitized Indian lower crust, with the center of foundering beneath the southern Lhasa terrane slightly east of 91.5°E.

Description: SKS and SKKS shear waves recorded on the INDEPTH III seismic array deployed in central Tibet during 1998 - 1999 have been analysed for the direction and extent of seismic polarization anisotropy. The 400-km-long NNW trending array extended south to north, from the central Lhasa terrane, across the Karakoram-Jiali fault system and Banggong-Nujiang suture to the central Qiangtang terrane. Substantial splitting with delay times from 1 to 2 s, and fast directions varying from E-W to NE-SW, was observed for stations in the Qiangtang trerrane and northernmost Lhasa terrane. No detectable splitting was observed for stations located farther south in the central Lahsa terrane. The change in shear wave splitting characteristics occurs at 32°N, approximately coincident with the transcurrent Karakoram-Jiali fault system but ~40 km south of the surface trace of the Banggong-Nujiang suture. This location is also near the southernmost edge of a region of high Sn attenuation and low upper mantle velocities found in previous studies. The transition between no measured splitting and strong anisotropy (2.2 s delay time) is exceptionally sharp (=15 km), suggesting a large crustal contribution to the measured splitting. The E-W to NE-SW fast directions are broadly similar to the fast directions observed farther east along the Yadong-Golmud highway, suggesting that no large-scale change in anisotropic properties occurs in the east-west direction. However, in detail, fast directions and delay times vary over lateral distances of ~100 km in both the N-S and E-W direction by as much as 40° and 0.5-1 s, respectively. The onset of measurable splitting at 32° N most likely marks the northern limit of the underthrusting Indian lithosphere, which is characterized by negligible polarization anisotropy. Taken in conjunction with decades of geophysical and geological observations in Tibet, the new anisotropy measurements are consistent with a model where hot and weak upper mantle beneath northern Tibet is being squeezed and sheared between the advancing Indian lithosphere to the south and the Tsaidam and Tarim Lithospheres to the north and west, resulting in eastward flow and possibly thickening and subsequent detachment due to gravitational instability. In northern Tibet, crustal deformation clearly follows this large-scale deformation pattern.

Description: We present an updated joint tomographic method to simultaneously invert receiver function waveforms and surface wave dispersions for a 3-D S-wave velocity (Vs) model. By applying this method to observations from ∼900 seismic stations and with a priori Moho constraints from previous studies, we construct a 3-D lithospheric S-wave velocity model and crustal-thickness map for the central–east Tibetan plateau. Data misfit/fitting shows that the inverted model can fit the receiver functions and surface wave dispersions reasonably well, and checkerboard tests show the model can retrieve major structural information. The results highlight several features. Within the plateau crustal thickness is 〉60 km and outwith the plateau it is ∼40 km. Obvious Moho offsets and lateral variations of crustal velocities exist beneath the eastern (Longmen Shan Fault), northern (central–east Kunlun Fault) and northeastern (east Kunlun Fault) boundaries of the plateau, but with decreasing intensity. Segmented high upper-mantle velocities have varied occurrences and depth extents from south/southwest to north/northeast in the plateau. A Z-shaped upper-mantle low-velocity channel, which was taken as Tibetan lithospheric mantle, reflecting deformable material lies along the northern and eastern periphery of the Tibetan plateau, seemingly separating two large high-velocity mantle areas that, respectively, correspond to the Indian and Asian lithospheres. Other small high-velocity mantle segments overlain by the Z-shaped channel are possibly remnants of cold microplates/slabs associated with subductions/collisions prior to the Indian–Eurasian collision during the accretion of the Tibetan region. By integrating the Vs structures with known tectonic information, we derive that the Indian slab generally underlies the plateau south of the Bangong–Nujiang suture in central Tibet and the Jinsha River suture in eastern Tibet and west of the Lanchangjiang suture in southeastern Tibet. The eastern, northern, northeastern and southeastern boundaries of the Tibetan plateau have undergone deformation with decreasing intensity. The weakly resisting northeast and southeast margins, bounded by a wider softer channel of uppermost mantle material, are two potential regions for plateau expansion in the future.

Description: We studied the crustal structure and tectonics in the north Tibetan Plateau from the Songpan-Ganzi terrane to the Qaidam Basin using teleseismic receiver-function imaging, across a major lithospheric boundary, the Kunlun- Qaidam boundary, where previous studies suggest a ~15–20-km change in crustal thickness from thicker crust in the Kunlun Mountains to thinner crust in the Qaidam Basin. We report P receiver functions for 70 stations, largely the International Deep Profiling of Tibet and the Himalaya (INDEPTH), phase IV, experiment. Our most dense station coverage is located along the roughly north-south INDEPTH-IV active-source seismic profile at approximately 95° E longitude. Azimuthal and geographical changes in the receiver functions reveal significant changes in crustal structure and Vp/Vs from across the study area. Receiver functions show strong converters that we interpret as the Moho at ~70 km depth beneath the Qiangtang, Songpan-Ganzi terranes and Kunlun Mountains and at ~50 km depth beneath the central Qaidam Basin. This large change in crustal thickness occurs〉 50 km north of the North Kunlun strike-slip fault, on which the 2001 M8.1 Kunlun earthquake occurred. Receiver functions for some of the stations north of the thickness change at the Kunlun-Qaidam boundary also show a deeper ~70-km bright converter in addition to the 50-km converter. The two converters appear to overlap by up to ~30 km in some locations along the south Qaidam Basin. We combine previous results with these new results to discuss implications for mechanisms for crustal thickening in the north Tibetan Plateau including crustal flow and crustal injection. At depths imaged here, shallower than ~100 km, we see no evidence of southward subduction of Eurasian lithosphere.

Description: On 12 May, a great earthquake (Ms=8.0) on the Longmenshan thrust fault rumbled through Chinas Sichuan province, killing more than 69,000 people and injuring 374,000. The Longmenshan thrust is part of the eastern border of the Tibetan Plateau, but it is not the plateaus only restless margin. An even larger earthquake (Ms=8.1) on the Kunlun fault shook northeastern Tibet in 2001, fortunately in a sparsely populated area. These massive quakes underscore the importance of understanding the tectonic response of Asia to collision by India. The International Deep Profiling of Tibet and the Himalaya (INDEPTH) program explores the dynamics of the India-Asia collision. Though many past geophysical studies have focused on the Himalayas and the southern Tibetan Plateau, the INDEPTH IV project examines the deep structure of the northeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau.

Description: Multi-antenna global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) can provide attitude measurement information for GNSS/INS integrated system. However, once the wrong attitude measurement is used in the tight coupled model, it is easy to lead to filtering divergence. Therefore, fault detection and exclusion (FDE) is very important for multi-antenna attitude determination. Because the baseline length information is often used as prior information in attitude determination, it cannot be used as the statistic of FDE again. In this paper, we propose a new statistic for attitude FDE, differential inter-system biases (DISB), and jointly use DISB, baseline length, standard deviation, and ratio to perform FDE for multi-antenna GNSS attitudes. The obtained attitudes with high reliability is added to the GNSS/INS tight coupled positioning model for measurement update. A set of urban vehicular data is used to verify the method. The results show that the DISB has FDE capabilities comparable to the baseline length information, which will be a powerful supplement when the baseline length information cannot be used. Compared to the single-antenna GNSS/INS tight coupled model, The accuracy of yaw,pitch and roll of the RTK/INS tightly coupled model with multi-antenna attitude measurement is improved by 57-64%,26-29% and 26-32% respectively, and the accuracy of the PPP/INS tightly coupled model with multi-antenna attitude measurement is improved by 60-61%,51-53% and 41-44% respectively.

Description: Drainage channels are widely used for discharging debris flows into deposition basins or rivers. However, the current drainage channel designs for guiding rapid debris flows downstream do not account for the variations of the gullies’ gradient and debris flow energy. In this study, we evaluated the performance of different step-baffle geometries (square, triangle, and trapezoid) in regulating debris flows. Specifically, their effects on the flow patterns, sediment transport, energy dissipation, and impact pressure are investigated using flume experiments. Results here showed that the square baffles promote highly turbulent flows which in turn result in the highest lift height relative to the triangular and trapezoidal baffles. Maximum sediment interception and highest energy dissipation are obtained using the trapezoidal baffle, whereas the triangular baffle exhibits minimal solid interception and the lowest energy dissipation. Trapezoidal baffles generally experience the greatest impact forces relative to both square and triangular baffles. However, when only the first baffle in the channel is considered, it is the square baffles that experience the largest impact forces. The present work improves the understanding of the effectiveness of step-baffle drainage channels in mitigating debris flows.