an outline of the plate tectonics of china china is principally a part of the eurasian plate but the margins of the indian and philippine sea plates are involved in the himalayas and in the coastal range of taiwan respectively within the eurasian plate the cathaysian paleoplate is separated from the angaraian paleoplate by the junggar hegen suture which contains paleozoic ophiolites and rare blueschists the three microplates of the cathaysian paleoplate consist of precambrian cratons and or phanerozoic accretionary fold belts these coalesced precambrian cratons record at least six stages of intense orogeny before cratonization the paleozoic to cenozoic accretionary fold belts of china can be correlated with similar events now found in west pacific andean and atlantic type active continental margins ophiolites occupying many of these tectonic zones provide evidence for the age and igneous history of oceanic crust formed during the paleozoic to cenozoic the presence of blueschist in some of these chinese sutures reveals evidence of large scale subduction and tectonic exhumation during consolidation of the eurasian plate cenozoic collision of the eurasian and indian plates produced deformation and uplift of the himalayas strongly influencing the tectonics of western china in contrast mesozoic tertiary evolution of eastern china is typical basin range geology similar to that of the western united states which included development of deep sedimentary basins along with calc alkaline plutonic and volcanic activity associated with crustal thinning and high heat flow the complicated tectonic evolution of china is greatly illuminated by the presence of ophiolites and blueschists in proterozoic to tertiary convergent boundaries these petrotectonic assemblages provide evidence of an extremely mobile history of plate movement in china

shear wave splitting and subcontinental mantle deformation splitting observations are interpreted in terms of the strain induced lattice preferred orientation of mantle minerals especially olivine we consider three hypotheses concerning the origin of the continental anlsotropy 1 strain associated with absolute plate motion as in the oceanic upper mantle 2 crustal stress and 3 the past and present internal deformation of the subcontinental upper mantle by tectonic episodes it is found that the last hypothesis is the most successful namely that the most recent significant episode of internal deformation appears to be the best predictor of q for stable continental regions this is interpreted as fossil anisotropy whereas for presently active regions such as alaska the anisotropy reflects present day tectonic activity in the stable portion of north america there is a good correlation between delay time and lithospheric thickness this is consistent with the anisotropy being localized in the subcontinental lithosphere and suggests that intrinsic anisotropy is approximately constant the acceptance of this hypothesis has several implications for subcontinental mantle deformation first it argues for coherent deformation of the continental lithosphere crust and mantle during orogenies this implies that the anisotropic portion of the lithosphere was present since the deformational episode and rules out the addition of undeformed material to this layer by subsequent underplating or conductive growth of the thermal boundary layer one of the most important issues in the study of orogenies is the need to reconcile the formation of thickened lithosphere with the paradoxically high mantle temperatures often associated with orogenic episodes most efforts to date have focussed on modes of deformation whereby the cold lithospheric mantle is removed by convective instability or delamination and replaced by warm asthenosphere these models however are incompatible with the evidence for preserved coherent lithospheric deformation rather the deformed mantle appears to have been heated in place we suggest that the elevated mantle temperatures may be due to the strain heating accompanying the deformation

mantle flow in regions of complex tectonics insights from indonesia 1 indonesia is arguably one of the tectonically most complex regions on earth today due to its location at the junction of several major tectonic plates and its long history of collision and accretion it is thus an ideal location to study the interaction between subducting plates and mantle convection seismic anisotropy can serve as a diagnostic tool for identifying various subsurface deformational processes such as mantle flow for example here we present novel shear wave splitting results across the indonesian region using three different shear phases local s sks and downgoing s to improve spatial resolution of anisotropic fabrics allows us to distinguish several deformational features for example the block rotation history of borneo is reflected in coast parallel fast directions which we attribute to fossil anisotropy furthermore we are able to unravel the mantle flow pattern in the sulawesi and banda region we detect toroidal flow around the celebes sea slab oblique corner flow in the banda wedge and sub slab mantle flow around the arcuate banda slab we present evidence for deep sub 520 km anisotropy at the java subduction zone in the sumatran backarc we measure trench perpendicular fast orientations which we assume to be due to mantle flow beneath the overriding eurasian plate these observations will allow to test ideas of for example slab mantle coupling in subduction regions

an integrated workflow for fracture characterization in chalk reservoirs applied to the kraka field abstract oil and gas production of tight chalk reservoirs frequently rely on the presence of natural fractures which increases the effective permeability of the reservoirs fracture characterization is therefore imperative in optimizing production schemes and obtaining economically viable recovery factors subsurface fracture characterization is often deemed challenging as the available data is typically of varying age and quality and represents different scales we have developed an integrated workflow for fracture characterization in chalk to address these challenges the workflow is based on data from borehole images cores and seismic these data are typically available for most chalk and hydrocarbon fields the interpreted borehole image dataset contains over 17 000 manual dip picks ensuring a statistically viable base a total of 150 m of core is available from 3 wells the applied 3d seismic cube covers an 8 5 km hydrocarbon chalk field in the danish north sea in this workflow the scale gap between the data sets is bridged by the introduction of two ant tracked attribute volumes which display structural trends below the resolution of amplitude seismic further insight into the intricacy of subsurface fracture systems is obtained from fracture density logs which provide an opportunity to study spatial distribution of fractures as well as a qualitative measure of fracture clustering cumulative density distribution plots and calculation of the variation coefficient of fracture spacing provide a more quantitative analysis of the fracture distribution the workflow presented here in a step by step manner is a general approach applied to data from the kraka field of the danish north sea in the kraka field the usage of this integrated approach shows that the fracture pattern in this region is more complex than previously suggested probably controlled by the regional maximum horizontal stress and salt movements

seismic anisotropy in the java banda and philippine subduction zones and its implications for the mantle flow system beneath the sunda plate

mantle dynamics uplift of the tibetan plateau and the indian monsoon convective removal of lower lithosphere beneath the tibetan plateau can account for a rapid increase in the mean elevation of the tibetan plateau of 1000 m or more in a few million years such uplift seems to be required by abrupt tectonic and environmental changes in asia and the indian ocean in late cenozoic time the composition of basaltic volcanism in northern tibet which apparently began at about 13 ma implies melting of lithosphere not asthenosphere the most plausible mechanism for rapid heat transfer to the midlithosphere is by convective removal of deeper lithosphere and its replacement by hotter asthenosphere the initiation of normal faulting in tibet at about 8 3 ma suggests that the plateau underwent an appreciable increase in elevation at that time an increase due solely to the isostatic response to crustal thickening caused by india s penetration into eurasia should have been slow and could not have triggered normal faulting another process such as removal of relatively cold dense lower lithosphere must have caused a supplemental uplift of the surface folding and faulting of the indo australian plate south of india the most prominent oceanic intraplate deformation on earth began between about 7 5 and 8 ma and indicates an increased north south compressional stress within the indo australian plate a tibetan uplift of only 1000 m if the result of removal of lower lithosphere should have increased the compressional stress that the plateau applies to india and that resists india s northward movement from an amount too small to fold oceanic lithosphere to one sufficient to do so the climate of the equatorial indian ocean and southern asia changed at about 6 9 ma monsoonal winds apparently strengthened northern pakistan became more arid but weathering of rock in the eastern himalaya apparently increased because of its high altitude and lateral extent the tibetan plateau provides a heat source at midlatitudes that should oppose classical symmetric hadley circulation between the equator and temperate latitudes and that should help to drive an essentially opposite circulation characteristic of summer monsoons for the simple case of axisymmetric heating no dependence on longitude of an atmosphere without dissipation theoretical analyses by hou lindzen and plumb show that an axisymmetric heat source displaced from the equator can drive a much stronger meridianal monsoonlike circulation than such a source centered on the equator but only if heating exceeds a threshold whose level increases with the latitude of the heat source because heating of the atmosphere over tibet should increase monotonically with elevation of the plateau a modest uplift 1000 2500 m of tibet already of substantial extent and height might have been sufficient to exceed a threshold necessary for a strong monsoon the virtual simultaneity of these phenomena suggests that uplift was rapid approximately 1000 m to 2500 m in a few million years moreover nearly simultaneously with the late miocene strengthening of the monsoon the calcite compensation depth in the oceans dropped plants using the relatively efficient c4 pathway for photosynthesis evolved rapidly and atmospheric co2 seems to have decreased suggesting causal relationships and positive feedbacks among these phenomena both a supplemental uplift of the himalaya the southern edge of tibet and a strengthened monsoon may have accelerated erosion and weathering of silicate rock in the himalaya that in turn enhanced extraction of co2 from the atmosphere thus these correlations offer some support for links between plateau uplift a downdrawing of co2 from the atmosphere and global climate change as proposed by raymo ruddiman and froehlich mantle dynamics beneath mountain belts not only may profoundly affect tectonic processes near and far from the belts but might also play an important role in altering regional and global climates

gravity anomalies the deep structure and dynamic processes beneath the tien shan bouguer gravity anomalies over the tien shan and pamir are large and negative and therefore consistent with crustal thickening beneath both mountain ranges gravity anomalies over the western tien shan are within about 10 mgal of those expected for local airy isostatic equilibrium but those over the eastern tien shan are up to 50 mgal too large and negative thus they require static or dynamic support of an uncompensated mass deficit these gravity anomalies cannot be matched using regional compensation of the weight of the range on a continuous elastic plate a simple model of two separate elastic plates extending north and south from the axis of the tien shan can allow an adequate fit of observed and calculated anomalies the flexural rigidity of the northern plate must be quite small d 1023 n m corresponding to an equivalent effective elastic thicknesste 25 km but that of the southern plate must be larger d 1024 n m te 50 60 km the data for the eastern tien shan cannot be fit without a force per unit length of roughly 1 4 1012 n or by a bending moment applied to the end of the southern plate thus either a deep mass per unit length of about 1 4 1011 kg m must underlie the eastern part of the range or dynamic deviatoric tensional normal stresses of up to about 5 mpa due to flow in the asthenosphere must pull the tien shan down probably a combination of them resulting from the formation and sinking of a thickened lithospheric root causes the deflection of the moho and the deviations from local isostatic equilibrium

seismic tomographic imaging of the crust and upper mantle under the central and western tien shan orogenic belt 1 detailed 3 d tomographic images of p and s wave velocity vp vs and poisson s ratio under the central and western tien shan orogenic belt are determined by using a large number of high quality p and s wave arrival times from local earthquakes the results show that under the tien shan orogenic belt high vp high vs and low anomalies are revealed in the upper and middle crust possibly indicating the existence of the paleozoic crystalline basement rocks while low vp low vs and high anomalies appear in the lower crust and upper mantle perhaps suggesting that the hot and wet material is upwelling under the tien shan orogenic belt from the mantle some high vp high vs and low anomalies are tilted toward the tien shan along with the seismicity these are found in the collision zones between the tien shan and the tarim basin in the south and the kazakh shield in the north and suggest the underthrusting of the tarim and kazakh lithosphere beneath the tien shan meanwhile some low vp low vs and high anomalies are imaged in other parts of these collision zones perhaps indicating the intrusion of the hot and wet material into the crust from the upper mantle these results indicate that both the upwelling of the hot and wet material and the underthrusting of the tarim and kazakh lithosphere may have played an important role in the mountain building under the tarim and fergana basins low vp low vs and high anomalies are revealed in the upper crust while high vp high vs and low anomalies are visible in the lower crust and upper mantle these may reflect the existence of less compacted sedimentary material in the shallow crust and more highly compacted craton like structures in the deeper crust and upper mantle under the basins the talas fergana fault shows an obvious tectonic boundary between central and western tien shan the central tien shan displays high vp high vs and low anomalies in the upper and middle crust while western tien shan exhibits low vp low vs and high anomalies however the pattern of seismic structure between central and western tien shan reverses in the lower crust such a correlation may extend down to the upper mantle suggesting that the talas fergana fault may be a lithospheric scale boundary additionally a columnar low vp and low vs anomaly is clearly observed around the turning point of the talas fergana fault from the nwn to nww trending orientations and may indicate that the fault provides a channel for the hot and wet material upwelling from the mantle to the surface

crustal and upper mantle structure under the tien shan from surface wave dispersion long period seismograms of nuclear explosions and natural earthquakes in central asia recorded at three digital stations of the laboratoire de detection geophysique ldg network in france attest to a significant propagation effect in the tien shan area this allows for an investigation of the deep structures under the range which has been the site of particularly intense intracontinental deformation since about the middle miocene group velocity curves have been obtained by regionalization for pure paths across either the central or eastern tien shan they indicate a crust of approximately 50 55 km in thickness and particularly low shear wave velocities under the central tien shan our study suggests lateral variation of the deep structures under the range which could be related to a westward increase along the range of cumulative amount and rate of shortening

depth variations of azimuthal anisotropy beneath the tian shan mt range nw china from ambient noise tomography abstract seismic anisotropy beneath the tian shan mt range has been well studied with shear wave splitting the origin of asthenospheric anisotropy is mainly attributed to the north south shortening however the crustal anisotropy and its depth variation are poorly constrained in this study we focus on inversion of rayleigh wave phase velocity azimuthal anisotropy in the 5 35 s period bands beneath the tian shan mt range through analysis of continuous seismic ambient noise we use approximately 7 months of available continuous seismic data recorded by 31 broadband seismic stations deployed in the tian shan mt range the tomographic results reveal substantial variations in the azimuthal anisotropy with an increase in the depth in the upper crustal depths the orogen parallel or orogen subparallel azimuthal anisotropy observed in the tian shan mt range likely originates from the lattice preferred orientation of crustal minerals in response to compression whereas the orogen perpendicular or orogen sub perpendicular azimuthal anisotropy in the southern and northern piedmont of the tian shan mt range is related to the stress alignment of cracks fractures due to ongoing north south shortening the pattern of azimuthal anisotropy in the middle to lower crustal and upper most mantle is different from that at the upper crustal depths an orogen perpendicular or orogen sub perpendicular fast direction associated with prominent lower velocities has been observed north and south of lake issyk kul the spatial correlation between the azimuthal anisotropy and the lower velocity anomalies at the middle to lower crustal and upper most mantle depths may suggest a warm melt rich upper mantle below the tian shan mt range which could be attributed to the upwelling asthenospheric mantle flow in that region

small scale sublithospheric continental mantle deformation constraints from sks splitting observations summary it is generally believed that azimuthal seismic anisotropy is an important property of the subcontinental mantle and that this is a relatively small scale phenomenon compared with anisotropy of the oceanic mantle during recent years shear wave splitting has come to be viewed as the most direct diagnostic of azimuthal anisotropy the magnitude of the splitting delay times can often rule out a crustal source of anisotropy however it is not yet clear whether the source of anisotropy lies within the lithosphere or the sublithosphere it is essential to know the scale of lateral variations and the distribution of anisotropy with depth in order to understand the origin of this phenomenon here we describe a way to constrain the depth of the anisotropy by studying the lateral variation of the splitting parameters at neighbouring seismic stations we use sks and skks phases recorded at the nars nl array a relatively dense network of broad band stations separated by about 50 km fresnel zones at different depths are calculated for these phases the depth of the anisotropy is constrained by the criterion that fresnel zones corresponding to different splitting observations should not overlap variability in the splitting measurements for events with different directions of approach recorded at one station and for single events recorded at various stations provides evidence for a non homogeneously distributed source of anisotropy located below the array at different depths we show that this variability in the measurements cannot be due to effects of crustal scattering our results indicate that the anisotropy is partly located in the sublithospheric mantle at about 400 km depth this suggests that the deformation in this region is subject to significant lateral variations

amount of extension on small faults an example from the viking graben extension estimates based on palinspastic restoration of only the largest faults in a deformed terrane may be significantly deficient due to neglect of small faults i e unsampled faults most of which have smaller displacements than do sampled faults small faults individually account for little extension but there may be large numbers of them the cumulative extension on small faults can be calculated from the fractal size distributions of fault displacements independent extension estimates support the inference from fault population statistics that small faults account for significant amounts of extension for example restorations of mesozoic faults interpreted from seismic reflection profiles across the viking graben in the north sea yield extension estimates that are only 40 75 of independent estimates the fractal size distribution of fault displacements in the viking graben is consistent with the hypothesis that the remaining 25 60 of extension resulted from displacements on small faults

relatively recent construction of the tien shan inferred from gps measurements of present day crustal deformation rates the tien shan a high seismically active intracontinental mountain belt 1 000 2 000 km north of the himalaya has grown as a result of india s collision with asia1 the crustal shortening 200 50 km refs 2 3 and thickening that gave rise to the tien shan accommodates only a small fraction of india s total penetration into asia 2 000 3 000km and the temporal relationship of deformation in this belt to the india asia collision remains unclear here we report geodetic measurements of the tien shan using the global positioning system gps that indicate that the current crustal shortening rate is nearly half of india s convergence rate with eurasia in this area4 we infer a total shortening rate for the tien shan of 20 mm yr 1 which is approximately twice that inferred previously from the extrapolation of slip rates in the holocene3 and earthquake induced displacements during this century5 suggesting that the rate of mountain building in this region has accelerated several fold since the onset of collision 50 55 myr ago6 7 if as we argue the current shortening rate can be extrapolated to geological timescales then our results suggest that most of the tien shan has been constructed during the past 10 myr perhaps in response to an increased horizontal force following an abrupt rise of the tibetan plateau8 9

new insight into crustal and lithospheric variability beneath the central tien shan nw china revealed by p wave receiver functions abstract the tien shan has experienced intensive crustal shortening and lithospheric deformation making it an ideal site to study the orogeny processes we applied p wave receiver functions to get new insight into crustal and lithospheric variability beneath the central shan region clear p to s converted phases are observed at many recording stations exhibiting double positive converted phases at 5 9 s the corresponding crustal thickness varies from 35 km to 70 km which appears to be relatively thinner beneath the kazakh shield and tarim basin and thicker beneath the southern and northern flanks of the central tien shan the negative converted phases are observed at depths of 30 45 km beneath the central tien shan corresponding to the extremely low seismic velocities in the middle to lower crust revealed by seismic tomography the receiver function results coupled with a regional shear wave velocity model suggest that the lithosphere of the central tien shan has been significantly modified the thickening and thinning of lithosphere may be related to up warped and down warped of mantle and could be associated with the mantle upwelling triggered by bilateral underthrusting of the tarim basin and the kazakh shield respectively beneath the central tien shan

measurement and characterisation of spatial distributions of fractures abstract a variety of line sample 1 d and map 2 d datasets of faults and joints has been used to investigate the spatial distributions of fractures and to test techniques of fractal analysis the natural fracture datasets have been supplemented by synthetic datasets with known characteristics the fault datasets investigated range in scale from regional to outcrop and the joint datasets are derived from outcrop 1 d datasets were analysed by the spacing population interval counting and fracture number interval counting techniques 2 d datasets were analysed by box counting and fracture number box counting techniques results indicate that fracture spacing can be characterised in line samples using either the 1 d interval counting technique or more simply by measuring the spacing population as the cumulative frequency distribution of spaces between adjacent fractures tectonic faults frequently show a power law spacing population indicating fractal dimensions of between 0 4 and 1 0 but except for outcrop data truncation effects degrade the analysis unrefined joint datasets commonly show negative exponential or lognormal spacing cumulative frequency distributions however single orientation joint sets are characterised by a regular spacing and are therefore non fractal for both fault and joint map data box counting techniques do not yield the power law relationship between box size and the number of boxes that is expected of fractal geometries it is concluded that 2 d box counting techniques are too insensitive to characterise the many different parameters of a fracture array the fracture density technique appears not to discriminate between very different fracture patterns and therefore does not provide useful results a fracture pattern incorporates several attributes e g size distribution orientation linkage density roughness each of which may scale independently and each of which may be fractal with its own fractal dimension full characterisation of fracture patterns will therefore require independent analysis of each of these attributes

shear wave splitting at central tien shan evidence for rapid variation of anisotropic patterns at active collisional belts the fast polarization axis of shear wave splitting is generally aligned parallel to the strike of the belt which has been proposed to indicate mantle strain that is coherent with crustal deformation a notable exception is central tien shan where anomalous patterns of splitting have previously been observed we here analyze shear wave splitting of sks phases across north central tien shan using digital data from the kyrgyzstan broadband seismic network knet we find a pattern of short wavelength anisotropic heterogeneity that supports complex mantle flow due to small scale convection the along strike variations in mantle structure contrast with the coherent pattern of crustal shortening and indicate that mantle flow is not directly coupled to crustal deformation in this region

seismic anisotropy of oceanic upper mantle shear wave splitting methodologies and observations we develop methodologies to obtain accurate measurements of shear wave splitting and apply these techniques to examine the pattern of oceanic upper mantle anisotropy to obtain high quality estimates of receiver splitting at island stations we devise a stacking method that finds the optimum splitting parameters and 95 error region for teleseismic shear wave phases from a suite of earthquake events to obtain additional measurements in oceanic regions we develop techniques to measure splitting parameters and errors for ss phases that sample upper mantle anisotropy at their bounce points however we find the data are often of low resolution and anomalous characteristics are sometimes found that make splitting difficult to interpret ten second splitting of ss is observed across the banjo seismic array but we cannot unambiguously attribute this signal to mantle anisotropy at the bounce the receiver splitting methods are used to assess the adequacy of a two anisotropic layer model for the pacific region with fast polarization azimuth in the lithosphere oriented in the fossil spreading direction and in the asthenosphere oriented in the absolute plate motion direction this model has been proposed to explain surface wave data in the pacific ocean but our splitting results demonstrate that oceanic anisotropy patterns are more heterogeneous than would be predicted while the island splitting measurements could reflect the influence of individual hotspot upwellings hotspot effects do not appear to be universally dominant we propose that splitting observations alternatively indicate broad scale differences in the underlying character of oceanic upper mantle anisotropy associated with coherant patters of lithospheric structure and asthenospheric flow in particular splitting surface wave models and regional studies all support a model where lithospheric anisotropy throughout the south pacific has been erased or reoriented toward the absolute plate motion direction whereas more limited observations in the north pacific indicate that the fossil lithospheric signature appears to be preserved

aggregate properties of fracture populations abstract empirical studies indicate that the individual attributes of both faults and extension fractures follow power law scaling aggregate properties of fracture populations are important in a variety of problems and can be specified in terms of the scaling parameters of individual fracture attributes development of an expression for an aggregate property requires consideration of a number of independent factors including the topologic dimension of the aggregate property the topologic dimension of sampling and the possibility of scaling changes for fractures that span some mechanically significant layer the riemann zeta function provides an alternative to integration for the analytical and numerical solution of aggregate problems previous work regarding aggregate properties of fracture populations has focused on the strain due to faulting new expressions are developed here for other aggregate properties of interest fracture surface area fracture porosity fracture permeability and shear wave anisotropy a general characteristic of these aggregate properties is that for most values of scaling exponents the aggregate properties are dependent on the size of the sampling domain this implies that the aggregate properties are scale dependent additionally it appears that fracture surface area is concentrated in the smallest fractures of many populations fracture porosity is concentrated in the largest fractures of most populations but not as strongly as fracture permeability which probably derives almost entirely from the largest fractures in populations

upper mantle velocity structure beneath the tibetan plateau from pn travel time tomography we inverted 1510 p arrival times from regional distances 333 1600 km in and around the tibetan plateau to map the lateral velocity variation within the uppermost mantle previous studies have placed first order constraints on upper mantle velocities but relied on data recorded almost exclusively at stations outside of the plateau we improve resolution by using 40 events recorded at stations within the tibetan plateau we combine these data with observations obtained from the international seismological centre isc to extend our coverage by including pn arrivals from 85 additional plateau events relocated in previous studies and recorded at stations in and around the tibetan plateau we use synthetic travel time data to evaluate the resolution of our data set the observations provide good resolution to about 1 over most of the plateau and surrounding regions our results show average pn velocities that are about 3 lower in the northern plateau relative to the southern plateau these variations correlate well with major tectonic features and previous geophysical observations in the qiangtang terrane of the northern plateau an area known to be inefficient for sn propagation pn is slow relative to both the plateau south of the banggong nujiang suture and the tectonically stable tarim basin north of the plateau this is strong evidence for the existence of partial melt within the uppermost mantle beneath the northern tibetan plateau however when laboratory estimates of relationships between temperature velocity and attenuation are applied a relatively small temperature variation 240 to 370 c is required to explain our pn velocity observations when combined with geochemical constraints from volcanics in the northern plateau our results strongly suggest that the mantle lid is intact beneath the northern plateau this result would preclude tectonic models involving wholesale delamination of the mantle lithosphere in the northern tibetan plateau

three dimensional elastic wave velocity structure of the western and central tien shan arrival times of compressional p and shear s waves generated by earthquakes at local and teleseismic distances and recorded by seismographs located in the western and central tien shan are used to determine one and three dimensional elastic wave velocity structures of the crust and upper mantle beneath the mountain belt the best fit one dimensional structures suggest that the average depth of the mohorovicic discontinuity in this area is 50 km the three dimensional structure of the upper crust reveals thick sediments within each of the major depressions in the region a 7 km thick wedge of sediment beneath the chu depression is outlined at depth by a south dipping plane of seismic activity suggesting the presence of an active decollemont these low velocities extend continuously to the southeast toward issyk kul suggesting a structural relationship between the two however rather than being consumed it appears that issyk kul is overthrusting the surrounding ranges the low velocity sediments in the fergana basin reach depths of 10 km and are bounded on three sides by amorphous bands of seismicity velocities at midcrustal depths generally are lower beneath the central tien shan than beneath the western tien shan this pattern becomes more evident in the uppermost mantle with p velocity contrasts of as much as 10 across a boundary that corresponds roughly to the geographical position of the talasso fergana fault the low velocities beneath the central tien shan exceed 150 km depth but do not appear to be deeper than 300 km depth there is no evidence for a lithospheric root beneath this part of the range rather the low velocities imply the presence of a positive buoyancy force uplifting the mountains evidence that this low velocity region existed before the collision suggests that the tien shan may not owe its rejuvenation simply to its location at the northern edge of a strong tarim basin but rather to an anomalous upper mantle that was easier to deform than the surrounding lithosphere

estimates of strain due to brittle faulting sampling of fault populations abstract the geometry of sampling domains is a first order consideration in the characterization of brittle fault populations in most cases descriptions of fault size distributions based on map cross section traverse or borehole data systematically underestimate the number of small faults present in a volume the geometry of sampling domains may be accounted for using an empirical proportionality between fault displacement and trace length estimates of strain in which the sampling geometry is considered suggest that small faults accommodate a significant portion of the total strain due to the brittle faulting process

crustal structure beneath china from receiver function analysis 1 we collected and processed a large amount of high quality broadband teleseismic waveform data recorded by the 48 chinese national digital seismic network stations to estimate large scale lateral variations of crustal thickness and vp vs ratio hence poisson s ratio beneath china a statistical method was used to select mutually coherent receiver functions at each station which yielded over 200 traces for most of the stations with the conventional h the crustal thickness and vp vs ratio approach there is a large trade off between h and consequently multiple maxima are frequently observed in the h domain we introduced a weight function that measures the coherence between the p to s conversion and the reverberation phases at each h grid to reduce the trade off a 4th root stacking method was further applied to reduce uncorrelated noise relative to the linear stack these modifications turned out to be very effective in reducing the h trade off and yielded reliable estimates of crustal thickness and vp vs ratio the crust beneath eastern china is as thin as 31 33 km and the underlying moho is relatively flat and sharp in the western part of china the crust is considerably thicker and shows large variations the moho is observed at about 51 km depth along the tian shan fold system and about 84 km deep beneath the central part of the tibetan plateau the transition occurs at the so called n s belt between about 100 and 110 e which is featured by unusually high seismicity and large gravity anomalies the average vp vs ratio over the mainland china crust is about 1 730 0 249 significantly lower than the global average 1 78 0 27 of the continental crust this lower vp vs ratio may suggest a general absence of mafic lowermost crustal layer beneath china

shear wave anisotropy beneath the tibetan plateau eleven broadband digital seismic stations were deployed across the central tibetan plateau in the first extensive passive source experiment attempted within the tibetan plateau one year of recording resulted in 186 event station pairs which we analyze to determine the characteristics of shear wave splitting in the upper mantle beneath the array measurements of the fast polarization direction and delay time t for sks and direct s arrivals reveal systematic variations along the north south oriented array in the north central region of the plateau very large delay times are observed at three stations the largest of which is budo with of t 2 4 s however at tunl which is off the northern edge of the plateau and 110 km from budo and at sites in the south central plateau t decreases by nearly a factor of 3 we also observe systematic rotation of from about 45 ne to 90 e w from south to north along the array a previously identified zone of inefficient sn propagation correlates well with our region of large t observations the large delay times suggest that a relateively high number of anisotropic crystals are preferentially alligned within the mantle lid beneath the north central portion of the tibetan plateau in most cases fast polarization directions appear to be parallel to surface geologic features suggesting as much as 200 km of the upper mantle has been involved in the collisional deformation that has produced the tibetan plateau

depth localized azimuthal anisotropy from sks and p receiver functions the tien shan summary shear wave splitting in the seismic sks phase provides a unique possibility to judge on deformations at depths inaccessible for direct observations fast s wave polarization direction in collisional belts is often parallel to the trend of the belt although deformations of the mantle lithosphere in low angle thrusts would lead to the fast polarization direction normal to the trend of the belt these considerations suggested that the upper mantle in collisional belts is decoupled from the crust however sks technique is notable by a poor depth resolution and usually it assumes that the fast polarization direction is the same at any depth which is hard to justify here to investigate depth dependent azimuthal anisotropy in the mantle we invert jointly p receiver functions and sks particle motions at a number of seismograph stations the technique involves azimuthal filtering of the receiver functions and provides a criterion to discriminate between the effects of azimuthal anisotropy and lateral heterogeneity of isotropic medium a search for the optimum models is conducted with a technique similar to simulated annealing testing with synthetics demonstrates that this approach is robust the results for 10 seismograph stations in the tien shan the world s most active intracontinental collisional belt in central asia reveal a pronounced change in the patterns of azimuthal anisotropy at a depth around 100 km in the mantle lithosphere at depths less than 100 km anisotropy is relatively weak and fast wave polarization direction varies laterally in a broad range this layer is not necessarily decoupled from the crust its anisotropy can be a combined effect of present day thrusting and of deformations of the geologic past in the lower layer asthenosphere the average azimuth of fast wave polarization is close to the trend of the belt whereas magnitude of s wave anisotropy is stable and large between 5 and 6 per cent this anisotropy is a likely result of recent uniaxial shortening at right angle to the trend of the belt at some stations the data require anisotropy in the crust there is no evidence for anisotropy at depths exceeding 150 250 km

surface wave propagation in central asia observations of scattering and multipathing with the kyrgyzstan broadband array we studied the propagation of rayleigh waves at regional distances in central asia using a combination of array processing techniques and surface wave analysis we present results from the detailed analysis of three representative events recorded by a 10 station broadband network that has been running in the central asian country of kyrgyzstan since 1991 an ms 5 1 event near ashkhabad turkmenistan an ms 5 8 event in south central tibet and the october 7 1994 nuclear explosion at lop nor we find there is a remarkable difference in the propagation characteristics of surface waves along these three paths the path from the event in turkmenistan is simple and is well approximated by propagation through a laterally homogeneous medium array processing shows the entire rayleigh wave train stacks coherently and arrives from an azimuth close to that predicted by a great circle path furthermore estimates of dispersion curves and fundamental mode signals determined for individual stations show little variation across the array the tibet and lop nor paths are completely different we find strong evidence for complicated multipathing and scattering effects along both of these paths we observe a three stage pattern in the tibet case 1 the early lowest frequency part of the rayleigh wave packet arrives as a coherent signal from close to the great circle path azimuth 2 this is overpowered in the period range around 20 s by a strong multipath signal that propagates across the array from a much more southerly azimuth and 3 periods below 20 s rapidly become incoherent and the signal does not have a well defined direction of propagation the lop nor path shows similar complexity on this path there is little dispersion for measurable periods greater than 10 s so the low frequency energy arrives in an airy phase the airy phase stacks somewhat coherently it stacks but significant power is lost in the best beam and slowness analysis shows it arrives from an azimuth 14 north of the great circle path azimuth like the tibet event the direction of propagation of the shorter periods cannot be resolved these results are consistent with crustal structure in central asia the multipathing and scattering from the tibet and lop nor events are not surprising given these waves propagate across highly variable crust and high topography resulting from the collision of india with eurasia the relative simplicity of the turkmenistan event path reinforces this as almost all of that path traverses the relatively undeformed turan platform of uzbekistan

directional variations in travel time residuals of teleseismic p waves in the crust and mantle beneath northern tien shan we study the directional variation in travel time residuals using 13 820 p wave arrivals from 1 998 teleseismic events 15 d 98 4 1 mb 7 3 recorded in 1991 1997 by the kyrgyz digital seismic network knet based on a modified version of the iasp91 model that accounts for the kyrgyz crustal thickness beneath knet we convert p wave travel times to travel time residuals dt the de pendence of dt on backazimuth is modeled as one two and four lobed variations in a horizontal plane backus 1965 a least squares fit of the azimuthal variation of dt indicates that the crust in the northern tien shan is about 11 15 km thicker than it is in the kazakh shield and the chu depression from nine knet stations the one lobe model estimates that the slowest p wave travel time direction is 5 0 4 8 almost directly north and the magnitude of variation is 1 71 0 13 sec this result is consistent with an upwelling lower mantle plume for the two lobe model the slowest p wave travel time directions anisotropy term are 89 7 and 269 7 4 7 i e trending east west we find p wave velocity anisotropy of 2 0 2 9 associated with a layer with a thickness of 440 km at the top of the lower mantle the fast direction of the p wave travel time north south azimuthal anisotropy at the top of the lower mantle is 1 parallel to the absolute motion of the india plate and 2 close to the direction of the upwelling hot mantle flow the last result suggests that the azimuthal aniso tropy of the travel time residuals is due to the shape preferred orientation of middle mantle material that results from plume intrusion shear wave splitting studies mak eyeva et al 1992 wolfe and vernon 1998 estimated the fast polarization direction to be parallel to the strike of the geological structures of the northern tien shan 71 29 thus the fast polarization direction determined from these shear wave splitting studies using knet data contradicts differs by 90 the fast travel time direction 0 3 and 179 7 4 7 we determine here using p wave travel time residuals using knet data this suggests that the azimuthal anisotropy determined from p wave travel time variations and from shear wave splitting in sks and skks have different sources

shear wave splitting beneath the central tien shan and tectonic implications 1 shear wave splitting analyses were performed at 30 seismic stations in the central tien shan and its vicinity fast orientation at most of the stations on the tien shan range is ene wsw parallel to the strike of the tien shan it largely reflects a coherent deformation of the lithosphere in response to the ns shortening anisotropy with nne ssw fast axes is observed within adjacent basins around the issyk kul and near the northwestern tarim where the lithosphere is presumably strong less deformed the nne ssw orientation which coincides with the surface velocity of the central tien shan can be best explained by shear between the lithosphere and asthenosphere on a regional scale rather than small scale convection as proposed in previous studies the dextral talasso fergana fault seems to have little effect on anisotropy at its nearby stations suggesting this fault is probably confined to the shallow part of the lithosphere

global patterns of azimuthal anisotropy and deformations in the continental mantle summary we present a summary of measurements of azimuthal anisotropy in the continental mantle based on the sks technique and performed mostly with the active participation of the authors the directions of polarization of the fast quasi shear wave and the time delays between the quasi shear waves are obtained at nearly 70 locations in all continents except antarctica these data are interpreted in terms of lattice preferred orientation of olivine which is caused by deformations in the mantle the depth interval responsible for anisotropy is unknown but the data suggest that it may reach at least 300 km the fast directions in sks do not show clear correlation with the fast directions of the teleseismic p at the same seismograph stations in the regions of present day convergence the fast direction of anisotropy usually aligns with the plate boundary this correlation implies that the direction of shortening is the same in the crust and the upper mantle in the regions of rifting the inferred direction of mantle flow usually aligns with the direction of extension in the crust outside the regions of recent tectonic activity we most likely observe a combined effect of frozen anisotropy in the subcrustal lithosphere and of recently formed anisotropy in the asthenosphere on a global scale in these regions there is a positive correlation between the absolute plate velocity directions and the fast directions of anisotropy the correlation is especially strong in central and eastern parts of north america a clear absence of any evidence of large scale azimuthal anisotropy in the data of long range refraction profiling for the upper 100 km of the mantle of that region implies that the effect in sks is generated mainly at greater depths in the asthenosphere orientation of olivine at these depths reflects recent and present day flow in the mantle rather than processes of a distant geologic past

crust and upper mantle structure beneath western china from p wave travel time tomography 1 three dimensional velocity images of the crust and upper mantle beneath western china are obtained through seismic tomography by using p wave arrival times of local regional and teleseismic events recorded in chinese and kyrgyzstan seismic networks at shallow depths most mountain belts and tectonically elevated areas are imaged as higher velocities relative to adjacent sediment filled basins and foreland depressions with lower velocities at mid lower crust depths the kyrgyz tian shan is underlain by lower velocity material and a distinct low velocity zone in the south north direction is observed between the eastern and western parts of the chinese tian shan the moho of the southern tarim basin has a greater depth over 50 km in front of the western kun lun compared to the northern and western tarim basin lateral heterogeneity within the upper mantle is apparent at depths from 71 to 571 km the uppermost mantle beneath the kyrgyz tian shan altay qi lian and eastern kun lun is characterized by low velocity material that is probably related to the upwelling of hot mantle the lithospheric thickness varies from 120 to 170 km beneath the chinese tian shan and northern tibetan plateau to 200 250 km beneath the tarim basin deep coupling pattern of the chinese tian shan with adjacent provinces can be classified into the embedding detaching and sinking and underthrusting of lithospheric roots in addition the lithosphere of the northern edge of the tibetan plateau seems to be thickened in contrast to the central part of the northern plateau north dipping low velocities exist in the upper mantle between the tibetan plateau and provinces to its north which might indicate mantle flow from the tibetan plateau toward surrounding areas but it has been blocked by the thick tarim lithosphere

mono lake or laschamp geomagnetic event recorded from lava flows in amsterdam island southeastern indian ocean summary we report a survey carried out on basalt flows from amsterdam island southeastern indian ocean in order to check the presence of intermediate directions interpreted as belonging to a geomagnetic field excursion within the brunhes epoch completing this palaeomagnetic record with palaeointensity determinations and radiometric dating because the palaeomagnetic sampling was done over a few hours during the resupply of the french scientific base martin du viviers by the marion dufresne vessel we could collect only 29 samples from four lava flows the directional results corroborate the findings by watkins nougier normal polarity is found for two units and an intermediate direction with associated virtual geomagnetic poles vgps close to the equator for the other two units a notable result is that these volcanic rocks are well suited for absolute palaeointensity determinations 50 per cent of the samples yields reliable intensity values with high quality factors an original element of this study is that we made use of the thermomagnetic criterion ptrm tail test of shcherbakova et al to help in the interpretation of the palaeointensity measurements doing this only the high temperature intervals beyond 400 c were retained to obtain the most reliable estimate of the strength of the ancient magnetic field however not applying the ptrm tail test does not change the flow mean values significantly because the samples we selected by conventional criteria for estimating the palaeointensity carry only a small proportion of their remanence below 400 c the normal units yield virtual dipole moments vdm of 6 2 and 7 7 10 22 am 2 and the excursional units yield values of 3 7 and 3 4 10 22 am 2 these results are quite consistent with the other thellier determinations from brunhes excursion records all characterized by a decrease of the vdm as the vgp latitude decreases 40 ar 39 ar isotopic age determinations provide an estimate of 26 15 and 18 9 kyr for the transitional lava flows which could correspond to the mono lake excursion however the large error bars associated with these ages do not exclude the hypothesis that this event is the laschamp

scaling relationships of joint and vein arrays from the burren co clare ireland abstract we present a study of the systematics of veins and joints in carboniferous limestones of the burren ireland scaling relationships were established for fracture arrays mapped from low elevation aerial photographs that image fractures on numerous limestone pavements for areas up to ca 1 km2 the veins and joints occur in the same sequence but have contrasting scaling properties the veins strike north south and cut many beds to form vertically persistent non stratabound arrays they are strongly clustered and have scale invariant geometric properties vein geometries suggest they grew sub critically under relatively high differential stresses during north south directed variscan compression the joints form stratabound arrays with regular spacings that scale with bed thickness they show greater strike variation than the veins and have lognormal length distributions the joints formed during uplift under low differential stress conditions the contrasting scaling properties of the joints and veins are attributed to different overburden stresses at the time of formation the veins formed at greater depths than the joints in conditions that favoured fracture propagation across mechanical discontinuities resulting in the development of non stratabound scaling properties

inversion of teleseismic s particle motion for azimuthal anisotropy in the upper mantle a feasibility study summary we have developed a technique for the inversion of teleseismic s waveforms in terms of azimuthal anisotropy in the upper mantle we test different models of the earth upper mantle by transforming the observed horizontal components into a synthetic vertical component and comparing this with the observed vertical component the optimum model is found by minimizing the difference between the synthetic vertical component and the observed one using this method we explore the possibility of constraining the distribution of azimuthal anisotropy with depth we present examples of seismic observations where the data are clearly in favour of an anisotropic model these observations can be interpreted in terms of two anisotropic layers with different directions of fast velocity axes

quantitative analysis of populations of small faults abstract tectonic strain includes contributions from small faults with length less than the thickness of the brittle upper crust this study derives algebra to determine the strain associated with small faults that follow a power law i e fractal distribution independent of assumptions concerning how they relate to large faults in the same region and discusses how to apply this algebra for a range of small fault sample types the method is illustrated using as case studies the jurassic extension in the north sea the miocene and younger extension in the gulf of suez and the hercynian strike slip faulting the badajoz cordoba fault zone in southern spain my preferred estimates for the strain accommodated on small normal faults with length

mantle deformation in sikkim and adjoining himalaya evidences for a complex flow pattern abstract new measurements of azimuthal anisotropy within the himalayan collision zone and southern tibet obtained by applying the sks splitting technique to waveforms from 31 broadband seismic stations reveal significant variations in the strength and orientation of the fast axes stations in the sikkim himalaya show strong anisotropy south of main central thrust mct with delay times 1 s the fast polarization directions are nearly parallel to the strike of the himalaya mountain chain and vary consistently along the profile from 105 in the south to 130 in the north however in the adjacent nepal himalaya a predominance of plate motion related strain is observed at least up to the mct the western portion of southern tibet south of the indus tsangpo suture zone reveals characteristics of e w oriented anisotropy contrary to null anisotropy found in the eastern part the complex flow pattern revealed in the present study may be due a combination of basal shear resulting from plate motion and ductile flow along the collision front due to compression

use of curved scanlines and boreholes to predict fracture frequencies abstract we advance the method of hudson and priest journal of rock mechanics and mining sciences geomechanics abstracts 20 1983 73 89 to develop a method for a curved scanline to be used to predict the numbers of fractures that would be observed in any direction when sampling along a scanline the probability of intersecting a fracture is influenced by the relative orientations of the fracture and of the scanline at that location this sampling bias can be minimised by the use of the terzaghi correction w cos 1 where is the angle between the scanline and the normal to the fracture these corrected frequencies are used to simulate fracture frequencies for all other orientations by doubly correcting the data modelled fracture frequency is contoured on a graph of simulated scanline plunge against simulated scanline azimuth this method is based upon the assumption that the data collected along the scanline is representative of the fracture population when the terzaghi correction has been applied a graph of cumulative frequency of fractures against distance along a scanline provides a simple method for determining whether the scanline crosses differently fractured areas frequencies are corrected for dip strike and both dip and strike with data from homogeneously fractured areas plotting as straight lines these frequencies can be normalised for ease of comparison

seismic anisotropy beneath the continents probing the depths of geology seismic anisotropy beneath continents is analyzed from shear wave splitting recorded at more than 300 continental seismic stations anisotropy is found to be a ubiquitous property that is due to mantle deformation from past and present orogenic activity the observed coherence with crustal deformation implies that the mantle plays a major if not dominant role in orogenies no evidence is found for a continental asthenospheric decoupling zone suggesting that continents are coupled to general mantle circulation

teleseismic p wave tomography and the upper mantle structure of the central tien shan orogenic belt abstract in this study an updated version of the teleseismic tomographic method is applied to 7176 high quality first p wave arrivals from four combined seismic networks to determine the detailed deep structure under the central tien shan our high resolution tomographic model not only displays the general features contained in the previous models but also reveals some new features a much narrower tilted columnar high velocity anomaly with a diameter of about 60 km below 150 200 km depth under the tien shan extends down to the mantle transition zone suggesting the breaking and dropping off of the collided portions of the southward underthrusting kazakh shield and the northward underthrusting tarim basin prominent low velocity low v anomalies above 150 200 km depth beneath the tien shan may be related to two branches of ascending hot anomalies one rises upward from the lower mantle beneath the tarim basin while the other rises up from the top of the mantle transition zone beneath the western kazakh shield these results suggest that the underthrusting of the tarim basin and kazakh shield and the upwelling of hot anomalies indeed play an important role in the mountain building of the central tien shan these dynamic processes might be related to the collision of the indian plate with eurasian plate

shear wave splitting and small scale convection in the continental upper mantle the deformation of the upper mantle beneath a collisional belt is key to the dynamics of the belt but this deformation is difficult to observe seismic azimuthal anisotropy manifested by shear wave splitting provides the best geophysical evidence of deformation in the upper mantle here we use observations of shear wave splitting to investigate deformation in the upper mantle beneath the tien shan in central asia we find that underneath most of the tien shan the fast direction of azimuthal anisotropy is roughly parallel to the axis of the belt but it deviates by nearly 90 where the upper mantle is anomalously hot the former relationship previously observed in other collisional belts seems to be usual for this environment the anomalous directions however provide evidence of a rising plume beneath the range suggesting more generally that the along strike flow of the mantle beneath collisional belts is a reflection of thermally driven convection

uppermost mantle structure and its relation with seismic activity in the central tien shan 1 using arrival data from ghengis and kyrgyz network knet stations we determined the uppermost mantle structure of the central tien shan from pn tomography pn velocities in the north central tien shan are slower than normal for stable lithosphere they are very slow in the south central tien shan where a hot mantle previously has been postulated the pn velocity variation correlates well with seismicity most earthquakes are concentrated in the north central tien shan but almost no earthquakes in the south central tien shan even though both geologic and gps observations show active convergence there this correlation suggests a genetic relationship between seismicity and the state of lithospheric mantle specifically we propose that the very slow pn velocity beneath the south central tien shan is caused by high temperatures produced by heating from mantle upwelling and that this heat has conducted well up into the crust inducing a ductile rheology that prevents significant seismicity