great thrust earthquakes and aseismic slip along the plate boundary of the makran subduction zone the makran subduction zone of iran and pakistan exhibits strong variation in seismicity between its eastern and western segments and has one of the world s largest forearcs we determine the source parameters for 14 earthquakes at makran including the great mw 8 1 earthquake of 1945 the only instrumentally recorded great earthquake at makran we determine the loci of seismic and aseismic slip along the plate boundary and we assess the effects of the large forearc and accretionary wedge on the style of plate boundary slip we apply body waveform inversions and for small magnitude events use first motions of p waves to estimate earthquake source parameters for the 1945 event we also employ dislocation modeling of uplift data we find that the earthquake of 1945 in eastern makran is an interplate thrust event that ruptured approximately one fifth the length of the subduction zone nine smaller events in eastern makran that are also located at or close to the plate interface have thrust mechanisms similar to that of the 1945 shock seaward of these thrust earthquakes lies the shallowest 70 80 km of the plate boundary we find that this segment and the overlying accretionary wedge remain aseismic both during and between great earthquakes this aseismic zone as in other subduction zones lies within that part of the accretionary wedge that consists of largely uconsolidated sediments seismic velocities less than 4 0 km s the existence of thrust earthquakes indicates that either the sediments along the plate boundary in eastern makran become sufficiently well consolidated and de watered about 70 km from the deformation front or older lithified rocks are present within the forearc so that stick slip sliding behavior becomes possible this study shows that a large quantity of unconsolidated sediment does not necessarily indicate a low potential for great thrust earthquakes in contrast to the east the plate boundary in western makran has no clear record of historic great events nor has modem instrumentation detected any shallow thrust events for at least the past 25 years most earthquakes in western makran occur within the downgoing plate at intermediate depths the large change in seismicity between eastern and western makran along with two shallow events that exhibit right lateral strike slip motion in central makran suggest segmentation of the subduction zone two paleozoic continental blocks dominate the overriding plate the boundary between them is approximately coincident with the transition in seismicity although relative motion between these blocks may account for some of the differing seismic behavior the continuity of the deformation front and of other tectonic features along the subduction zone suggests that the rate of subduction does not change appreciably from east to west the absence of plate boundary events in western makran indicates either that entirely aseismic subduction occurs or that the plate boundary is currently locked and experiences great earthquakes with long repeat times evidence is presently inconclusive concerning which of these two hypotheses is most correct the presence of well defined late holocene marine terraces along portions of the coasts of eastern and western makran could be interpreted as evidence that both sections of the arc are capable of generating large plate boundary earthquakes if that hypothesis is correct then western makran could produce a great earthquake or it could rupture as a number of segments in somewhat smaller magnitude events alternatively it is possible that western makran is significantly different from eastern makran and experiences largely aseismic slip at all times a knowledge of the velocity structure and nature of the state of consolidation or lithification of rocks at depth in the interior portion of the forearc of western makran should help to ascertain whether that portion of the plate boundary moves aseismically or ruptures in large to great earthquakes a resolution of this question has important implications for seismic hazard not only for western makran but also for other margins such as the cascadia subduction zone of western north america where historical thrust events have not occurred

interseismic strain accumulation along the western boundary of the indian subcontinent 1 despite an overall sinistral slip rate of 3 cm yr few major earthquakes have occurred in the past 200 years along the chaman fault system the western boundary of the india plate with the eurasia plate gps and insar data reported here indicate sinistral shear velocities of 8 17 mm yr across the westernmost branches of the fault system suggesting that a significant fraction of the plate boundary slip is distributed in the fold and fault belt to the east at its southernmost on land segment 26 n near the triple junction between the arabia eurasia and india plates we find the velocity across the ornach nal fault is 15 1 13 4 16 9 mm yr with a locking depth probably less than 3 km at latitude 30 n near the town of chaman pakistan where a m6 5 earthquake occurred in 1892 the velocity is 8 5 6 8 10 3mm yr and the fault is locked at approximately 3 4 km depth at latitude 33 n and further north insar data indicate a velocity across the chaman fault of 16 8 2 7 mm yr the width of the plate boundary varies from several km in the south where we observe 2 mm yr of convergence near the westernmost strike slip faults to a few hundreds of km in the north where we observe 6 9 mm yr of convergence and where the faulting becomes distinctly transpressional the shallow locking depth along much of the transform system suggests that earthquakes larger than those that have occurred in the historical record would be unexpected and that the recurrence interval of those earthquakes that have occurred is of the order of one or two centuries similar in length to the known historical record

slip history and dynamic implications of the 1999 chi chi taiwan earthquake we investigate the rupture process of the 1999 chi chi taiwan earthquake using extensive near source observations including three component velocity waveforms at 36 strong motion stations and 119 gps measurements a three plane fault geometry derived from our previous inversion using only static data ji et al 2001 is applied the slip amplitude rake angle rupture initiation time and risetime function are inverted simultaneously with a recently developed finite fault inverse method that combines a wavelet transform approach with a simulated annealing algorithm ji et al 2002b the inversion results are validated by the forward prediction of an independent data set the teleseismic p and sh ground velocities with notable agreement the results show that the total seismic moment release of this earthquake is 2 7 10 20 n m and that most of the slip occurred in a triangular shaped asperity involving two fault segments which is consistent with our previous static inversion the rupture front propagates with an average rupture velocity of 2 0 km s 1 and the average slip duration risetime is 7 2 s several interesting observations related to the temporal evolution of the chi chi earthquake are also investigated including 1 the strong effect of the sinuous fault plane of the chelungpu fault on spatial and temporal variations in slip history 2 the intersection of fault 1 and fault 2 not being a strong impediment to the rupture propagation and 3 the observation that the peak slip velocity near the surface is in general higher than on the deeper portion of the fault plane as predicted by dynamic modeling

the effects of double fault bends on rupture propagation a geometrical parameter study we use the 2d finite element method to determine how geometrical parameters determine whether rupture will propagate across a linked stepover in a strike slip fault the end segments of the fault system are aligned in the direction of maximum shear and the length and angle of the linking segment are allowed to vary we observe that ruptures propagate through extensional stepovers with steeper angles and longer linking segments than otherwise equivalent compressional step overs these different rupture behaviors form distinct regions in angle stepover length parameter space the boundary between these regions takes the shape of an asymptotic curve in both the extensional and compressional cases models in which the size of the entire fault system was made larger or smaller revealed that the location of the bound aries between regions of different rupture behavior do not scale linearly with the system size it was easier to rupture steeper and relatively longer stepovers in fault systems that were larger overall a separate set of models in which the stress field is rotated so that the parallel end segments were optimally aligned for rupture significantly altered the rupture behavior curves in this stress field it was easier to rupture compressional stepovers with steeper angles and longer linking segments than it was to rupture equivalent extensional stepovers in both the case in which the end segments are aligned with the direction of maximum shear and the case in which the end segments are optimally oriented for rupture the angles at which rupture could no longer propagate through the entire fault corresponded with peaks in the fault s s value

convergence rate across the nepal himalaya and interseismic coupling on the main himalayan thrust implications for seismic hazard we document geodetic strain across the nepal himalaya using gps times series from 30 stations in nepal and southern tibet in addition to previously published campaign gps points and leveling data and determine the pattern of interseismic coupling on the main himalayan thrust fault mht the noise on the daily gps positions is modeled as a combination of white and colored noise in order to infer secular velocities at the stations with consistent uncertainties we then locate the pole of rotation of the indian plate in the itrf 2005 reference frame at longitude 1 34 3 31 latitude 51 4 0 3 with an angular velocity of 0 5029 0 0072 myr the pattern of coupling on the mht is computed on a fault dipping 10 to the north and whose strike roughly follows the arcuate shape of the himalaya the model indicates that the mht is locked from the surface to a distance of approximately 100 km down dip corresponding to a depth of 15 to 20 km in map view the transition zone between the locked portion of the mht and the portion which is creeping at the long term slip rate seems to be at the most a few tens of kilometers wide and coincides with the belt of midcrustal microseismicity underneath the himalaya according to a previous study based on thermokinematic modeling of thermochronological and thermobarometric data this transition seems to happen in a zone where the temperature reaches 350 c the convergence between india and south tibet proceeds at a rate of 17 8 0 5 mm yr in central and eastern nepal and 20 5 1 mm yr in western nepal the moment deficit due to locking of the mht in the interseismic period accrues at a rate of 6 6 0 4 10 19 nm yr on the mht underneath nepal for comparison the moment released by the seismicity over the past 500 years including 14 m w 7 earthquakes with moment magnitudes up to 8 5 amounts to only 0 9 10 19 nm yr indicating a large deficit of seismic slip over that period or very infrequent large slow slip events no large slow slip event has been observed however over the 20 years covered by geodetic measurements in the nepal himalaya we discuss the magnitude and return period of m 8 earthquakes required to balance the long term slip budget on the mht

kinematic inversion of physically plausible earthquake source models obtained from dynamic rupture simulations one approach to investigate earthquake source processes is to produce kinematic source models from inversion of seismic records and geodetic data the setup of the inversion requires a variety of assumptions and constraints to restrict the range of possible models here we evaluate to what extent physically plausible earth quake scenarios are reliably restituted in spite of these restrictions we study which characteristics of ruptures such as rupture velocity slip distribution stress drop rise time and slip function can be reliably determined from the inversion of near field seismic and geodetic data using spontaneous dynamic rupture simulations we gen erate five earthquake scenarios each of which has different characteristics of the source process then we conduct a blind test by modeling the synthetic near source data using a standard inversion scheme that optimizes the fit to the observations while searching for solutions with minimum roughness the inversion procedure assumes a rupture front propagating away from the hypocenter with variable rupture velocity and a simple cosine slip time function our results show that overall slip distribution and stress drop are reasonably well determined even for input models with relatively complex histories such as a subshear rupture transitioning to supershear speeds depth averaged rupture velocities are also reasonably well resolved although their estimate progressively deteriorates away from the hypocenter the local rise time and slip function are not well resolved but there is some sensitivity to the rupture pulse width which can be used to differentiate between pulse like and crack like ruptures our test for understanding the inaccuracies in green s functions shows that random 3d perturbations of 5 standard deviation do not lead to significant degradation of the estimation of earthquake source parameters as remedies to the current limitations we propose smoothing slip function parameters and using more complicated inversion schemes only if data necessitates them online material figures showing snapshots of forward and inverse modeling of rupture l curves slip models and waveform fits

spontaneous rupture processes on a bending fault 1 we simulated spontaneous rupture processes on a vertical bending strike slip fault in a three dimensional half space using a finite difference method rupture area and overall slip distribution on the fault vary with the initial stress field which depends on strike change at the bend rupture velocity and detailed slip distribution around the bend on the other hand are affected by time dependent normal stress change caused by rupture this dynamic stress change plays an important role in the rupture process ahead of the bend as well as in the resulting ground motion the numerical simulation method demonstrated here in a simplified geometry is equally applicable to modeling strong ground motion from geometrically complex ruptures in realistic earth models

towards inferring earthquake patterns from geodetic observations of interseismic coupling ultimately seismotectonic studies seek to provide ways of assessing the timing magnitude and spatial extent of future earthquakes ample observations document the spatial variability in interseismic coupling defined as a degree of locking of a fault during the period of stress build up between seismic events fully or nearly locked fault patches are often surrounded by aseismically creeping areas however it is unclear how these observations could help assess future earthquakes here we simulate spontaneous seismic and aseismic fault slip with a fully dynamic numerical model our simulations establish the dependence of earthquake rupture patterns and interseismic coupling on spatial variations of fault friction we consider the long term evolution of slip on a model fault where two seismogenic locked segments are separated by an aseismically slipping patch where rupture is impeded we find that the probability for a large earthquake to break through the rupture impeding patch is correlated with the interseismic coupling averaged over this patch in addition the probability that an earthquake breaks through the rupture impeding patch and interseismic coupling are both related to fault friction properties through a single non dimensional parameter our study opens the possibility of predicting seismic rupture patterns that a fault system can produce on the basis of observations of its interseismic coupling and suggests that regions of low interseismic coupling may reveal permanent barriers to large earthquakes

the 1999 izmit turkey earthquake nonplanar fault structure dynamic rupture process and strong ground motion we simulated dynamic rupture propagation along various nonplanar fault models of the 1999 izmit turkey earthquake using a boundary integral equation method these models were inferred from geological and geodetic observations based on these results we modeled seismic wave propagation around the fault system using a finite difference method we focused on the effect of different fault geometries on the rupture process and seismic wave propagation numerical simulation results imply a rapid and continuous rupture propagation from the izmit sapanca lake segment to the sapanca akyazi segment the rupture under sapanca lake appears to have propagated not on a disconnected fault segment but along a smooth fault structure with a bend of only a few degrees the observational complexity of the surface breaks however can be best simulated by a highly segmented fault model this infers that fault geometric characters observed in the field reflect near surface structure and that seismological and geodetic features are controlled by global fault structure at depth then we investigated the effect of frictional parameters and the initial stress field in order to explain near field seismograms at station skr located a distance of a few kilometers from the fault we had to force the rupture to propagate at shallow depth close to the station in order to obtain this we had to introduce a finite cohesive force in the friction law that allows stress accumulation and release in the shallow crust the external stress field had to be large enough for the rupture to propagate at very rapid speed our simulation results show that it is important to include detailed fault geometry in the numerical simulation and to constrain frictional parameters and the initial stress field for understanding of the full dynamic process of an earthquake

effects of source model variations on coulomb stress analyses of a multi fault intraplate earthquake sequence abstract fault models are quickly produced and iteratively improved over weeks to years following a major earthquake to characterise the dynamics of rupture evaluate the role of stress transfer and contribute to earthquake forecasting we model coulomb stress transfer cfs between the largest foreshock mw 5 4 1 year prior to first mainshock and three mw 6 1 to 6 5 earthquakes that occurred in a 12 hour period on january 22 1988 in central australia tennant creek earthquake sequence to investigate the role of static stress transfer in earthquake triggering relative to progressive source model development the effects of fault model variance are studied using cfs modelling of five different fault source model sequences 27 total models using different inputs from seismic and geospatial data some initial models do not yield positive cfs changes proximal to hypocentres but in all models preceding earthquakes generate positive cfs 0 1 bar on 10 to 30 of the forthcoming receiver fault rupture areas the most refined and data integrative model reveals cfs 0 7 to 13 bars within 2 km of impending hypocentres and large 30 to 99 areas of positive cfs when compared to global compilations of threshold cfs prior to impending ruptures average 3 71 bar median 1 bar this suggests that coulomb stress change theory adequately explains the tennant creek rupture sequence in the most refined model earthquake inter event times decrease as cfs increases suggesting that higher stress magnitudes may have more rapidly within hours triggered successive events thus accounting for some temporal aspects of this sequence cfs analyses provide a useful framework for understanding the spatiotemporal aspects of some intraplate earthquakes the progressive refinement of source models using emergent data may reduce epistemic uncertainties in the role of stress transfer that result from different model inputs approaches and results

stress field associated with the rupture of the 1992 landers california earthquake and its implications concerning the fault strength at the onset of the earthquake we investigate the space and time history of the shear stress produced on the fault during the 1992 landers earthquake the stress is directly calculated from the tomographic image of slip on the fault derived from near source strong motion data the results obtained shed some light on why the earthquake rupture cascaded along a series of previously distinct fault segments to produce the largest earthquake in california in over 40 years rupture on the 30 km long northernmost segment of the fault was triggered by a large dynamic increase of the stress field of the order of 20 to 30 mpa produced by the rupturing of the adjacent fault segments such a large increase was necessary to overcome the static friction on this strand of the fault unfavorably oriented in today s tectonic stress field this misorientation eventually led to the arrest of rupture the same mechanism explains why rupture broke only a small portion of the johnson valley fault on which the earthquake originally started before jumping to an adjacent fault more favorably oriented we conclude from these results that the dynamic stress field could not sustain and drive the rupture along the strongly misoriented nw se strands of the preexisting fault system instead the dynamic stress field produced new fractures favorably oriented in a n s direction and connecting parts of the old fault system

mapping snow distribution in the alaskan arctic using aerial photography and topographic relationships a method is presented for mapping the end of winter snow distribution in the arctic using vertical aerial photographs taken during the melt the photos show a limited number of distinctive snowmelt patterns that arise reliably year after year data and results from an energy balance melt model indicate that the patterns are not caused by differential melt but instead represent areas of distinctive end of winter snow depth a map of these snowmelt patterns is thus a map of the end of winter snow distribution because wind transport of snow is common the patterns are closely related to the topography rules based on this pattern topography relationship are developed and used to map the snow cover directly from topographic maps for three areas covering 220 km2 of the kuparuk basin in northern alaska analysis of the snow maps suggests that about 75 of the area was mapped correctly applicability reliability and limitations of this mapping approach are discussed

geochemistry petrology and ages of the lunar meteorites kalahari 008 and 009 new constraints on early lunar evolution abstract kalahari 008 and 009 are two lunar meteorites that were found close to each other in botswana kalahari 008 is a typical lunar anorthositic breccia kalahari 009 a monomict breccia with basaltic composition and mineralogy based on minor and trace elements kalahari 009 is classified as vlt very low ti mare basalt with extremely low contents of incompatible elements including the ree the lu hf data define an age of 4286 95 ma indicating that kalahari 009 is one of the oldest known basalt samples from the moon it provides evidence for lunar basalt volcanism prior to 4 1 ga pre nectarian and may represent the first sample from a cryptomare the very radiogenic initial 176hf 177hf ehf 12 9 4 6 the low ree th and ti concentrations indicate that kalahari 009 formed from re melting of mantle material that had undergone strong incompatible trace element depletion early in lunar history this unusually depleted composition points toward a hitherto unsampled basalt source region for the lunar interior that may represent a new depleted endmember source for low ti mare basalt volcanism apparently the moon became chemically very heterogeneous at an early stage in its history and different cumulate sources are responsible for the diverse mare basalt types evidence that kalahari 008 and 009 may be paired includes the similar fayalite content of their olivine the identical initial hf isotope composition the exceptionally low exposure ages of both rocks and the fact that they were found close to each other since cryptomaria are covered by highland ejecta it is possible that these rocks are from the boundary area where basalt deposits are covered by highland ejecta the concentrations of cosmogenic radionuclides and trapped noble gases are unusually low in both rocks although kalahari 008 contains slightly higher concentrations a likely reason for this difference is that kalahari 008 is a polymict breccia containing a briefly exposed regolith while kalahari 009 is a monomict brecciated rock that may never have been at the surface of the moon altogether the compositions of kalahari 008 and 009 permit new insight into early lunar evolution as both meteorites sample lunar reservoirs hitherto unsampled by spacecraft missions the very low th and ree content of kalahari 009 as well as the depletion in sm and the lack of a kreep like signature in kalahari 008 point to a possible source far from the influence of the procellarum kreep terrane possibly the lunar farside

evidence for and implications of self healing pulses of slip in earthquake rupture dislocation time histories of models derived from waveforms of seven earthquakes are discussed in each model dislocation rise times the duration of slip for a given point on the fault are found to be short compared to the overall duration of the earthquake 10 however in many crack like numerical models of dynamic rupture the slip duration at a given point is comparable to the overall duration of the rupture i e slip at a given point continues until information is received that the rupture has stopped propagating alternative explanations for the discrepancy between the short slip durations used to model waveforms and the long slip durations inferred from dynamic crack models are 1 the dislocation models are unable to resolve the relatively slow parts of earthquake slip and have seriously underestimated the dislocations for these earthquakes 2 earthquakes are composed of a sequence of small dimension short duration events that are separated by locked regions barriers 3 rupture occurs in a narrow self healing pulse of slip that travels along the fault surface evidence is discussed that suggests that slip durations are indeed short and that the self healing slip pulse model is the most appropriate explanation a qualitative model is presented that produces self healing slip pulses the key feature of the model is the assumption that friction on the fault surface is inversely related to the local slip velocity the model has the following features high static strength of materials kilobar range low static stress drops in the range of tens of bars and relatively low frictional stress during slip less than several hundreds of bars it is suggested that the reason that the average dislocation scales with fault length is because large amplitude slip pulses are difficult to stop and hence tend to propagate large distances this model may explain why seismicity and ambient stress are low along fault segments that have experienced large earthquakes it also qualitatively explains why the recurrence time for large earthquakes may be irregular

rupture to the trench dynamic rupture simulations of the 11 march 2011 tohoku earthquake there is strong evidence that the 11 march 2011 tohoku earthquake rupture reached the seafloor this is surprising because the shallow portion of the plate interface in subduction zones is thought to be frictionally stable leading to the widely held view that coseismic rupture would stop several tens of kilometers downdip of the seafloor various explanations have been proposed to reconcile this seeming inconsistency including dynamic weakening e g thermal pressurization and extreme stress release around shallow subducted seamounts we offer a simpler explanation supported by 2d dynamic rupture simulations of the tohoku earthquake our models account for depth dependent material properties and the complex geometry of the fault seafloor and material interfaces based on seismic surveys of the japan trench the fault obeys rate and state friction with standard logarithmic dependence of shear strength on slip velocity in steady state in our preferred model the uppermost section of the fault is velocity strengthening rupture nucleates on a deeper velocity weakening section waves released by deep slip reflect off the seafloor transmitting large stress changes to the upper section of the fault driving the rupture through the velocity strengthening region to the trench we validate the model against seafloor deformation and 1 hz global positioning system gps data the seafloor displacements constrain the seismogenic depth and overall amount of slip particularly near the trench our simulations reproduce many features in the gps data thereby providing insight into the rupture process and seismic wave field sensitivity to parameters is explored through an extensive suite of simulations neither static seafloor deformation nor onshore 1 hz gps data can uniquely determine near trench frictional properties due to trade offs with average stress drop while conducted specifically for the japan trench region our simulations suggest that rupture to the trench in megathrust events is quite possible even if velocity strengthening properties extend tens of kilometers landward from the trench online material mp4 movies of particle velocities

thermal structure and megathrust seismogenic potential of the makran subduction zone the makran subduction zone experienced a tsunamigenic mw 8 1 earthquake in 1945 and recent smaller earthquakes also suggest seismicity on the megathrust however its historical record is limited and hazard potential enigmatic we have developed a 2 d thermal model of the subduction zone the results are twofold 1 the thick sediment cover on the incoming plate leads to high 150 plate boundary temperatures at the deformation front making the megathrust potentially seismogenic to a shallow depth and 2 the shallow dip of the subducting plate leads to a wide potential seismogenic zone up to 350 km combining these results with along strike rupture scenarios indicates that mw8 7 9 2 earthquakes are possible in the seaward makran subduction zone these results have important earthquake and tsunami hazard implications particularly for the adjacent coastlines of pakistan iran oman and india as the makran has not been previously considered a likely candidate for a mw 9 earthquake

multicycle dynamics of nonplanar strike slip faults 1 we perform two dimensional dynamic models of strike slip faults with a change in strike a bend over multiple earthquake cycles to examine the long term effects of nonplanar fault geometry a viscoelastic model a proxy for off fault deformation and tectonic loading is introduced for the interseismic process to avoid pathological stress buildup around the bend a finite element method with an elastodynamic model is used to simulate dynamic earthquake ruptures we find that stresses near the bend differ strongly from the regional stress field and that the fault develops a relatively steady state in which the stress level and the event pattern on the fault are stable reduced normal stress on the dilatational side and increased normal stress on the compressive side of the bend during dynamic ruptures result in the bend serving as an initiation and or a termination point s for rupture typical events on such a fault consist of two classes unilateral events that rupture only the favorable segment and bilateral events that rupture the favorable segment and part of or the entire unfavorable segment in the latter class of events a time delay in rupture around the bend results from a high yield stress on the compressive side of the bend other effects of the bent fault geometry include higher displacement on the inward wall than on the outward wall higher slip on the more favorable segment than on the less favorable segment and a large slip velocity on the compressive side of the bend

oblique slip slip partitioning spatial and temporal changes in the regional stress field and the relative strength of active faults in the basin and range western united states when viewed with stress transformation laws and an idealized physical model observations of oblique slip and slip partitioning in the basin and range western united states are interpreted to show that 1 separate regions with the same net extension direction are not necessarily characterized by the same regional stress field 2 fault systems exhibiting partitioning where one of the faults is near vertical generally do not require temporal changes in the stress field to explain the disparate slip vectors on the adjacent faults and 3 the relative strengths of active fault zones may vary by more than an order of magnitude

seismic imaging of the 1999 izmit turkey rupture inferred from the near fault recordings we use near fault accelerograms to infer the space time history of rupture on the fault during the izmit earthquake the records show that the ground displacement and velocity near the fault were surprisingly simple rupture propagated toward the west at a velocity of about 3 km s and toward the east at a remarkably high average velocity of 4 7 km s over a distance of about 45 km before decelerating to about 3 1 km s on the eastern segment slip on the fault is particularly large down to a depth of 20 km on the central portion of the fault where it reaches about 7 m slip is large also below 10 km on the eastern fault segment and this may have contributed to the loading of shear stress on the duzce fault on the western fault segment large slip seems confined to shallow depths

earthquakes and associated deformation in northern baluchistan 1892 2001 we examine a century of seismicity and earthquake related deformation on the western margin of the indian plate in the pakistan region of northern baluchistan several catalogs of earthquakes for this region currently exist but early catalogs in particular suffer from errors incompleteness inhomogeneity and location bias we form a new catalog of more than 1000 earthquakes using original sources to confirm macroseismic locations and assign m s magnitudes to earthquakes since 1892 in doing so we reveal a systematic east northeast bias in locations caused largely by the uneven global distribution of seismic stations used in their determination an appendix provides narrative accounts and historical references to 34 significant earthquakes in the region the pattern of seismicity in the past century shows activity over a 700 km long 200 km wide segment of the plate boundary with predominantly strike slip faulting to the west and thrust faulting to the east at its narrowest near 29 n transpression of the plate boundary is partitioned into reverse and strike slip components separated by approximately 100 km the m 7 3 1931 mach earthquake slip 1 1 m on a 40 east southeast dipping reverse fault released fault normal stresses that may have unclamped the subsequent m 7 7 left lateral quetta earthquake 4 years later the northern chaman fault system in the past century has been largely inactive suggesting that this time period is not representative of long term activity in the region and that up to 4 m of potential slip is currently available to drive one or more future m 7 earthquakes despite triangulation installed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries no recent geodetic data are available to permit plate boundary velocities to be measured directly

newly identified strike slip plate boundary in the northeastern arabian sea the first regional swath bathymetry survey of the makran accretionary wedge revealed a sinistral strike slip fault named herein the sonne fault obliquely crossing the wedge and continuing into the abyssal plane this fault separates the western part of the makran subduction zone where plate boundary events are absent from the eastern part that does show plate boundary seismicity most events are concentrated along the sonne fault little murray ridge a basement high and related magnetic anomalies are offset along the sonne fault together these observations identify the newly discovered sonne strike slip fault as a plate boundary that has been active 2 m y this finding suggests that what has been considered the northeasternmost part of the arabian plate is actually a separate microplate named herein the ormara plate the formation of which resulted from tearing of the arabian plate along the sonne fault with this concept the different dips of the downgoing plate below the western and eastern parts of the makran margin and the related different distances between the trench and quaternary arc volcanic centers can be unequivocally explained

slip vectors and fault mechanics in the makran accretionary wedge southwest pakistan the makran is a broadly east west trending arcuate accretionary wedge currently forming where the oceanic floor of the gulf of oman is being subducted north northeastward beneath the south asian margin two traverses across the makran coast ranges extending about 80 km inland from the coastline which lies about 100 km north of the wedge front show that the structure of this region is dominated by large back rotated south directed thrust faults and associated folds related structures include duplexes fault gouge containing reidel shears and melange along fault zones these structures are cut by later north directed backthrusts out of sequence south directed thrusts and apparently conjugate sets of nne trending sinistral and nw trending dextral strike slip faults slip vectors were determined from slickenlines fiber lineations gouge fabrics and riedel shears vectors from early thrusts and bedding parallel slip surfaces corrected for tectonic rotation form a broad south directed concentration lying between the normal to the regional strike varying from 160 to 180 and the present plate convergence vector 200 locally the concentration is bimodal this pattern may represent the interaction between plate forces and body forces in the accretionary wedge the late thrusts have widely variable slip vectors and stair step off the early thrusts they overlap in orientation and slip vector with gently dipping sinistral strike slip faults suggesting that they also stair step in plan off the latter the steep strike slip faults represent the final tectonic stage involving minor n s shortening and longitudinal extension these three stages probably occurred in sequence in any one area but migrated diachronously southward as the wedge grew

fault geometry and the dynamics of the 1999 chi chi taiwan earthquake the 1999 m 7 6 chi chi taiwan earthquake produced a data set of unparalleled size and quality particularly in the near source region where data have been previously quite scarce the large amount of near source data allows the verification of many predictions of thrust fault behavior for faults that intersect the surface of the earth through rigorous three dimensional dynamic models of the chi chi earthquake it can be shown that many aspects of the observed near source ground motion in this event are direct effects of the asymmetrical dipping fault geometry these effects include the hanging wall moving more than the footwall with strongly peaked velocities right at the fault trace and a transition from predominantly thrust motion in the south of the fault to largely left lateral motion in the north building on the work of oglesby and day 2001 the current work helps to delineate the effects of fault geometry nonuniform prestress and dynamic waves on the physics of the chi chi earthquake and dip slip faults in general in particular we find that a completely homogeneous prestress pattern still fits the gross features of the near source ground motion quite well additionally the strike slip component of motion near the fault trace is seen to be a combination of dynamic and static effects finally dynamic overshoot is seen to be much larger for dip slip faults than for otherwise identical vertical faults the results emphasize the necessity of rigorous models that correctly account for both the effects of fault geometry and dynamic waves in the rupture and slip processes manuscript received 31 july 2000

earthquakes on dipping faults the effects of broken symmetry dynamic simulations of earthquakes on dipping faults show asymmetric near source ground motion caused by the asymmetric geometry of such faults the ground motion from a thrust or reverse fault is larger than that of a normal fault by a factor of 2 or more given identical initial stress magnitudes the motion of the hanging wall is larger than that of the footwall in both thrust reverse and normal earthquakes the asymmetry between normal and thrust reverse faults results from time dependent normal stress caused by the interaction of the earthquake generated stress field with earth s free surface the asymmetry between hanging wall and footwall results from the asymmetric mass and geometry on the two sides of the fault

slip weakening models of the 2011 tohoku oki earthquake and constraints on stress drop and fracture energy we present 2d dynamic rupture models of the 2011 tohoku oki earthquake based on linear slip weakening friction we use different types of available observations to constrain our model parameters the distribution of stress drop is determined by the final slip distribution from slip inversions as three groups of along dip slip distribution are suggested by different slip inversions we present three slip weakening models in each model we assume uniform critical slip distance eastward from the hypocenter but several asperities with smaller critical slip distance westward from the hypocenter the values of critical slip distance are constrained by the ratio of deep to shallow high frequency slip rate power inferred from back projection source imaging our slip weakening models are consistent with the final slip slip rate rupture velocity and high frequency power ratio inferred for this earthquake the average static stress drop calculated from the models is in the range of 4 5 7 mpa though large spatial variations of static stress drop exist to prevent high frequency radiation in the region eastward from the hypocenter the fracture energy needed there is in the order of 10 mj m2 and the average up dip rupture speed cannot exceed 2 km s the radiation efficiency calculated from our models is higher than that inferred from seismic data suggesting the role of additional dissipation processes we find that the structure of the subduction wedge contributes significantly to the up dip rupture propagation and the resulting large slip at shallow depth

rate of crustal shortening and non coulomb behaviour of an active accretionary wedge the folded fluvial terraces in makran se iran abstract we surveyed fluvial terraces to decipher the quaternary increment of crustal shortening and shortening rate in the on shore makran accretionary wedge we focused on three major catchment basins and associated fold systems terrace profiles reconstructed from differential gps measurements combined with dem revealed two regional dominant wavelengths about 5 km in the northern part of the study area and about 15 km to the south these two wavelengths suggest the existence of two active decollement layers at two rooting depths the average shortening rate due to folding is estimated at 0 8 1 2 mm a over the last 130 ka this accounts for 10 15 of the shortening rate 8 mm a given by kinematic gps measurements between chabahar and bazman and 3 of the convergence between arabia and eurasia across the makran subduction zone despite active deformation and a relatively high shortening rate the geophysical record shows nearly absent seismic activity in makran we propose that strain accumulated in folds over intermediate decollement levels within a thick incompletely lithified sedimentary cover explains the essentially aseismic recent tectonics in this region the importance of folds points to imperfect coulomb behaviour of the wedge

empirical constraints on magnitude distance relationships for seismically induced submarine tsunamigenic landslides abstract seismically induced submarine landslide tsunamis here called silts attract growing attention due to their unique setting damage potential and short warning time a question of key importance especially for tsunami early warning is how far can an earthquake trigger a tsunamigenic slump here we investigate the relationships between earthquake magnitude and the maximal distance between the seismogenic fault and the tsunamigenic slumps rf and between the earthquake epicenter and the slump re and propose empirical constraints on these magnitude distance m d relations the 49 identified silts are spread in various seismotectonic and bathymetric settings in different seas around the globe we found that the maximal distance of the tsunamigenic submarine landslide from the parent earthquake grows with the magnitude and is bounded by an envelope constrained by mw as low as 4 9 for several kilometers the 1968 liguria coast italy and as far as 250 km for mw 7 7 the 1819 rann of kachchh india higher earthquake magnitudes also produce silts seemingly distances lower than 250 km however it is suspected that the available data is limited and unable to reflect the true nature of silt s generation generalized empirical relations between the earthquake magnitude mw and the maximal distance from the seismogenic fault to its generated silt rf in km are log rf 1 17 0 49 mw r2 0 78 the empirical distance between the earthquake epicenter and the corresponding tsunamigenic slump re in km is log re 0 87 0 45 mw r2 0 83 although many earthquakes within the m d bounding envelope did not produce tsunamis the successful events still enable the delineation of the m d zone vulnerable to tsunami generation which in turn can be applied to tsunami early warning procedures this is particularly important for near coast inland earthquakes as their tsunamigenic potential might be overlooked

a window into the complexity of the dynamic rupture of the 2011 mw 9 tohoku oki earthquake the 2011 mw 9 tohoku oki earthquake recorded by over 1000 near field stations and multiple large aperture arrays is by far the best recorded earthquake in the history of seismology and provides unique opportunities to address fundamental issues in earthquake source dynamics here we conduct a high resolution array analysis based on recordings from the usarray and the european network the mutually consistent results from both arrays reveal rupture complexity with unprecedented resolution involving phases of diverse rupture speed and intermittent high frequency bursts within slow speed phases which suggests spatially heterogeneous material properties the earthquake initially propagates down dip with a slow initiation phase followed by sustained propagation at speeds of 3 km s the rupture then slows down to 1 5 km s for 60 seconds a rich sequence of bursts is generated along the down dip rim of this slow and roughly circular rupture front before the end of the slow phase an extremely fast rupture front detaches at about 5 km s towards the north finally a rupture front propagates towards the south running at about 2 5 km s for over 100 km key features of the rupture process are confirmed by the strong motion data recorded by k net and kik net the energetic high frequency radiation episodes within a slow rupture phase suggests a patchy image of the brittle ductile transition zone composed of discrete brittle asperities within a ductile matrix the high frequency is generated mainly at the down dip edge of the principal slip regions constrained by geodesy suggesting a variation along dip of the mechanical properties of the mega thrust fault or their spatial heterogeneity that affects rise time

the 2005 mw 7 6 kashmir earthquake sub pixel correlation of aster images and seismic waveforms analysis we analyze the m w 7 6 kashmir earthquake of october 8 2005 using sub pixel correlation of aster images to measure ground deformation and modeling seismic waveforms the surface rupture is continuous over a distance of 75 km and cuts across the hazara syntaxis reactivating the tanda and the muzaffarabad faults north of muzaffarabad the surface rupture coincides approximately with the mbt on the southwestern flank of the syntaxis although the two faults have opposite dip angles the rupture terminates abruptly at the hairpin turn of the mbt showing a strong structural control the fault offset is 4 m on average and peaks to 7 m northwest of muzaffarabad the rupture lasted about 25 s and propagated updip and bi laterally 2 km s with a rise time of 2 5 s the shallowness and compactness of the rupture both in time and space provide an explanation for the intensity of destructions this kind of analysis could be achieved as soon as a post earthquake image is available and would provide key information for early assessment of damages the study sheds some light on seismic hazard in the himalaya and raises concern regarding the possibility of a repetition of the 1555 event which presumably ruptured the himalayan front south of the kashmir basin and may have reached a magnitude m w 8

geology of the onshore makran accretionary wedge synthesis and tectonic interpretation abstract this contribution is a synthesis of studies carried out since 2004 in the makran accretionary wedge exposed in se iran these studies were intended to improve our understanding of the behaviour of accretionary wedges and of the significance of the makran wedge in the frame of tethys tectonics reassessing the stratigraphy and structure of the iranian makran has allowed distinguishing four main litho tectonic units the lithological content of these four units is briefly described to discuss the sedimentary environments which record the general filling of an oceanic basin with clastic sediments derived from the north the petrology of ophiolites exposed in the backstop region to the north of the accretionary wedge itself demonstrates the existence of an oceanic basin formed in the jurassic late cretaceous to the north of continental slivers which had separated from central iran there is petrological evidence for a subduction related magmatic arc during the late cretaceous which sourced much of the clastic material in the cretaceous lower miocene turbidites present throughout the wedge the literature survey shows that the late cretaceous to present evolution of the pakistan part of the makran fold and trust belt is in its major attributes similar to that of the iranian makran these observations and results are discussed in a tectonic model that integrates knowledge on the oman mountains on the other side of the current oman subduction

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

the 2013 mw 7 7 balochistan earthquake energetic strike slip reactivation of a thrust fault we analyse the mw 7 7 balochistan earthquake of 09 24 2013 based on ground surface deformation measured from sub pixel correlation of landsat 8 images combined with back projection and finite source modeling of teleseismic waveforms the earthquake nucleated south of the chaman strike slip fault and propagated southwestward along the hoshab fault at the front of the kech band the rupture was mostly unilateral propagated at 3 km s on average and produced a 200 km surface fault trace with purely strike slip displacement peaking to 10 m and averaging around 6 m the finite source model shows that slip was maximum near the surface although the hoshab fault is dipping by 45 to the north in accordance with its origin as a thrust fault within the makran accretionary prism slip was nearly purely strike slip during that earthquake large seismic slip on such a non optimally oriented fault was enhanced possibly due to the influence of the free surface on dynamic stresses or to particular properties of the fault zone allowing for strong dynamic weakening strike slip faulting on thrust fault within the eastern makran is interpreted as due to eastward extrusion of the accretionary prism as it bulges out over the indian plate portions of the makran megathrust some thrust faults in the kirthar range and strike slip faults within the chaman fault system have been brought closer to failure by this earthquake aftershocks cluster within the chaman fault system north of the epicenter opposite to the direction of rupture propagation by contrast few aftershocks were detected in the area of maximum moment release in this example aftershocks cannot be used to infer earthquake characteristics

displacement and geometrical characteristics of earthquake surface ruptures issues and implications for seismic hazard analysis and the process of earthquake rupture there now exist about three dozen historical earthquakes for which in vestigators have constructed maps of earthquake rupture traces accompanied by de scriptions of the coseismic slip observed along the fault strike the maps and slip distributions are compiled here to place observational bounds on aspects of seismic hazard analysis and fault mechanics analysis leads to an initial statistical basis to predict the end points of rupture and the amount of surface slip expected at sites along the strike during earthquakes on mapped faults the observations also give support to the ideas that there exists a process zone or volume of about 3 4 km in dimension at the fronts of large laterally propagating earthquake ruptures within which stress changes may be sufficient to trigger slip on adjacent faults and that the ultimate length of earthquake ruptures is controlled primarily by the geometrical complexity of fault traces and variations in accumulated stress levels along faults that arise due to the location of past earthquakes to this may be added the observation that the form of earthquake surface slip distributions is better described by asymmetric rather than symmetric curve forms and that earthquake epicenters do not appear to correlate in any systematic manner to regions of maximum surface slip observed along strike online material maps of surface ruptures digitized values and curve fits to surface slip distributions and notes and references for tables 1 and 2