ALBERT

Description: In this study, we have systematically investigated the influence of the parameters of the slip-weakening law and the size of nucleation asperity on dynamic rupture of a planar fault in full-space and half-space using the boundary integral equation method, in particular, the occurrence conditions for subshear (or sub-Rayleigh for strike-slip rupture) and supershear ruptures. Besides the well-known rupture styles of subshear (or sub-Rayleigh) and supershear, we defined a new kind of rupture style in this study, termed the ‘self-arresting rupture’, for which the rupture process can be autonomously arrested by itself without any outside interference (e.g. a high strength barrier). Based on the vast number of simulations, we obtained rupture phase diagrams for strike-slip and dip-slip ruptures vertically and obliquely embedded in half-space and full-space with different buried depths. The rupture phase diagram clearly illustrates the occurrence conditions of three kinds of rupture styles and the transitions between them. In full-space, the supershear transition is sensitive with the fault width. Owing to the influence of the free surface, the rupture in half-space becomes much more complicated comparing to the one in full-space. For a strike-slip fault with zero buried depth, all ruptures that occur within the parameter range for sub-Rayleigh ruptures in full-space case become supershear ruptures. This means that as long as a rupture is able to grow incessantly, it will always evolve into a supershear rupture. For dip-slip faults, however, ruptures will always propagate with subshear speed, although slip rate could be almost twice that of a strike-slip fault. Although the influence of the free surface is strong, it is limited to very shallow ruptures (i.e. buried depth 〈1 km). The rupture phase diagram discussed in this study could provide a new insight on earthquake rupture mechanics.

Description: The Cadzow rank-reduction method can be effectively utilized in simultaneously denoising and reconstructing 5-D seismic data that depend on four spatial dimensions. The classic version of Cadzow rank-reduction method arranges the 4-D spatial data into a level-four block Hankel/Toeplitz matrix and then applies truncated singular value decomposition (TSVD) for rank reduction. When the observed data are extremely noisy, which is often the feature of real seismic data, traditional TSVD cannot be adequate for attenuating the noise and reconstructing the signals. The reconstructed data tend to contain a significant amount of residual noise using the traditional TSVD method, which can be explained by the fact that the reconstructed data space is a mixture of both signal subspace and noise subspace. In order to better decompose the block Hankel matrix into signal and noise components, we introduced a damping operator into the traditional TSVD formula, which we call the damped rank-reduction method. The damped rank-reduction method can obtain a perfect reconstruction performance even when the observed data have extremely low signal-to-noise ratio. The feasibility of the improved 5-D seismic data reconstruction method was validated via both 5-D synthetic and field data examples. We presented comprehensive analysis of the data examples and obtained valuable experience and guidelines in better utilizing the proposed method in practice. Since the proposed method is convenient to implement and can achieve immediate improvement, we suggest its wide application in the industry.

Description: We propose an adaptive root-determining strategy that is very useful when dealing with trapped modes or Stoneley modes whose energies become very insignificant on the free surface in the presence of low-velocity layers or fluid layers in the model. Loss of modes in these cases or inaccuracy in the calculation of these modes may then be easily avoided. Built upon the generalized reflection/transmission coefficients, the concept of ‘family of secular functions’ that we herein call ‘adaptive mode observers’ is thus naturally introduced to implement this strategy, the underlying idea of which has been distinctly noted for the first time and may be generalized to other applications such as free oscillations or applied to other methods in use when these cases are encountered. Additionally, we have made further improvements upon the generalized reflection/transmission coefficient method; mode observers associated with only the free surface and low-velocity layers (and the fluid/solid interface if the model contains fluid layers) are adequate to guarantee no loss and high precision at the same time of any physically existent modes without excessive calculations. Finally, the conventional definition of the fundamental mode is reconsidered, which is entailed in the cases under study. Some computational aspects are remarked on. With the additional help afforded by our superior root-searching scheme and the possibility of speeding calculation using a less number of layers aided by the concept of ‘turning point’, our algorithm is remarkably efficient as well as stable and accurate and can be used as a powerful tool for widely related applications.

Description: A discontinuous grid finite-difference (FD) method with non-uniform time step Runge–Kutta scheme on curvilinear collocated-grid is developed for seismic wave simulation. We introduce two transition zones: a spatial transition zone and a temporal transition zone, to exchange wavefield across the spatial and temporal discontinuous interfaces. A Gaussian filter is applied to suppress artificial numerical noise caused by down-sampling the wavefield from the finer grid to the coarser grid. We adapt the non-uniform time step Runge–Kutta scheme to a discontinuous grid FD method for further increasing the computational efficiency without losing the accuracy of time marching through the whole simulation region. When the topography is included in the modelling, we carry out the discontinuous grid method on a curvilinear collocated-grid to obtain a sufficiently accurate free-surface boundary condition implementation. Numerical tests show that the proposed method can sufficiently accurately simulate the seismic wave propagation on such grids and significantly reduce the computational resources consumption with respect to regular grids.

Description: Differences between 3-D numerical predictions of earthquake ground motion in the Mygdonian basin near Thessaloniki, Greece, led us to define four canonical stringent models derived from the complex realistic 3-D model of the Mygdonian basin. Sediments atop an elastic bedrock are modelled in the 1D-sharp and 1D-smooth models using three homogeneous layers and smooth velocity distribution, respectively. The 2D-sharp and 2D-smooth models are extensions of the 1-D models to an asymmetric sedimentary valley. In all cases, 3-D wavefields include strongly dispersive surface waves in the sediments. We compared simulations by the Fourier pseudo-spectral method (FPSM), the Legendre spectral-element method (SEM) and two formulations of the finite-difference method (FDM-S and FDM-C) up to 4 Hz. The accuracy of individual solutions and level of agreement between solutions vary with type of seismic waves and depend on the smoothness of the velocity model. The level of accuracy is high for the body waves in all solutions. However, it strongly depends on the discrete representation of the material interfaces (at which material parameters change discontinuously) for the surface waves in the sharp models. An improper discrete representation of the interfaces can cause inaccurate numerical modelling of surface waves. For all the numerical methods considered, except SEM with mesh of elements following the interfaces, a proper implementation of interfaces requires definition of an effective medium consistent with the interface boundary conditions. An orthorhombic effective medium is shown to significantly improve accuracy and preserve the computational efficiency of modelling. The conclusions drawn from the analysis of the results of the canonical cases greatly help to explain differences between numerical predictions of ground motion in realistic models of the Mygdonian basin. We recommend that any numerical method and code that is intended for numerical prediction of earthquake ground motion should be verified through stringent models that would make it possible to test the most important aspects of accuracy.