test ban treaty verification with regional data a review this paper summarizes the use of regional 30 seismic data in a test ban context for detecting locating identifying and determining the yield of underground nuclear explosions in many areas of the world eastern north america africa eastern ussr lg is the largest amplitude wave recorded on standard seismograph systems and thus is the most appropriate phase for monitoring small magnitude events excellent location capability for near regional events has been demonstrated at the norwegian small aperture array noress using lg and p waves lg and other regional phases may contain information on source depth but such information has not been exploited to date fifteen classes of regional discriminants have been identified including 1 1 first motion 2 2 ms mb 3 3 p2 p1 ratio 4 4 excitation of short period sh waves 5 5 lg rg amplitude ratios 6 6 pn lg pg lg and pmax lg amplitude ratios 7 7 lg group velocity and energy ratios in lg 8 8 excitation of sn 9 9 third moment of frequency 10 10 generation of higher mode surface waves 11 11 peak amplitudes of love and rayleigh waves and long period surface wave energy density 12 12 prevailing period of long period love waves 13 13 spectral ratio long period s waves to rayleigh waves 14 14 spectral ratio long period love waves to rayleigh waves 15 15 frequency of the peak spectral amplitudes and spectral ratios in pn pg s and lg each of these proposed discriminants has with differing degrees of success separated some explosions from some earthquakes however most have been tested only on limited data usually from one geographic region and only one or two recording stations no systematic analyses have been done to determine the best individual discriminant or combination of them preliminary evaluation of the use of lg for yield determination suggests that regional waves hold promise in this application theoretical studies have contributed significantly to the understanding of propagation characteristics of regional waves but further studies are required emphasizing modeling for realistic anisotropic sources the major conclusion of this study is that a systematic and comparative evaluation of all the proposed regional discriminants is now required utilizing a common data base derived from all present day test sites this evaluation would suggest the optimal discrimination procedure using regional waves and would also define areas of needed research without such an integrated evaluation it is still possible to speculate using existing results on the most promising regional discriminants

itrf2008 plate motion model 1 the itrf2008 velocity field is demonstrated to be of higher quality and more precise than past itrf solutions we estimated an absolute tectonic plate motion model made up of 14 major plates using velocities of 206 sites of high geodetic quality far from plate boundaries deformation zones and glacial isostatic adjustment gia regions derived from and consistent with itrf2008 the precision of the estimated model is evaluated to be at the level of 0 3 mm a wrms no gia corrections were applied to site velocities prior to estimating plate rotation poles as our selected sites are outside the fennoscandia regions where the gia models we tested are performing reasonably well and far from gia areas where the models would degrade the fit antarctica and north america our selected velocity field has small origin rate bias components following the three axis x y z respectively 0 41 0 54 0 22 0 64 and 0 41 0 60 95 per cent confidence limits comparing our model to nnr nuvel 1a and the newly available nnr morvel56 we found better agreement with nnr morvel56 than with nnr nuvel 1a for all plates except for australia where we observe an average residual rotation rate of 4 mm a using our selection of sites we found large global x rotation rates between the two models 0 016 ma and between our model and nnr morvel56 of 0 023 ma equivalent to 2 5 mm a at the earth surface

an active deep marine strike slip basin along the north anatolian fault in turkey the tekirdag depression within the marmara sea in the mediterranean region is an active rhomb shaped strike slip basin along the north anatolian fault with a basin floor at a water depth of 1150 m new multichannel seismic reflection data and on land geological studies indicate that the basin is forming along a releasing bend of the strike slip fault and is filled with syntransform sediments of pliocene quaternary age the basin is bounded on one side by the north anatolian fault and on the other side by a subparallel normal fault which forms the steep submarine slope in cross section the basin is strongly asymmetric with the thickness of the syntransform strata increasing from a few tens of meters on the submarine slope to over 2 5 km adjacent to the north anatolian fault seismic sections also show that the slope forming normal fault connects at depth to the north anatolian fault implying that the basin is completely detached from its substratum the whole structure can be envisaged as a huge rather flat negative flower structure the releasing bend of the north anatolian fault responsible for the formation of the basin is flanked by a constraining bend along the constraining bend the syntransform strata are being underthrust implying a recent change in the direction of the regional displacement vector this thrusting is responsible for the uplift of the submarine slope to a height of 924 m possibly by a mechanism of elastic rebound regional geology suggests that most of the syntransform strata are lacustrine with only the topmost few hundred meters consisting of deep marine clays the anomalous present depth of the tekirdag depression is due to reduced quaternary sedimentation coupled with high rates of displacement along the north anatolian fault which amounts to 20 mm yr in the marmara sea region

crustal deformation of the eastern tibetan plateau revealed by magnetotelluric imaging the ongoing collision of the indian and asian continents has created the himalaya and tibetan plateau through a range of deformation processes these include crustal thickening detachment of the lower lithosphere from the plate delamination and flow in a weakened lower crust 1 6 debate continues as to which of these processes are most significant 7 in eastern tibet large scale motion of the surface occurs but the nature of deformation at depth remains unresolved a large scale crustal flow channel has been proposed as an explanation for regional uplift in eastern tibet 6 8 9 but existing geophysical data 10 11 do not constrain the pattern of flow magnetotellurics uses naturally occurring electromagnetic waves to image the earth s subsurface here we present magnetotelluric data that image two major zones or channels of high electrical conductivity at a depth of 20 40 km the channels extend horizontally more than 800 km from the tibetan plateau into southwest china the electrical properties of the channels imply an elevated fluid content consistent with a weak crust 12 13 that permits flow on a geological timescale these findings support the hypothesis that crustal flow can occur in orogenic belts and contribute to uplift of plateaux our results reveal the previously unknown complexities of these patterns of crustal flow many previous studies of the indiaasia

spectral discrimination between nts explosions and western united states earthquakes at regional distances spectral ratio disciminants are applied to 72 western united states earthquakes and 64 nts explosions recorded at four broadband seismic stations surrounding nts the ratio of the energy in the 1 to 2 and 6 to 8 hz bands for pn pg and lg is calculated and a simple distance correction applied to the data the spectral ratio appears to have potential as a disciminant at relatively small magnitudes 3 0 4 5 to 5 0 this may be due to uncertainties in the apparent source time function for explosions these complications may be due to changes in the dynamic response of the material in the near source region as a function of overburden pressure effects of secondary sources or to variations in regional phase excitation with depth

dynamics of the india eurasia collision zone we present simple new dynamic calculations of a vertically averaged deviatoric stress field over a depth average of 100 km for asia from geodetic geologic topographic and seismic data a first estimate of the minimum absolute magnitudes and directions of vertically averaged deviatoric stress is obtained by solving force balance equations for deviatoric stresses associated with gravitational potential energy differences within the lithosphere plus a first order contribution of deviatoric stresses associated with stress boundary conditions this initial estimate of the vertically averaged deviatoric stress field is obtained independent of assumptions about the rheology of the lithosphere absolute magnitudes of vertically averaged deviatoric stresses vary between 5 and 40 mpa assuming bulk viscous behavior for the lithosphere the magnitudes of deviatoric stresses together with the magnitudes of strain rates inferred from quaternary fault slip rate and gps data yield vertically averaged effective viscosities for tibet of 0 5 5 1022 pa s compared with 1 2 5 1023 pa s in more rigid areas elsewhere in the region a forward modeling method that solves force balance equations using velocity boundary conditions allows us to refine our estimates of the vertically averaged effective viscosity distribution and deviatoric stress field the total vertically averaged deviatoric stress and effective viscosity field are consistent with a weak lower crust in tibet they are consistent with some eastward motion of tibet and south china lithosphere relative to eurasia and they confirm that gravitational potential energy differences have a profound effect on the spatially varying style and magnitude of strain rate around the tibetan plateau our results for the vertically averaged deviatoric stress argue for a large portion of the strength of the lithosphere to reside within the seismogenic upper crust to get deviatoric stress magnitudes there to be as high as 100 300 mpa in accord with laboratory and theoretical friction experiments indicating that stress drops in earthquakes are small fractions of the total deviatoric stress

block kinematics of the pacific north america plate boundary in the southwestern united states from inversion of gps seismological and geologic data 1 the active deformation of the southwestern united states 30 41 n is represented by a finite number of rotating elastic plastic spherical caps gps derived horizontal velocities geologic fault slip rates transform fault azimuths and earthquake derived fault slip vector azimuths are inverted for block angular velocities creep on block bounding faults permanent strain rates within the blocks and the rotations of 11 published gps velocity fields into to a common north american reference frame gps velocities are considered to be a combination of rigid block rotations recoverable elastic strain rates resulting from friction on block bounding faults and nonrecoverable strain rates resulting from slip on faults within the blocks the resulting pacific north america angular velocity is similar to some published estimates and satisfies transform azimuths and one spreading rate in the gulf of california earthquake slip vectors in the gulf of california and alaska and gps velocities along coastal california and within the pacific basin published fault slip rates are satisfied except in the southern mojave desert where the motion of the mohave block relative to north america is faster than can be explained by mapped faults the largest blocks the sierra nevada great valley and the eastern basin and range show permanent strain rates after removing elastic strain of only a few nanostrain per year demonstrating approximately rigid behavior observed horizontal strain rates correlate strongly with predicted strain rates from known faults suggesting that the short term strains evident in gps velocities are largely elastic in only about 20 of the region is distributed deformation needed to match the data indicating that a plate tectonic style description of the deformation of the western united states is plausible most blocks rotate about vertical axes at approximately the same rate as the pacific relative to north america suggesting that locally spin rates are communicated from block to block arguing against both floating block and ball bearing mechanisms of block rotation the similarities of the blocks spin rates to that of the pacific suggests that the pacific strongly influences their motions through edge tractions however it is shown that the blocks cannot rotate about the pacific north america pole without spinning counter to the sense of pacific north america shear unlike some other broad plate boundaries in the western united states vertical axis rotations take up very little of the slip rate budget across the region

statistical tests of additional plate boundaries from plate motion inversions we have investigated the application of the f ratio test a standard statistical technique to the results of relative plate motion inversions the method tests whether the improvement in fit of the model to the data resulting from the addition of another plate to the model is greater than that expected purely by chance this approach appears to be useful in determining whether additional plate boundaries are justified we confirm previous results favoring separate north american and south american plates with a boundary located between 30 n and the equator using chase s global relative motion data we show that in addition to separate west african and somalian plates separate west indian and australian plates with a best fitting boundary between 70 e and 90 e can be resolved these results are generally consistent with the observation that the indian plate s internal deformation extends somewhat westward of the ninetyeast ridge the relative motion pole is similar to minster and jordan s and predicts the nw se compression observed in earthquake mechanisms near the ninetyeast ridge

late quaternary to decadal velocity fields in asia 1 fields of crustal velocity and strain rate within asia averaged over horizontal distances of 300 km are calculated from estimates of quaternary slip rates on faults and rates of change of lengths of baselines between gps sites the calculated fields fit strain rate components estimated from quaternary slip rates within 95 confidence limits and fit the gps data with an rms residual of 2 5 mm yr 1 the strain rate field constrained only by quaternary slip rates of faults differs from the combined solution at the level of 20 nstrain yr 1 and the differences are explicable by the limited accuracy of geological estimates of slip rate therefore the strain rate fields determined by geodetic measurements taken on the 10 year timescale are consistent with geological observations on the 104 year timescale the combined solution for velocities shows plate or block like motion within deforming asia only in tarim south china and the amurian region elsewhere the kinematics of rigid blocks does not provide a useful description of the motion in particular velocities relative to eurasia point at high angles to contours of their magnitudes not parallel to them as they would if large regions moved as rigid blocks the axes of principal horizontal compressional strain align with topographic gradients in agreement with previous suggestions that asia deforms as a continuum under the influence of gravity

time dependent inversion of three component continuous gps for steady and transient sources in northern cascadia 1 an approach to invert gps time series to estimate crustal block rotations fault locking and strain rates while simultaneously solving for transient slow slip events is described and applied to the northern cascadia subduction zone the method can use continuous or survey mode gps time series or both i invert 5 6 years of 3 component continuous gps time series at 53 sites from cascadia to estimate simultaneously the block motions and strains locking on the subduction zone and source parameters of the four most recent slow slip events over the time period and section of the cascadia margin sampled the strain released in slow slip was 7 to 10 of the accumulated subduction strain but at the base of and immediately downdip of the locked zone beneath the olympic peninsula

crustal structure of mainland china from deep seismic sounding data abstract since 1958 about ninety seismic refraction wide angle reflection profiles with a cumulative length of more than sixty thousand kilometers have been completed in mainland china we summarize the results in the form of 1 a new contour map of crustal thickness 2 fourteen representative crustal seismic velocity depth columns for various tectonic units and 3 a pn velocity map we found a north south trending belt with a strong lateral gradient in crustal thickness in central china this belt divides china into an eastern region with a crustal thickness of 30 45 km and a western region with a thickness of 45 75 km the crust in these two regions has experienced different evolutionary processes and currently lies within distinct tectonic stress fields our compilation finds that there is a high velocity 7 1 7 4 km s layer in the lower crust of the stable tarim basin and ordos plateau however in young orogenic belts including parts of eastern china the tianshan and the tibetan plateau this layer is often absent one exception is southern tibet where the presence of a high velocity layer is related to the northward injection of the cold indian plate this high velocity layer is absent in northern tibet in orogenic belts there usually is a low velocity layer lvl in the crust but in stable regions this layer seldom exists the pn velocities in eastern china generally range from 7 9 to 8 1 km s and tend to be isotropic pn velocities in western china are more variable ranging from 7 7 to 8 2 km s and may display azimuthal anisotropy

analysis of seismic discrimination capabilities using regional data from western united states events additional studies have been conducted to help verify the findings of previous investigations cf murphy and bennett 1982 which indicated that spectral differences in short period regional phases may be diagnostic of source type for nevada test site nts explosions and nearby earthquakes recorded at tonto forest observatory in arizona regional phase signals from two additional stations the uinta basin observatory array in utah and the blue mountains observatory array in oregon and from supplemental events including aftershocks of the 1966 caliente nevada earthquake have been analyzed these stations are at epicentral distances of 430 to 530 km for tonto forest observatory 520 to 670 km for uinta basin observatory and 870 to 880 km for blue mountains observatory with the near ranges representing the distances to the caliente source area and the far ranges to the average nts source receiver distances this enhanced data base included 50 earthquakes within about 150 km of nts and 35 nts explosions recorded at one or more stations the events cover a magnitude range from about 2 8 to 5 2 mb with the majority of earthquakes concentrated in the lower half of that range the current investigation essentially corroborated our previous findings that comparison of simple peak amplitude measurements of regional p and lg phases did not consistently discriminate between earthquakes and explosions this discriminant breakdown appears to be related to variability in excitation of regional phases from similar sources which has been dramatically illustrated by observations from the 1966 caliente aftershocks these events produced large variations in the relative amplitudes of pg and lg signals even though the events were spatially restricted to a small zone in contrast the lg spectral ratio discriminant measure defined in the previous study continued to provide reliable distinction between the earthquake and explosion sources for data observed at all three stations the discrimination capability of the spectral ratio prevails in spite of the evident mechanism variability between earthquakes and shifts in the discrimination threshold between stations apparently related to attenuation differences along the propagation paths

contemporary crustal deformation around the southeast borderland of the tibetan plateau 1 we derive a detailed horizontal velocity field for the southeast borderland of the tibetan plateau using gps data collected from the crustal motion observation network of china between 1998 and 2004 our results reveal a complex deformation field that indicates that the crust is fragmented into tectonic blocks of various sizes separated by strike slip and transtensional faults most notably the regional deformation includes 10 11 mm yr left slip across the xianshuihe fault 7 mm yr left slip across the anninghe zemuhe xiaojiang fault zone 2 mm yr right slip across a shear zone trending northwest near the southern segment of the lancang river fault and 3 mm yr left slip across the lijiang fault deformation along the southern segment of the red river fault appears not significant at present time the region south and west of the xianshuihexiaojiang fault system whose eastward motion is resisted by the stable south china block to the east turns from eastward to southward motion with respect to south china resulting in clockwise rotation of its internal subblocks active deformation is detected across two previously unknown deformation zones one is located 150 km northwest of and in parallel with the longmenshan fault with 4 6 mm yr right slip and another is continued south southwestward from the xiaojiang fault abutting the red river fault with 7 mm yr left slip while both of these zones are seismically active the exact locations of faults responsible for such deformation are yet to be mapped by field geology comparing our gps results with predictions of various models proposed for tibetan plateau deformation we find that the relatively small sizes of the inferred microblocks and their rotation pattern lend support to a model with a mechanically weak lower crust experiencing distributed deformation underlying a stronger highly fragmented upper crust

tectonic evolution of the marmara sea and its surroundings abstract the basins in the marmara sea are the products of a superimposed evolutionary history defined by two different aged fault systems the early miocene early pliocene thrace eskisehir fault zone and its branches and the late pliocene recent north anatolian fault and its branches the thrace eskisehir fault and its westward branching secondary fault systems define the early neotectonic signature in the region the late neotectonic period started at the end of the early pliocene when the north anatolian fault divided the thrace eskisehir fault into four parts during the late neotectonic period the north anatolian fault extended westward as a number of splays by joining with the ganos bandirma behramkale and manyas edremit fault zones the branches of the north anatolian fault zone nafz caused the evolution of a number of basins which differ in character depending on the trend and past characteristics of the older branches that became connected since the northern branch of the north anatolian fault is connected to the n80 e trending ganos fault zone gfz in the west a single buried fault has developed in the marmara sea causing the well known troughs and ridges superimposed onto the negative flower structure formed by the gfz in the early neotectonic period the middle strand which extends from iznik lake to bandirma is oriented east west up to the n60 e trending bandirma behramkale fault zone then turns southward in the vicinity of bandirma forming a region dominated by compressional tectonics this bending caused n30 e trending tension in addition to the strike slip motion between the eastern part of gemlik bay and bandirma bay the southern branch of the nafz on the other hand produced three pull apart basins with different characteristics along the yenisehir bursa and manyas segments the southern branch of the nafz connected to the manyas edremit fault zone which is oriented n45 e to the south of manyas and the associated bending and rotation caused a n15 e trending extension in addition to the strike slip regime between manyas and uluabat the branches of north anatolian fault cut through the thrace eskisehir fault at three places the east marmara sea region in gemlik bay and to the east of bursa giving lateral offsets of 58 59 7 8 and 10 11 km respectively the cumulative motion is 75 78 km corresponding to the total lateral offset of the north anatolian fault in the region the correlation of these offsets with global positioning system slip vectors and with stratigraphic results implies that the north anatolian fault reached into the marmara sea region about 3 5 million yr ago tectonic processes forming the marmara sea and its environs were initiated by the thrace eskisehir fault and its splays have been most recently controlled by the north anatolian fault and its splays during the last 3 5 million yr

present day kinematics at the india asia collision zone the collision of the indian subcontinent with asia drives the growth and evolution of the greater tibetan plateau region fault slip rates resulting from the relative motion between crustal blocks can provide a kinematic description of the distribution of presentday deformation i construct a three dimensional regional scale elastic block model of the india asia collision zone that is consistent with geodetic observations of interseismic deforma tion mapped fault system geometry historical seismicity and the mechanics of the earthquake cycle this mechanical model of the elastic upper crust yields a set of kinematically consistent fault slip rates and block motions that may serve to constrain dynamic models of continental crustal dynamics

geodetic measurement of crustal motion in southwest china global positioning system measurements performed over a 2 4 yr period confirm the xianshuihe xiaojiang fault system as one of the primary active structures in southwest china stations southwest of these faults show southerly motions of 5 15 mm yr relative to the western sichuan basin and stations in a 200 km geodetic network located northwest of the basin move at only 0 5 mm yr these results are consistent with clockwise rotation of southwestern sichuan and western yunnan about the eastern tibetan syntaxis accommodated by left lateral slip of 12 4 mm yr on the xianshuihe xiaojiang fault system the results imply that if eastward extrusion of crustal material from the plateau occurs at present it is not accommodated by east west shortening along the margin of the plateau and must involve wholesale eastward motion of low lying regions to the east

application of the global positioning system to crustal deformation measurement 1 precision and accuracy in this paper we assess the precision and accuracy of interstation vectors determined using the global positioning system gps satellites these vectors were between stations in california separated by 50 450 km using data from tracking the seven block i satellites in campaigns from 1986 through 1989 we examine the precision of gps measurements over time scales of a several days and a few years we characterize gps precision by constant and length dependent terms the north south component of the interstation vectors has a short term precision of 1 9 mm 0 6 parts in 108 the east west component shows a similar precision at the shortest distances 2 1 mm with a larger length dependence 1 3 parts in 108 the vertical precision has a mean value of 17 mm with no clear length dependence for long term precision we examine interstation vectors measured over a period of 2 2 to 2 7 years when we include the recent results of davis et al 1989 for distances less than 50 km we can describe long term gps precision for baselines less than 450 km in length as 3 4 mm 1 2 parts in 108 5 2mm 2 8 parts in 108 11 7mm 13 parts in 108 in the north south east west and vertical components accuracy has been determined by comparing gps baseline estimates with those derived from very long baseline interferometry vlbi a comparison of eight interstation vectors shows differences ranging from 5 to 30 mm between the mean gps and mean vlbi estimates in the horizontal components and less than 80 mm in the vertical a large portion of the horizontal differences can be explained by local survey errors at two sites in california a comparison which suffers less from such errors is between the rates of change of the baselines the horizontal rates estimated from over 4 years of vlbi data agree with those determined with 1 2 years of gps data to within one standard deviation in the vertical both gps and vlbi find insignificant vertical motion

tectonics of the buried kirklareli fault thrace region nw turkey abstract the study investigated the geometry seismicity and kinematics of the kirklareli fault kf by using drilling seismic reflection and field data the kf located in the thrace region nw turkey is a buried fault that forms a morphological boundary between the strandzha mountains and the ergene basin it has lithological and morphological importance in the region although there were some destructive earthquakes in the basin historically the magnitude of the largest earthquake measured instrumentally was only 4 6 earthquake data obtained from the kandilli observatory and earthquake research institute indicate that the epicentres are concentrated along the kf deep borehole data show a total vertical displacement of 223 m over the last 2 ma displacement calculations indicated that the kf moves with a normal displacement of at least 0 1 mm year the seismic profile verified the existence of the kf kinematic analysis of measurements on bedding planes of a formation near the kf demonstrates n105 direction the activeness and existence of the hangingwall and footwall of the kf are discussed on the basis of morphometric analyses and geomorphic indices the two geomorphic indices sl and vf show that tectonism effects the morphology the kf has normal fault geometry according to drilling seismological and gps data geomorphic indices and field observations

the active main marmara fault abstract this paper presents selections from and a synthesis of a high resolution bathymetric sparker and deep towed seismic reflection data set recently acquired by the french ifremer r v le suroit in an e w deep trough that forms the northern half of the sea of marmara in nw turkey it includes the first high resolution complete bathymetric map of this area a single throughgoing dextral strike slip fault system which is the western continuation of the northern branch of the north anatolian fault cuts this trough lengthwise and joins the 1999 8 17 kocaeli earthquake fault with the 1912 8 09 arkoy murefte earthquake fault both of which display strike slip offset in its eastern one fourth the structure follows closely the northern margin of the deep trough whereas in the west it hugs its southern margin the eastern one fourth of the structure has a minor component of its displacement distributed across the deep trough owing to a possible original bend in the course of the dextral structure the present course of the north anatolian fault in the sea of marmara originated some 2 105 a ago by cutting across the older basin fabric generated by a dominant nne ssw extension before it began taking up major motion in the pliocene

a review on active tectonics and deep crustal processes of the western sichuan region eastern margin of the tibetan plateau abstract one of remarkable geological and geomorphological features in continental china is the presence of a north south trending tectonic zone which separates the seismically active tibetan plateau to the west from the tectonically stable south china and ordos blocks to the east the zone also owns a name of north south seismic belt as a large number of great historical earthquakes occur on it the most recent one the 2008 wenchuan earthquake attests its recent tectonic activity in this review i take the western sichuan region as an example to probe the structural styles and kinematic pattern as well as deep geological process associated with tectonic deformation of the north south trending zone through integrated studies on active faults gps crustal deformation and geophysical structure we show that deformation in the western sichuan is governed by interactions among three crustal blocks songpan chuandian and south china of distinctive rheological properties under the tectonic framework that eastward growth of the soft eastern tibet is blocked by the hard lithosphere of the south china block the left lateral xianshuihe fault continues to the north south trending fault system without crustal shortening to form a bounding fault to limit the northern extend of the magnificent clockwise rotation of crustal material around the eastern himalaya syntax upper crust of the three blocks is dominated by brittle deformation whereas the ductile flow of lower crust would drag the brittle upper crustal blocks to move with respect to each other the relative motions among the brittle upper crustal blocks cause strain accumulations among their bounding faults to generate large earthquakes deformation of the western sichuan region can thus be described in terms of combined model of rigid block movement and continuous deformation we suggest this combined model can be applied to entire continental china

the sea of marmara a plate boundary sea in an escape tectonic regime abstract the sea of marmara is dissected by two major fault systems the first consists of two east west striking transtensional boundary faults and a number of secondary faults subparallel to them the second is made up of ne sw trending subvertical strike slips and their conjugates oriented nw se that offset the first system these fault systems segment the deep marmara sea into 5 blocks that are either rhomboidal lazy z or wedge shaped three of these blocks may be interpreted as pull apart basins characterized by transtension while the other two sill areas which separate the basins are transpressional push up structures the blocks are subjected to rapid episodic subsidence but they also undergo pervasive vertical motions and possible rotations relative to one another the sedimentary column above the acoustic basement mapped within the sea of marmara can be divided into 3 seismic units a folded and truncated pre transform unit and two syn transform units the lower thick syn transform unit exhibits 3 distinct seismic facies a well stratified basin fill facies cut by subvertical growth faults a push up facies with a contorted or chaotic internal configuration and a slump facies the observed neotectonic and sedimentary regimes result from compressional movement between eurasia and africa which has led to major dextral transform movements along the north anatolian fault zone escape tectonics and from the fact that this fault zone splinters into two overlapping right stepping oblique master faults at the eastern and western border of the sea of marmara respectively

high frequency spectra of regional phases from earthquakes and chemical explosions abstract we analyze the high frequency 1 to 50 hz spectra of chemical explosions and earthquakes at local and regional distances in the northeastern united states and in norway to understand the seismic signal characteristics of single explosions multiple hole instantaneous explosions ripple fired quarry blasts and earthquakes our purpose is to evaluate practical discriminants and to obtain a physical understanding of their successes and failures high frequency spectra from ripple fired blasts usually show clear time independent frequency bands due to the repetitive nature of the source and are distinctively different from the spectra of instantaneous blasts or earthquakes however like other discriminators based on spectral estimates the spectrogram method requires data with high signal to noise ratios at high frequencies for unambiguous discrimination in addition banding is not seen in spectrograms for shots with small delay times less than 8 msec and short total durations we have successfully modeled the observed high frequency spectral bands up to about 45 hz of the regional signals from quarry blasts in new york and adjacent states using information on shot hole patterns and charge distribution we find that ripple firing results in an enrichment of high frequency s waves and efficient excitation of the rg phase there is an azimuthal dependence of p wave amplitude associated with orientation of the path with respect to local topography ridges benches in which the shots are emplaced to discriminate instantaneous explosions from earthquakes we find the p s spectral amplitude ratio at high frequencies is complementary to the use of spectrogram methods a high p s spectral ratio above 10 hz is a stable characteristic of instantaneous explosions

present day crustal motion within the tibetan plateau inferred from gps measurements 1 using the measurements of 726 gps stations around the tibetan plateau we determine the rigid rotation of the entire plateau in a eurasia fixed reference frame which can be best described by an euler vector of 24 38 0 42 n 102 37 0 42 e 0 7096 0 0206 ma the rigid rotational component accommodates at least 50 of the northeastward thrust from india and dominates the eastward extrusion of the northern plateau after removing the rigid rotation to highlight the interior deformation within the plateau we find that the most remarkable interior deformation of the plateau is a glacier like flow zone which starts at somewhere between the middle and western plateau goes clockwise around the eastern himalayan syntaxis ehs and ends at the southeast corner of the plateau with a fan like front the deformation feature of the southern plateau especially the emergence of the flow zone could be attributed to an eastward escape of highly plastic upper crustal material driven by a lower crust viscous channel flow generated by lateral compression and gravitational buoyancy at the later developmental stage of the plateau the first order feature of crustal deformation of the northeastern plateau can be well explained by a three dimensional elastic half space dislocation model with rates of dislocation segments comparable to the ones from geological observations in the eastern plateau although gps data show no significant convergence between the eastern margin of the plateau and the sichuan basin a small but significant compressional strain rate component of 10 5 2 8 nstrain yr exists in a relatively narrow region around the eastern margin in addition a large part of the eastern plateau northeast of the ehs is not undergoing shortening along the northeastward convergence direction of the ehs but is stretching

transient signal detection using gps measurements transient inflation at akutan volcano alaska during early 2008 1 continuous global positioning system gps networks record station position changes with millimeter level accuracy and have revealed transient deformations on various spatial and temporal scales however the transient deformation may not be easily identified from the position time series because of the large number of sites in a network low signal to noise ratios snr and correlated noise in space and time here we apply state estimation and principal component analysis to the daily gps position time series measured in alaska sites of the plate boundary observatory network our algorithm detects a transient signal whose maximum displacement is 9 mm in horizontal and 11 mm in vertical that occurred at akutan volcano during the first half of 2008 a simple mogi source inversion suggests inflation at shallow depth 3 9 km beneath the volcano although the detection was not easy because the signal was aseismic non eruptive and weak not apparent in raw daily time series our detection method improves the snr and therefore provides higher resolution for detecting the transient signal

crustal rheology of the himalaya and southern tibet inferred from magnetotelluric data the collision between the indian and asian continents which began about 70 million years ago involved a convergence of at least 1 400 km and raised the tibetan plateau since crustal material is too buoyant to be transported downwards into the earth s interior the mechanisms at work in plateau formation are important in understanding the evolution of the continents yet still a matter of debate geophysical observations in the himalaya and tibet using ultra low frequency radio waves now reveal that a partially molten layer is present along the entire length of the himalaya this weak layer implies that widespread crustal flow is occurring and explains many features of plateau evolution the cenozoic collision between the indian and asian continents formed the tibetan plateau beginning about 70 million years ago since this time at least 1 400 km of convergence has been accommodated1 by a combination of underthrusting of indian2 and asian lithosphere crustal shortening3 horizontal extrusion4 and lithospheric delamination5 rocks exposed in the himalaya show evidence of crustal melting1 6 and are thought to have been exhumed by rapid erosion and climatically forced crustal flow7 8 magnetotelluric data can be used to image subsurface electrical resistivity a parameter sensitive to the presence of interconnected fluids in the host rock matrix even at low volume fractions here we present magnetotelluric data from the tibetan himalayan orogen from 77 e to 92 e which show that low resistivity interpreted as a partially molten layer is present along at least 1 000 km of the southern margin of the tibetan plateau the inferred low viscosity of this layer is consistent with the development of climatically forced crustal flow in southern tibet

postseismic relaxation and transient creep 1 postseismic deformation has been observed in the epicentral area following the 1992 landers m 7 3 1999 chi chi m 7 6 1999 hector mine m 7 1 2002 denali m 7 9 2003 san simeon m 6 5 and 2004 parkfield m 6 0 earthquakes the observations consist of repeated gps measurements of the position of one monument relative to another separation 100 km the early observations t 0 1 year are well fit by the function a c log t where t is the time after the earthquake and a and c are constants chosen to fit the data because a log t time dependence is characteristic of transient primary creep the early postseismic response may be governed by transient creep as benioff proposed in 1951 that inference is provisional as the stress conditions prevailing in postseismic relaxation are not identical to the constant stress condition in creep experiments the observed logarithmic time dependence includes no characteristic time that might aid in identifying the micromechanical cause

present day kinematics of the eastern tibetan plateau and sichuan basin implications for lower crustal rheology d s stamps was funded in part by the nsf ear postdoctoral fellowship program grant ear1249295 x rui was funded in part by the cea spark program xh15038

coseismic deformations detectable by satellite gravity missions a case study of alaska 1964 2002 and hokkaido 2003 earthquakes in the spectral domain 1 coseismic deformations observed on the earth surface or modeled by conventional dislocation theory cannot be compared directly with those observed by gravity satellite missions because of the spatial resolution limit of the missions and the signal attenuation of the gravity field coseismic deformations in the spectrum domain should be considered instead for this purpose the conventional dislocation theory e g sun and okubo 1993 for a spherical earth model can be used because it is expressed in the form of a spherical harmonic in this study analytical expressions of degree variances of the coseismic geoid and gravity changes for shear and tensile sources are derived and calculated for three real earthquakes those results are compared with expected errors of the gravity recovery and climate experiment grace to elucidate whether or not coseismic geoid and gravity changes are detectable by gravity satellite missions behaviors of the degree variances for four independent seismic sources are investigated results indicate that both the gravity and geoid changes are near two orders of magnitude larger than the precession of the gravity missions in low harmonic degrees on the basis of these results we derived the minimum magnitudes of earthquakes detectable by grace we concluded that coseismic deformations for an earthquake with a seismic magnitude above m 7 5 are expected to be detected by grace

possible strand of the north anatolian fault in the thrace basin turkey an interpretation the north anatolian fault is a 1200 km long major transform fault bounding the anatolian plate on its north side the fault formed during the late middle miocene as a broad shear zone with a number of strands splaying westward in a horsetail pattern later movement became localized along a central strand and the southerly and northerly splays became inactive the west northwest striking thrace strike slip fault system is one of these right lateral presently inactive splays it consists of three subparallel strike slip faults from north to south these are the kirklareli luleburgaz and babaeski fault zones which extend for about 130 km through the thrace basin the thrace fault zone probably connected to the southeast with the presently active northern strand of the north anatolian fault in the marmara sea to the northwest the zone may have extended to the plovdiv graben zone in bulgaria the cenozoic thrace basin contains middle eocene to pliocene sedimentary rocks the thrace right lateral wrench fault system formed prior to the pliocene and had become inactive by the pliocene strike slip fault zones with normal and reverse separation are detected by seismic reflection profiles and subsurface data as the system became inactive the motion on the north anatolian fault zone began to be accommodated in the marmara sea region thus the thrace fault system represents the oldest strand of the north anatolian fault to the west of istanbul releasing bend extensional structures and restraining bend compressional structures are abundant along the fault zones several hydrocarbon producing anticlines lie en echelon to the luleburgaz fault zone regionally the thrace fault ystem has a horsetail shape with the various strands becoming younger southward

gps constrained coseismic source and slip distribution of the 2013 mw6 6 lushan china earthquake and its tectonic implications the 20 april 2013 lushan earthquake occurred on the southern section of the longmen shan fault system using gps data from 33 continuous stations we derive a three dimensional coseismic displacement field of the earthquake and invert for the location geometry and slip distribution of the fault rupture our study result indicates that the earthquake occurred on a reverse fault striking n28 e and dipping 43 to the nw with the maximum slip located at 30 292 n 102 943 e and 13 km depth the rupture is dominated by thrust faulting with a slight but still statistically significant sinistral component the seismic moment release is 9 5 1018 n m equivalent to a mw6 6 earthquake our results suggest that at the southern end of the longmen shan fault zone near the triple junction with the xianshuihe and anninghe faults the kinematic deformation field is no longer block like but broadly distributed to accommodate the buttressing effect of deformation around the fault triple junction

continental deformation in asia from a combined gps solution 1 after decades of research on continental tectonics there is still no consensus on the mode of deformation of continents or on the forces that drive their deformation in asia the debate opposes edge driven block models requiring a strong lithosphere with strain localized on faults to buoyancy driven continuous models requiring a viscous lithosphere with pervasive strain discriminating between these models requires continent wide estimates of lithospheric strain rates previous efforts have relied on the resampling of heterogeneous geodetic and quaternary faulting data sets using interpolation techniques we present a new velocity field based on the rigorous combination of geodetic solutions with relatively homogeneous station spacing avoiding technique dependent biases inherent to interpolation methods we find 1 unresolvable strain rates 3 109 yr over a large part of asia with current motions well described by block or microplate rotations and 2 internal strain possibly continuous limited to high elevation areas

the north anatolian fault in the sea of marmara 1 using the detailed geometry and tectonics of the main marmara fault that connects the gulf of izmit fault with the ganos fault established by le pichon et al 2001 and the new gps data set recently analyzed by meade et al 2002 we confirm the existence of a marmara block delimited to the north by the northern branch of the north anatolian fault the marmara branch and to the south by the southern branch the kinematics of this block indicate that the marmara branch that crosses the sea of marmara is close to pure dextral strike slip at a rate of 23 mm yr on its whole length the short cinarcik section is the only one where a significant extensional component is predicted a simple kinematic model accounts for slip partitioning there with 8 10 mm yr of extension to the south of the basin and 23 mm yr of dextral strike slip along the northern cinarcik margin the new gps data demonstrate the existence of important asymmetric elastic loading along the main marmara fault that may have significant implications for the seismotectonics of the area the expected future large earthquake may rupture the whole main marmara fault the partitioning in the cinarcik basin may produce magnitude 7 normal faulting earthquakes if their repetition time is about 250 years the 1896 earthquake may have been one of these normal fault earthquakes the marmara block is less than 1 ma prior to its formation it was part of the anatolian block at this time the ganos fault was already a dextral strike slip fault but the fault system in the sea of marmara would have been affected by an extensional component increasing toward the east that accounts for the increasing size of the sedimentary basins eastward

the north anatolian fault within the sea of marmara a new interpretation based on multi channel seismic and multi beam bathymetry data abstract we analyze 2200 km of multi channel seismic reflection profiles that have become recently available in the sea of marmara this analysis benefits from the recent acquisition of multi beam bathymetric data covering the axial portion of the northern basins we conclude that the northern sea of marmara is at present cut by an active continuous strike slip fault system that we call the marmara fault it links the 270 izmit portion of the northern branch of the north anatolian fault to the east of the sea to the 245 ganos fault to the west the marmara fault itself consists of two main parts the western one is a single 80 km long fault it follows a 265 direction that differs by 20 from the direction of the ganos fault at its northeastern extremity it turns toward the northern margin of the cinarcik basin this western part of the fault is seismically quite active the eastern part is more complex it extends over 65 km in a 280 direction there is thus a 10 clockwise rotation with respect to the 270 izmit fault strand that should result in a slight extensional component within the eastern cinarcik basin this part of the marmara fault has two parallel branches 10 km apart the northern one near the foot of the northern slope the southern one near the foot of the southern slope a shortening zone occupies the northwestern corner of the cinarcik basin and much of the adjacent eastern central high and separates the northern branch from the western one the southern branch on the other hand may cross the eastern central high along a narrow 280 valley the data we have provide no definitive evidence on which of these two branches carries most of the motion the establishment of the present trace of the fault through the marmara basin is contemporaneous with a recent phase of deposition of deep giant ripples parallel to the bathymetric slope contours and adjacent to the turbidites basin deposits the base of these deep basins sedimentary deposits is marked by a widespread erosional unconformity below which lies a gently folded sedimentary sequence that may consist of shallow thrace basin deposits

contamination of seismicity catalogs by quarry blasts an example from istanbul and its vicinity northwestern turkey abstract scientists have proposed two fault systems of different ages in the sea of marmara the thrace eskisehir fault zone of early miocene early pliocene age and the north anatolian fault zone of late pliocene recent age different seismicity rates and extensions of these faults onto land near istanbul have been suggested one of the reasons for these differences is the contamination of seismicity catalogs by seismic events from quarries operated in istanbul and its vicinity including gaziosmanpasa cebeci and kemerburgaz catalca omerli gebze and hereke in this study we investigated waveforms of 179 seismic events 1 8

continuous deformation of the tibetan plateau from global positioning system data global positioning system velocities from 553 control points within the tibetan plateau and on its margins show that the present day tectonics in the plateau is best described as deformation of a continuous medium at least when averaged over distances of 100 km deformation occurs throughout the plateau interior by ese wnw extension and slightly slower nne ssw shortening relative to eurasia material within the plateau interior moves roughly eastward with speeds that increase toward the east and then flows southward around the eastern end of the himalaya crustal thickening on the northeast ern and eastern margins of the plateau occurs over a zone 400 km wide and cannot be the result of elastic strain on a single major thrust fault shortening there accommodates much of india s penetration into eurasia a description in terms of movements of rigid blocks with elastic strain associated with slip on faults between them cannot match the velocity field

oblique stepwise rise and growth of the tibet plateau two end member models of how the high elevations in tibet formed are i continuous thickening and widespread viscous flow of the crust and mantle of the entire plateau and ii time dependent localized shear between coherent lithospheric blocks recent studies of cenozoic deformation magmatism and seismic structure lend support to the latter since india collided with asia 55 million years ago the rise of the high tibetan plateau likely occurred in three main steps by successive growth and uplift of 300 to 500 kilometer wide crustal thrust wedges the crust thickened while the mantle decoupled beneath gently dipping shear zones did not sediment infilling bathtub like of dammed intermontane basins formed flat high plains at each step the existence of magmatic belts younging northward implies that slabs of asian mantle subducted one after another under ranges north of the himalayas subduction was oblique and accompanied by extrusion along the left lateral strike slip faults that slice tibet s east side these mechanisms akin to plate tectonics hidden by thickening crust with slip partitioning account for the dominant growth of the tibet plateau toward the east and northeast

three dimensional velocity structure of crust and upper mantle in southwestern china and its tectonic implications using p and s arrival times from 4625 local and regional earthquakes recorded at 174 seismic stations and associated geophysical investigations this paper presents a three dimensional crustal and upper mantle velocity structure of southwestern china 21 34 n 97 105 e southwestern china lies in the transition zone between the uplifted tibetan plateau to the west and the yangtze continental platform to the east in the upper crust a positive velocity anomaly exists in the sichuan basin whereas a large scale negative velocity anomaly exists in the western sichuan plateau consistent with the upper crustal structure under the southern tibetan plateau the boundary between these two anomaly zones is the longmen shan fault the negative velocity anomalies at 50 km depth in the tengchong volcanic area and the panxi tectonic zone appear to be associated with temperature and composition variations in the upper mantle the red river fault is the boundary between the positive and negative velocity anomalies at 50 km depth the overall features of the crustal and the upper mantle structures in southwestern china are a low average velocity large crustal thickness variations the existence of a high conductivity layer in the crust or and upper mantle and a high heat flow value all these features are closely related to the collision between the indian and the asian plates

discrimination between natural earthquakes and explosions based on the azimuthal distribution of s p amplitude ratiosdiscrimination between natural earthquakes and explosions based on the azimuthal distribution

asperity of the 2013 lushan earthquake in the eastern margin of tibetan plateau from seismic tomography and aftershock relocation summary the mw 6 6 lushan earthquake occurred on 2013 april 20 in the eastern margin of tibetan plateau and was about 50km away from the 2008 mw 7 9 wenchuan earthquake rupture zone by using arrival times from portable and permanent seismic stations local earthquake tomography and aftershock relocation were conducted by using 41955 first p and 42687 first s arrivals low vp vs high vp and vs anomaly are found in the source region which is well consistent with the aftershock distributions the ruptured fault plane might be a blind thrust and is well defined by the vp vs structure and aftershock seismicity high velocity and lowvp vs anomalies may suggest the mafic or ultramafic materials thrust from mid lower crust and define the asperity that concentrated stresses responsible for seismogenesis in contrast low vs anomalyisfoundinthegapbetweenthewenchuanandlushanearthquakes suggesting of ductile rocks with low stress

automatic detection of alpine rockslides in continuous seismic data using hidden markov models data from continuously recording permanent seismic networks can contain information about rockslide occurrence and timing complementary to eyewitness observations and thus aid in construction of robust event catalogs however detecting infrequent rockslide signals within large volumes of continuous seismic waveform data remains challenging and often requires demanding manual intervention we adapted an automatic classification method using hidden markov models to detect rockslide signals in seismic data from two stations in central switzerland we first processed 21 known rockslides with event volumes spanning 3 orders of magnitude and station event distances varying by 1 order of magnitude which resulted in 13 and 19 successfully classified events at the two stations retraining the models to incorporate seismic noise from the day of the event improved the respective results to 16 and 19 successful classifications the missed events generally had low signal to noise ratio and small to medium volumes we then processed nearly 14 years of continuous seismic data from the same two stations to detect previously unknown events after postprocessing we classified 30 new events as rockslides of which we could verify three through independent observation in particular the largest new event with estimated volume of 500 000 m3 was not generally known within the swiss landslide community highlighting the importance of regional seismic data analysis even in densely populated mountainous regions our method can be easily implemented as part of existing earthquake monitoring systems and with an average event detection rate of about two per month manual verification would not significantly increase operational workload

microplate model for the present day deformation of tibet 1 site velocities from 349 global positioning system gps stations are used to construct an 11 element quasi rigid block model of the tibetan plateau and its surroundings rigid rotations of five major blocks are well determined and average translation velocities of six smaller blocks can be constrained where data are well distributed the velocity field can be explained well by rigid block motion and fault slip across block boundaries residual misfits average 1 6 mm yr compared to typical one standard deviation velocity uncertainties of 1 3 mm yr any residual internal straining of the blocks is small and heterogeneous however residual substructure might well represent currently unresolved motions of smaller blocks although any smaller blocks must move at nearly the same rate as the larger blocks within which they lie undetected relative motions between them could be significant particularly where there are gaps in gps coverage predicted relative motions between major blocks agree with the observed sense of slip and along strike partitioning of motion across major faults however predicted slip rates across tibet s major strike slip faults are low only 5 12 mm yr a factor of 2 3 smaller than most rates estimated from fault offset features dated by radiometric methods as 2000 to 100 000 year old previous work has suggested that both gps data and low fault slip rates are incompatible with rigid block motions of tibet the results reported here overcome these objections

discrimination of chemical explosions and earthquakes in central europe a case study both natural and artificial seismicity is observed in the vogtland area at near regional distance 180 km from the geress array this setting offers the opportunity to test various discrimination criteria using a uniform data set of 39 earthquakes and 22 chemical explosions strip mine and quarry blasts from a single epicentral region mostly eliminating wave path and distance effects discriminants used include lg pg and lg rg maximum amplitude ratios spectral peaks and slopes extracted by autoregressive moving average arma modeling master event correlation and the search for time independent frequency structures in sonograms although no single discrimi nant achieves a perfect separation of the two populations a joint discrimination scheme employing simple majority voting reduces misclassifications to 2 future research will focus on possible generalization and the physical basis of the discriminants

correlating variations of b values and crustal deformations during the 1990s may have pinpointed the rupture initiation of the mw 7 4 izmit earthquake of 1999 august 17 summary the b value increases from 1 1 along straight segments to 1 7 along a releasing bend of the north anatolian fault system between 30 1 e and 30 8 e the tensional nature of the bend is corroborated by extension rates of 0 3 strain yr 1 as obtained from global positioning system gps data fault plane solutions in this area change from abundant right lateral strike slip to oblique slip with normal components in the central part of the bend compatible with the formation of a pull apart basin we suggest that this crustal volume is highly fractured corresponding to a short mean crack length due to the superposition of horizontal and normal faulting as a consequence of low normal stress on the existing cracks frictional sliding is assumed to be the predominant mechanism for the generation of seismic events resulting in high b values the lowest b values b 0 8 in the area investigated are found at the junction between the fault bend and the adjoining segment which runs through the epicentre of the 1999 izmit earthquake at the junction a localized stress concentration is expected from numerical models of seismicity along geometrical barriers thus the site of lowest b has been considered to be the most likely place for a major earthquake a conclusion that is confirmed by the izmit earthquake with epicentre located about 13 km from the anticipated site in early 1992 the spatially averaged b value started to increase along the central and northwestern parts of the fault bend and there was a corresponding period of intensified horizontal extension since no large earthquake was recorded in 1992 it is assumed that the anomalous extension and the associated change in stress have been caused by aseismic fault creep in view of the available seismotectonic information surface displacements due to a slow dislocation at depth were calculated the gps data are reasonably explained by a source of normal fault type at a depth of 10 km and equivalent magnitude mw 5 9 stress changes at seismogenic depths are calculated under the assumption that an increase in b is most likely to be observed along those segments where both deviatoric and mean stress are reduced while the coulomb stress change is positive that is the fault is brought closer to failure for right lateral strike slip the stress condition is fulfilled at the sites of the largest b value increase the surface rupture of the izmit earthquake is associated with known fault traces only in the west and in the east of the study area along the fault bend it detaches itself from mapped fault traces and runs through the regions of positive coulomb stress change caused by the inferred 1992 slow event maximum surface slip 5 m is observed in the immediate vicinity of sites of maximum coulomb stress change 3 bar indicating that the 1992 event could have partially unclamped the rupture plane of the subsequent izmit earthquake we propose that the strong differences in b observed along the complex fault bend can be used to characterize different states of tectonic deformation in space and time

the major asperities of the 1999 mw 7 4 izmit earthquake defined by the microseismicity of the two decades before it

partitioning of localized and diffuse deformation in the tibetan plateau from joint inversions of geologic and geodetic observations abstract the spatial complexity of continental deformation in the greater tibetan plateau region can be defined as the extent to which relative motion of the indian and asian plates is partitioned between localized slip on major faults and distributed deformation potency rates provide a quantitative metric for determining the magnitudes of diffuse and on fault crustal deformation which are proportional to strain rates within crustal micro plates and fault slip rates respectively we simultaneously estimate micro plate rotation rates interseismic elastic strain accumulation fault slip rates on major structures and strain rates within 24 tectonic micro plates inferred from active fault maps in the greater tibetan plateau region using quasi static block models constrained by interseismic surface velocities at 731 gps sites and 9 holocene late quaternary geologic fault slip rates the joint geodetic geologic inversion indicates that geologic slip rates are kinematically consistent with differential micro plate motions estimated left lateral slip rates on the altyn tagh west central kunlun and xianshuihe faults are relatively homogeneous along strike 11 5 10 5 and 11 mm yr respectively while segmentation of the eastern kunlun fault by the intersecting elashan and riyueshan faults results in a decreased slip rate consistent with geologic observations the fraction of total potency rate associated with intrablock strain uncorrected for observational noise ranges from 0 27 in the himalayan range block to 0 91 in the aksai chin block monte carlo simulations are used to quantify the likelihood that internal deformation is statistically distinguishable from the uncertainties in geodetic velocities these simulations indicate that internal block deformation is statistically significant only within the himalayan range front where internal deformation accounts for id 0 11 of block potency rate budget west central plateau id 0 68 ganzi yushu xianshuihe 0 58 burma 0 09 jiali 0 38 and aksai chin 0 68 blocks in the other 18 tectonic micro plates within the plateau region estimated internal block potency is not currently distinguishable from the expected contribution of observational noise to residual velocities of the total potency budget within the tibetan plateau 85 is taken up by slip on major faults with the remaining 15 accommodated by internal processes at sub block scale distinguishable from observational noise the localization of the majority of plate boundary activity is also supported by the spatial distribution of modern and historical crustal earthquakes sixty seven percent of the total moment released by earthquakes in the cmt catalog and 90 of historical moment since 1900 have been released within 25 km of the major faults included in the block model representing only 12 of the characteristic half block length scale of 215 km the localization of deformation inferred from geologic geodetic and seismic observations suggests that forces applied to tectonic micro plates drive fault system activity at the india asia collision zone over decadal to quaternary time scales

global positioning system constraints on plate kinematics and dynamics in the eastern mediterranean and caucasus we present and interpret global positioning system gps measurements of crustal motions for the period 1988 1997 at 189 sites extending east west from the caucasus mountains to the adriatic sea and north south from the southern edge of the eurasian plate to the northern edge of the african plate sites on the northern arabian platform move 18 2 mm yr at n25 5 w relative to eurasia less than the nuvel 1a circuit closure rate 25 1 mm yr at n21 7 w preliminary motion estimates 1994 1997 for stations located in egypt on the northeastern part of africa show northward motion at 5 6 2 mm yr also slower than nuvel ia estimates 10 1 mm yr at n2 4 e eastern turkey is characterized by distributed deformation while central turkey is characterized by coherent plate motion internal deformation of 2 mm yr involving westward displacement and counterclockwise rotation of the anatolian plate the anatolian plate is de coupled from eurasia along the right lateral strike slip north anatolian fault naf we derive a best fitting euler vector for anatolia eurasia motion of 30 7 0 8 n 32 6 0 4 e 1 2 0 1 myr the euler vector gives an upper bound for naf slip rate of 24 1 mm yr we determine a preliminary gps arabia anatolia euler vector of 32 9 1 2 n 40 3 1 1 e 0 8 0 2 myr and an upper bound on left lateral slip on the east anatolian fault eaf of 9 1 mm yr the central and southern aegean is characterized by coherent motion internal deformation of 2 mm yr toward the sw at 30 1 mm yr relative to eurasia stations in the se aegean deviate significantly from the overall motion of the southern aegean showing increasing velocities toward the trench and reaching 10 1 mm yr relative to the southern aegean as a whole

active faults and evolving strike slip basins in the marmara sea northwest turkey a multichannel seismic reflection study abstract the north anatolian fault is a 1200 km long transform fault forming the boundary between the anatolian and eurasian plates near its western end it strikes through the marmara sea and is responsible for the creation of three deep marine depressions the north anatolian fault system and the linked basins in the eastern marmara sea were studied using newly acquired multi channel seismic reflection data in the marmara sea the north anatolian fault consists of a main strand and a few subsidiary branches the main strand is made up of the ganos 15 km long central marmara 105 km and north boundary 45 km fault segments the north boundary fault joins in the east to the izmit segment which was ruptured during the m s 7 4 earthquake on 17 8 1999 the north boundary fault is highly oblique to the regional displacement vector which results in the generation of a symmetrical fault wedge basin this cinarcik basin is a wedge shaped deep marine depression south of istanbul it is about 50 km long up to 20 km wide and 1250 m deep and is filled with pliocene to quaternary sediments over 3 km thick the north boundary fault joins in the west to the transpressional central marmara fault around the restraining segment boundary the syntransform sediments are being deformed into a large anticlinorium the cinarcik basin started to form when the westward propagating north anatolian fault intersected a northwest trending pre existing fault zone during the pliocene and bifurcated into nw and sw trending segments forming a transform transform transform type triple junction dextral strike slip movement along the arms of the triple junction led to the development of the cinarcik basin the present fault geometry in the marmara region was achieved later during the mid pliocene following the termination of the triple junction geometry south of the main north anatolian fault system there is a second active strike slip fault in the marmara sea made up of several segments a highly asymmetrical fault bend basin comprising pliocene quaternary sediments over 2 5 km thick is forming along a releasing fault segment of this south boundary fault system

phase and spectral ratio discrimination between nts earthquakes and explosions part i empirical observations seismic discrimination of small magnitude mb 0 5 hz regional measurements in this study we evaluate the most promising short period discriminants p wave to s wave phase amplitude ratios and low to high frequency spectral amplitude ratios for a data set from the nevada test site the data consist of 130 underground nuclear explosions one very large chemical explosion and 50 earthquakes ranging from magnitude 2 to 6 recorded at two broadband digital seismic stations operated by lawrence livermore national laboratory in contrast with much previous discrimination work in the western united states the common stations and paths for all the events in this study allow the discriminants to be evaluated without applying propagation corrections and differences between events can be ascribed to very near source effects the source effects found to have the most influence on the discriminants in this study are depth for the earthquakes and the source medium properties of gas porosity density and velocity for the explosions the phase amplitude ratio discriminants tested are pn lg and pg lg both show little dependence on magnitude and work better at higher frequencies and when averaged over the two stations at 6 to 8 hz pn lg discriminates all except the shallowest earthquakes while pg lg discriminates all but the high gas porosity explosions low to high frequency spectral amplitude ratio discriminants were tested in each of the phases pn pg lg and lg coda the explosions show significant dependence on source material properties such as gas porosity all the spectral ratios show dependence on magnitude and for 1 2 hz 6 8 hz none performs well below magnitude 3 5 of the spectral ratios lg coda performs the best at least in part because of its extremely small interstation variability discriminating all but the low gasporosity explosions the best discriminant performance is given by combining phase and spectral ratios a sum of the logarithmic values of pn lg pg lg and the lg coda discriminates all but two of the shallowest earthquakes the source medium dependence of the discriminants suggests that discrimination performance differences between the western united states and other regions of the world may be due more to source property differences than differences in the regional path simply put western united states discriminant studies differ from those in the rest of the world because of the lack of explosions in very high gas porosity low velocity materials outside of the nevada test site

mapping and removing quarry blast events from seismicity catalogs we present an algorithm to identify and remove quarry explosions from earthquake catalogs while retaining a maximum amount of data for most seismicity studies quarry blasts are a data contamination that obscures natural phenomena under investigation based on the fact that most quarry blasts are performed during daytime hours we spatially map out the ratio of daytime to nighttime events rq this type of map clearly identifies regions of high quarry activity a grid search identifies the highest rq volume which is subsequently removed from the data this process is repeated until no volume with an anomalous ratio of daytime to nighttime events with significance greater than 99 remains examples for switzerland alaska and the western united states demonstrate the capabilities of the algorithm where the algorithm removes 20 6 and 0 75 of the events respectively we suggest that computing maps of rq should be a routine part of any microseismicity study manuscript received 21 july 1999

the time frequency characteristics of quarry blasts and calibration explosions recorded in kazakhstan ussr summary in this paper we consider two fundamentally different processes that can be responsible for the organization of energy in seismic coda into discrete time independent frequency bands one process involves the resonance of energy in low velocity horizons and the other requires the interaction of time offset wavefields produced by subevents within multiple event mine explosions ripple fired quarry blasts we examined data collected by high frequency seismometers in kazakhstan ussr and observed regular time independent spectral modulations in coda resulting from events strongly suspected to be soviet quarry blasts but not in the coda from single event calibration explosions detonated at similar ranges we conclude these modulations are a source effect and due to ripple firing this modulation is independent of the source receiver azimuth and we infer that the spatial array of subshots in each event must be small we demonstrate that simple linear superposition theory can be used to reproduce effectively the spectral modulation observed in real quarry blasts on the basis of these observations we attempt to discriminate between the two types of events using a spectral pattern based algorithm that seeks time independent features we consider the detrimental effect that resonant energy in low velocity horizons can have on the successful application of our algorithm

strike slip fault geometry in turkey and its influence on earthquake activity the geometry of turkish strike slip faults has been reviewed and described from this data set it appears that fault geometry the distribution of discontinuities such as bends and stepovers along the main fault trace plays an important role in controlling the location of large earthquake rupture segments along the fault zones large earthquake ruptures generally do not propagate past individual stepovers that are wider than 5 km or bends that have angles greater than about 30 more important than the size of each discontinuity however is the total geometric pattern i e the distribution of adjacent bends and stepovers based not only on distance from one another but also on relative discontinuity size certain geometric patterns restraining single or double bends are particularly common and can be viewed as responsible for strain accumulation along portions of the fault zone fault geometry not only plays a role in the extent of earthquake rupture but also in characteristics of earthquake behavior for example large earthquake epicenters often occur near restraining bends or double bends furthermore aftershocks and swarm activity can often be associated with releasing areas areas along the strike slip fault that are undergoing a relatively large amount of extension

relative motion across the eastern tibetan plateau contributions from faulting internal strain and rotation rates abstract a kinematic model comprising 14 rotating elastic plastic blocks is used to represent the modern deformation of eastern tibet and neighboring regions block rotations fault slip rates and permanent strain rates within the blocks are constrained by inverting gps velocities slip vector azimuths derived from earthquakes and fault slip rates derived from geology the calculated internal strain rates of blocks in eastern tibet amounts to 10 to 30 10 9 yr in contrast to relatively low rates

gps constraints on continental deformation in the africa arabia eurasia continental collision zone and implications for the dynamics of plate interactions 1 the gps derived velocity field 1988 2005 for the zone of interaction of the arabian african nubian somalian and eurasian plates indicates counterclockwise rotation of a broad area of the earth s surface including the arabian plate adjacent parts of the zagros and central iran turkey and the aegean peloponnesus relative to eurasia at rates in the range of 20 30 mm yr this relatively rapid motion occurs within the framework of the slow moving 5 mm yr relative motions eurasian nubian and somalian plates the circulatory pattern of motion increases in rate toward the hellenic trench system we develop an elastic block model to constrain present day plate motions relative euler vectors regional deformation within the interplate zone and slip rates for major faults substantial areas of continental lithosphere within the region of plate interaction show coherent motion with internal deformations below 1 2 mm yr including central and eastern anatolia turkey the southwestern aegean peloponnesus the lesser caucasus and central iran geodetic slip rates for major block bounding structures are mostly comparable to geologic rates estimated for the most recent geological period 3 5 myr we find that the convergence of arabia with eurasia is accommodated in large part by lateral transport within the interior part of the collision zone and lithospheric shortening along the caucasus and zagros mountain belts around the periphery of the collision zone in addition we find that the principal boundary between the westerly moving anatolian plate and arabia east anatolian fault is presently characterized by pure left lateral strike slip with no fault normal convergence this implies that extrusion is not presently inducing westward motion of anatolia on the basis of the observed kinematics we hypothesize that deformation in the africa arabia eurasia collision zone is driven in large part by rollback of the subducting african lithosphere beneath the hellenic and cyprus trenches aided by slab pull on the southeastern side of the subducting arabian plate along the makran subduction zone we further suggest that the separation of arabia from africa is a response to plate motions induced by active subduction

active faults in the sea of marmara western turkey imaged by seismic reflection profiles turkey is moving westward relative to eurasia thereby accommodating the collision between arabia and eurasia this motion is mostly taken up by strike slip deformation along the north and east anatolian faults the sea of marmara lies over the direct westward continuation of the north anatolian fault zone just east of the sea of marmara the north anatolian fault splits into three strands two of which continue into the sea while the locations of the faults are well constrained on land it has not yet been determined how the deformation is transferred across the sea of marmara onto the faults on the west coast of turkey we present results from a seismic reflection survey undertaken to map the faults as they continue through the three deep marmara sea basins of clnarclk central marmara and tekirdag in order to determine how the deformation is distributed across the sea of marmara and how it is taken up on the western side of the sea the data show active dipping faults with associated tilting of sedimentary layers connecting the north anatolian fault to strike slip faults that cut the biga and gallipoli peninsulas

eastward expansion of the tibetan plateau by crustal flow and strain partitioning across faults the tibetan plateau is expanding eastwards but the modes of deformation are poorly understood high resolution seismic images from the region identify localized zones of weak crustal rocks as well as deep faults implying that deformation occurs through a combination of crustal flow and movement of rigid blocks of crust