ALBERT

Description: Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) sees increased utilization in the seismological community in recent years and various applications are investigated for the usage of DAS in different branches of seismology. Strong-motion seismology uses records of earthquakes of engineering concern (MW〉4.5) with hypocentral distances within few hundreds of kilometers. This demands dense networks over a wide area and installation of typical strong-motion instruments (accelerometers) can be achieved quickly and at a reasonable budget, compared to other network types. For DAS, installation and operation are more involved, and deployment is very still limited. Consequently, DAS recordings of nearby large events are still very unlikely and rare compared to accelerometers. On September 18, 2022, a shallow earthquake sequence with a M〈sub〉W〈/sub〉 6.9 mainshock struck near Chishang (Taiwan) and was recorded by DAS in Hualien city, appr. 100 km north. Shaking of the mainshock and several aftershocks were noticeable in Hualien, though not damaging with PGA recorded at 0.28 m/s^2 nearby the DAS site. The DAS campaign was originally conceptualized as a test suite with different fiber installations: including buried, within a gutter (as in commercial fiber installation) and loose within a basement. The test site is in an urban area affected by surface rupturing during the 2018 Hualien earthquake. The presented recordings provide not only an unprecedented insight how strong-motion appears on DAS but also how effective different installation techniques are for this kind of event. The waveforms are also compared to records of a collocated broadband seismometer and an accelerometer 1 km away.

Description: Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) is used to record high-spatial resolution strain-rate data. For ground motion observation, the DAS data can be converted from strain rate to acceleration or velocity by array-based measurements with coherent plane waves. DAS provides an opportunity to map high-resolution shaking patterns near faults. We installed collocated geophones and optical fiber in Hualien City (a very seismically active area in Taiwan) from the end of January to the end of February in 2022. Earthquakes with magnitudes (Mw) between 3.2 and 5.4 have been recorded. These records illustrate the typical magnitude-distance dependence of ground-motion but also show saturation for higher magnitudes and/or at shorter distances (e.g for an earthquake of Mw 5.2 earthquake recorded at 100 km). For frequency-based analyses, clipped signals on DAS result in challenges not present in classical instruments (seismometers). The upper limit in dynamic range of seismometers results in easily identifiable trapezoidal signals. The dynamic range of DAS interrogators is limited by gauge length, sampling frequency, and wrapped phase in the interferometric phase demodulation. We observe that clipped DAS signals not only affect time series but also contaminate their spectra on all frequencies, due to the random nature of clipping in DAS—contrasting to the flat plateaus in clipped time series on seismometers. Therefore, the identification of the start and end points of clipped DAS records poses a major challenge, which we aim to resolve with a neural network. This approach enhances the efficiency for quality control of massive DAS datasets.

Description: Rapid assessment of an earthquake’s impact on the affected society is a crucial first step of disaster management, determining further emergency measures. We demonstrate that macroseismic observations, collected as felt reports via the LastQuake service of the European Mediterranean Seismological Center, can be utilized to estimate the probability of a felt earthquake to have a “high impact” rather than a “low impact” on the affected population on a global scale. In our fully data-driven, transparent, and reproducible approach we compare the distribution of felt reports to documented earthquake impact in terms of economic losses, number of fatalities, and number of damaged or destroyed buildings. Using the distribution of felt-reports as predictive parameters and an impact measure as the target parameter, we infer a probabilistic model utilizing Bayes’ theorem and Kernel Density Estimation, that provides the probability of an earthquake to be “high impact”. For 393 felt events in 2021, a sufficient number of felt reports to run the model is collected within 10 minutes after the earthquake. While a clean separation of “high-impact” and “low-impact” events remains a challenging task, unambiguous identification of many “low-impact” events in our dataset is identified as a key strength of our approach. We consider our method a complementary and inexpensive impact assessment tools, that can be utilized instantly in all populated areas on the planet, with the necessary technological infrastructure. Being fully independent of seismic data, our framework poses an affordable option to support disaster management in regions that currently lack expensive seismic instrumentation.

Description: The Taiwan Milun fault zone located at the boundary between the Eurasian and Philippine Sea plates. This fault slips frequently and produced large earthquakes, as for example the Mw6.4 Hualien earthquake (6 February 2018). We map and observe the fault zone and its behavior at depth by high spatial resolution dynamic strain sensing with optical fiber. In 2021-2022, we drilled and cored the fault, and deployed a 3D multi-cross-fault fiber array comprising a borehole loop with a depth of 700 m (Hole-A, Hanging wall site, crossing the fault at depth), a surface array crossing the fault rupture zone using commercial fiber, and a second borehole loop of 500m fiber (Hole-B, Footwall site). The high spatial resolution from distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) and the retrieved core combined with geophysical logs allow us to characterize the structure on meter-scale. Within the Milun fault zone, we identified a 20-m wide fault core comprised of gray and black gouge in the core sample. DAS strain-rate records associated with the same depth as the fault core show a distinct amplification. The amplification ratio of 2.5-3 is constant as for all types of events (local, teleseismic ), when compared to DAS channels at larger depth, related to a consolidated rock material. Although the fault gouge is narrow, the nature of the amplification in strain is due to its strong material contrast from fault gouge. This result may shed the light on the understanding of fault-zone dynamics in terms of remote earthquake triggering and near-fault ground motion.

Description: As a population parameter, reliable estimation of the b-value is intrinsically complicated, particularly when spatial variability is considered. We approach this issue by treating the spatial b-value distribution as a non-stationary Gaussian process for the underlying earthquake-realizing Poisson process. For Gaussian process inference the covariance—which describes here the spatial correlation of the b-value—must be specified a priori. We base the covariance on the local fault structure, i.e. the covariance is anisotropic: elongated along the dominant fault strike and shortened when normal to the fault trace. This adaptive feature captures the geological structure better than an isotropic covariance or similarly defined and commonly used running-window estimates of the b-value. We demonstrate the Bayesian inference of the Gaussian process b-value estimation for two regions: California based on SCEDC earthquake and Turkey based on the AFAD earthquake catalog. The covariances in the inferences are calibrated with the SCEC community fault model the GEM fault model for California and Turkey, respectively. Our model provides a continuous b-value estimate (including its uncertainties) which reflects the local fault structure to a very high degree. We are able to associate the b-value with the local seismicity distribution and link it to major faults. In light of the recent Turkish earthquake sequence, we also assess the temporal evolution of the b-value of recent seismicity before and after major events.

Description: This data set contains measurements of an underground hydraulic fracture experiment at Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory in May and June 2015. The experiment tested various injection schemes for rock fracture stimulation and monitored the resulting seismicity. The primary purpose of the experiment is to identify injection schemes that provide rock fracturing while reducing seismicity or at least mitigate larger seismic events. In total, six tests with three different injection schemes were performed in various igneous rock types. Both the injection process and the accompanied seismicity were monitored. For injection monitoring, the water flow and pressure are provided and additional tests for rock permeability. The seismicity was monitored in both triggered and continuous mode during the tests by high-resolution acoustic emission sensors, accelerometers and broadband seismometers. Both waveform data and seismicity catalogs are provided.

Description: We investigate the relation between frictional heating on a fault and the resulting conductive surface heat flow anomaly using the fault's long-term energy budget. Analysis of the surface heat flow surrounding the fault trace leads to a constraint on the frictional power generated on the fault—the mechanism behind the San Andreas fault (SAF) heat flow paradox. We revisit this paradox from a new perspective using an estimate of the long-term accumulating elastic power in the region surrounding the fault, and analyze the paradox using two parameters: the seismic efficiency and the elastic power. The results show that the constraint on frictional power from the classic interpretation is incompatible with the accumulating elastic power and the radiated power from earthquake catalogs. We then explore four mechanisms that can resolve this extended paradox. First, stochastic fluctuations of surface heat flow could mask the fault-generated anomaly (we estimate 21% probability). Second, the elastic power accumulating in the region could be overestimated (≥550 MW required). Third, the seismic efficiency—ratio of radiated energy to elastic work—of the SAF could be higher than that of the remaining faults in the region (≥5.8% required). Fourth, the scaled energy—ratio of radiated energy to seismic moment—on the SAF could be lower than on the remaining faults in the region (a factor 5 difference required). In the last three hypotheses, we analyze the interplay of the energy budget on a single fault with the total energy budget of the region.

Description: Analysis and identifying the displacement characteristics play a key role in timely monitoring and detecting the physical responses of the bridge to ensure the safety of the human and structure. Many previous kinds of research used GNSS data to identify displacement and oscillation modelling of the bridge with different algorithms. This study uses GNSS time-series data to determine linear displacement and model oscillation of the bridge using a procedure including filtering outliers, linear regression, and sin function to identify amplitude in three directions, the plane displacement velocity, spatial displacement velocity, and vibration model of the bridge. The data in the research in the GNSS time-series data from three P5 GNSS receivers of the CHC brand on the Dachongyong bridge in Nanning, China with 1646 observations, at one-hour sample intervals in 68 consecutive days. The plane and spatial velocity of the three points DCQ01, DCQ02, and DCQ03 is 0.0181 mm/h, 0.0185 mm/h; 0.0114 mm/h, 0.0173 mm/h; and 0.0071 mm/h, 0.0082 mm/h respectively. The study results are significant in analyzing and identifying the bridge's displacement characteristics.

Description: We study networks of coupled oscillators whose local dynamics are governed by the fractional-order versions of the paradigmatic van der Pol and Rayleigh oscillators. We show that the networks exhibit diverse amplitude chimeras and oscillation death patterns. The occurrence of amplitude chimeras in a network of van der Pol oscillators is observed for the first time. A form of amplitude chimera, namely, “damped amplitude chimera” is observed and characterized, where the size of the incoherent region(s) increases continuously in the course of time, and the oscillations of drifting units are damped continuously until they are quenched to steady state. It is found that as the order of the fractional derivative decreases, the lifetime of classical amplitude chimeras increases, and there is a critical point at which there is a transition to damped amplitude chimeras. Overall, a decrease in the order of fractional derivatives reduces the propensity to synchronization and promotes oscillation death phenomena including solitary oscillation death and chimera death patterns that were unobserved in networks of integer-order oscillators. This effect of the fractional derivatives is verified by the stability analysis based on the properties of the master stability function of some collective dynamical states calculated from the block-diagonalized variational equations of the coupled systems. The present study generalizes the results of our recently studied network of fractional-order Stuart–Landau oscillators.

Description: Understanding the behavioral response dynamics to risks is important for informed policy-making at times of crises. Here we elucidate two response channels to Covid-19 risk and show that they weakened over time, prior to the availability of vaccines. We employ fixed-effects panel regression models to empirically assess the relationship between actual Covid-19 risk (daily case numbers), the perceived risk (attention paid to the pandemic via related Google search requests) and the resulting behavioral response (personal mobility choices) over two pandemic phases for 113 cities in eight countries, while accounting for government interventions. Prolonged exposure to Covid-19 reduces risk perception which in turn leads to a weakened behavioral response. Attention responses and mobility reductions across all three mobility types are weaker in the second phase, given the same levels of actual and perceived risk, respectively. Our results provide evidence that the risk response attenuates over time with implications for other crises evolving over long timescales.