ALBERT

Description: The attenuation and velocity dispersion of sonic waves contain valuable information on the mechanical and hydraulic properties of the probed medium. An inherent complication arising in the interpretation of corresponding measurements is, however, that there are multiple physical mechanisms contributing to the energy dissipation and that the relative importance of the various contributions is difficult to unravel. To address this problem for the practically relevant case of terrestrial alluvial sediments, we analyse the attenuation and velocity dispersion characteristics of broad-band multifrequency sonic logs with dominant source frequencies ranging between 1 and 30 kHz. To adequately compensate for the effects of geometrical spreading, which is critical for reliable attenuation estimates, we simulate our experimental setup using a correspondingly targeted numerical solution of the poroelastic equations. After having applied the thus inferred corrections, the broad-band sonic log data set, in conjunction with a comprehensive suite of complementary logging data, allows for assessing the relative importance of a range of pertinent attenuation mechanisms. In doing so, we focus on the effects of wave-induced fluid flow over a wide range of scales. Our results indicate that the levels of attenuation due to the presence of mesoscopic heterogeneities in unconsolidated clastic sediments fully saturated with water are expected to be largely negligible. Conversely, Monte-Carlo-type inversions indicate that Biot's classical model permits to explain most of the considered data. Refinements with regard to the fitting of the observed attenuation and velocity dispersion characteristics are locally provided by accounting for energy dissipation at the microscopic scale, although the nature of the underlying physical mechanism remains speculative.

Description: We investigate spatiotemporal variations of the crustal stress field orientation along the rupture zones of the 1999 August Izmit M w 7.4 and November Düzce M w 7.1 earthquakes at the North Anatolian Fault zone (NAFZ) in NW Turkey. Our primary focus is to elaborate on the relation between the state of the crustal stress field and distinct seismotectonic features as well as variations of coseismic slip within the seismogenic layer of the crust. To achieve this, we compile an extensive data base of hypocentres and first-motion polarities including a newly derived local hypocentre catalogue extending from 2 yr prior (1997) to 2 yr after (2001) the Izmit and Düzce main shocks. This combined data set allows studying spatial and temporal variations of stress field orientation along distinct fault segments for the pre- and post-seimic phase of the two large earthquakes in detail. Furthermore, the occurrence of two M  〉 7 earthquakes in rapid succession gives the unique opportunity to analyse the 87-d-long ‘inter-seismic phase’ between them. We use the MOTSI (first MOTion polarity Stress Inversion) procedure directly inverting first-motion polarities to study the stress field evolution of nine distinct segments. In particular, this allows to determine the stress tensor also for the pre- and post-seismic phases when no stable single-event focal mechanisms can be determined. We observe significantly different stress field orientations along the combined 200-km-long rupture in accordance with lateral variations of coseismic slip and seismotectonic setting. Distinct vertical linear segments of the NAFZ show either pure-strike slip behaviour or transtensional and normal faulting if located near pull-apart basins. Pull-apart structures such as the Akyazi and Düzce basins show a predominant normal faulting behaviour along the NAFZ and reflect clearly different characteristic from neighbouring strike-slip segments. Substantial lateral stress field heterogeneity following the two main shocks is observed that declines with time towards the post-seismic period that rather reflects the regional right-lateral strike-slip stress field.

Description: The Piton de la Fournaise basaltic volcano, on La Réunion Island in the western Indian Ocean, is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. This volcano is classically considered as the surface expression of an upwelling mantle plume and its activity is continuously monitored, providing detailed information on its superficial dynamics and on the edifice structure. Deeper crustal and upper mantle structure under La Réunion Island is surprisingly poorly constrained, motivating this study. We used receiver function techniques to determine a shear wave velocity profile through the crust and uppermost mantle beneath La Réunion, but also at other seismic stations located on the hotspot track, to investigate the plume and lithosphere interaction and its evolution through time. Receiver functions (RFs) were computed at permanent broad-band seismic stations from the GEOSCOPE network (on La Réunion and Rodrigues), at IRIS stations MRIV and DGAR installed on Mauritius and Diego Garcia islands, and at the GEOFON stations KAAM and HMDM on the Maldives. We performed non-linear inversions of RFs through modelling of P -to- S conversions at various crustal and upper mantle interfaces. Joint inversion of RF and surface wave dispersion data suggests a much deeper Mohorovičić discontinuity (Moho) beneath Mauritius (~21 km) compared to La Réunion (~12 km). A magmatic underplated body may be present under La Réunion as a thin layer (≤3 km thick), as suggested by a previous seismic refraction study, and as a much thicker layer beneath other stations located on the hotspot track, suggesting that underplating is an important process resulting from the plume–lithosphere interaction. We find evidence for a strikingly low velocity layer starting at about 33 km depth beneath La Réunion that we interpret as a zone of partial melt beneath the active volcano. We finally observe low velocities below 70 km beneath La Réunion and below 50 km beneath Mauritius that could represent the base of the oceanic lithosphere.

Description: The scattering of seismic waves travelling in the Earth is not only caused by random velocity heterogeneity but also by surface topography. Both factors are known to strongly affect ground-motion complexity even at relatively short distance from the source. In this study, we simulate ground motion with a 3-D finite-difference wave propagation solver in the 0–5 Hz frequency band using three topography models representative of the Swiss alpine region and realistic heterogeneous media characterized by the Von Karman correlation functions. Subsequently, we analyse and quantify the characteristics of the scattered wavefield in the near-source region. Our study shows that both topography and velocity heterogeneity scattering may excite large coda waves of comparable relative amplitude, especially at around 1 Hz, although large variability in space may occur. Using the single scattering model, we estimate average Q C values in the range 20–30 at 1 Hz, 36–54 at 1.5 Hz and 62–109 at 3 Hz for constant background velocity models with no intrinsic attenuation. In principle, envelopes of topography-scattered seismic waves can be qualitatively predicted by theoretical back-scattering models, while forward- or hybrid-scattering models better reproduce the effects of random velocity heterogeneity on the wavefield. This is because continuous multiple scattering caused by small-scale velocity perturbations leads to more gentle coda decay and envelope broadening, while topography abruptly scatters the wavefield once it impinges the free surface. The large impedance contrast also results in more efficient mode mixing. However, the introduction of realistic low-velocity layers near the free surface increases the complexity of ground motion dramatically and indicates that the role of topography in elastic waves scattering can be relevant especially in proximity of the source. Long-period surface waves can form most of the late coda, especially when intrinsic attenuation is taken into account. Our simulations indicate that both topography and velocity heterogeneity scattering may result in large ground-motion variability, characterized by standard deviation values in the range 0.2–0.5 also at short distance from the source. We conclude that both topography and velocity heterogeneity should be considered to correctly assess the ground-motion variability in earthquake scenario studies even at intermediate frequency.

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: Mainland Portugal, on the southwestern edge of the European continent, is located directly north of the boundary between the Eurasian and Nubian plates. It lies in a region of slow lithospheric deformation (〈5 mm yr –1 ), which has generated some of the largest earthquakes in Europe, both intraplate (mainland) and interplate (offshore). Some offshore earthquakes are nucleated on old and cold lithospheric mantle, at depths down to 60 km. The seismicity of mainland Portugal and its adjacent offshore has been repeatedly classified as diffuse. In this paper, we analyse the instrumental earthquake catalogue for western Iberia, which covers the period between 1961 and 2013. Between 2010 and 2012, the catalogue was enriched with data from dense broad-band deployments. We show that although the plate boundary south of Portugal is diffuse, in that deformation is accommodated along several distributed faults rather than along one long linear plate boundary, the seismicity itself is not diffuse. Rather, when located using high-quality data, earthquakes collapse into well-defined clusters and lineations. We identify and characterize the most outstanding clusters and lineations of epicentres and correlate them with geophysical and tectonic features (historical seismicity, topography, geologically mapped faults, Moho depth, free-air gravity, magnetic anomalies and geotectonic units). Both onshore and offshore, clusters and lineations of earthquakes are aligned preferentially NNE–SSW and WNW–ESE. Cumulative seismic moment and epicentre density decrease from south to north, with increasing distance from the plate boundary. Only few earthquake lineations coincide with geologically mapped faults. Clusters and lineations that do not match geologically mapped faults may correspond to previously unmapped faults (e.g. blind faults), rheological boundaries or distributed fracturing inside blocks that are more brittle and therefore break more easily than neighbour blocks. The seismicity map of western Iberia presented in this article opens important questions concerning the regional seismotectonics. This work shows that the study of low-magnitude earthquakes using dense seismic deployments is a powerful tool to study lithospheric deformation in slowly deforming regions, such as western Iberia, where high-magnitude earthquakes occur with long recurrence intervals.

Description: The accurate estimation of dispersion curves has been a key issue for ensuring high quality in geophysical surface wave exploration. Many studies have been carried out on the generation of a high-resolution dispersion image from array measurements. In this study, the sparse signal representation and reconstruction techniques are employed to obtain the high resolution Rayleigh-wave dispersion image from seismic wave data. First, a sparse representation of the seismic wave data is introduced, in which the signal is assumed to be sparse in terms of wave speed. Then, the sparse signal is reconstructed by optimization using l 1 -norm regularization, which gives the signal amplitude spectrum as a function of wave speed. A dispersion image in the f – v domain is generated by arranging the sparse spectra for all frequency slices in the frequency range. Finally, to show the efficiency of the proposed approach, the Surfbar-2 field test data, acquired by B. Luke and colleagues at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, are analysed. By comparing the real-field dispersion image with the results from other methods, the high mode-resolving ability of the proposed approach is demonstrated, particularly for a case with strongly coherent modes.

Description: We analyse daily cross-correlation computed from continuous records by permanent stations operating in vicinity of the Klyuchevskoy group of volcanoes (Kamchatka). Seismic waves generated by volcanic tremors are clearly seen on the cross-correlations between some pairs of stations as strong signals at frequencies between 0.2 and 2 Hz and with traveltimes typically shorter than those corresponding to interstation propagation. First, we develop a 2-D source-scanning algorithm based on summation of the envelops of cross-correlations to detect seismic tremors and to determine locations from which the strong seismic energy is continuously emitted. In an alternative approach, we explore the distinctive character of the cross-correlation waveforms corresponding to tremors emitted by different volcanoes and develop a phase-matching method for detecting volcanic tremors. Application of these methods allows us to detect and to distinguish tremors generated by the Klyuchevskoy and the Tolbachik, volcanoes and to monitor evolution of their intensity in time.

Description: In geophysical inversion, inferences of Earth's properties from sparse data involve a trade-off between model complexity and the spatial resolving power. A recent Markov chain Monte Carlo (McMC) technique formalized by Green, the so-called trans-dimensional samplers, allows us to sample between these trade-offs and to parsimoniously arbitrate between the varying complexity of candidate models. Here we present a novel framework using trans-dimensional sampling over tree structures. This new class of McMC sampler can be applied to 1-D, 2-D and 3-D Cartesian and spherical geometries. In addition, the basis functions used by the algorithm are flexible and can include more advanced parametrizations such as wavelets, both in Cartesian and Spherical geometries, to permit Bayesian multiscale analysis. This new framework offers greater flexibility, performance and efficiency for geophysical imaging problems than previous sampling algorithms. Thereby increasing the range of applications and in particular allowing extension to trans-dimensional imaging in 3-D. Examples are presented of its application to 2-D seismic and 3-D teleseismic tomography including estimation of uncertainty.

Description: Rupture properties, such as rupture direction, length, propagation speed and source duration, provide important insights into earthquake mechanisms. One approach to estimate these properties is to investigate the body-wave duration that depends upon the relative location of the station with respect to the rupture direction. Under the assumption that the propagation is unilateral, the duration can be expressed as a function of the dip and azimuth of the rupture. Examination of duration measurements with respect to both the take-off angle and the azimuth is crucial to obtain robust estimates of rupture parameters, especially for nearly vertical rupture propagation. Moreover, limited data coverage, such as using only teleseismic data, can bias the source duration estimate for dipping ruptures, and this bias can map into estimates of other source properties such as rupture extent and rupture speed. Based upon this framework, we introduce an inversion scheme that uses the duration measurements to obtain four parameters: the source duration, a measure of the rupture extent and speed, and dip and azimuth of the rupture propagation. The method is applied to two deep-focus events in the Sea of Okhotsk region, an M w 7.7 event that occurred on 2012 August 14 and an M w 8.3 event from 2013 May 24. The source durations are 26 ± 1 and 37 ± 1 s, and rupture speeds are 49 ± 4 per cent and 26 ± 3 per cent of shear wave speed for the M w 7.7 and 8.3 events, respectively. The azimuths of the two ruptures are parallel to the trench, but are in opposite directions. The dips of the M w 7.7 and 8.3 events are constrained to be 48° ± 8° downdip and 19° ± 8° updip, respectively. The fit to the data is significantly poorer for the M w 8.3 event than the M w 7.7 event, suggesting that the unilateral rupture may not be a good assumption. The analysis is expanded into a multi-episode model, and a secondary episode is determined for the M w 8.3 event in the southeast direction. The two-episode model gives a better fit to the data than the unilateral model and is compatible with the back-projection analysis, demonstrating that the rupture propagation of the M w 8.3 event is complex.

Description: We take account of the effect of Earth's surface topography in quasi-dynamic earthquake cycle simulations using a boundary integral equation method. While we have so far assumed a homogeneous elastic half-space medium with a flat free surface, Earth's actual surface topography is complicated. Here, we constructed new slip response functions in half-space with an arbitrarily shaped surface topography in which we used slip response functions in full-space by introducing imaginary free surface cells in addition to embedded fault ones. By comparing analytical slip response functions in the case of a flat surface overlying half-space with the new ones, we developed a computationally efficient method for setting the Earth's surface region, which was divided into cells with the appropriate sizes depending on the fault source cell depth to maintain the computational accuracy. With these new slip response functions, we simulated simple interplate earthquake cycles in the region close to the Japan Trench, off Miyagi, Tohoku, in northeast Japan, which has the amplitude of 7 km in depth. Compared with the case where the flat surface level was set at the trench depth, the slip response functions for the case where actual seafloor topography was used had smaller amplitudes. Hence, the actual topography produces smaller recurrence times for earthquake cycles than that for the flat surface case. These effects of the actual Earth's surface topography mainly come from changes in the distance between the surface and the fault compared with the flat surface case. Changes in the slip response function also represent changes in the fault stiffness of the system. Considering the actual topography of the Earth's surface to be convex upwards as opposed to the flat, the fault stiffness becomes larger compared to the case of the flat Earth's surface. This leads to a change in the frictional instability, and sometime leads to the change in the way of rupture.

Description: The fate of subducted slabs is enigmatic, yet intriguing. We analyse seismic arrivals at ~20–50 s after the direct P wave in an array in northeast China (NECESSArray) recordings of four deep earthquakes occurring beneath the west-central Pacific subduction zones (from the eastern Indonesia to Tonga region). We employ the array analysing techniques of fourth root vespagram and beam-forming analysis to constrain the slowness and backazimuth of later arrivals. Our analyses reveal that these arrivals have a slightly lower slowness value than the direct P wave and the backazimuth deviates slightly from the great circle direction. Along with calculation of 1-D synthetic seismograms, we conclude that the later arrival is corresponding to an energy of S -to- P converted at a scatterer below the sources. Total five scatterers are detected at depths varying from ~700 to 1110 km in the study region. The past subducted oceanic crust most likely accounts for the seismic scatterers trapped in the mid-mantle beneath the west-central subduction zones. Our observation in turn reflects that oceanic crust at least partly separated from subducted oceanic lithosphere and may be trapped substantially in the mid-mantle surrounding subduction zones, in particular in the western Pacific subduction zones.

Description: We examine spatio-temporal patterns of microseismicity recorded during one month in an underground mine by addressing three key questions: (1) where does the seismicity occur? (2) Why does it occur in these locations? and (3) what triggers it? To obtain accurate locations, we perform a multiplet analysis and use a modified version of the double-difference (DD) relocation method. This approach leads to highly accurate relative event locations and requires groups of multiplets only. Most of the 281 relocated events are close to the main shaft and tunnels; thus we postulate seismicity is facilitated by stresses associated with the potential for subsidence in addition to the hoop stresses acting on the two vertical shafts. Most events occurred during certain hours of the day and there is a 68 per cent correlation with reported rock removal; therefore, it is likely they were triggered by static and dynamic stress perturbations caused by the transportation of debris along tunnels instead of our initial guess that blasting was the principal causative mechanism. Given that seismicity is present around the main shaft but absent close to the second one, we conclude that for seismicity to occur both a favourable stress state and additional external perturbing forces must exist, thus leading to dynamic event triggering in an initially stable stress situation. This analysis provides more insight into anthropogenic processes that might trigger seismicity, thereby facilitating identification of hazardous and potential damage areas in mine settings.

Description: We present synthetic tests of 2-D adjoint tomography of surface wave traveltimes obtained by the ambient noise cross-correlation analysis across the Czech Republic. The data coverage may be considered perfect for tomography due to the density of the station distribution. Nevertheless, artefacts in the inferred velocity models arising from the data noise may be still observed when weak regularization (Gaussian smoothing of the misfit gradient) or too many iterations are considered. To examine the effect of the regularization and iteration number on the performance of the tomography in more detail we performed extensive synthetic tests. Instead of the typically used (although criticized) checkerboard test, we propose to carry out the tests with two different target models—simple smooth and complex realistic models. The first test reveals the sensitivity of the result on the data noise, while the second helps to analyse the resolving power of the data set. For various noise and Gaussian smoothing levels, we analysed the convergence towards (or divergence from) the target model with increasing number of iterations. Based on the tests we identified the optimal regularization, which we then employed in the inversion of 16 and 20 s Love-wave group traveltimes.

Description: Least-squares migration (LSM) is a linearized inversion technique for subsurface reflectivity estimation. Compared to conventional migration algorithms, it can improve spatial resolution significantly with a few iterative calculations. There are three key steps in LSM, (1) calculate data residuals between observed data and demigrated data using the inverted reflectivity model; (2) migrate data residuals to form reflectivity gradient and (3) update reflectivity model using optimization methods. In order to obtain an accurate and high-resolution inversion result, the good estimation of inverse Hessian matrix plays a crucial role. However, due to the large size of Hessian matrix, the inverse matrix calculation is always a tough task. The limited-memory BFGS (L-BFGS) method can evaluate the Hessian matrix indirectly using a limited amount of computer memory which only maintains a history of the past m gradients (often m 〈 10). We combine the L-BFGS method with least-squares pre-stack Kirchhoff depth migration. Then, we validate the introduced approach by the 2-D Marmousi synthetic data set and a 2-D marine data set. The results show that the introduced method can effectively obtain reflectivity model and has a faster convergence rate with two comparison gradient methods. It might be significant for general complex subsurface imaging.

Description: We present a method for high-resolution imaging of lithospheric structures based on full waveform inversion of teleseismic waveforms. We model the propagation of seismic waves using our recently developed direct solution method/spectral-element method hybrid technique, which allows us to simulate the propagation of short-period teleseismic waves through a regional 3-D model. We implement an iterative quasi-Newton method based upon the L-BFGS algorithm, where the gradient of the misfit function is computed using the adjoint-state method. Compared to gradient or conjugate-gradient methods, the L-BFGS algorithm has a much faster convergence rate. We illustrate the potential of this method on a synthetic test case that consists of a crustal model with a crustal discontinuity at 25 km depth and a sharp Moho jump. This model contains short- and long-wavelength heterogeneities along the lateral and vertical directions. The iterative inversion starts from a smooth 1-D model derived from the IASP91 reference Earth model. We invert both radial and vertical component waveforms, starting from long-period signals filtered at 10 s and gradually decreasing the cut-off period down to 1.25 s. This multiscale algorithm quickly converges towards a model that is very close to the true model, in contrast to inversions involving short-period waveforms only, which always get trapped into a local minimum of the cost function.

Description: We analyse the physics and geometry of trade-offs between Earth structure and noise sources in interstation noise correlations. Our approach is based on the computation of off-diagonal Hessian elements that describe the extent to which variations in noise sources can compensate for variations in Earth structure without changing the misfit beyond the measurement uncertainty. Despite the fact that all ambient noise inverse problems are special in terms of their receiver configuration and data, some general statements concerning source-structure trade-offs can be made: (i) While source-structure trade-offs may be reduced to some extent by clever measurement design, there are inherent trade-offs that can generally not be avoided. These inherent trade-offs may lead to a mispositioning of structural heterogeneities when the noise source distribution is unknown. (ii) When attenuation is weak, source-structure trade-offs in ambient noise correlations are a global phenomenon, meaning that there is no noise source perturbation that does not trade-off with some Earth structure, and vice versa. (iii) The most significant source-structure trade-offs occur within two elliptically shaped regions connecting a potential noise source perturbation to each one of the receivers. (iv) Far from these elliptical regions, only small-scale structure can trade off against changes in the noise source. (v) While source-structure trade-offs mostly decay with increasing attenuation, they are nearly unaffected by attenuation when the noise source perturbation is located near the receiver-receiver line. This work is intended to contribute to the development of joint source-structure inversions of ambient noise correlations, and in particular to an understanding of the extent to which source-structure trade-offs may be reduced. It furthermore establishes the foundation of future resolution analyses that properly quantify trade-offs between noise sources and Earth structure.

Description: Reactive flow at depth (either related to underground activities, like enhancement of hydrocarbon recovery and CO 2 storage, or to natural flow like in hydrothermal zones) can alter fractures’ topography, which might in turn change their seismic responses. Depending on the flow and reaction rates, instability of the dissolution front can lead to a wormhole-like pronounced erosion pattern. In a fractal structure of rupture process, we question how the perturbation related to well-spaced long channels alters rupture propagation initiated on a weak plane and eventually the statistical feature of rupture appearance in frequency–magnitude distribution (FMD). Contrary to intuition, a spatially uniform dissolution is not the most remarkable case, since it affects all the events proportionally to their sizes leading to a downward translation of FMD: the slope of FMD ( b -value) remains unchanged. The parameter–space study shows that the increase of b -value (of 0.08) is statistically significant for optimum characteristics of the erosion pattern with spacing to length ratio of the order of ~1/40: large-magnitude events are more significantly affected leading to an imbalanced distribution in the magnitude bins of the FMD. The larger the spacing, the lower the channel's influence. Besides, a spatial analysis shows that the local seismicity anomaly concentrates in a limited zone around the channels: this opens perspective for detecting these eroded regions through high-resolution imaging surveys.

Description: The Anatolian Plate is composed of different lithospheric blocks and ribbon continents amalgamated during the closure of the Paleotethys Ocean and Neotethys Ocean along a subduction margin. Using ambient noise tomography, we investigate the crustal and uppermost mantle shear wave velocity structure of the Anatolian Plate. A total of 215 broad-band seismic stations were used spanning 7 yr of recording to compute 13 778 cross-correlations and obtain Rayleigh wave dispersion measurements for periods between 8 and 40 s. We then perform a shear wave inversion to calculate the seismic velocity structure of the crust and uppermost mantle. Our results show that the overall crustal shear wave velocities of the Anatolian crust are low (~3.4 km s –1 ), indicative of a felsic overall composition. We find that prominent lateral seismic velocity gradients correlate with Tethyan suture zones, supporting the idea that the neotectonic structures of Turkey are exploiting the lithospheric weaknesses associated with the amalgamation of Anatolia. Anomalously slow shear wave velocities (~3.15 km s –1 at 25 km) are located in the western limb of the Isparta Angle in southwestern Turkey. In the upper crust, we find that these low shear wave velocities correlate well with the projected location of a carbonate platform unit (Bey Dağlari) beneath the Lycian Nappe complex. In the lower crust and upper mantle of this region, we propose that the anomalously slow velocities are due to the introduction of aqueous fluids related to the underplating of accretionary material from the underthrusting of a buoyant, attenuated continental fragment similar to the Eratosthenes seamount. We suggest that this fragment controlled the location of the formation of the Subduction-Transform Edge Propagator fault in the eastern Aegean Sea during rapid slab rollback of the Aegean Arc in early Miocene times. Lastly, we observe that the uppermost mantle beneath continental Anatolia is generally slow (~4.2 km s –1 ), indicating higher than usual temperatures consistent with the influx of asthenosphere to shallow depths as a result of the segmentation and break-up of the subducting African lithosphere.

Description: The H/V spectral ratio has emerged as a single station method within the seismic ambient noise analysis field by its capability to quickly estimate the frequency of resonance at a site and through inversion the average profile information. Although it is easy to compute from experimental data, its counter theoretical part is not obvious when building a forward model which can help in reconstructing the derived H/V spectrum. This has led to the simplified assumption that the noise wavefield is mainly composed of Rayleigh waves and the derived H/V often used without further correction. Furthermore, only the right (and left) flank around the H/V peak frequency is considered in the inversion for the subsurface 1-D shear wave velocity profile. A new theoretical approach for the interpretation of the H/V spectral ratio has been presented by Sánchez-Sesma et al. In this paper, the fundamental idea behind their theory is presented as it applies to receivers at depth. A smooth H/V( z , f ) spectral curve on a broad frequency range is obtained by considering a fine integration step which is in turn time consuming. We show that for practical purposes and in the context of inversion, this can be considerably optimized by using a coarse integration step combined with the smoothing of the corresponding directional energy density (DED) spectrum. Further analysis shows that the obtained H/V( z , f ) spectrum computed by the mean of the imaginary part of Green's function method could also be recovered using the reflectivity method for a medium well illuminated by seismic sources. Inversion of synthetic H/V( z , f ) spectral curve is performed for a single layer over a half space. The striking results allow to potentially use the new theory as a forward computation of the H/V( z , f ) to fully invert the experimental H/V spectral ratio at the corresponding depth for the shear velocity profile ( Vs ) and additionally the compressional velocity profile ( Vp ) using receivers both at the surface and in depth. We use seismic ambient noise data in the frequency range of 0.2–50 Hz recorded at two selected sites in Germany where borehole information is also available. The obtained 1-D Vs and Vp profiles are correlated with geological log information. Results from shallow geophysical experiment are also used for comparison.

Description: The 1000-km-long left-lateral Dead Sea fault is a major tectonic structure of the oriental Mediterranean basin, bounding the Arabian Plate to the west. The fault is located in a region with an exceptionally long and rich historical record, allowing to document historical seismicity catalogues with unprecedented level of details. However, if the earthquake time series is well documented, location and lateral extent of past earthquakes remain often difficult to establish, if only based on historical testimonies. We excavated a palaeoseismic trench in a site located in a kilometre-size extensional jog, south of the Dead Sea, in the Wadi Araba. Based on the stratigraphy exposed in the trench, we present evidence for nine earthquakes that produced surface ruptures during a time period spanning 5000 yr. Abundance of datable material allows us to tie the five most recent events to historical earthquakes with little ambiguities, and to constrain the possible location of these historical earthquakes. The events identified at our site are the 1458 C.E., 1212 C.E., 1068 C.E., one event during the 8th century crisis, and the 363 C.E. earthquake. Four other events are also identified, which correlation with historical events remains more speculative. The magnitude of earthquakes is difficult to assess based on evidence at one site only. The deformation observed in the excavation, however, allows discriminating between two classes of events that produced vertical deformation with one order of amplitude difference, suggesting that we could distinguish earthquakes that started/stopped at our site from earthquakes that potentially ruptured most of the Wadi Araba fault. The time distribution of earthquakes during the past 5000 yr is uneven. The early period shows little activity with return interval of ~500 yr or longer. It is followed by a ~1500-yr-long period with more frequent events, about every 200 yr. Then, for the past ~550 yr, the fault has switched back to a quieter mode with no significant earthquake along the entire southern part of the Dead Sea fault, between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. We computed the Coefficient of Variation for our site and three other sites along the Dead Sea fault, south of Lebanon, to compare time distribution of earthquakes at different locations along the fault. With one exception at a site located next to Lake Tiberias, the three other sites are consistent to show some temporal clustering at the scale of few thousands years.

Description: The proposed study deals with synthesis of seismograms by BIEM (boundary integral equation method) taking into account all three base components-seismic source, wave path and local region of interest. Consider a laterally inhomogeneous geological profile situated in a half-plane with non-parallel layers. Seismic load is time-harmonic or transient in time. It is presented by incident SH wave or wave radiating from an embedded line seismic source. Two types of lateral inhomogeneities with arbitrary shape and located in the inhomogeneous half-plane are considered: (i) free-surface relief as a canyon or a hill; (ii) alluvial basin with properties different from those of the layered half-plane. The computational tool is BIEM based on the frequency-dependent elastodynamic fundamental solutions. A relation between displacements and tractions along the free surface and arbitrary interface of the soil stratum is derived, which is applicable for arbitrary geometry of the interfaces between soil layers. Validation and convergence study is presented. All simulations reveal the sensitivity of the synthetic seismic signals on the type and characteristics of the seismic time-harmonic or transient load, on the wave path inhomogeneity and on the specific geotechnical properties of the local geological region.

Description: Time-shift estimation between arrivals in two seismic traces before and after a velocity perturbation is a crucial step in many seismic methods. The accuracy of the estimated velocity perturbation location and amplitude depend on this time shift. Windowed cross-correlation and trace stretching are two techniques commonly used to estimate local time shifts in seismic signals. In the work presented here we implement Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) to estimate the warping function – a vector of local time shifts that globally minimizes the misfit between two seismic traces. We compare all three methods using acoustic numerical experiments. We show that DTW is comparable to or better than the other two methods when the velocity perturbation is homogeneous and the signal-to-noise ratio is high. When the signal-to-noise ratio is low, we find that DTW and windowed cross-correlation are more accurate than the stretching method. Finally, we show that the DTW algorithm has good time resolution when identifying small differences in the seismic traces for a model with an isolated velocity perturbation. These results impact current methods that utilize not only time shifts between (multiply) scattered waves, but also amplitude and decoherence measurements.

Description: We discuss several outstanding aspects of seismograms recorded during 〉4 weeks by a spatially dense Nodal array, straddling the damage zone of the San Jacinto fault in southern California, and some example results. The waveforms contain numerous spikes and bursts of high-frequency waves (up to the recorded 200 Hz) produced in part by minute failure events in the shallow crust. The high spatial density of the array facilitates the detection of 120 small local earthquakes in a single day, most of which not detected by the surrounding ANZA and regional southern California networks. Beamforming results identify likely ongoing cultural noise sources dominant in the frequency range 1–10 Hz and likely ongoing earthquake sources dominant in the frequency range 20–40 Hz. Matched-field processing and back-projection of seismograms provide alternate event location. The median noise levels during the experiment at different stations, waves generated by Betsy gunshots, and wavefields from nearby earthquakes point consistently to several structural units across the fault. Seismic trapping structure and local sedimentary basin produce localized motion amplification and stronger attenuation than adjacent regions. Cross correlations of high-frequency noise recorded at closely spaced stations provide a structural image of the subsurface material across the fault zone. The high spatial density and broad frequency range of the data can be used for additional high resolution studies of structure and source properties in the shallow crust.

Description: Recently A. Gusev suggested and numerically investigated the doubly stochastic earthquake source model. The model is supposed to demonstrate the following features in the far-field body waves: (1) the omega-square high-frequency (HF) behaviour of displacement spectra; (2) lack of the directivity effect in HF radiation; and (3) a stochastic nature of the HF signal component. The model involves two stochastic elements: the local stress drop (SD) on a fault and the rupture time function (RT) with a linear dominant component. The goal of the present study is to investigate the Gusev model theoretically and to find conditions for (1, 2) to be valid and stable relative to receiver site. The models with smooth elements SD, RT are insufficient for these purposes. Therefore, SD and RT are treated as realizations of stochastic fields of the fractal type. The local smoothness of such fields is characterized by the fractional (Hurst) exponent H , 0 〈 H 〈 1. This allows us to consider a wide class of stochastic functions without regard to their global spectral properties. We show that the omega-square behavior of the model is achieved approximately if the rupture time function is almost regular ( H ~1) while the stress drop is rough function of any index H . However, if the rupture front is linear, the local stress drop has to be function of minimal smoothness ( H ~0). The situation with the directivity effect is more complicated: for different RT models with the same fractal index, the effect may or may not occur. The nature of the phenomenon is purely analytical. The main controlling factor for the directivity is the degree of smoothness of the 2-D distributions of RT random function. For this reason the directivity effect is unstable. This means that in practice the opposite conclusions relative to the statistical significance of the directivity effect are possible.

Description: In general, seismic slip along faults reduces the average shear stress within earthquake source regions, but stress drops of specific earthquakes are observed to vary widely in size. To advance our understanding of variations in stress drop, we analysed source parameters of small-magnitude events in the greater San Gorgonio area, southern California. In San Gorgonio, the regional tectonics are controlled by a restraining bend of the San Andreas fault system, which results in distributed crustal deformation, and heterogeneous slip along numerous strike-slip and thrust faults. Stress drops were estimated by fitting a Brune-type spectral model to source spectra obtained by iteratively stacking the observed amplitude spectra. The estimates have large scatter among individual events but the median of event populations shows systematic, statistically significant variations. We identified several crustal and faulting parameters that may contribute to local variations in stress drop including the style of faulting, changes in average tectonic slip rates, mineralogical composition of the host rocks, as well as the hypocentral depths of seismic events. We observed anomalously high stress drops (〉20 MPa) in a small region between the traces of the San Gorgonio and Mission Creek segments of the San Andreas fault. Furthermore, the estimated stress drops are higher below depths of ~10 km and along the San Gorgonio fault segment, but are lower both to the north and south away from San Gorgonio Pass, showing an approximate negative correlation with geologic slip rates. Documenting controlling parameters of stress-drop heterogeneity is important to advance regional hazard assessment and our understanding of earthquake rupture processes.

Description: We analyze the cross-correlation function (CCF) of coda of earthquakes, which is used to retrieve the Green's function between two stations as well as the CCF of ambient noise. We select 74 Hi-net stations located in eastern Japan and 66 earthquakes to calculate the CCF. For each earthquake, we calculate the CCFs between possible pairs for the frequency bands of 0.1–0.2 Hz, 0.2–0.4 Hz and 0.4–0.8 Hz. Then we stack the CCFs for different earthquakes at each pair to obtain the average CCF. Although the correlation coefficients between the average and each CCFs are lower than 0.5 for most of the earthquakes, we obtain the propagating Rayleigh wave trace from average CCFs. We focus on the ratio of the amplitude in the positive lag time of the CCF to that in the negative lag time. CCFs for different earthquakes show different ratios which depend on the angle between the path of two stations and the epicentre. The amplitude in the lag time corresponding to the signal travelling from the near source station to the far source station is larger than that in the opposite lag time. Therefore the energy flux is not isotropic even in the coda and the energy from the source side is dominant. We average the ratios of pairs whose absolute values of angles are less than 45°. The average ratios are 0.5 at 0.1–0.2 Hz. For higher frequencies, the ratio is not clear because of the bad signal-to-noise ratio. According to the diffusion model, the ratio is predicted as 0.6. Therefore, the coda is represented as the diffusion state in 0.1–0.2 Hz with our observation setting.

Description: Microseismic monitoring from large arrays using migration-based detection and location techniques is limited by detections of false positive events, which are the interpretation of spurious/noisy signals as real events. Therefore, semblance has been considered to differentiate between false positive and true events. However, semblance by itself is not suitable for variable signals such as those caused by shear source radiation. We present a new methodology for event detection and location using semblance of amplitudes corrected by a source mechanism. Our method is suitable for multichannel processing of microseismic data sets acquired with large arrays. The amplitudes are corrected by the radiation pattern of the inverted source mechanism before the semblance computation. We show that the source mechanism correction is the key factor in maximizing the value of semblance and makes the detection based on semblance superior to simple stacking. We apply this method to a data set recorded by a large surface star-like array on synthetic as well as on field data.

Description: A new effective model is presented to compute horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratios (HVSR) relative to ambient vibrations, under the assumption that these are originated by a distribution of spatially correlated random surface sources. The major novelty of this model lies in the description of both ground displacement and sources as stochastic fields defined on the Earth's surface, stationary in time and homogeneous in space. In this frame, the power spectral density of the displacement stochastic field can be written as a function of the power spectral density of the force stochastic field and of the subsoil properties, through the relevant Green's function. Spatial correlation between ambient vibration sources is shown to be a necessary condition to warrant convergence of the integrals defining the frequency power spectra of the displacement field that make up the HVSR curve. Furthermore, it is shown that this HVSR curve may be significantly affected by the effective range of the force-field correlation on the Earth's surface. This formalization reduces computational efforts with respect to the previous version of the model based on distributed surface sources and may provide synthetic HVSR-curve patterns that are in line with those given by that computationally more troublesome version, as well as with those deduced under the assumption that the ambient vibrations constitute a diffuse wavefield.

Description: Since centroid moment tensor (CMT) solution is not enough to describe the mechanism variations of large earthquakes, multiple CMTs were investigated in recent years by inverting seismic waveforms to retrieve the mechanism complexities. However, a problem in these waveform inversions is the trade-off between spatial mechanism variation and temporal rupture process, which may lead to ambiguous results. In this work, we propose a simple but practical approach to invert geodetic coseismic data for spatial mechanism variation. Because there is no need to solve for rupture velocity, geodetic inversion is generally more efficient and robust than waveform inversion. This approach was used to investigate the mechanism variation of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. In the case study, a line fault, whose position had been optimized through a 3-D grid search, was used to approximate the rupture fault, aiming to determine the mechanism variations along the strike direction. From the inversion results, there are thrust-slips and strike-slips in the southwest and northeast, respectively. The mechanism change appears at 160–200 km to the northeast of the epicentre, where compensated linear vector dipoles (CLVDs) have a local maximum and also support a significant mechanism change. By testing eight line faults with different positions, it is found that the inversion results do not strongly depend on the fault position, suggesting that the mechanism and its variations are robustly constrained in coseismic data inversion with our approach. Compared to waveform inversions, this work provides a more effective way to explore the mechanism complexities, and lays a foundation for future joint inversion of seismic and geodetic data sets.

Description: The seismic structure of Earth's inner core is highly complex, displaying strong anisotropy and further regional variations. However, few seismic waves are sensitive to the inner core and fundamental questions regarding the origin of the observed seismic features remain unanswered. Thus, new techniques to observe different types of inner core waves are imperative to improve data coverage. Here, we detail our method for detecting exotic inner core phases such as PKJKP and PKIIKP, using inner core compressional waves as proof of concept. We use phase weighted stacking on long period data from a global distribution of stations, and employ several synthetic methods, including normal mode summation and SPECFEM, to identify and confirm the inner core phases. We present evidence for two observations of exotic inner core compressional waves, and apply the technique to a previously detected inner core shear wave. A possible new inner core shear wave remains unconfirmed. Additionally, we show how our method is important for rejecting potential observations, and distinguishing between waves with similar traveltime and slowness. The method is most successful for detecting exotic inner core compressional waves, and will provide a new approach for studying the compressional wave structures in the upper inner core.

Description: Temporal changes in seismic anisotropy can be interpreted as variations in the orientation of cracks in seismogenic zones, and thus as variations in the stress field. Such temporal changes have been observed in seismogenic zones before and after earthquakes, although they are still not well understood. In this study, we investigate the azimuthal polarization of surface waves in anisotropic media with respect to the orientation of anisotropy, from a numerical point of view. This technique is based on the observation of the signature of anisotropy on the nine-component cross-correlation tensor (CCT) computed from seismic ambient noise recorded on pairs of three-component sensors. If noise sources are spatially distributed in a homogeneous medium, the CCT allows the reconstruction of the surface wave Green's tensor between the station pairs. In homogeneous, isotropic medium, four off-diagonal terms of the surface wave Green's tensor are null, but not in anisotropic medium. This technique is applied to three-component synthetic seismograms computed in a transversely isotropic medium with a horizontal symmetry axis, using a spectral element code. The CCT is computed between each pair of stations and then rotated, to approximate the surface wave Green's tensor by minimizing the off-diagonal components. This procedure allows the calculation of the azimuthal variation of quasi-Rayleigh and quasi-Love waves. In an anisotropic medium, in some cases, the azimuth of seismic anisotropy can induce a large variation in the horizontal polarization of surface waves. This variation depends on the relative angle between a pair of stations and the direction of anisotropy, the amplitude of the anisotropy, the frequency band of the signal and the depth of the anisotropic layer.

Description: Conventional traveltime seismic tomography methods with Tikhonov regularization (L 2 norm) typically produce smooth models, but these models may be inappropriate when subsurface structure contains discontinuous features, such as faults or fractures, indicating that tomographic models should contain sharp boundaries. For this reason, we develop a double-difference (DD) traveltime tomography method that uses a modified total-variation regularization scheme incorporated with a priori information on interfaces to preserve sharp property contrasts and obtain accurate inversion results. In order to solve the inversion problem, we employ an alternating minimization method to decouple the original DD tomography problem into two separate subproblems: a conventional DD tomography with Tikhonov regularization and a L 2 total-variation inversion. We use the LSQR linear solver to solve the Tikhonov inversion and the split-Bregman iterative method to solve the total-variation inversion. Through our numerical examples, we show that our new DD tomography method yields more accurate results than the conventional DD tomography method at almost the same computational cost.

Description: The Rudbar-Tarom earthquake of 1990 June 20 ( M 0  = 1.4 10 27 dyn cm), the largest one in Iran over the past 35 yr, was accompanied by a small tsunami in the Caspian Sea, which produced run-ups of up to 2 m, and inundations of 1 km, reaffirming the existence of tsunami hazard along the Caspian shoreline, as suggested by historical reports. We present the results of a field survey, documenting the concentration of the effects of the tsunami along a section of coastline not exceeding 30 km in length. A hydrodynamic simulation using the earthquake dislocation as the source of the tsunami fails to reproduce both the amplitude of the waves, and especially their concentration between the cities of Kiashahr and Jafrood. Rather, we show that the model of an underwater landslide, presumably triggered by the earthquake, and taking place on the steep slopes of the continental shelf approximately 10 km offshore, can fit the principal inundation characteristics identified during the survey. We suggest that the occurrence of such underwater landslides should become a primary ingredient to the assessment of tsunami risk along the Southern shores of the Caspian Sea.

Description: In the Umbria–Marche (Central Italy) region an important earthquake sequence occurred in 1997, characterized by nine earthquakes with magnitudes in the range between 5 and 6, that caused important damages and causalities. In the present paper, we separately estimate intrinsic and scattering Q –1 parameters, using the classical multiple lapse time window analysis (MLTWA) approach in the assumption of a half-space model. The results clearly show that the attenuation parameters Q i –1 and Q s –1 are frequency dependent. This estimate is compared with other attenuation studies carried out in the same area, and with all the other MLTWA estimates obtained till now in other tectonic environments in the Earth. The bias introduced by the half-space assumption is investigated through numerical solutions of the energy transport equation in the more realistic assumption of a heterogeneous crust overlying a transparent mantle, with a Moho located at a depth ranging between 35 and 45 km below the surface. The bias introduced by the half-space assumption is significant only at high frequency. We finally show how the attenuation estimates, calculated with different techniques, lead to different peak ground acceleration decay with distance relationships, using the well-known and well proven Boore's method. This last result indicates that care must be used in selecting the correct estimate of the attenuation parameters for seismic risk purposes. We also discuss the reason why MLTWA may be chosen among all the other available techniques, due to its intrinsic stability, to obtain the right attenuation parameters.

Description: We present a new approach to measuring crustal thickness and bulk properties from teleseismic data. In contrast to the traditional H – k stacking approach, which involves receiver-function deconvolution followed by stacking along expected arrival-time curves, we eliminate the deconvolution step and generate synthetic transfer functions predicting the relationship between the vertical and radial components. Given a catalogue of precalculated transfer functions, we convolve the vertical component with each assumed transfer function and then calculate a misfit between the real and predicted radial component. As a single-layer crust is no longer a necessary assumption, we use the transfer-function approach to extend H – k analysis to models containing sedimentary basins. Applied to a data set in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, where the Archean Superior Province, Paleoproterozoic Trans-Hudson Orogen and Meso/Neoproterozoic Mid-Continent Rift are largely overlain by sediments of the Williston Basin, we find that the transfer-function approach is able to recover approximate sedimentary thickness, as well as remove the contaminating effects of the sedimentary layers from crustal thickness and basement P/S velocity ratio measurements. We find that the Superior Province has uniformly low P/S ratio, reflecting a highly felsic composition, but has substantial Moho topography, with substantial crustal thinning to the west possibly related to Trans-Hudson accretion. The Trans-Hudson has thick crust with higher (more mafic) P/S ratio; higher ratios in the Superior near the Trans-Hudson contact suggest that the Superior is overthrust on Trans-Hudson basement material. The vicinity of the Mid-Continent Rift shows thinned crust, elevated P/S ratio, and a localized zone of very high P/S ratio associated with a rift offset, possibly related to a former triple junction, that extends northwestward into the Superior following a recently detected linear mantle anomaly.

Description: Measurements of seismic anisotropy are commonly used to constrain deformation in the upper mantle. Observations of anisotropy at mid-mantle depths are, however, relatively sparse. In this study we probe the anisotropic structure of the mid-mantle (transition zone and uppermost lower mantle) beneath the Japan, Izu-Bonin, and South America subduction systems. We present source-side shear wave splitting measurements for direct teleseismic S phases from earthquakes deeper than 300 km that have been corrected for the effects of upper mantle anisotropy beneath the receiver. In each region, we observe consistent splitting with delay times as large as 1 s, indicating the presence of anisotropy at mid-mantle depths. Clear splitting of phases originating from depths as great as ~600 km argues for a contribution from anisotropy in the uppermost lower mantle as well as the transition zone. Beneath Japan, fast splitting directions are perpendicular or oblique to the slab strike and do not appear to depend on the propagation direction of the waves. Beneath South America and Izu-Bonin, splitting directions vary from trench-parallel to trench-perpendicular and have an azimuthal dependence, indicating lateral heterogeneity. Our results provide evidence for the presence of laterally variable anisotropy and are indicative of variable deformation and dynamics at mid-mantle depths in the vicinity of subducting slabs.

Description: We estimated spatiotemporal slip distributions from three long-term slow slip events (L-SSEs) that occurred beneath the Bungo Channel at the convergent plate boundary between the subducting oceanic Philippine Sea plate and the continental Amurian plate in southwest Japan between 1997 and 1998, 2002 and 2004 and 2009 and 2011. For this purpose, we employed an inversion method using a Bayesian Information Criterion (ABIC), which included the following three prior constraints: the spatial slip distribution was smooth to some extent, slip directions were mostly oriented in the direction of plate convergence and the temporal change in slip was smooth to some extent. Our results revealed that the three L-SSEs had a common feature: slipped regions expanded southwestward at accelerating slip velocities. We also found that major slipped regions migrated southwestward by approximately 50–100 km yr –1 . In contrast, southwestward and northeastward migration of the slipped regions, whose direction differed from event to event, was also identified before or after the periods when the slip velocities were at their greatest. Comparing the obtained spatiotemporal slip distributions of the three L-SSEs with slip-deficit rate distributions obtained in our previous study, we investigated the accumulation process of the slip deficit caused by slip-deficit rate distributions and the release processes of the slip deficit caused by the obtained spatiotemporal slip distributions of the three L-SSEs. At the western plate interface of the Bungo Channel, as the slip-deficit rate was small and the amounts of slips associated with the three L-SSEs were large, most of the accumulated slip deficit was estimated to have been released. In contrast, at the eastern plate interface, as the slip-deficit rate was large and the amounts of slips associated with the three L-SSEs were small, the slip deficit was estimated to have accumulated effectively. These results suggest that the slipped regions of the three L-SSEs and the strongly coupled region are not spatially complementary; the accumulated slip deficit showed spatial variation even at approximately the same depth range along the arc.

Description: We present observations of cross coupled spheroidal modes in the Earth's free oscillation spectrum recorded by the vertical component G-ring laser (Geodetical Station Wettzell) of the 2011 M w 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake. In an attempt to determine which are the mechanisms responsible for spheroidal energy in a vertical axes rotational spectra, we first rule out instrumental effects as well as the effect of local heterogeneity. Secondly, we carry out simulations of an ideal rotational sensor taking into account the effects of the Earth's rotation, its hydrostatic ellipticity and structural heterogeneity, which results in a good fit to the data. Simulations considering each effect separately are performed in order to evaluate the sensitivity of rotational motions to various phenomena compared to traditional translation measurements.

Description: Local earthquake tomography is a non-linear and non-unique inverse problem that uses event arrival times to solve for the spatial distribution of elastic properties. The typical approach is to apply iterative linearization and derive a preferred solution, but such solutions are biased by a number of subjective choices: the starting model that is iteratively adjusted, the degree of regularization used to obtain a smooth solution, and the assumed noise level in the arrival time data. These subjective choices also affect the estimation of the uncertainties in the inverted parameters. The method presented here is developed in a Bayesian framework where a priori information and measurements are combined to define a posterior probability density of the parameters of interest: elastic properties in a subsurface 3-D model, hypocentre coordinates and noise level in the data. We apply a trans-dimensional Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm that asymptotically samples the posterior distribution of the investigated parameters. This approach allows us to overcome the issues raised above. First, starting a number of sampling chains from random samples of the prior probability distribution lessens the dependence of the solution from the starting point. Secondly, the number of elastic parameters in the 3-D subsurface model is one of the unknowns in the inversion, and the parsimony of Bayesian inference ensures that the degree of detail in the solution is controlled by the information in the data, given realistic assumptions for the error statistics. Finally, the noise level in the data, which controls the uncertainties of the solution, is also one of the inverted parameters, providing a first-order estimate of the data errors. We apply our method to both synthetic and field arrival time data. The synthetic data inversion successfully recovers velocity anomalies, hypocentre coordinates and the level of noise in the data. The Bayesian inversion of field measurements gives results comparable to those obtained independently by linearized inversion, reconstructing the geometry of the main seismic velocity anomalies. The quantification of the posterior uncertainties, a crucial output of Bayesian inversion, allows for visualizing regions where elastic properties are closely constrained by the data and is used here to directly compare our results to the ones obtained with the linearized inversion. In the case we examined the results of two inversion techniques are not significantly different.

Description: A concept of seismic system (SS), which is responsible for the preparation of an ensemble of strong earthquakes, is considered as an open dissipative system exchanging energy and entropy with the environment. Open dissipative SS allow one to describe the equilibrium and non-equilibrium states of SS, and the lithosphere evolution under different plate tectonic settings on the basis of seismostatistics. Several new seismic parameters (‘seismic temperature’, ‘seismic time’, dissipation function, efficiency, inelastic energy, dynamical probability) are defined and proposed for better understanding and describing the dynamical processes. The Sakhalin SS is considered to illustrate the behaviour of proposed parameters. By analogy to Liouville's equation in thermodynamics, it is shown that there is no criterion of instability in the domain where the Gutenberg-Richter law is true. In the proposed approach, the instability origination and the formation of seismogenic structures in the lithosphere are based on the energy versus information entropy power law; the existence of ‘time arrow’ also proceeds from such a dependence. Application of energy and trajectory diagrams enables to describe the preparation of strong earthquakes within an ensemble in terms of slow and fast timescales. These diagrams help perform the spatiotemporal-energy monitoring of the instability origination in the lithosphere. It is shown that the information entropy parameter can serve as a measure of the unknown external energy flow into the system (this energy is supplied for the elastic radiation energy in the earthquake sources and for inelastic processes in the system volume). The property of the ensemble of strong earthquakes is periodically to restore the SS equilibrium state that enables to describe the SS energy balance. The results offer possibilities to estimate the fraction of inelastic energy released by the SS medium during the preparation and occurrence of seismic catastrophes. The construction of phase diagrams and ‘entropy funnels’ in the virtual space (with time, energy and entropy coordinates) can provide new opportunities for the visualization of undetectable processes leading to disastrous earthquakes.

Description: The structure of the Earth's inner core is not well known between depths of ~100–200 km beneath the inner core boundary. This is a result of the PKP core phase triplication and the existence of strong precursors to PKP phases, which hinder the measurement of inner core compressional PKIKP waves at epicentral distances between roughly 143 and 148°. Consequently, interpretation of the detailed structure of deeper regions also remains difficult. To overcome these issues we stack seismograms in slowness and time, separating the PKP and PKIKP phases which arrive simultaneously but with different slowness. We apply this method to study the inner core's Western hemisphere beneath South and Central America using paths travelling in the quasi-polar direction between 140 and 150° epicentral distance, which enables us to measure PKiKP–PKIKP differential traveltimes up to greater epicentral distance than has previously been done. The resulting PKiKP–PKIKP differential traveltime residuals increase with epicentral distance, which indicates a marked increase in seismic velocity for polar paths at depths greater than 100 km compared to reference model AK135. Assuming a homogeneous outer core, these findings can be explained by either (i) inner core heterogeneity due to an increase in isotropic velocity or (ii) increase in anisotropy over the studied depth range. Although this study only samples a small region of the inner core and the current data cannot distinguish between the two alternatives, we prefer the latter interpretation in the light of previous work.

Description: The PP precursors are seismic waves that form from underside reflections of P waves off discontinuities in the upper mantle transition zone (MTZ). These seismic phases are used to map discontinuity topography, sharpness, and impedance contrasts; the resulting structural variations are then often interpreted as evidence for temperature and/or mineralogy variations within the mantle. The PP precursors as well as other seismic phases have been used to establish the global presence of seismic discontinuities at 410 and 660 km depth. Intriguingly, in more than 80 per cent of PP precursor observations the seismic wave amplitudes are significantly weaker than the amplitudes predicted by seismic reference models. Even more perplexing is the observation that 1–5 per cent of all earthquakes (which are 20–25 per cent of earthquakes with clear PP waveforms) do not show any evidence for the PP precursors from the discontinuities even in the presence of well-developed PP waveforms. Non-detections are found in six different data sets consisting of tens to hundreds of events. We use synthetic modelling to examine a suite of factors that could be responsible for the absence of the PP precursors. The take-off angles for PP and the precursors differ by only 1.2–1.5°; thus source-related complexity would affect PP and the precursors. A PP wave attenuated in the upper mantle would increase the relative amplitude of the PP precursors. Attenuation within the transition zone could reduce precursor amplitudes, but this would be a regional phenomenon restricted to particular source receiver geometries. We also find little evidence for deviations from the theoretical travel path of seismic rays expected for scattered arrivals. Factors that have a strong influence include the stacking procedures used in seismic array techniques in the presence of large, interfering phases, the presence of topography on the discontinuities on the order of tens of kilometres, and 3-D lateral heterogeneity in the velocity and density changes with depth across the transition zone. We also compare the observed precursors’ amplitudes with seismic models from calculations of phase equilibria and find that a seismic velocity model derived from a pyrolite composition reproduces the data better than the currently available 1-D earth models. This largely owes to the pyrolite models producing a stronger minimum in the reflection coefficient across the epicentral distances where the reduction in amplitudes of the PP precursors is observed. To suppress the precursors entirely in a small subset of earthquakes, other effects, such as localized discontinuity topography and seismic signal processing effects are required in addition to the changed velocity model.

Description: A method for combining the asymptotic operator designed by Beylkin (Born migration operator) for the solution of linearized inverse problems with full waveform inversion is presented. This operator is used to modify the standard L 2 norm that measures the distance between synthetic and observed data. The modified misfit function measures the discrepancy of the synthetic and observed data after they have been migrated using the Beylkin operator. The gradient of this new misfit function is equal to the cross-correlation of the single scattering data with migrated/demigrated residuals. The modified misfit function possesses a Hessian operator that tends asymptotically towards the identity operator. The trade-offs between discrete parameters are thus reduced in this inversion scheme. Results on 2-D synthetic case studies demonstrate the fast convergence of this inversion method in a migration regime. From an accurate estimation of the initial velocity, three and five iterations only are required to generate high-resolution P -wave velocity estimation models on the Marmousi 2 and synthetic Valhall case studies.

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: The depth of an earthquake is difficult to estimate because of the trade-off between depth and origin time estimations, and because it can be biased by lateral Earth heterogeneities. To face this challenge, we have developed a new, blind and fully automatic teleseismic depth analysis. The results of this new method do not depend on epistemic uncertainties due to depth-phase picking and identification. The method consists of a modification of the cepstral analysis from Letort et al. and Bonner et al. , which aims to detect surface reflected (pP, sP) waves in a signal at teleseismic distances (30°–90°) through the study of the spectral holes in the shape of the signal spectrum. The ability of our automatic method to improve depth estimations is shown by relocation of the recent moderate seismicity of the Guerrero subduction area (Mexico). We have therefore estimated the depth of 152 events using teleseismic data from the IRIS stations and arrays. One advantage of this method is that it can be applied for single stations (from IRIS) as well as for classical arrays. In the Guerrero area, our new cepstral analysis efficiently clusters event locations and provides an improved view of the geometry of the subduction. Moreover, we have also validated our method through relocation of the same events using the new International Seismological Centre (ISC)-locator algorithm, as well as comparing our cepstral depths with the available Harvard–Centroid Moment Tensor (CMT) solutions and the three available ground thrust (GT5) events (where lateral localization is assumed to be well constrained with uncertainty 〈5 km) for this area. These comparisons indicate an overestimation of focal depths in the ISC catalogue for deeper parts of the subduction, and they show a systematic bias between the estimated cepstral depths and the ISC-locator depths. Using information from the CMT catalogue relating to the predominant focal mechanism for this area, this bias can be explained as a misidentification of sP phases by pP phases, which shows the greater interest for the use of this new automatic cepstral analysis, as it is less sensitive to phase identification.

Description: Regional seismic networks may and in some cases need to be used to monitor teleseismic or network-outside events. For detecting and localizing teleseismic events automatically and reliably in this case, in this paper we present a novel progressive association algorithm for teleseismic signals recorded by a regional seismic network. The algorithm takes triangle station arrays as the starting point to search for P waves of teleseismic events progressively by that, as detections from different stations actually are from the same teleseismic event, their arrival times should be linearly related to the average slowness vector with which the signal propagates across the network, and the slowness of direct teleseismic P wave basically is different from other major seismic phases. We have tested this algorithm using data recorded by Xinjiang Seismic Network of China (XJSN) for 16 d. The results show that the algorithm can effectively and reliably detect and localize earthquakes outside of the network. For the period of the test data, as all mb 4.0+ events with c 〈 30° and all mb 4.5+ events with c 〈 60° referring to the International Data Center-Reviewed Event Bulletin (IDC REB) were detected, where c is the epicentral distance relative to the network's geographical centre, the rate of false events only accounted for 2.4 per cent, suggesting that the new association algorithm has good application prospect for situations when regional seismic networks need to be used to monitor teleseismic events.

Description: The recent spate of mega-earthquakes since 2004 has led to speculation of an underlying change in the global ‘background’ rate of large events. At a regional scale, detecting changes in background rate is also an important practical problem for operational forecasting and risk calculation, for example due to volcanic processes, seismicity induced by fluid injection or withdrawal, or due to redistribution of Coulomb stress after natural large events. Here we examine the general problem of detecting changes in background rate in earthquake catalogues with and without correlated events, for the first time using the Bayes factor as a discriminant for models of varying complexity. First we use synthetic Poisson (purely random) and Epidemic-Type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS) models (which also allow for earthquake triggering) to test the effectiveness of many standard methods of addressing this question. These fall into two classes: those that evaluate the relative likelihood of different models, for example using Information Criteria or the Bayes Factor; and those that evaluate the probability of the observations (including extreme events or clusters of events) under a single null hypothesis, for example by applying the Kolmogorov–Smirnov and ‘runs’ tests, and a variety of Z -score tests. The results demonstrate that the effectiveness among these tests varies widely. Information Criteria worked at least as well as the more computationally expensive Bayes factor method, and the Kolmogorov–Smirnov and runs tests proved to be the relatively ineffective in reliably detecting a change point. We then apply the methods tested to events at different thresholds above magnitude M ≥ 7 in the global earthquake catalogue since 1918, after first declustering the catalogue. This is most effectively done by removing likely correlated events using a much lower magnitude threshold ( M ≥ 5), where triggering is much more obvious. We find no strong evidence that the background rate of large events worldwide has increased in recent years.

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: Travelling seismic waves and Earth tides are known to cause oscillations in well water levels due to the volumetric strain characteristics of the ground motion. Although the response of well water levels to S and Love waves has been reported, it has not yet been quantified. In this paper we describe and explain the behaviour of a closed artesian water well (Gomè 1) in response to teleseismic earthquakes. This well is located within a major fault zone and screened at a highly damaged (cracked) sandstone layer. We adopt the original Skempton approach where both volumetric and deviatoric stresses (and strains) affect pore pressure. Skempton's coefficients 〈 tex – mathid = " IM 0001" 〉 B and 〈 tex – mathid = " IM 0002" 〉 A couple the volumetric and deviatoric stresses respectively with pore pressure and 〈 tex – mathid = " IM 0003" 〉 BK u and 〈 tex – mathid = " IM 0004" 〉 N are the equivalent coupling terms to volumetric and deviatoric strains. The water level in this well responds dramatically to volumetric strain ( P and Rayleigh waves) as well as to deviatoric strain ( S and Love waves). This response is explained by the nonlinear elastic behaviour of the highly damaged rocks. The water level response to deviatoric strain depends on the damage in the rock; deviatoric strain loading on damaged rock results in high water level amplitudes, and no response in undamaged rock. We find high values of 〈 tex – mathid = " IM 0005" 〉 N = 8.5 GPa that corresponds to –0.5 〈 A 〈 –0.25 expected at highly damaged rocks. We propose that the Gomè 1 well is located within fractured rocks, and therefore, dilatency is high, and the response of water pressure to deviatoric deformation is high. This analysis is supported by the agreement between the estimated compressibility of the aquifer, independently calculated from Earth tides, seismic response of the water pressure and other published data.

Description: Array measurements of surface wave phase velocity can be biased by multipath arrivals. A two-plane-wave (TPW) inversion method, in which the incoming wavefield is represented by the interference of two plane waves, is able to account for the multipath effect and solve for laterally varying phase velocity. Despite broad applications of the TPW method, its usage has been limited to Rayleigh waves. In this study, we have modified the TPW approach and applied it to Love waves. Main modifications include decomposing Love wave amplitude on the transverse component to x and y components in a local Cartesian system for each earthquake and using both components in the inversion. Such decomposition is also applied to the two plane waves to predict the incoming wavefield of an earthquake. We utilize fundamental mode Love wave data recorded at 85 broad-band stations from 69 distant earthquakes and solved for phase velocity in nine frequency bands with centre periods ranging from 34 to 100 s. The average phase velocity in southern Africa increases from 4.30 km s –1 at 34 s to 4.87 km s –1 at 100 s. Compared with predicted Love wave phase velocities from the published 1-D SV velocity model and radial anisotropy model in the region, these values are compatible from 34 to 50 s and slightly higher beyond 50 s, indicating radial anisotropy of V SH 〉 V SV in the shallow upper mantle. A high Love wave velocity anomaly is imaged in the central and southern Kaapvaal craton at all periods, reflecting a cold and depleted cratonic lithosphere. A low velocity anomaly appears in the Bushveld Complex from 34 to 50 s, which can be interpreted as being caused by high iron content from an intracratonic magma intrusion. The modified TPW method provides a new way to measure Love wave phase velocities in a regional array, which are essential in developing radial anisotropic models and understanding the Earth structure in the crust and upper mantle.

Description: Ocean waves activity is a major source of microvibrations that travel through the solid Earth, known as microseismic noise and recorded worldwide by broadband seismometers. Analysis of microseismic noise in continuous seismic records can be used to investigate noise sources in the oceans such as storms, and their variations in space and time, making possible the regional and global-scale monitoring of the wave climate. In order to complete the knowledge of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans microseismic noise sources, we analyse 1 yr of continuous data recorded by permanent seismic stations located in the Indian Ocean basin. We primarily focus on secondary microseisms (SM) that are dominated by Rayleigh waves between 6 and 11 s of period. Continuous polarization analyses in this frequency band at 15 individual seismic stations allow us to quantify the number of polarized signal corresponding to Rayleigh waves, and to retrieve their backazimuths ( BAZ ) in the time–frequency domain. We observe clear seasonal variations in the number of polarized signals and in their frequencies, but not in their BAZ that consistently point towards the Southern part of the basin throughout the year. This property is very peculiar to the Indian Ocean that is closed on its Northern side, and therefore not affected by large ocean storms during Northern Hemisphere winters. We show that the noise amplitude seasonal variations and the backazimuth directions are consistent with the source areas computed from ocean wave models.

Description: A method is presented to simulate the propagation of elastic waves in a 2-D piecewise homogeneous domain composed of several regions of arbitrary shapes. The regions can be isolated within an elastic background or also embedded among themselves. The method is based on the indirect boundary element method (IBEM) in which the diffracted field is obtained as the contributions of distributed sources along the regions boundaries. This is somehow reminiscent of Huygens's Principle for wave fronts. The fields emitted by the sources are computed in frequency domain using analytical expressions of Green's functions for displacements and tractions. This approach is validated, in the antiplane case, by comparing against a semi-analytical solution for a basin composed of concentric semi-circular layers and embedded in a half-space. Finally, an example of in-plane wave propagation is given for a complex configuration involving five interlocked regions.

Description: A set of uniaxial compression tests of granite specimens taken from five localities across Japan was conducted to identify the factors controlling the quantity of radon (Rn) emission (sum of 222 Rn and 220 Rn) during compression and failure. An α-scintillation detector and a gas flow unit were installed with a testing machine to enable continuous measurement of Rn emissions. Common to all specimens, Rn emissions remained at or slightly declined from the background level after the start of loading; this is similar to the natural phenomenon of decline in groundwater-dissolved Rn before an earthquake. Closure of original microcracks is the most likely cause of the initial Rn decline. Then, Rn emissions begin to increase at 46–57 per cent stress level to the uniaxial compressive strength, and continue to increase even after the failure of specimen. This commencement stress level is close to the general stress level at outbreak of acoustic emissions caused by the development and connection of microcracks. The Rn increase after failure is similar to a phenomenon observed in aftershocks, which may originate from the enhancement of Rn emanations from grains due to the large increase in total surface area and stress release. In addition to the initial radioelement content in rock, the failure pattern (conjugate shear versus longitudinal tensile type), compressive strength, and grain size are possible control factors of the maximum quantity of Rn emissions induced by failure. This maximum may also be affected by the development velocity of the emanation area, which is related to the Rn emanation fraction, associated with the fragmentation. In addition to the magnitude of an earthquake and its hypocentre distance to Rn detectors, the magnitude of increase in Rn concentration in soil gas and groundwater before, during, and after an earthquake in crystalline rocks depends on the intrinsic radioelement content, the mineral texture, and the mechanical properties of rocks. Rock fracturing and failure do not necessarily induce increase in Rn emission due to these rock properties, which can be used to understand the sensitivity of Rn concentration in soil gas or groundwater in connection with an earthquake.

Description: The Gaussian wavelet is widely used as a shaping wavelet for scattered wave imaging with P receiver functions due to widespread use of the iterative deconvolution method. We show the Gaussian wavelet degrades the resolution of plane wave migration by comparing results from the latest USArray data shaped with Gaussian and Ricker wavelets. We use simulations of primary conversions from the 410 and 660 km discontinuity to show this is a property of the algorithm and not the data. Simulations also show the more conventional common conversion point (CCP) method is not subject to this behaviour for flat horizons, but the CCP method penalizes dipping horizons focusing only nearly horizontal features for any choice of shaping wavelet. We explain these results using the concept of migration impulse response for an individual data sample. Applications to data from USArray show dramatic improvements in the resolution of plane wave migration images produced using Ricker wavelet in comparison to a comparable resolution a Gaussian shaping wavelet. The 410 and 660 discontinuities are resolved to higher precision, and we find the upper mantle and transition zone are full of previously unresolved dipping horizons that remain to be interpreted.

Description: The space–time Epidemic-Type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS) model is extended by incorporating the depth component of earthquake hypocentres. The depths of the direct offspring produced by an earthquake are assumed to be independent of the epicentre locations and to follow a beta distribution, whose shape parameter is determined by the depth of the parent event. This new model is verified by applying it to the Southern California earthquake catalogue. The results show that the new model fits data better than the original epicentre ETAS model and that it provides the potential for modelling and forecasting seismicity with higher resolutions.

Description: We perform a systematic investigation of along-strike rupture directivity of 70 earthquakes (3.0 ≤ M w ≤ 6.1) of the 2009 L'Aquila seismic sequence by analysing azimuthal variations of broad-band seismograms recorded in the distance range 60 km 〈 R 〈 230 km. We use reference spectra of events with little directivity (similar to the empirical Green's function method) to deconvolve propagation-site effects and focus on source properties. A directivity index (0 ≤ I DIR ≤ 1) calculated for each earthquake quantifies the spectral separation above the corner frequency of the target event at opposite along-strike directions. A large number (73 per cent) of events including the M w 6.1 main shock show high (〉0.7) I DIR values indicating predominantly unilateral rupture propagation. The preferred rupture propagation direction is generally to the southeast with no dependence on the earthquake magnitude or occurrence time. Events on two main faults (L'Aquila and Campotosto) show somewhat different behaviour. Almost all earthquakes on the L'Aquila fault have strong unilateral directivity to the southeast, whereas earthquakes on the Campotosto fault show more diverse behaviour. However, there is a predominance of unilateral ruptures (14 out of 22) also on the Campotosto fault, and the few (five) earthquakes with ruptures to the northwest are limited to the most northwestern segment of the fault. The spectral results are consistent with time-domain analysis when the latter samples adequately the frequency band above corner frequency. The preferred rupture direction may be produced at least in part by a velocity contrast across the fault. The results provide important input for estimates of seismic motion and physics of earthquake ruptures.

Description: We show a case study of full-waveform inversion (FWI) applied to a regional 240-km long seismic profile (called POLCRUST-01) located in southeast Poland. The experiment is unique because it portrays different tectonic deformation styles over a relatively short distance. It was designed for deep reflection imaging, but we decided to use FWI to provide a high-resolution P -wave velocity model of the shallow (down to 3 km) subsurface. The acquisition parameters, namely the use of 10-Hz geophones and Vibroseis sweeps starting at 6 Hz, made it necessary to design a non-standard data preconditioning workflow for enhancing low frequencies including match filtering and curvelet denoising. Final model was validated using multiple procedures, such as comparison with borehole data and independently processed Kirchhoff pre-stack depth migration. Although in some deeper areas of the model we identified artefacts that are most likely a result of cycle skip, the velocity profiles from our model match the borehole check-shot data and the velocity anomalies coincide very well with the reflectivity in the migrated data. The resolution of the model allows us to delineate the internal structure of the Carpathian thrust system and presumably small natural gas reservoirs in the Miocene sediments of the Carpathian Foredeep.

Description: Surface waves contain fundamental mode and higher modes, which could interfere with each other. If different modes are not properly separated, the inverted Earth structures using surface waves could be biased. In this study, we apply linear radon transform (LRT) to synthetic seismograms and real seismograms from the USArray to demonstrate the effectiveness of LRT in separating fundamental-mode Love waves from higher modes. Analysis on synthetic seismograms shows that two-station measurements on reconstructed data obtained after mode separation can completely retrieve the fundamental-mode Love-wave phase velocities. Results on USArray data show that higher mode contamination effects reach up to ~10 per cent for two-station measurements of Love waves, while two-station measurements on mode-separated data obtained by LRT are very close to the predicted values from a global dispersion model of GDM52, demonstrating that the contamination of overtones on fundamental-mode Love-wave phase velocity measurements is effectively mitigated by the LRT method and accurate fundamental-mode Love-wave phase velocities can be measured.

Description: Various factors need to be considered when inverting for surface wave azimuthal anisotropic structure. This paper focuses on the 2 terms for Rayleigh wave azimuthal anisotropy and shows that the uncertainties of earthquake locations also have significant impacts on the resulting anisotropic structure. We use the global Rayleigh wave phase velocity data set collected in a previous study to demonstrate this effect. The differences between azimuthal anisotropic patterns with and without source relocations are greatest near plate boundaries. Large differences around the South American plate are also identified. Although most of the earthquakes are shifted by less than 15 km from the CMT locations, earthquakes near the Andes can be systematically shifted by more than 30 km. Our final epicentres for earthquakes on ridge-transform fault systems better match the plate boundaries.

Description: The finite-difference method is among the most popular methods for modelling seismic wave propagation. Although the method has enjoyed huge success for its ability to produce full wavefield seismograms in complex models, it has one major limitation which is of critical importance for many modelling applications; to naturally output up- and downgoing and P - and S -wave constituents of synthesized seismograms. In this paper, we show how such wavefield constituents can be isolated in finite-difference-computed synthetics in complex models with high numerical precision by means of a simple algorithm. The description focuses on up- and downgoing and P - and S -wave separation of data generated using an isotropic elastic finite-difference modelling method. However, the same principles can also be applied to acoustic, electromagnetic and other wave equations.

Description: A second-order Born approximation is used to formulate a self-consistent theory for the effective elastic parameters of stochastic media with ellipsoidal distributions of small-scale heterogeneity. The covariance of the stiffness tensor is represented as the product of a one-point tensor variance and a two-point scalar correlation function with ellipsoidal symmetry, which separates the statistical properties of the local anisotropy from those of the geometric anisotropy. The spatial variations can then be rescaled to an isotropic distribution by a simple metric transformation; the spherical average of the strain Green's function in the transformed space reduces to a constant Kneer tensor, and the second-order corrections to the effective elastic parameters are given by the contraction of the rescaled Kneer tensor against the single-point variance of the stiffness tensor. Explicit results are derived for stochastic models in which the heterogeneity is transversely isotropic and its second moments are characterized by a horizontal-to-vertical aspect ratio . If medium is locally isotropic, the expressions for the anisotropic effective moduli reduce in the limit -〉 to Backus's second-order expressions for a 1-D stochastic laminate. Comparisons with the exact Backus theory show that the second-order approximation predicts the effective anisotropy for non-Gaussian media fairly well for relative rms fluctuations in the moduli smaller than about 30 per cent. A locally anisotropic model is formulated in which the local elastic properties have hexagonal symmetry, guided by a Gaussian random vector field that is transversely isotropic and specified by a horizontal-to-vertical orientation ratio . The self-consistent theory provides closed-form expressions for the dependence of the effective moduli on 0 〈 〈 and 0 〈 〈 . The effective-medium parametrizations described here appear to be suitable for incorporation into tomographic modelling.

Description: Deviation of seismic surface waves from the great-circle between source and receiver is illustrated by the anomalies in the arrival angle, that is the difference between the observed backazimuth of the incident waves and the great-circle. Such arrival angle anomalies have been known for decades, but observations remain scattered. We present a systematic study of arrival angle anomalies of fundamental mode Rayleigh waves (20–100 s period interval) from 289 earthquakes and recorded by a broadband network LAPNET, located in northern Finland. These observations are compared with those of full waveform synthetic seismograms for the same events, calculated in a 3-D Earth and also compared with those of seismograms obtained by ambient noise correlation. The arrival angle anomalies for individual events are complex, and have significant variations with period. On average, the mean absolute deviation decreases from ~9° at 20 s period to ~3° at 100 s period. The synthetic seismograms show the same evolution, albeit with somewhat smaller deviations. While the arrival angle anomalies are fairly well simulated at long periods, the deviations at short periods are very poorly modelled, demonstrating the importance of the continuous improvement of global crustal models. At 20–30 s period, both event data and numerical simulations have strong multipathing, and relative amplitude changes between different waves will induced differences in deviations between very closely located events. The source mechanism has only limited influence on the deviations, demonstrating that they are directly linked to propagation effects, including near-field effects in the source area. This observation is confirmed by the comparison with seismic noise correlation records, that is where the surface waves correspond to those emitted by a point source at the surface, as the two types of observations are remarkably similar in the cases where earthquakes are located close to seismic stations. This agreement additionally confirms that the noise correlations capture the complex surface wave propagation.

Description: We present a method to construct non-stationary and anisotropic second-order random model realizations that can be used for numerical wave propagation simulations in various geometries. Models are generated directly from a given covariance matrix using its eigenvector decomposition (principal component or Karhunen-Loève method). Because this decomposition is very expensive computationally in 3-D, we use model symmetries to reduce the size of the covariance matrix to its non-stationary components. Stationary components can then be described through their power spectrum, such that models with axisymmetric or spherically symmetric statistics can be generated from a 1-D covariance matrix. We focus in particular on models with spherically symmetric statistics that are important to study wave propagation in the Earth. We use this method to show the influence of hypothetical small-scale structure in the Earth's mantle on the elastic wavefield. To this end, we extend tomographic models beyond their spatial resolution limit with different distributions of small-scale scatterers that generate a coda and attenuate direct waves (scattering attenuation). We observe that scattering attenuation of fundamental mode Rayleigh waves is small (0.5–2 per cent of the total attenuation), if the elastic mantle structure does not become significantly stronger at smaller scales. At the examined heterogeneity strengths, scattering attenuation scales linearly with the model variance. The long-period fundamental mode Rayleigh wave coda is difficult to measure because it is weak and overlaps with other signals. However, it can be shown that its intensity also scales linearly with model power, and that it depends strongly on the spherical geometry of the Earth. It can therefore be used to distinguish between models with different small-scale power. We show qualitatively that the coda generated by the type of random models we consider can explain observed scattered energy at long periods (100 s).

Description: We analysed the ground deformation produced by the M w = 6.1 2014 January 26 and M w = 6.0 2014 February 3 Cephalonia earthquakes, western Greece. Campaign GPS measurements and RADARSAT-2 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry provide constraints on the overall deformation produced by the sequence. TerraSAR-X and COSMO-SkyMed SAR interferometry provide constraints on the second earthquake separately. Two permanent GPS stations captured the two coseismic offsets and show no pre- or post-seismic transients. Most of the deformation is concentrated in the Paliki peninsula which is consistent with the location of the seismicity and the damages. Both GPS and SAR interferometry indicate areas with large deformation gradients probably due to shallow effects. Given the limitations on the data and on the knowledge of the structure and rheology of the crust, we used a simple elastic model to fit the ground displacements. Although such model cannot fit all the detail of the deformation, it is expected to provide a robust estimate of the overall geometry and slip of the fault. The good data coverage in azimuth and distance contributes to the robustness of the model. The entire sequence is modelled with a strike slip fault dipping 70° east and cutting most of the brittle crust beneath Paliki, with an upper edge located at 2.5 km depth and a deeper edge at 8.5 km. This fault is oriented N14° which corresponds to the azimuth of the Cephalonia Transform Fault (CTF). The fit to the data is significantly improved by adding a secondary shallow strike-slip fault with low dip angle (30°) with a component of reverse faulting on that shallow fault. The modelling of the February 3 event indicates that the faulting is shallow in the north of Paliki, with a centroid depth of ~3.2 km. The fit is improved when a single planar fault is replaced by a bent fault dipping ~30° in the uppermost 2 km and ~70° below. The fault of the January 26 earthquake, inferred from the difference between the two above models, is located south and beneath the February 3 fault, with a centroid depth of ~6.4 km. We interpret the 2014 fault zone as an east segment of the CTF located ~7 km east of the main axis of the CTF, which location is constrained by the elastic modelling of the interseismic GPS velocities. The aftershock sequence is mostly located between the January 26 fault and the axis of the CTF. According to our analysis, the Paliki peninsula is partly dragged north with the Apulian platform with ~7 mm yr –1 of shear accommodated offshore to the west. During the last 30 yr three main sequences occurred along the CTF, in 1983, 2003 and 2014 breaking a large part of the fault, with a gap of 20–40 km left between Cephalonia and Lefkada.

Description: The mathematical framework used in the Bayesian Infrasonic Source Localization (BISL) methodology is examined and simplified providing a generalized method of estimating the source location and time for an infrasonic event. The likelihood function describing an infrasonic detection used in BISL has been redefined to include the von Mises distribution developed in directional statistics and propagation-based, physically derived celerity-range and azimuth deviation models. Frameworks for constructing propagation-based celerity-range and azimuth deviation statistics are presented to demonstrate how stochastic propagation modelling methods can be used to improve the precision and accuracy of the posterior probability density function describing the source localization. Infrasonic signals recorded at a number of arrays in the western United States produced by rocket motor detonations at the Utah Test and Training Range are used to demonstrate the application of the new mathematical framework and to quantify the improvement obtained by using the stochastic propagation modelling methods. Using propagation-based priors, the spatial and temporal confidence bounds of the source decreased by more than 40 per cent in all cases and by as much as 80 per cent in one case. Further, the accuracy of the estimates remained high, keeping the ground truth within the 99 per cent confidence bounds for all cases.

Description: The Borborema province in NE Brazil is characterized by seismic sequences with small earthquakes that can last 10 yr or more. The seismicity in this region is concentrated in three main seismic zones. In this work, we investigate the stress field in one of these zones, the Acaraú Seismic Zone, which is located in the NW part of the Borborema province. This seismic zone exhibits earthquake sequences that contain repeated earthquakes with similar waveforms and a shallow depth. Using a local network, we investigated a seismic sequence close to the town of Santana do Acaraú from December 2009 to December 2010, and we present detailed results (velocity model, hypocentres and focal mechanism) from this network. In addition, we inverted seven focal mechanisms, including six that were used in previous studies, and determined the directions of the three main axes of the regional stress field. Selecting a very precise set of 12 earthquakes, we found an active seismic zone with a depth between 3.5 and 4.8 km and with a horizontal dimension of approximately 2.5 km in the NW–SE direction (azimuth of 118°) and a strike-slip focal mechanism. The new seismic fault and some of the previous seismic faults determined in previous studies occur near the continental-scale Transbrasiliano lineament, but they exhibit no direct relationship with that ancient structure. The stress field is characterized by NW–SE trending compression and NE–SW trending extension. This result suggests that the rheological contrast between the continental–oceanic crusts created flexural stresses with maximum horizontal compression parallel to the continental margin. This stress pattern occurs along the Potiguar basin and continues west as far as the Amazon fan along the Equatorial margin of Brazil. This stress field and related seismicity may be a characteristic of this type of passive margin that is generated during the transform shearing between the South America and Africa plates and that exhibits an abrupt oceanic–continent transition, steep continental slopes and high bathymetric gradients.

Description: A new method of fully nonlinear waveform fitting to measure interstation phase speeds and amplitude ratios is developed and applied to USArray. The Neighbourhood Algorithm is used as a global optimizer, which efficiently searches for model parameters that fit two observed waveforms on a common great-circle path by modulating the phase and amplitude terms of the fundamental-mode surface waves. We introduce the reliability parameter that represents how well the waveforms at two stations can be fitted in a time–frequency domain, which is used as a data selection criterion. The method is applied to observed waveforms of USArray for seismic events in the period from 2007 to 2010 with moment magnitude greater than 6.0. We collect a large number of phase speed data (about 75 000 for Rayleigh and 20 000 for Love) and amplitude ratio data (about 15 000 for Rayleigh waves) in a period range from 30 to 130 s. The majority of the interstation distances of measured dispersion data is less than 1000 km, which is much shorter than the typical average path-length of the conventional single-station measurements for source-receiver pairs. The phase speed models for Rayleigh and Love waves show good correlations on large scales with the recent tomographic maps derived from different approaches for phase speed mapping; for example, significant slow anomalies in volcanic regions in the western Unites States and fast anomalies in the cratonic region. Local-scale phase speed anomalies corresponding to the major tectonic features in the western United States, such as Snake River Plains, Basin and Range, Colorado Plateau and Rio Grande Rift have also been identified clearly in the phase speed models. The short-path information derived from our interstation measurements helps to increase the achievable horizontal resolution. We have also performed joint inversions for phase speed maps using the measured phase and amplitude ratio data of vertical component Rayleigh waves. These maps exhibit better recovery of phase speed perturbations, particularly where the strong lateral velocity gradient exists in which the effects of elastic focussing can be significant; that is, the Yellowstone hotspot, Snake River Plains, and Rio Grande Rift. The enhanced resolution of the phase speed models derived from the interstation phase and amplitude measurements will be of use for the better seismological constraint on the lithospheric structure, in combination with dense broad-band seismic arrays.

Description: Motivated by the need to derive and characterize increasingly sophisticated seismic data analysis and inversion methods incorporating wave dissipation, we consider the problem of scattering of homogeneous and inhomogeneous waves from perturbations in five viscoelastic parameters (density, P - and S -wave velocities, and P - and S -wave quality factors), as formulated in the context of the Born approximation. Within this approximation the total wave field is the superposition of an incident plane wave and a scattered wave, the latter being a spherical wave weighted by a function of solid angle called the scattering potential. In elastic media the scattering potential is real, but if dissipation is included through a viscoelastic model, the potential becomes complex and thus impacts the amplitude and phase of the outgoing wave. The isotropic-elastic scattering framework of Stolt and Weglein, extended to admit viscoelastic media, exposes these amplitude and phase phenomena to study, and in particular allows certain well-known layered-medium viscoelastic results due to Borcherdt to be re-considered in an arbitrary heterogeneous Earth. The main theoretical challenge in doing this involves the choice of coordinate system over which to evaluate and analyse the waves, which in the viscoelastic case must be based on complex vector analysis. We present a candidate system within which several of Borcherdt's key results carry over; for instance, we show that elliptically polarized P and SI waves cannot be scattered into linearly polarized SII waves. Furthermore, the elastic formulation is straightforwardly recovered in the limit as P - and S -wave quality factors tend to infinity.

Description: We present an extension of the nodal discontinuous Galerkin method for elastic wave propagation to high interpolation orders and arbitrary heterogeneous media. The high-order lagrangian interpolation is based on a set of nodes with excellent interpolation properties in the standard triangular element. In order to take into account highly variable geological media, another set of suitable quadrature points is used where the physical and mechanical properties of the medium are defined. We implement the methodology in a 2-D discontinuous Galerkin solver. First, a convergence study confirms the hp -convergence of the method in a smoothly varying elastic medium. Then, we show the advantages of the present methodology, compared to the classical one with constant properties within the elements, in terms of the complexity of the mesh generation process by analysing the seismic amplification of a soft layer over an elastic half-space. Finally, to verify the proposed methodology in a more complex and realistic configuration, we compare the simulation results with the ones obtained by the spectral element method for a sedimentary basin with a realistic gradient velocity profile. Satisfactory results are obtained even for the case where the computational mesh does not honour the strong impedance contrast between the basin bottom and the bedrock.

Description: Improving both accuracy and computational performance of numerical tools is a major challenge for seismic imaging and generally requires specialized implementations to make full use of modern parallel architectures. We present a computational strategy for reverse-time migration (RTM) with accelerator-aided clusters. A new imaging condition computed from the pressure and velocity fields is introduced. The model solver is based on a high-order discontinuous Galerkin time-domain (DGTD) method for the pressure–velocity system with unstructured meshes and multirate local time stepping. We adopted the MPI+X approach for distributed programming where X is a threaded programming model. In this work we chose OCCA, a unified framework that makes use of major multithreading languages (e.g. CUDA and OpenCL) and offers the flexibility to run on several hardware architectures. DGTD schemes are suitable for efficient computations with accelerators thanks to localized element-to-element coupling and the dense algebraic operations required for each element. Moreover, compared to high-order finite-difference schemes, the thin halo inherent to DGTD method reduces the amount of data to be exchanged between MPI processes and storage requirements for RTM procedures. The amount of data to be recorded during simulation is reduced by storing only boundary values in memory rather than on disk and recreating the forward wavefields. Computational results are presented that indicate that these methods are strong scalable up to at least 32 GPUs for a three-dimensional RTM case.

Description: The study of acoustic emissions (AEs) is of paramount importance to understand rock deformation processes. AE recorded during laboratory experiments mimics, in a controlled geometry and environment, natural and induced seismicity. However, these experiments are destructive, time consuming and require a significant amount of resources. Lately, significant progresses have been made in numerical simulations of rock failure processes, providing detailed insights into AE. We utilized the 2-D combined finite-discrete element method to simulate the deformation of Stanstead Granite under varying confining pressure ( P c ) and demonstrated that the increase of confining pressure, P c , (i) shifts failures from tensile towards shear dominated and (ii) enhance the macroscopic ductility. We quantitatively describe the AE activity associated with the fracturing process by assessing the spatial fractal dimension (D-value), the temporal distribution (AE rate) and the slope of the frequency–magnitude distribution (b-value). Based on the evaluation of D-value and AE rate, we defined two distinct deformation phases: Phase I and Phase II. The influence of P c on the spatial distribution of AE varies according to the deformation phase: for increasing P c , D-value decreases and increases during Phases I and II, respectively. In addition, b-value decreases with increasing P c during the entire experiment. Our numerical results show for the first time that variations of D- and b-values as a function of in situ stress can be simulated using the combined finite-discrete element approach. We demonstrate that the examination of seismicity should be carried out carefully, taking into consideration the deformation phase and in situ stress conditions.

Description: We present an approach for subspace detection of small seismic events that includes methods for estimating magnitudes and associating detections from multiple stations into unique events. The process is used to identify mining related seismicity from a surface coal mine and an underground coal mining district, both located in the Western U.S. Using a blasting log and a locally derived seismic catalogue as ground truth, we assess detector performance in terms of verified detections, false positives and failed detections. We are able to correctly identify over 95 per cent of the surface coal mine blasts and about 33 per cent of the events from the underground mining district, while keeping the number of potential false positives relatively low by requiring all detections to occur on two stations. We find that most of the potential false detections for the underground coal district are genuine events missed by the local seismic network, demonstrating the usefulness of regional subspace detectors in augmenting local catalogues. We note a trade-off in detection performance between stations at smaller source–receiver distances, which have increased signal-to-noise ratio, and stations at larger distances, which have greater waveform similarity. We also explore the increased detection capabilities of a single higher dimension subspace detector, compared to multiple lower dimension detectors, in identifying events that can be described as linear combinations of training events. We find, in our data set, that such an advantage can be significant, justifying the use of a subspace detection scheme over conventional correlation methods.

Description: Near-surface seismic field experiments using both P - and S -wave sources were carried out to image fractured limestones at two sites in southwest England. We measured P - and S -wave seismic velocities at multiple azimuths to aligned fracture sets, allowing us to determine the seismic anisotropy generated by these fractures. The effect of aligned fractures on seismic anisotropy is commonly modelled in terms of the additional compliance introduced by the fractures. Therefore, an understanding of fracture compliance is crucial both in terms of interpreting observations of anisotropy in the field and in forward modelling the effects of fractures on seismic wave propagation. Of particular concern is (1) the scaling of fracture compliance with fracture length scale, and (2) the controls on the ratio of normal to tangential compliance of the fractures (  =  Z N /Z T ). Our experimental design allows us to image both, and we find that  = 0.37 ± 0.06 and  = 0.75 ± 0.10 for our two study sites, while the absolute values of the tangential compliance range from 0.66  x  10 –11 to 5.0  x  10 –11 Pa –1  m.

Description: Global-scale tomographic models should aim at satisfying the full seismic spectrum. For this purpose, and to better constrain isotropic 3-D variations of shear velocities in the mantle, we tackle a joint inversion of spheroidal normal-mode structure coefficients and multiple-frequency S -wave delay times. In all previous studies for which normal modes were jointly inverted for, with body and/or surface waves, the mantle was laterally parametrized with uniform basis functions, such as spherical harmonics, equal-area blocks and evenly spaced spherical splines. In particular, spherical harmonics naturally appear when considering the Earth's free oscillations. However, progress towards higher resolution joint tomography requires a movement away from such uniform parametrization to overcome its computational inefficiency to adapt to local variations in resolution. The main goal of this study is to include normal modes into a joint inversion based upon a non-uniform parametrization that is adapted to the spatially varying smallest resolving length of the data. Thus, we perform the first joint inversion of normal-mode and body-wave data using an irregular tomographic grid, optimized according to ray density. We show how to compute the projection of 3-D sensitivity kernels for both data sets onto our parametrization made up of spherical layers spanned with irregular Delaunay triangulations. This approach, computationally efficient, allows us to map into the joint model multiscale structural informations from data including periods in the 10–51 s range for body waves and 332–2134 s for normal modes. Tomographic results are focused on the 400–2110 km depth range, where our data coverage is the most relevant. We discuss the potential of a better resolution where the grid is fine, compared to spherical harmonics up to degree 40, as the number of model parameters is similar. Our joint model seems to contain coherent structural components beyond degree 40, such as those related to the Farallon subduction. Assessing their robustness is postponed to a future work. A wider application of this tomographic workflow, holding promise to better understand mantle dynamics at various spatial scales, should primarily consist in adding surface-wave data and extending our sets of normal-mode and body-wave data.

Description: The Shanxi rift system is one of the most active intraplate tectonic zones in the North China Block, resulting in devastating seismicity. Since 1303, the rift has experienced fifteen M s ≥ 6.5 earthquakes. Aiming at a better understanding of Coulomb stress evolution and its relationship with the seismicity in the rift system, we investigated the Coulomb stress changes due to coseismic slip and post-seismic relaxation processes following strong earthquakes as well as the interseismic tectonic loading since the 1303 Hongdong M s = 8.0 earthquake. Our calculation applies a specified regional medium model, takes the gravity effect into account and uses the fault geometry of the next event as the receiver fault in a given calculation. Our results show that nine out of 12 M s ≥ 6.5 earthquakes since the 1303 Hongdong earthquake and more than 82 per cent of small-medium instrumental events after the 1989 Datong-Yanggao M s = 6.1 earthquake fall into the total stress increased areas. Our results also reveal the different roles of the coseismic, post-seismic and interseismic Coulomb stress changes in the earthquake triggering process in the Shanxi rift system. In a short period after a strong event, the stress field changes are dominated by coseismic Coulomb stress due to sudden slip of the ruptured fault, while in the long term, the stress field is mainly dominated by the accumulation of interseismic tectonic loading. Post-seismic stress changes play an important role by further modifying the distribution of stress and therefore cannot be ignored. Based on the current stress status in the Shanxi rift system, the Linfen basin, southern and northern Taiyuan basin, Xinding basin and the north part of the rift system are identified as the most likely locations of large events in the future. The results of this study can provide important clues for the further understanding of seismic hazard in the Shanxi rift system and thus help guiding earthquake risk mitigation efforts in the future.

Description: We present spectra concentrating on the lowest-frequency normal modes of the Earth obtained from records of the invar-wire strainmeters and STS-1 broad-band seismometers located in the Black Forest Observatory, Germany after the disastrous earthquakes off the NW coast of Sumatra in 2004 and off the coast near Tohoku, Japan in 2011. We compare the spectra to ones obtained from synthetic seismograms computed using a mode summation technique for an anelastic, elliptical, rotating, spherically symmetric Earth model. The synthetics include strain–strain-coupling effects by using coupling coefficients obtained from comparisons between Earth tide signals recorded by the strainmeters and synthetic tidal records. We show that for the low-frequency toroidal and spheroidal modes up to 1 mHz, the strainmeters produce better signal-to-noise ratios than the broad-band horizontal seismometers. Overall, the comparison with the synthetics is satisfactory but not as good as for vertical accelerations. In particular, we demonstrate the high quality of the strainmeter data by showing the Coriolis splitting of toroidal modes for the first time in individual records, the first clear observation of the singlet $_2S_1^0$ and the detection of the fundamental radial mode 0 S 0 with good signal-to-noise ratio and with a strain amplitude of 10 –11 . We also identify the latter mode in a record of the Isabella strainmeter after the great Chilean quake in 1960, the detection of which was missed by the original studies.

Description: Cross-correlation of ambient seismic noise recorded by two seismic stations may result in an estimate of the Green's function between those two receivers. Several authors have recently attempted to measure attenuation based on these interferometric, receiver–receiver surface waves. By now, however, it is well established that the loss of coherence of the cross-correlation as a function of space depends strongly on the excitation of the medium. In fact, in a homogeneous dissipative medium, uniform excitation is required to correctly recover attenuation. Applied to fundamental-mode ambient seismic surface waves, this implies that the cross-correlation will decay at the local attenuation rate only if noise sources are distributed uniformly on the Earth's surface. In this study we show that this constraint can be relaxed in case the observed loss of coherence is due to multiple scattering instead of dissipation of energy. We describe the scattering medium as an effective medium whose phase velocity and rate of attenuation are a function of the scatterer density and the average strength of the scatterers. We find that the decay of the cross-correlation in the effective medium coincides with the local attenuation of the effective medium in case the scattering medium is illuminated uniformly from all angles. Consequently, uniform excitation is not a necessary condition for the correct retrieval of scattering attenuation. We exemplify the implications of this finding for studies using the spectrally whitened cross-correlation to infer subsurface attenuation.

Description: This paper presents direct-seismogram inversion (DSI) for receiver-side structure which treats the source signal incident from below (the effective source–time function—STF) as a vector of unknown parameters in a Bayesian framework. As a result, the DSI method developed here does not require deconvolution by observed seismogram components as typically applied in receiver-function inversion and avoids the problematic issue of choosing subjective tuning parameters in this deconvolution. This results in more meaningful inversion results and uncertainty estimation compared to classic receiver-function inversion. A rigorous derivation is presented of the likelihood function required for unbiased inversion results. The STF is efficiently inferred by a maximum-likelihood closed-form expression that does not require deconvolution by noisy waveforms. Rather, deconvolution is only by predicted impulse responses for the unknown environment (considered to be a 1-D, horizontally stratified medium). For a given realization of the parameter vector which describes the medium below the station, data predictions are computed as the convolution of the impulse response and the maximum-likelihood source estimate for that medium. Therefore, the assumption of a Gaussian pulse with specified parameters, typical for the prediction of receiver functions, is not required. Directly inverting seismogram components has important consequences for the noise on the data. Since the signal processing does not require filtering and deconvolution, data errors are less correlated and more straightforward to model than those for receiver functions. This results in better inversion results (parameter values and uncertainties), since assumptions made in the derivation of the likelihood function are more likely to be met by the inversion process. The DSI method is demonstrated for simulated waveforms and then applied to data for station Hyderabad on the Indian craton. The measured data are inverted with both the new DSI and traditional receiver-function inversion. All inversions are carried out for a trans-dimensional model that treats the number of layers in the model as unknown. Results for DSI are consistent with previous studies for the same location. The DSI has clear advantages in trans-dimensional inversion. Uncertainty estimates appear more realistic (larger) in both model complexity (number of layers) and in terms of seismic velocity profiles. Receiver-function inversion results in more complex profiles (highly-layered structure) and suggests unreasonably small uncertainties. This effect is likely also significant when the parametrization is considered to be fixed but exacerbated for the trans-dimensional model: If hierarchical errors are poorly estimated, trans-dimensional models overestimate the structure which produces unfavourable results for the receiver-function inversion.

Description: Ultra-low velocity zones (ULVZs) are small-scale structures in the Earth's lowermost mantle inferred from the analysis of seismological observations. These structures exhibit a strong decrease in compressional ( P )-wave velocity, shear ( S )-wave velocity, and an increase in density. Quantifying the elastic properties of ULVZs is crucial for understanding their physical origin, which has been hypothesized either as partial melting, iron enrichment, or a combination of the two. Possible disambiguation of these hypotheses can lead to a better understanding of the dynamic processes of the lowermost mantle, such as, percolation, stirring and thermochemical convection. To date, ULVZs have been predominantly studied by forward waveform modelling of seismic waves that sample the core–mantle boundary region. However, ULVZ parameters (i.e. velocity, density, and vertical and lateral extent) obtained through forward modelling are poorly constrained because inferring Earth structure from seismic observations is a non-linear inverse problem with inherent non-uniqueness. To address these issues, we developed a trans-dimensional hierarchical Bayesian inversion that enables rigorous estimation of ULVZ parameter values and their uncertainties, including the effects of model selection. The model selection includes treating the number of layers and the vertical extent of the ULVZ as unknowns. The posterior probability density (solution to the inverse problem) of the ULVZ parameters is estimated by reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling that employs parallel tempering to improve efficiency/convergence. First, we apply our method to study the resolution of complex ULVZ structure (including gradually varying structure) by probabilistically inverting simulated noisy waveforms. Then, two data sets sampling the CMB beneath the Philippine and Tasman Seas are considered in the inversion. Our results indicate that both ULVZs are more complex than previously suggested. For the Philippine Sea data, we find a strong decrease in S -wave velocity, which indicates the presence of iron-rich material, albeit this result is accompanied with larger parameter uncertainties than in a previous study. For the Tasman Sea data, our analysis yields a well-constrained S -wave velocity that gradually decreases with depth. We conclude that this ULVZ represents a partial melt of iron-enriched material with higher melt content near its bottom.

Description: In this study, frequency-dependent seismic scattering and intrinsic attenuation parameters for the crustal structure beneath the W-Bohemia/Vogtland swarm earthquake region close to the border of Czech Republic and Germany are estimated. Synthetic seismogram envelopes are modelled using elastic and acoustic radiative transfer theory. Scattering and absorption parameters are determined by fitting these synthetic envelopes to observed seismogram envelopes from 14 shallow local events from the October 2008 W-Bohemia/Vogtland earthquake swarm. The two different simulation approaches yield similar results for the estimated crustal parameters and show a comparable frequency dependence of both transport mean free path and intrinsic absorption path length. Both methods suggest that intrinsic attenuation is dominant over scattering attenuation in the W-Bohemia/Vogtland region for the investigated epicentral distance range and frequency bands from 3 to 24 Hz. Elastic simulations of seismogram envelopes suggest that forward scattering is required to explain the data, however, the degree of forward scattering is not resolvable. Errors in the parameter estimation are smaller in the elastic case compared to results from the acoustic simulations. The frequency decay of the transport mean free path suggests a random medium described by a nearly exponential autocorrelation function. The fluctuation strength and correlation length of the random medium cannot be estimated independently, but only a combination of the parameters related to the transport mean free path of the medium can be computed. Furthermore, our elastic simulations show, that using our numerical method, it is not possible to resolve the value of the mean free path of the random medium.

Description: In this manuscript, we introduce a framework for developing earthquake forecasts using Virtual Quake (VQ), the generalized successor to the perhaps better known Virtual California (VC) earthquake simulator. We discuss the basic merits and mechanics of the simulator, and we present several statistics of interest for earthquake forecasting. We also show that, though the system as a whole (in aggregate) behaves quite randomly, (simulated) earthquake sequences limited to specific fault sections exhibit measurable predictability in the form of increasing seismicity precursory to large m 〉 7 earthquakes. In order to quantify this, we develop an alert-based forecasting metric, and show that it exhibits significant information gain compared to random forecasts. We also discuss the long-standing question of activation versus quiescent type earthquake triggering. We show that VQ exhibits both behaviours separately for independent fault sections; some fault sections exhibit activation type triggering, while others are better characterized by quiescent type triggering. We discuss these aspects of VQ specifically with respect to faults in the Salton Basin and near the El Mayor-Cucapah region in southern California, USA and northern Baja California Norte, Mexico.

Description: Mud volcanoes are geological systems often characterized by elevated fluid pressures at depth deviating from hydrostatic conditions. This near-critical state makes mud volcanoes particularly sensitive to external forcing induced by natural or man-made perturbations. We used the Nirano mud volcanic field as a natural laboratory to test pre- and post-seismic effects generated by distant earthquakes. We first characterized the subsurface structure of the Nirano mud volcanic field with a geoelectrical study. Next, we deployed a broad-band seismic station in the area to understand the typical seismic signal generated by the mud volcano. Seismic records show a background noise below 2 s, sometimes interrupted by pulses of drumbeat-like high-frequency signals lasting from several minutes to hours. To date this is the first observation of drumbeat signal observed in mud volcanoes. In 2013 June we recorded a M4.7 earthquake, that occurred approximately 60 km far from our seismic station. According to empirical estimations the Nirano mud volcanic field should not have been affected by the M4.7 earthquake. Yet, before the seismic event we recorded an increasing amplitude of the signal in the 10–20 Hz frequency band. The signal emerged approximately two hours before the earthquake and lasted for about three hours. Our statistical analysis suggests the presence of a possible precursory signal about 10 min before the earthquake.

Description: Assessing the similarities of seismic attributes can help identify tremor, low signal-to-noise (S/N) signals and converted or reflected phases, in addition to diagnosing site noise and sensor misalignment in arrays. Polarization analysis is a widely accepted method for studying the orientation and directional characteristics of seismic phases via computed attributes, but similarity is ordinarily discussed using qualitative comparisons with reference values or known seismic sources. Here we introduce a technique for quantitative polarization similarity that uses weighted histograms computed in short, overlapping time windows, drawing on methods adapted from the image processing and computer vision literature. Our method accounts for ambiguity in azimuth and incidence angle and variations in S/N ratio. Measuring polarization similarity allows easy identification of site noise and sensor misalignment and can help identify coherent noise and emergent or low S/N phase arrivals. Dissimilar azimuths during phase arrivals indicate misaligned horizontal components, dissimilar incidence angles during phase arrivals indicate misaligned vertical components and dissimilar linear polarization may indicate a secondary noise source. Using records of the M w = 8.3 Sea of Okhotsk earthquake, from Canadian National Seismic Network broad-band sensors in British Columbia and Yukon Territory, Canada, and a vertical borehole array at Hoadley gas field, central Alberta, Canada, we demonstrate that our method is robust to station spacing. Discrete wavelet analysis extends polarization similarity to the time–frequency domain in a straightforward way. Time–frequency polarization similarities of borehole data suggest that a coherent noise source may have persisted above 8 Hz several months after peak resource extraction from a ‘flowback’ type hydraulic fracture.

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.

Description: We present the new model SP12RTS of isotropic shear-wave ( V S ) and compressional-wave ( V P ) velocity variations in the Earth's mantle. SP12RTS is derived using the same methods as employed in the construction of the shear-wave velocity models S20RTS and S40RTS, and the same data types. SP12RTS includes additional traveltime measurements of P -waves and new splitting measurements: 33 normal modes with sensitivity to the compressional-wave velocity and 9 Stoneley modes with sensitivity primarily to the lowermost mantle. Contrary to S20RTS and S40RTS, variations in V S and V P are determined without invoking scaling relationships. Lateral velocity variations in SP12RTS are parametrised using spherical harmonics up to degree 12, to focus on long-wavelength features of V S and V P and their ratio R . Large-low-velocity provinces (LLVPs) are observed for both V S and V P . SP12RTS also features an increase of R up to 2500 km depth, followed by a decrease towards the core–mantle boundary. A negative correlation between the shear-wave and bulk-sound velocity variations is observed for both the LLVPs and the surrounding mantle. These characteristics can be explained by the presence of post-perovskite or large-scale chemical heterogeneity in the lower mantle.

Description: We present a new conceptual approach to scattering-integral-based seismic full waveform inversion (FWI) that allows a flexible, extendable, modular and both computationally and storage-efficient numerical implementation. To achieve maximum modularity and extendability, interactions between the three fundamental steps carried out sequentially in each iteration of the inversion procedure, namely, solving the forward problem, computing waveform sensitivity kernels and deriving a model update, are kept at an absolute minimum and are implemented by dedicated interfaces. To realize storage efficiency and maximum flexibility, the spatial discretization of the inverted earth model is allowed to be completely independent of the spatial discretization employed by the forward solver. For computational efficiency reasons, the inversion is done in the frequency domain. The benefits of our approach are as follows: (1) Each of the three stages of an iteration is realized by a stand-alone software program. In this way, we avoid the monolithic, unflexible and hard-to-modify codes that have often been written for solving inverse problems. (2) The solution of the forward problem, required for kernel computation, can be obtained by any wave propagation modelling code giving users maximum flexibility in choosing the forward modelling method. Both time-domain and frequency-domain approaches can be used. (3) Forward solvers typically demand spatial discretizations that are significantly denser than actually desired for the inverted model. Exploiting this fact by pre-integrating the kernels allows a dramatic reduction of disk space and makes kernel storage feasible. No assumptions are made on the spatial discretization scheme employed by the forward solver. (4) In addition, working in the frequency domain effectively reduces the amount of data, the number of kernels to be computed and the number of equations to be solved. (5) Updating the model by solving a large equation system can be done using different mathematical approaches. Since kernels are stored on disk, it can be repeated many times for different regularization parameters without need to solve the forward problem, making the approach accessible to Occam's method. Changes of choice of misfit functional, weighting of data and selection of data subsets are still possible at this stage. We have coded our approach to FWI into a program package called ASKI (Analysis of Sensitivity and Kernel Inversion) which can be applied to inverse problems at various spatial scales in both Cartesian and spherical geometries. It is written in modern FORTRAN language using object-oriented concepts that reflect the modular structure of the inversion procedure. We validate our FWI method by a small-scale synthetic study and present first results of its application to high-quality seismological data acquired in the southern Aegean.

Description: This paper describes a generalization of the iterative deconvolution method commonly used as a component of passive array wavefield imaging. We show that the iterative method should be thought of as a sparse output deconvolution method with the number of terms retained dependent on the convergence criteria. The generalized method we introduce uses an inverse operator to shape the assumed wavelet to a peaked function at zero lag. We show that the conventional method is equivalent to using a damped least-squares spiking filter with extremely large damping and proper scaling. In that case, the inverse operator used in the generalized method reduces to the cross-correlation operator. The theoretical insight of realizing the output is a sparse series provides a basis for the second important addition of the generalized method—an output shaping wavelet. A constant output shaping wavelet is a critical component in scattered wave imaging to avoid mixing data of variable bandwidth. We demonstrate the new approach can improve resolution by using an inverse operator tuned to maximize resolution. We also show that the signal-to-noise ratio of the result can be improved by applying a different convergence criterion than the standard method, which measures the energy left after each iteration. The efficacy of the approach was evaluated with synthetic experiment in various signal and noise conditions. We further validated the approach with real data from the USArray. We compared our results with data from the EarthScope Automated Receiver Survey and found that our results show modest improvements in consistency measured by correlation coefficients with station stacks and a reduced number of outliers.

Description: Time-reversal modelling provides a simple and robust solution to source-imaging problems. However, for recovering a well-resolved image of the source, time-reversal requires a balanced illumination of the target from all angles. When acquisition is incomplete and a balanced illumination is not possible, the time-reversal solution may not be adequate. We present an inversion algorithm for computing the signals to be back propagated by an array of receivers with a given configuration in order to optimally image an unknown source in an elastic medium. This approach is based on minimizing the difference between the back-propagated wavefield and the time-reversed displacement field of the source in the near source region. The proposed method requires knowledge of the propagation medium and an estimate of the source location. Other information related to the source (e.g. source mechanism) is encoded within the data and not explicitly required by the method. The method is applicable in both elastic and acoustic media. We use synthetic examples to test the performance of our method, to analyse its sensitivities, potentials and limitations and to demonstrate its potential advantages over the time-reversal source-imaging technique.

Description: Tectonic earthquake swarms challenge our understanding of earthquake processes since it is difficult to link observations to the underlying physical mechanisms and to assess the hazard they pose. Transient forcing is thought to initiate and drive the spatio-temporal release of energy during swarms. The nature of the transient forcing may vary across sequences and range from aseismic creeping or transient slip to diffusion of pore pressure pulses to fluid redistribution and migration within the seismogenic crust. Distinguishing between such forcing mechanisms may be critical to reduce epistemic uncertainties in the assessment of hazard due to seismic swarms, because it can provide information on the frequency–magnitude distribution of the earthquakes (often deviating from the assumed Gutenberg–Richter relation) and on the expected source parameters influencing the ground motion (for example the stress drop). Here we study the ongoing Pollino range (Southern Italy) seismic swarm, a long-lasting seismic sequence with more than five thousand events recorded and located since October 2010. The two largest shocks (magnitude M w = 4.2 and M w = 5.1) are among the largest earthquakes ever recorded in an area which represents a seismic gap in the Italian historical earthquake catalogue. We investigate the geometrical, mechanical and statistical characteristics of the largest earthquakes and of the entire swarm. We calculate the focal mechanisms of the M l 〉 3 events in the sequence and the transfer of Coulomb stress on nearby known faults and analyse the statistics of the earthquake catalogue. We find that only 25 per cent of the earthquakes in the sequence can be explained as aftershocks, and the remaining 75 per cent may be attributed to a transient forcing. The b -values change in time throughout the sequence, with low b -values correlated with the period of highest rate of activity and with the occurrence of the largest shock. In the light of recent studies on the palaeoseismic and historical activity in the Pollino area, we identify two scenarios consistent with the observations and our analysis: This and past seismic swarms may have been ‘passive’ features, with small fault patches failing on largely locked faults, or may have been accompanied by an ‘active’, largely aseismic, release of a large portion of the accumulated tectonic strain. Those scenarios have very different implications for the seismic hazard of the area.

Description: The electrical current density generated by the propagation of a seismic wave at the interface characterized by a drop in electrical, hydraulic or mechanical properties produces an electrical field of electrokinetic nature. This field can be measured remotely with a signal-to-noise ratio depending on the background noise and signal attenuation. The seismoelectric beamforming approach is an emerging imaging technique based on scanning a porous material using appropriately delayed seismic sources. The idea is to focus the hydromechanical energy on a regular spatial grid and measure the converted electric field remotely at each focus time. This method can be used to image heterogeneities with a high definition and to provide structural information to classical geophysical methods. A numerical experiment is performed to investigate the resolution of the seismoelectric beamforming approach with respect to the main wavelength of the seismic waves. The 2-D model consists of a fictitious water-filled bucket in which a cylindrical sandstone core sample is set up vertically. The hydrophones/seismic sources are located on a 50-cm diameter circle in the bucket and the seismic energy is focused on the grid points in order to scan the medium and determine the geometry of the porous plug using the output electric potential image. We observe that the resolution of the method is given by a density of eight scanning points per wavelength. Additional numerical tests were also performed to see the impact of a wrong velocity model upon the seismoelectric map displaying the heterogeneities of the material.

Description: The structure of seismic discontinuities in the mantle transition zone at depths of about 400 and 670 km provides important constraints on mantle convection as the associated mineral phase transformations are sensitive to thermal perturbations. Teleseismic P -to- S receiver functions have been widely used to map the depths of the two discontinuities. In this study, we investigate the resolution of receiver functions in imaging topographic variations of the 400-km and 670-km discontinuities based on wave propagation simulations using a Spectral Element Method (SEM). We investigate wave diffraction effects on direct P waves as well as P -to- S converted waves by varying the length scale of topography of the two discontinuities. We observe strong wave diffractional effects in both P waves and teleseismic receiver functions at periods of ~10 to 20 s. Ray theory overpredicts traveltime anomalies by a factor of 2–5 when the topography length scale is about 400 km. In addition, ray-theoretical predictions are out of phase with measurements which indicates that locations of small-scale topographic variations can not be resolved using ray theory. The observed traveltime anomalies further reduce to 10–20 per cent of ray-theoretical predictions when the topography length scale reduces to about 200 km. We calculate 2-D boundary sensitivity kernels for direct P waves as well as receiver functions. In general, calculations based Born sensitivity kernels fit the ‘ground-truth’ SEM measurements very well. They account for wave diffraction effects as well as phase interactions such as P and pP waves arriving in P -wave coda. 3-D wavespeed structure in the upper mantle beneath seismic stations may introduce significant traveltime anomalies on P waves and transition zone receiver functions. We show that traveltime corrections at periods of about 10 to 20 s are frequency dependent when the size of the anomalies becomes less than 500 km.

Description: The aim of this study is to improve the temporal resolution of seismic wave velocity variations measured using ambient noise correlations. We first reproduce the result obtained by Chen et al. using a network of 21 broad-band stations ideally located around the fault system activated during the Wenchuan earthquake.We measure a velocity drop of 0.07 per cent that was associated with the main shock, with a temporal resolution of 30 days. To determine whether this velocity drop is co-seismic or post-seismic, we attempt to increase the temporal resolution of our observations. By taking advantage of the properties of the curvelet transform, we increase the signal-to-noise ratio of the daily correlations computed between each station pair. It is then possible to measure the velocity drop associated with the Wenchuan earthquake with a temporal resolution of 1 day. This shows that the velocity drop started on 2008 May 12, which was the day of the earthquake, and the velocity reached its lowest value 2 days after the main shock. Moreover, there was a second velocity drop on 2008 May 27, which might relate to strong aftershocks.

Description: Several destructive earthquakes have occurred in Tien-Shan region at the beginning of 20th century. However, the detailed seismological characteristics, especially source parameters of those earthquakes are still poorly investigated. The Chon-Kemin earthquake is the strongest instrumentally recorded earthquake in the Tien-Shan region. This earthquake has produced an approximately 200 km long system of surface ruptures along Kemin-Chilik fault zone and killed about ~400 people. Several studies presented the different information on the earthquake epicentre location and magnitude, and two different focal mechanisms were also published. The reason for the limited knowledge of the source parameters for the Chon-Kemin earthquake is the complexity of old analogue records processing, digitization and analysis. In this study the data from 23 seismic stations worldwide were collected and digitized. The earthquake epicentre was relocated to 42.996N° and 77.367E°, the hypocentre depth is estimated between 10 and 20 km. The magnitude was recalculated to m B 8.05, M s 7.94 and M w 8.02. The focal mechanism, determined from amplitude ratios comparison of the observed and synthetic seismograms, was: str = 264°, dip = 52°, rake = 98°. The apparent source time duration was between ~45 and ~70 s, the maximum slip occurred 25 s after the beginning of the rupture. Two subevents were clearly detected from the waveforms with the scalar moment ratio between them of about $\frac{1}{3}$ , the third subevent was also detected with less certainty. Taking into account surface rupture information, the fault geometry model with three patches was proposed. Based on scaling relations we conclude that the total rupture length was between ~260 and 300 km and a maximum rupture width could reach ~70 km.

Description: New estimates of crustal thickness, Poisson's ratio and crustal shear wave velocity have been obtained for 39 stations in Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia by modelling P -wave receiver functions using the H – stacking method and jointly inverting the receiver functions with Rayleigh-wave phase and group velocities. These estimates, combined with similar results from previous studies, have been examined for secular trends in Precambrian crustal structure within the southern African subcontinent. In both Archean and Proterozoic terranes we find similar Moho depths [38–39 ± 3 km SD (standard deviation)], crustal Poisson's ratio (0.26 ± 0.01 SD ), mean crustal shear wave velocity (3.7 ± 0.1 km s –1 SD ), and amounts of heterogeneity in the thickness of the mafic lower crust, as defined by shear wave velocities ≥4.0 km s –1 . In addition, the amount of variability in these crustal parameters is similar within each individual age grouping as between age groupings. Thus, the results provide little evidence for secular variation in Precambrian crustal structure, including between Meso- and Neoarchean crust. This finding suggests that (1) continental crustal has been generated by similar processes since the Mesoarchean or (2) plate tectonic processes have reworked and modified the crust through time, erasing variations in structure resulting from crustal genesis.

Description: The relative seismic velocity variations possibly associated to large earthquakes can be readily monitored via cross-correlation of seismic noise. In a recently published study, more than 2 yr of continuous seismic records have been analysed from three stations surrounding the epicentre of the 2009 April 6, M w 6.1 L'Aquila earthquake, observing a clear decrease of seismic velocities likely corresponding to the co-seismic shaking. Here, we extend the analysis in space, including seismic stations within a radius of 60 km from the main shock epicentre, and in time, collecting 5 yr of data for the six stations within 40 km of it. Our aim is to investigate how far the crustal damage is visible through this technique, and to detect a potential post-seismic recovery of velocity variations. We find that the co-seismic drop in velocity variations extends up to 40 km from the epicentre, with spatial distribution (maximum around the fault and in the north–east direction from it) in agreement with the horizontal co-seismic displacement detected by global positioning system (GPS). In the first few months after L'Aquila earthquake, the crust's perturbation in terms of velocity variations displays a very unstable behaviour, followed by a slow linear recovery towards pre-earthquake conditions; by almost 4 yr after the event, the co-seismic drop of seismic velocity is not yet fully recovered. The strong oscillations of the velocity changes in the first months after the earthquake prevent to detect the fast exponential recovery seen by GPS data. A test of differently parametrized fitting curves demonstrate that the post-seismic recovery is best explained by a sum of a logarithmic and a linear term, suggesting that processes like viscoelastic relaxation, frictional afterlip and poroelastic rebound may be acting concurrently.

Description: To improve the performance of Global Positioning System (GPS) in the earthquake/tsunami early warning and rapid response applications, minimizing the blind zone and increasing the stability and accuracy of both the rapid source and rupture inversion, the density of existing GPS networks must be increased in the areas at risk. For economic reasons, low-cost single-frequency receivers would be preferable to make the sparse dual-frequency GPS networks denser. When using single-frequency GPS receivers, the main problem that must be solved is the ionospheric delay, which is a critical factor when determining accurate coseismic displacements. In this study, we introduce a modified Satellite-specific Epoch-differenced Ionospheric Delay (MSEID) model to compensate for the effect of ionospheric error on single-frequency GPS receivers. In the MSEID model, the time-differenced ionospheric delays observed from a regional dual-frequency GPS network to a common satellite are fitted to a plane rather than part of a sphere, and the parameters of this plane are determined by using the coordinates of the stations. When the parameters are known, time-differenced ionospheric delays for a single-frequency GPS receiver could be derived from the observations of those dual-frequency receivers. Using these ionospheric delay corrections, coseismic displacements of a single-frequency GPS receiver can be accurately calculated based on time-differenced carrier-phase measurements in real time. The performance of the proposed approach is validated using 5 Hz GPS data collected during the 2012 Nicoya Peninsula Earthquake ( M w 7.6, 2012 September 5) in Costa Rica. This shows that the proposed approach improves the accuracy of the displacement of a single-frequency GPS station, and coseismic displacements with an accuracy of a few centimetres are achieved over a 10-min interval.

Description: We imaged the azimuthal anisotropy of Rayleigh wave phase velocity (10–60 s) in northeast North China Craton using the teleseismic data recorded by a dense temporary array, and then inverted for the 3-D azimuthal anisotropy of the crust and uppermost mantle (20–110 km). The results reveal that the azimuthal anisotropy varies both horizontally and vertically. Obvious stratified azimuthal anisotropy is shown in the Central Orogenic Belt, where the fast direction is NE–SW to NNE–SSW in the depth range of 20–40 km and changes to NW–SE to NWW–SEE in the depth range of 60–110 km. In the depth range of 30–40 km, a prominent low velocity belt is shown on the southwest of Zhangjiakou-Penglai fault zone (ZPFZ) and the fast direction is subparallel to the strike of the low velocity belt. Distinct lateral variations of azimuthal anisotropy are clearly shown at 110 km. Our results provide new evidence for the existence of upwelling asthenosphere beneath the Datong volcano and support the assumption that ZPFZ may act as the channel of upwelling asthenosphere. Historical strong earthquakes ( M ≥ 6.0) mainly occurred in the transition zone between low and high velocity anomalies in the upper and middle crust. The upwelling asthenosphere may prompt the generation of large earthquake.

Description: We explore with numerical simulations basic physical conditions leading to key observed features of non-volcanic tremor (NVT) in relation to slow slip events (SSEs) and earthquakes along the Guerrero segment of the Mexican subduction zone. To study the interactions between different modes of slip, and examine possible variations over timescales larger than the 15 year observational interval, we use a model with a planar interface governed by space-varying static/kinetic friction and dislocation creep in a 3-D elastic solid. A fault section with zero weakening during frictional slip fails in a mode corresponding to a ‘critical depinning transition’ that produces generically many observed features of NVT. A patch with elevated creep coefficients represents a section with SSE. Simulations with small added stress oscillations are used to examine triggering of NVT by large remote earthquakes. The results reproduce well the basic observed properties of NVT and SSE in the Guerrero area, while pointing to complex interactions between large earthquake cycles, quasi-period SSE and scale-invariant NVT behaviour. The model simulations provide additional information on expected frequency-magnitude statistics, slip distributions and space–time properties of the different event types that may be tested with accumulation of future data. Some earthquake and NVT events near the opposite sides of the SSE patch have significant separation between their hypocentres and centroids. The rates of these events are correlated with the creep evolution in the SSE section. The results also suggest that aseismic deformation in the area may have transients on timescales larger than the observational period.

Description: High-melt areas of glaciers and ice sheets foster a rich spectrum of ambient seismicity. These signals not only shed light on source mechanisms (e.g. englacial fracturing, water flow, iceberg detachment, basal motion) but also carry information about seismic wave propagation within glacier ice. Here, we present two approaches to measure and potentially monitor phase velocities of high-frequency seismic waves (≥1 Hz) using naturally occurring glacier seismicity. These two approaches were developed for data recorded by on-ice seasonal seismic networks on the Greenland Ice Sheet and a Swiss Alpine glacier. The Greenland data set consists of continuous seismograms, dominated by long-term tremor-like signals of englacial water flow, whereas the Alpine data were collected in triggered mode producing 1–2 s long records that include fracture events within the ice (‘icequakes’). We use a matched-field processing technique to retrieve frequency-dependent phase velocity measurements for the Greenland data. In principle, this phase dispersion relationship can be inverted for ice sheet thickness and bed properties. For these Greenland data, inversion of the dispersion curve yields a bedrock depth of 541 m, which may be too small by as much as 35 per cent. We suggest that the discrepancy is due to lateral changes in ice sheet depth and bed properties beneath the network, which may cause unaccounted mixing of surface wave modes in the dispersion curve. The Swiss Alpine icequake records, on the other hand, allow for reconstruction of the impulse response between two seismometers. The direct and scattered wave fields from the vast numbers of icequake records (tens of thousands per month) can be used to measure small changes in englacial velocities and thus monitor structural changes within the ice.