petrogenesis of the elephant moraine a79001 meteorite multiple magma pulses on the shergottite parent body abstract the eeta 79001 achondrite consists of two distinct igneous lithologies joined along a planar non brecciated contact both are basaltic rocks composed primarily of pigeonite augite and maskelynite but one contains zoned megacrysts of olivine orthopyroxene and chromite that represent disaggregated xenoliths of harzburzite both lithologies probably formed from successive volcanic flows or multiple injections of magma into a small shallow chamber many similarities between the two virtually synchronous magmas suggest that they are related possible mechanisms to explain their differences involve varying degrees of assimilation fractionation from similar parental magmas or partial melting of a similar source peridotite of these assimilation of the observed megacryst assemblage seems most plausible however some isotopic contamination may be required in any of these petrogenetic models the meteorite has suffered extensive shock metamorphism and localized melting during a large impact event that probably excavated and liberated it from its parent body both basaltic lithologies and the inferred ultramafic protolith of the megacryst assemblage are petrologically similar to other members of the shergottite group and all may have been derived from a volcanic plutonic complex on a planetary body

the rupture history of the mw 8 0 jalisco mexico earthquake of 1995 october 9 summary finite fault broad band teleseismic p waveform inversion was applied to the large mw 8 0 jalisco mexico earthquake of 1995 october 9 the earthquake hypocentre was located at shallow depths just near the boundary zone between two lithospheric plates rivera and cocos and was felt with a maximum intensity of 9 mm on the pacific coast it was the first earthquake of magnitude greater than 6 to occur in this region since the two great jalisco earthquakes ms 8 0 and 7 6 of 1932 for inversion we used vertical records from 14 digital stations situated 30d to 90d from the epicentre we used the fixed rake of the thrust type focal mechanism given by the preliminary harvard cmt the low angle dipping fault plane was taken as a 180 90 km2 rectangle divided into 162 subfaults of 10 10 km2 each subfault had five intermediate point sources along strike and five intermediate point sources downdip the size of the fault plane was changed from an initial size of 110 60 km2 estimated by resco as an aftershock area to the final size of 180 90 km2 which included all significant displacements along the fault the hypocentre was embedded 40 km from the left edge of the 180 km long fault 40 km down dip from the top of the fault which was situated practically along the trench axis a boxcar source time function of width 2 0 s was used for each discrete rupture interval of each subfault the rupture velocity was taken to be 2 8 km s 1 which is approximately 80 per cent of the shear wave speed in the layer containing the hypocentre the following results on the rupture history were obtained 1 the rupture duration was about 55 s and slip occurred within an area of about 180 90 km2 along the middle american trench in the depth interval from 9 to 33 km 2 there were two main stages in the rupture history during the first 18 s two main asperities at a distance of about 30 km from the earthquake hypocentre were ruptured with maximum slip up to 610 cm at a depth of 12 15 km then during the next 37 s rupturing was observed to the north along the trench the slip distribution obtained shows that the faulting originating near the boundary between the rivera and cocos plates went mainly along the rivera north american plate boundary and is consistent with the subduction of the rivera plate beneath north america

petrology and chemistry of the new shergottite dar al gani 476 in 1998 dar al gani dag 476 was found in the libyan desert the meteorite is classified as a basaltic shergottite and is only the 13th martian meteorite known to date it has a porphyritic texture consisting of a fine grained groundmass and larger olivines the groundmass consists of pyroxene and feldspathic glass minor phases are oxides and sulfides as well as phosphates the presence of olivine orthopyroxene and chromite is a feature that dag 476 has in common with lithology a of elephant moraine eet a79001 however in dag 476 these phases appear to be early phenocrysts rather than xenocrysts shock features such as twinning mosaicism and impact melt pockets are ubiquitous terrestrial weathering was severe and led to formation of carbonate veins following grain boundaries and cracks with a molar mgo mgo feo of 0 68 dag 476 is the most magnesian member among the basaltic shergottites compositions of augite and pigeonite and some of the bulk element concentrations are intermediate between those of lherzolitic and basaltic shergottites however major elements such as fe and ti as well as lree concentrations are considerably lower than in other shergottites noble gas concentrations are low and dominated by the mantle component previously found in chassigny a component similar to that representing martian atmosphere is virtually absent the ejection age of 1 35 0 10 ma is older than that of eeta79001 and could possibly mark a distinct ejection dar al gani 476 is classified as a basaltic shergottite based on its mineralogy it has a fine grained groundmass consisting of clinopyroxene pigeonite and augite feldspathic glass and chromite ti chromite ilmenite sulfides and whitlockite isolated olivine and single chromite grains occur in the groundmass orthopyroxene forms cores of some pigeonite grains shock features such as shock twinning mosaicism cracks and impact melt pockets are abundant severe weathering in the sahara led to significant formation of carbonate veins crosscutting the entire meteorite dar al gani 476 is distinct from other known shergottites chemically it is the most magnesian member among known basaltic shergottites and intermediate in composition for most trace and major elements between iherzolitic and basaltic shergottites unique are the very low bulk ree element abundances the ci normalized abundances of lrees are even lower than those of iherzolitic shergottites the overall abundance pattern however is similar to that of que 94201 textural evidence indicates that orthopyroxene as well as olivine and chromite crystallized as phenocrysts from a magma similar in composition to that of bulk dag 476 whether such a magma composition can be a shergottite parent melt or was formed by impact melting needs to be explored further at this time it cannot entirely be ruled out that these phases represent relics of disaggregated xenoliths that were incorporated and partially assimilated by a basaltic melt although the texture does not support this possibility trapped noble gas concentrations are low and dominated by a chassigny like mantle component virtually no martian atmosphere was trapped in dag 476 whole rock splits the exposure age of 1 26 0 09 ma is younger than that of most shergottites and closer to that of eeta79001 the ejection age of 1 35 0 1 ma could mark another distinct impact event

the macroseismic field generated by the mw 8 0 jalisco mexico earthquake of 9 october 1995 abstract the mw 8 0 earthquake of 9 october 1995 occurred within the jalisco block that represents the northern part of the mexican subduction zone where the rivera plate subducts beneath the north america plate along the middle american trench the source rupture of the 1995 low angle thrust type event was complicated the studies of rupture history had shown that the slip occurred within an area of about 180 90 km 2 along the middle american trench at the depth interval from 9 to 33 km the rupture duration was estimated in interval from 55 to 62 sec at least three main asperities ruptured along the fault plane the earthquake was felt along the 600 km coast of the mexican states of colima jalisco and michoacan and in the continental part of mexico the macroseismic study presented in this article was carried out in march through july 1997 more than one year after the earthquake we had about 300 interviews with people who felt the earthquake in their houses located in 56 cities and towns of the states of colima jalisco and michoacan all our estimates of the earthquake intensity were referred to the intermediate type of masonry situated on the intermediate type of soils for this purpose corrections were introduced for type of soil and masonry the study of macroseismic effects related to the 1995 jalisco earthquake allows description of some properties of the macroseismic field generated by the earthquake 1 three zones of intensity 4 5 and 6 to 7 grades of mm modified mercalli scale were distinguished 2 the zone of maximum intensity of 6 to 7 mm was heterogeneous this heterogeneity was in accordance with the rupture asperities distribution 3 the study of intensity attenuation along the coast had demonstrated the asymmetry in intensity distribution according to the epicenter the maximum intensities were observed for the sites that were situated to the northwest of the epicenter 4 a good correlation was observed between the observed intensities and the values of gps displacements

gps applications for geodynamics and earthquake studies geodetic measurements obtained with the global positioning system gps are increasingly more widely applied in geophysical studies in this paper we review the changes to the technology of gps geodesy over the last five years that are responsible for this increased applicability we survey geophysical investigations employing gps to measure coseismic postseismic and interseismic deformation plate motion and crustal deformation at plate boundaries volcano deformation and the deformation associated with glacial isostatic adjustment and its application to sea level studies we emphasize the use of gps determinations for the modeling of this wide variety of geophysical phenomena we also discuss the recent advent of permanent gps networks for regional geophysical studies as well as the possible future of gps surveying in light of the recent advances

a geodetic study of the 2003 january 22 tecoman colima mexico earthquake we use coseismic displacements and aftershock information from global positioning system gps measurements at 27 sites in western mexico and a 12 station local seismic network to determine the characteristics of the 2003 january 22 m w 7 2 subduction thrust earthquake near tecoman colima mexico estimates of the earthquake moment slip direction and best fitting slip distribution are derived by optimizing the fit to the gps displacements for a 3 d finite element mesh that simulates the study area the calculated moment release is 9 1 10 19 n m m w 7 2 with maximum slip of 2 m at a depth of 24 km and a maximum rupture depth of 35 40 km the inversion indicates that coseismic rupture extended downdip from depths of 9 to 40 km along a 80 km along strike region that is bounded by the edges of the manzanillo trough the optimal solution is robust with respect to plausible changes in the subduction interface geometry and differing subsets of the data a comparison of the cumulative post seismic slip that can be inferred separately from earthquake aftershocks and gps measurements within a year of the earthquake indicates that 95 per cent or more of the post seismic deformation was aseismic near term post seismic measurements indicate that slip propagated downdip to areas of the subduction interface beneath the coastline within days following the earthquake as also occurred after the nearby m w 8 0 colima jalisco subduction earthquake in 1995 the similar behaviours and locations of the 1995 2003 earthquake sequence to two earthquakes in june of 1932 suggests that thrust earthquakes along the subduction interface northwest of the manzanillo trough may trigger earthquakes in the vicinity of the manzanillo trough however our modelling of coulomb stress changes caused by the 1995 earthquake indicate that it induced only modest unclamping of the subduction interface in the vicinity of the tecoman rupture in addition gps measurements indicate that elastic shortening characterized areas onshore from the tecoman rupture from mid 1997 up until the time of the rupture consistent with progressively stronger clamping of the subduction interface during this period this precludes any obvious triggering relationship with the 1995 earthquake the apparent coincidence of the edge of both the 1932 and 1995 2003 rupture sequences with the edge of the manzanillo trough may indicate that the trough is a mechanical barrier to along strike rupture propagation this implies a limit to the area of potential slip and hence rupture magnitude during future large earthquakes in this region

quantitative compositional analysis of martian mafic regions using the mex omega reflectance data 2 petrological implications abstract the primary objectives of this paper are to determine the modal mineralogy of selected low albedo terrains of different ages ranging from noachian to amazonian exposed on the surface of mars this analysis is conducted using the spectral modeling of the observatoire pour la mineralogie l eau les glaces et l activite omega reflectance data results from this work are consistent with the major results of previous spectroscopic studies plagioclase 40 60 in volume and high calcium pyroxene 20 40 hcp are the dominant minerals of the most regions low calcium pyroxene 10 15 lcp and minor amounts of olivine are also present the oldest terrains are characterized by the largest amount of lcp and the lowest concentration of plagioclase these overall compositions are consistent with two pyroxene basalts the particle sizes are in the range of a few hundreds of micrometers which is in good agreement with the thermal inertia of the martian low albedo regions in the region around the nili fossae localized concentrations of olivine up to 40 with millimeter particle size similar to picritic basalts observed in situ by the spirit rover in the gusev crater are inferred chemical compositions are calculated for the first time from omega spectra they are quite consistent with gusev rocks and shergottite compositions but they appear to be significantly sio2 poorer than thermal emission spectrometer data a decreasing low calcium pyroxene abundance with the decreasing age of the low albedo regions is reported this may be indicative of decreasing degree of partial melting as thermal flux decreases with time we propose that the ancient noachian aged lcp rich terrains could have been formed from h2o bearing melts then dry basaltic volcanism occurred leading to decreasing lcp abundance with time due to decreasing degree of partial melting the olivine bearing material modeled in nili fossae resembles the composition of alh77005 and chassigny meteorites consistent with prior studies implications on the formation of the basaltic shergottites are discussed

local earthquake tomography of the jalisco mexico region abstract the states of jalisco colima and michoacan in western mexico overlie the boundary of the subducting rivera and cocos plates presenting an ideal target for seismological inquiry to better understand the resulting mantle flow and regional volcanism the different dips between the two subducting plates are thought to provide a mantle conduit that has contributed to the colima volcanic complex cvc but there is considerable debate on the depth of the rivera plate and width of the resulting conduit with data from the mapping the rivera subduction zone mars and colima deep seismic experiment codex networks two temporary broadband arrays deployed in the region between 2006 and 2008 we inverted for three dimensional p and s wave velocity as well as vp vs structure of the upper 70 km of the crust and mantle in the jalisco region using a newly developed automatic p and s wave picker we increased p picks by 74 and s picks by more than a factor of four compared to a database of manual picks for the 803 earthquakes used in the inversion additional relocated earthquakes extending to the trench are consistent with previous interpretations of the rivera and cocos plate interfaces areas of high vp vs above both subducting slabs suggest the presence of fluids resulting from dehydration of subducted material extensive crustal seismicity occurs near these anomalies a zone of high vp vs is also present under the cvc we also compare the results of different methods for obtaining vp vs a direct inversion for vp vs from s minus p times versus simply dividing the vp model by the vs model we find direct inversions of s minus p times to be more reliable

far field simulation of tsunami propagation in the pacific ocean impact on the marquesas islands french polynesia the islands in the marquesas archipelago are most exposed to far field tsunamis in french polynesia four recent earthquakes located at the pacific rim kurile 1994 chile 1995 mexico 1995 and peru 1996 earthquakes generated trans pacific tsunamis and caused contrasting inundations in several inhabited marquesian bays the aim of this study is to better understand the amplification phenomena observed in the marquesas islands and to improve the risk assessment we present here numerical simulations of these four tsunamis by means of a finite difference model solving the equations of tsunami propagation at different scales the water heights computed in the bays are in excellent agreement with the available observations and thus validate our numerical method these numerical results allow us to determine 1 which propagation azimuths are dangerous for the whole marquesas archipelago and 2 the behavior of each studied bay amplitude frequency in response to tsunami waves we observe that the seismogenic subduction zone along south america is likely to define one of the most dangerous tsunami generation areas for the marquesas archipelago owing to the source geometries and to the trapping of the tsunami energy by bathymetric features in the southern pacific ocean fracture zones seamount chains

finite element model predictions of static deformation from dislocation sources in a subduction zone sensitivities to homogeneous isotropic poisson solid and half space assumptions 1 dislocation models can simulate static deformation caused by slip along a fault these models usually take the form of a dislocation embedded in a homogeneous isotropic poisson solid half space hipshs however the widely accepted hipshs assumptions poorly approximate subduction zone systems of converging oceanic and continental crust this study uses three dimensional finite element models fems that allow for any combination including none of the hipshs assumptions to compute synthetic green s functions for displacement using the1995 mw 8 0 jalisco colima mexico subduction zone earthquake and associated measurements from a nearby gps array as an example fem generated synthetic green s functions are combined with standard linear inverse methods to estimate dislocation distributions along the subduction interface loading a forward hipshs model with dislocation distributions estimated from fems that sequentially relax the hipshs assumptions yields the sensitivity of predicted displacements to each of the hipshs assumptions for the subduction zone models tested and the specific field situation considered sensitivities to the individual poisson solid isotropy and homogeneity assumptions can be substantially greater than gps measurement uncertainties forward modeling quantifies stress coupling between the mw 8 0 earthquake and a nearby mw 6 3 earthquake that occurred 63 days later coulomb stress changes predicted from static hipshs models cannot account for the 63 day lag time between events alternatively an fem that includes a poroelastic oceanic crust which allows for postseismic pore fluid pressure recovery can account for the lag time the pore fluid pressure recovery rate puts an upper limit of 10 17 m2 on the bulk permeability of the oceanic crust

martian gases in an antarctic meteorite significant abundances of trapped argon krypton and xenon have been measured in shock altered phases of the achondritic meteorite elephant moraine 79001 from antarctica the relative elemental abundances the high ratios of argon 40 to argon 36 2000 and the high ratios of xenon 129 to xenon 132 2 0 of the trapped gas more closely resemble viking data for the martian atmosphere than data for noble gas components typically found in meteorites these findings support earlier suggestions made on the basis of geochemical evidence that shergottites and related rare meteorites may have originated from the planet mars

subsidence and strike slip tectonism of the upper continental slope off manzanillo mexico the direction of convergence between the rivera and north american plates becomes progressively more oblique in a counter clockwise sense as measured relative to the trench normal direction northwestward along the jalisco subduction zone by analogy to other subduction zones the forces resulting from this distribution of convergence directions are expected to produce a nw moving fore arc sliver and a nw se stretching of the fore arc area also a series of roughly arc parallel strike slip faults may form in the fore arc area both onshore and offshore as is observed in the aleutian arc in the jalisco subduction zone the jalisco block has been proposed to represent such a fore arc sliver however this proposal has encountered one major problem namely right lateral strike slip faulting within the fore arc sliver and between the fore arc sliver and the north american plate should be observed however evidence for the expected right lateral strike slip faulting is sparse some evidence for right lateral strike slip faulting along the jalisco block north american plate boundary the tepic zacoalco rift system has been reported although some disagreement exists right lateral strike slip faulting has also been reported within the interior of the jalisco block and in the southern colima rift which forms the se boundary of the jalisco block threefold multi channel seismic reflection data were collected in the offshore area of the jalisco subduction zone off manzanillo in april 2002 during the famex campaign of the n o l atalante these data provide additional evidence for recent strike slip motion within the fore arc region of the jalisco subduction zone this faulting offsets right laterally a prominent horst block within the southern colima rift from which we conclude that the sense of motion along the faulting is dextral these data also provide additional evidence for recent subsidence within the area offshore of manzanillo as has been proposed

geology of the northern colima and zacoalco grabens southwest mexico late cenozoic rifting in the mexican volcanic belt the south trending northern colima graben intersects two other grabens the northwest trending zacoalco graben and the east trending chapala graben to form a rift rift rift triple junction 50 km south southwest of guadalajara in southwest mexico the northern colima graben represents the northernmost extension of the 190 km long 20 to 65 km wide colima rift which overlies the projection of the subducting boundary of the rivera and cocos plates and represents a rift of probable pliocene pleistocene age of the east trending mexican volcanic belt mvb associated with the northernmost 90 km of the rift there are 4 6 m y old to holocene alkaline volcanic rocks rarely found in continental volcanic arc environments and which are more typically associated with either continental intraplate rifting or oceanic islands these alkaline lavas have erupted side by side with 10 m y old to holocene calc alkaline lavas that represent typical arc volcanism it is proposed that the grabens are associated with the initiation of a rifting of a portion of southwest mexico away from the mexican mainland similar to the rifting of baja california away from the mexican mainland the calc alkaline k ar dates are consistent with post mid miocene development of east trending mvb volcanism

the october 9 1995 colima jalisco mexico earthquake mw8 an aftershock study and a comparison of this earthquake with those of 1932 data from portable seismographs and a permanent local network called resco are used to locate the aftershocks of the october 9 1995 colima jalisco earthquake mw 8 0 the maximum dimension of the aftershock area which is rectangular in shape is 170 km 70 km our study shows that the mainshock nucleated 24 km south of manzanillo near the foreshock of october 6 1995 mw 5 8 and propagated 130 km to the nw and 40 km to se the aftershock area lies offshore and is oriented parallel to the coast the observed subsidence of the coast is a consequence of this offshore rupture area the aftershocks reach unusually close to the trench within 20 km this may be due to lack of sediments with high pore pressure at shallow depth there are some similarities between this earthquake and the two great earthquakes of 1932 3 june ms 8 1 18 june ms 7 8 which occurred in this region in both cases the aftershocks were located offshore and the coastline subsided the sum of seismic moments and the rupture lengths of the 1932 events 1 8 1021 n m and 280 km respectively however were greater than the 1995 earthquake also a comparison of seismograms of 1932 and 1995 earthquakes show great differences it seems that the 1995 event is not a repeat of either june 3 or june 18 1932 earthquakes

present day kinematics of the rivera plate and implications for tectonics in southwestern mexico we model the present day motion of the rivera plate relative to the pacific north america and cocos plates and combine the results with the nuvel i model for cocos north america motion to examine present day deformation in southwestern mexico the pacific rivera data which include 25 three m y average spreading rates determined from original surface ship magnetic data and 22 azimuthal data along the rivera transform are systematically misfit by the nuvel i pacific north america and pacifie cocos euler vectors indicating that the rivera plate is kinematically distinct from north america and cocos an f test shows that the improvement in fit to the pacific rivera data from a model with a distinct rivera plate exceeds that expected solely from adding three model parameters the rivera north america euler vector derived from closure of the rivera pacific north america plate circuit predicts slower and more trenchnormal convergence along the acapulco trench than prior models in addition the model predicts convergence normal to the eastern tamayo fracture zone at a rate 60 slower than the right lateral strike slip predicted by prior models an observed systematic misfit of the pacific rivera euler vector to azimuths from the western rivera transform fault may have several causes there may be a time averaging problem between the 3 0 m y average rates and the shorter time average transform fault azimuths and earthquake slip vectors alternatively rivera transform trends may be biased by deformation within lithosphere adjacent to the transform valley or future detailed mapping of the transform may reveal the misfit to be an artifact of the presently available bathymetry along the entire pacific rivera rise spreading rates averaged over the past 0 7 m y are systematically faster than 3 0 m y average rates with the difference increasing southward along the rise the post 3 ma change in the rate gradient has caused a southward migration of the pacific rivera euler pole since 3 ma possibly in response to the 3 ma completion of a spreading reorganization that doubled the length of the rivera transform fault and halved the area of the rivera plate we hypothesize that deformation in southwestern mexico including opening along the colima rift is related to oblique subduction of the cocos plate along the northern middle america trench three unes of evidence support this hypothesis first the sense of oblique subduction predicted by nuvel i along the middle america trench is consistent with a model in which part of western mexico located southeast of the colima rift moves to the southeast relative to north america second field geologic data and landsat imagery suggest that in the past few million years the chapala oaxaco fault zone has accommodated several kilometers of sinistral motion and sinistral transtension has occurred along the trans mexican volcanic belt either or both of these fault zones could accommodate any southeastward coastal block motion that might result from oblique subduction third the observation that earthquake slip vectors from the northern middle america trench trend systematically counterclockwise from the predicted cocos north america convergence direction is also consistent with southeastward motion the discrepancy between the observed and predicted slip directions along the middle america trench suggests sinistral slip is 0 10 mm yr 1 if oblique subduction is driving southeastward transport of a coastal sliver the colima rift is a passive pull apart zone at the northwestern end of this sliver rather than an incipient spreading ridge that will replace the pacific rivera rise

morphotectonic zones along the coast of the pacific continental margin southern mexico geomorphic analysis employing topographic morphologic geologic and bathymetric maps and field studies show that the morphology of the southern coast of mexico can be linked to lateral variations in the geometry and tectonism of the subduction zone a reconnaissance study based on the regional morphological characteristics and correlation with seismotectonic segments regional tectonics and major bathymetric features allows identification of several morphotectonic zones along the coast of southern mexico 1 jalisco zone 2 colima zone 3 michoacan zone 4 guerrero zone 5 oaxaca zone and 6 tehuantepec zone a range of geomorphological evidence including marine terraces river terraces uplifted notches and elevated wave cut platforms indicates local and regional uplift along the coast of the jalisco michoacan guerrero and oaxaca zones coasts of the colima and tehuantepec zones show morphological evidence of subsidence

the earthquake deformation cycle at the nankai trough southwest japan geodetic measurements made landward of the nankai trough site of great subduction zone thrust earthquakes in 1854 and 1946 provide a uniquely detailed picture of the strain buildup process supply constraints on the mechanism of strain accumulation and allow for improved estimates of earthquake recurrence provided the two most recent movement cycles are similar the observations dating from about 1890 may be used to reconstruct a single complete deformation cycle coseismic strain release postseismic transients interseismic strain accumulation very complete leveling and tidal gage data indicate that postseismic deformation extends more than 300 km inland from the plate boundary persists for at least 30 years and shows a clear tendency to become longer wavelength with increasing time the transient movements have two timescales the first of about a year or less corresponds to deformation largely uplift concentrated close to the coseismic fault and is most easily explained by aseismic slip or very localized deformation downdip of the earthquake rupture plane the second longer timescale is associated with a diffusion like spread of the deformation further landward an effect qualitatively similar to that first predicted by elsasser to be an expected consequence of faulting in an elastic plate overlying a viscoelastic asthenosphere cumulative uplift since 1890 correlates well with the distribution of uplifted marine terraces although average post 1890 tilt rates exceed late quaternary and holocene averages by at least a factor of three because of the nonlinearity of strain buildup and the significant permanent deformation simple recurrence calculations typically overestimate the true interval between great earthquakes by a factor of 2 to a factor of 3 strict application of the time predictable model assumed correct overcomes these difficulties provided the cumulative transient deformation and the proportion of permanent deformation per cycle can be estimated

seismotectonic constraints on the convergence rate between the rivera and north american plates there are two significantly different types of models for the convergence rate between the rivera and north american plates the first type the high rate model bandy 1992 predicts convergence rates of approximately 5 0 cm yr near the southern end of the rivera north america subduction zone and between 2 0 and 3 0 cm yr at its northern end in contrast the second type the low rate model e g demets and stein 1990 predicts convergence rates of between 2 0 and 3 3 cm yr near the southern end of the rivera north america subduction zone and between 0 6 and 1 7 cm yr at its northern end seismotectonic relationships which relate seismic characteristics of subduction zones maximum magnitudes maximum seismic depths etc to plate tectonic parameters convergence rates age of the oceanic lithosphere etc provide a means of distinguishing between the two different models three such relationships suggest that the rivera north american and cocos north american convergence rates should be roughly equal across the rivera cocos plate boundary favoring the high rate model employing the high rate model one can evaluate the magnitude and distribution of the strike slip component of forearc motion vss produced by oblique convergence between the rivera and north american plates the analysis indicates both a progressive increase and clockwise reorientation of vss northwestward along the plate contact zone of the rivera north america subduction zone such a distribution in vss should produce a northwestward movement of and nw se oriented extension within the interior of the jalisco block consistent with previous proposals of jalisco block motions also such a distribution in vss should produce a slight clockwise rotation of the jalisco block in the vicinity of bahia de banderas consistent with paleomagnetic data

fault slip distribution of the 1995 colima jalisco mexico earthquake abstract broadband teleseismic p waves have been analyzed to recover the rupture history of the large m s 7 4 colima jalisco mexico shallow interplate thrust earthquake of 9 october 1995 ground displacement records in the period range of 1 60 sec are inverted using a linear finite fault waveform inversion procedure that allows a variable dislocation duration on a prescribed fault the method is applied using both a narrow fault that simulates a line source with a dislocation window of 50 sec and a wide fault with a possible rise time of up to 20 sec that additionally allows slip updip and downdip from the hypocenter the line source analysis provides a spatio temporal image of the slip distribution consisting of several large sources located northwest of the hypocenter and spanning a range of rupture velocities the two dimensional finite fault inversion allows slip over this rupture velocity range and indicates that the greatest coseismic displacement 3 4 m is located between 70 and 130 km from the hypocenter at depths shallower than about 15 km slip in this shallow region consists of two major sources one of which is delayed by about 10 sec relative to a coherent propagation of rupture along the plate interface these two slip sources account for about one third of the total p wave seismic moment of 8 3 10 27 dyne cm m w 7 9 and may have been responsible for the local tsunami observed along the coast following the earthquake

thermal models of the mexico subduction zone implications for the megathrust seismogenic zone 1 it has been proposed that the seismogenic zone of subduction thrust faults is primarily controlled by temperature or rock composition changes we have developed numerical models of the thermal structure of the mexico subduction zone to examine the factors that affect the temperature of the subduction thrust fault although the oceanic plates subducting beneath mexico are young the top of the oceanic plate at the trench is cool because of the lack of a thick cover of insulating sediments marine heat flow observations suggest that hydrothermal circulation may further cool the oceanic plate this results in a cool subduction thrust fault where the brittle part of the fault extends to depths of over 40 km at these depths even slight frictional heating may have significant effects on temperature along the thrust fault particularly for regions with a high convergence rate and shallow plate dip with the addition of a small amount of frictional heating the temperatures of the deep 30 40 km thrust fault are increased by over 200 c as the observed downdip limit of rupture in recent well constrained megathrust earthquakes is confined to depths above the intersection of the thrust fault and the continental moho a temperature of 350 c may control the downdip extent of the seismogenic zone thus in order to be consistent with the observed shallow rupture areas it is necessary to include a small amount of frictional heating corresponding to an average shear stress of 15 mpa

overview of recent coastal tectonic deformation in the mexican subduction zone holocene and pleistocene tectonic deformation of the coast in the mexico subudction margin is recorded by geomorphic and stratigraphic markers we document the spatial and temporal variability of active deformation on the coastal mexican subduction margin pleistocene uplift rates are estimated using wave cut platforms at ca 0 7 0 9 m ka on the jalisco block coast rivera north america tectonic plate boundary we examine reported measurements from marine notches and shoreline angle elevations in conjunction with their radiocarbon ages that indicate surface uplift rates increasing during the holocene up to ca 3 0 5 m ka in contrast steady rates of uplift ca 0 5 1 0 m ka in the pleistocene and holocene characterize the michoacan coastal sector south of el gordo graben and north of the orozco fracture zone ofz incorporated within the cocos north america plate boundary significantly higher rates of surface uplift ca 7 m ka across the ofz subduction may reflect the roughness of subducting plate absence of preserved marine terraces on the coastal sector across el gordo graben likely reflects slow uplift or coastal subsidence stratigraphic markers and their radiocarbon ages show late holocene ca last 6 ka bp coastal subsidence on the guerrero gap sector in agreement with a landscape barren of marine terraces and with archeological evidence of coastal subsidence temporal and spatial variability in recent deformation rates on the mexican pacific coast may be due to differences in tectonic regimes and to localized processes related to subduction such as crustal faults subduction erosion and underplating of subducted materials under the southern mexico continental margin

homogeneous vs heterogeneous subduction zone models coseismic and postseismic deformation a finite element model fem incorporating geologic properties characteristic of a subduction zone is compared with fems approximating homogeneous elastic half spaces hehs s to investigate the effect of heterogeneity on coseismic and postseismic deformation predictions for the 1995 colima jalisco m w 8 0 earthquake the fems are used to compute a coefficient matrix relating displacements at observation points due to unit dislocations of contact node pairs on the fault surface the green s function responses are used to solve the inverse problem of estimating dislocation distributions from coseismic gps displacements predictions from the fem with heterogeneous material properties loaded with either of the hehs dislocation distributions significantly overestimate coseismic displacements postseismic deformation predictions are also sensitive to the coseismic dislocation distribution which drives poroelastic and viscoelastic relaxation fem generated green s functions which allow for spatial variations in material properties are thus preferable to those that assume a simple hehs because the latter leads to dislocation distributions unsuitable for predicting the postseismic response

terrestrial 14c age of the antarctic shergottite eeta 79001 abstract the terrestrial age of the elephant moraine shergottite eeta 79001 lithology a has been determined from measurement of its cosmogenic 14 c content as 12 2 kyr the results on saturated and blank samples of l g or less are also discussed the age calculated for eeta 79001 is compared to exposure and terrestrial ages of other shergottites in the light of possible origins of these meteorites on mars

evidence for great tsunamigenic earthquakes m 8 6 along the mexican subduction zone abstract a very large earthquake took place on 28 march 1787 along the mexican subduction zone a unique characteristic of the 1787 event is the large tsunami reported at various coastal locations in southern mexico the segment of the coast affected by the strong tsunami coincides with locations where high felt intensities modified mercalli intensity mmi viii were reported assuming as is generally the case for large and great earthquakes in mexico that the fault rupture of the 1787 earthquake encompasses the areas where intensities greater than viii were reported and where a strong tsunami invaded land the estimated length of the rupture is approximately 450 km long this fault length would correspond to an earthquake of approximately m w 8 6 in the instrumental record there is no evidence of earthquakes of this magnitude in the middle american subduction zone this evidence indicates that the rupture area of the 1787 earthquake was at least three times longer that those normally observed for earthquakes that take place in the mexican subduction zone the 1787 earthquake appears to have ruptured a long fault segment that more recently broke in earthquakes of more moderate magnitude m w 7 8 and relatively short recurrence times of about 30 to 40 yr examples of this mode of variable rupture length where great but infrequent earthquakes rupture the fault areas of relatively smaller and more frequent earthquakes have been observed in the sumatra andaman and colombia ecuador plate boundaries among others

seismicity and state of stress in guerrero segment of the mexican subduction zone 1 we take advantage of a relatively dense network of seismic stations in the guerrero segment of the mexican subduction zone to study seismicity and state of stress in the region we combine our results with recent observations on the geometry of the subducted cocos plate imaged from receiver function rf analysis an ultraslow velocity layer mapped in the upper crust of the subducted slab and episodic slow slip events sses and nonvolcanic tremors nvts reported in the region to obtain a comprehensive view of the subduction process seismicity and focal mechanisms confirm subduction of the cocos plate below mexico at a shallow angle reaching a depth of 25 km at a distance of 65 km from the trench the plate begins to unbend at this distance and becomes horizontal at a distance of 120 km at a depth of 40 km some of the highlights of the inslab seismicity are as follows 1 a cluster of earthquakes in the depth range of 25 45 km immediately downdip from the strongly coupled part of the plate interface revealing both downdip compressional and extensional events this seismicity extends from 80 to 105 km from the trench and may be attributed to the unbending of the slab 2 the slab devoid of seismicity in the distance range of 105 160 km 3 sparse inslab seismicity revealing downdip extension in the distance range of 160 240 km the nvts are also confined to this distance range the episodic sses occur on the horizontal segment in the distance range of 105 240 km where an ultraslow velocity layer in the upper crust of the slab has been mapped from waveform modeling of converted sp phases thus in the distance range of 105 160 km sses occur but nvts and inslab earthquakes are absent this suggests that metamorphic dehydration reactions in the subducting oceanic crust and upper mantle begin at a distance of 160 km giving rise to both the inslab earthquakes and nvts no inslab earthquake occurs beyond 240 km the receiver function images and p wave tomography suggest that the slab begins a steep plunge at a distance of 310 km reaching a depth of 500 km around 340 km from the trench the negative buoyancy of such a slab should give rise to large extensional stress in the slab yet inslab seismicity is remarkably low which may be explained by a slab that is not continuous up to a depth of 500 km but is broken at a shallower depth the resulting slab window may permit subslab material to flow through the gap this may provide an explanation for the recent rift related basalts found near mexico city the fore arc upper plate seismicity which during the period of study 1995 2007 consisted of a moderate earthquake mw5 8 near the coast h 12 km its numerous aftershocks and two shallow events farther inland demonstrates a trench normal extension in the upper plate near this convergent margin a state of stress that may be explained by tectonic erosion and or seaward retreat of the trench seismicity location of the mantle wedge and rupture areas of mexican earthquakes suggest that the downdip limit of rupture during large great earthquakes in guerrero may be 105 15 km shallow dipping interplate thrust earthquakes are not the only type of events that affect the seismic hazard in the region the magnitudes of inslab downdip compressional and extensional earthquakes that occur within 20 km inland from the coast in the depth range of 25 45 km may reach 6 5 and 7 5 respectively in addition we now identify normal faulting earthquakes in the upper plate these sources need to be taken into account in the hazard estimation

new lithologies in the zagami meteorite evidence for fractional crystallization of a single magma unit on mars abstract zagami consists of a series of increasingly evolved magmatic lithologies the bulk of the rock is a basaltic lithology dominated by pigeonite fs 28 7 54 3 augite fs 19 5 35 0 and maskelynite ab 42 53 approximately 20 vol of zagami is a basaltic lithology containing feo enriched pyroxene pigeonite fs 27 0 80 8 and mm to cm sized late stage melt pockets the melt pockets are highly enriched in olivine bearing intergrowths mesostases phosphates both whitlockite and water bearing apatite fe ti oxides and sulfides the systematic increases in abundances of late stage phases fs and incompatible element e g y and the rees contents of pigeonite ab contents of maskelynite and feo concentrations of whitlockite all point to a fractional crystallization sequence the crystallization order in zagami and the formation of these various lithologies was controlled by the abundances of iron phosphorus and calcium during fractional crystallization iron and phosphorus enrichment occurred ultimately forcing the crystallization of calcium phosphates and olivine bearing intergrowths the limited amount of calcium in the melt and its partitioning between phosphates and silicates controlled the crystallization of phosphates plagioclase pigeonite and augite the presence of these feo enriched water poor late stage lithologies has important implications discrepancies between experimental and petrologic studies to infer the history of basaltic shergottites may be partially explained by the use of starting compositions which are too feo poor in the experimental studies the water poor nature of the late stage melt pockets suggests crystallization from a very dry magma although whether this magma was always dry or experienced significant near surface degassing remains an open question finally the presence of fractional crystallization products within zagami suggests that this may be a relatively common process on mars

petrography mineral chemistry and petrogenesis of antarctic shergottite lew88516 abstract lew88516 lew like its near twin alh77005 alh is a maskelynite bearing harzburgite and a member of the snc family of achondrites lew is texturally heterogenous exhibiting both poikilitic pyroxene oikocrysts enclosing subhedral olivine and euhedral chromite and non poikilitic cumulus framework of olivine and minor pyroxene with interstitial maskelynite and secondary minerals textures pyroxenes in lew appear to be slightly more iron rich and more varied in composition than those in alh lew olivines have distinctly higher fe contents most of the olivine grains in lew have compositions more iron rich than any alh olivine observed lew olivine in non poikilitic areas is substantially more iron rich than olivine armored by pyroxene trace element and minor element patterns of lew and alh minerals are essentially identical and are consistent with closed system large volume crystallization of the major phases followed by development of later phases after assembly of the crystal pile major element compositions show the effects of moderate near solidus re equilibration in both meteorites the compositions of possible lew parent magmas calculated from mass balance methods using the components of magmatic inclusions in large olivine grains are very similar to those proposed earlier for alh and the eeta79001 shergottite while the subtle differences between lew and alh suggest they are not part of the same fall it is likely that they are derived from the same igneous processes

rapid postseismic transients in subduction zones from continuous gps 1 continuous gps time series from three of four recently measured large subduction earthquakes document triggered rapid postseismic fault creep representing an additional moment release upward of 25 over the weeks following their main shocks data from two mw 8 0 and mw 8 4 events constrain the postseismic centroids to lie down dip from the lower limit of coseismic faulting and show that afterslip along the primary coseismic asperities is significantly less important than triggered deep creep time series for another mw 7 7 event show 30 postseismic energy release but here we cannot differentiate between afterslip and triggered deeper creep a fourth mw 8 1 event which occurred in the broad chilean seismogenic zone shows no postseismic deformation despite coseismic offsets in excess of 1 m for the three events which are followed by postseismic deformation stress transferred to the inferred centroids at 34 60 and 36 km depths by their respective main shock asperities increased reverse shear stress by 0 5 0 8 and 0 2 bar with a comparatively small decrease in normal stress 0 01 bar constraining the coulomb stress increase required to force slip along the metastable plate interface deep triggered slip of this nature is invisible without continuous geodesy but on the basis of these earthquakes would appear to constitute an important mode of strain release from beneath the seismogenic zones of convergent margins these events captured by some of the first permanent gps networks show that deep moment release is often modulated by seismogenic rupture updip and underscore the need for continuous geodesy to fully quantify the spectrum of moment release in great earthquakes index terms 7209 seismology earthquake dynamics and mechanics 3040 marine geology and geophysics plate tectonics 8150 8155 8157 8158 8150 tectonophysics plate boundary general 3040 7230 seismology seismicity and seismotectonics keywords subduction zone earthquake postseismic moment release

rupture length of the october 9 1995 colima jalisco earthquake mw8 estimated from tsunami data we analyze tsunami data of the great 1995 colima jalisco mexico earthquake recorded in cabo san lucas baja california sur to estimate its rupture length l to model the tsunami arrival time we assume a rectangular source area oriented parallel to the trench whose se limit is fixed at the point of rupture initiation the nw limit of the source area i e l is varied between 120 and 200 km the comparison between synthetic and observed data strongly suggests that l of the earthquake was 160 20 km this length agrees with those reported in various other studies of the earthquake it however disagrees with a previous study based on the same tsunami data which suggested that the rupture may have extended 250 km nw from the epicenter tanioka and ruff 1996 the cause of this discrepancy is most likely an error in the timing of the records used by tanioka and ruff 1996 we conclude that the earthquake only partially ruptured the rivera north america plate interface a 120 km long segment in the nw extreme of this interface which apparently ruptured in 1932 remains presently unbroken

holocene emerged notches and tectonic uplift along the jalisco coast southwest mexico this paper presents the preliminary results from a study of holocene emerged shorelines marine notches and their tectonic implications along the jalisco coast the pacific coast of jalisco sw mexico is an active tectonic margin this coast has been the site of two of the largest earthquakes to occur in mexico this century the 1932 mw 8 2 jalisco earthquake and the 1995 mw 8 0 colima earthquake measurement and preliminary radiocarbon dating of emergent paleoshorelines along the jalisco coast provide the first constraints upon the timing for tectonic uplift along this coastline uplifted holocene marine notches and wave cut platforms occur at elevations ranging from ca 1 to 4 5 m amsl in situ intertidal organisms dated with radiocarbon the first ever reported for the jalisco area provide preliminary results that record tectonic uplift during at least the past 1300 years bp at an average rate of about 3 mm year we propose a model in which coseismic subsidence produced by offshore earthquakes is rapidly recovered during the postseismic and interseismic periods the long term period is characterized by slow tectonic uplift of the jalisco coast we found no evidence of coastal interseismic and long term subsidence along the jalisco coast

petrogenesis of shergottite meteorites inferred from minor and trace element microdistributions abstract as an extension of our previous work on the lherzolitic shergottites alha77005 and lew88516 ion microprobe measurements of rees and other selected trace and minor elements were made in individual minerals of the basaltic shergottites shergotty zagami and eeta79001 whole rock ree abundances in these achondrites are dominated by whitlockite which is usually present only in trace amounts one of the most significant features is the extensive zoning of trace and minor elements in pyroxenes this zonation which provides information on the crystallization histories of these meteorites is of primary magmatic origin and not the result of secondary processes such as diffusive reequilibration and or metasomatic infiltration coherent trends in element element plots for low ca pyroxenes indicate that each shergottite formed essentially by progressive closed system fractional crystallization the calculated ree patterns of the parent melts of all shergottites are lree depleted and parallel to their whole rock ree patterns also indicative of closed system fractional crystallization on the basis of observations reported in this study as well as previously determined petrologic and geochemical including isotopic characteristics we present a model that suggests possible relationships among all five known shergottites

isotopic composition of trapped and cosmogenic noble gases in several martian meteorites isotopic abundances of the noble gases were measured in the following martian meteorites two shock glass inclusions from elephant moraine eet 79001 shock vein glass from shergotty and yamato y 793605 and whole rock samples of allan hills alh 84001 and queen alexandra range que 94201 these glass samples when combined with literature data on a separate single glass inclusion from eet 79001 and a glass vein from zagami permit examination in greater detail of the isotopic composition of ne ar kr and xe trapped from the martian atmosphere the isotopic composition of martian ne if actually present in these glasses remains poorly defined the 40ar 36ar ratio of trapped martian atmospheric ar is probably considerably lower than the nominal ratio of 3000 measured by viking and data on impact glasses suggest a value of 1900 the atmospheric 36ar 38ar ratio is 4 0 martian atmospheric kr may be enriched in lighter isotopes by 0 5 amu compared to both solar wind kr and to the martian composition previously reported the isotopic composition of xe in these glasses agrees with that previously reported in the literature the martian atmospheric 36ar 132xe and 84kr 132xe elemental ratios are higher than those reported by viking by factors of 2 5 1 6 depending on the 40ar 36ar ratio adopted and 1 8 respectively and are discussed in a separate paper cosmogenic gases indicate space exposure ages of 2 7 0 6 ma for que 94201 and shergotty and 14 1 ma for alh 84001 small amounts of 21ne produced by energetic solar protons may be present in que 94201 but are not present in alh 84001 or y 793605 the space exposure age for y 793605 is 4 9 0 6 ma and appears to be distinctly older than the ages for basaltic shergottites however uncertainties in cosmogenic production rates still makes somewhat uncertain the number of martian impact events required to produce the exposure ages of martian meteorites

channel incision in the rio atenguillo jalisco mexico defined by 36cl measurements of bedrock abstract the jalisco block of western mexico has undergone uplift in the tertiary in response to subduction tectonics the atenguillo river interior to the jalisco block has incised the bedrock units of the jalisco block including cretaceous ash flow tuff granite as well as younger volcanic lava flows to study incision rates knickpoint propagation and the uplift rate of the region samples from nine different points along the atenguillo channel were collected for 36 cl exposure age dating exposure ages along the length of the channel are high near the head of the basin where the river meanders in a broad plain ages are younger at the knickpoints and downstream where the river cuts deeply and forms a canyon incision rates measured at different points along the channel also correlate with channel slope and age low incision rates are measured in the oldest part of the channel near the head station b 2 5 mm year and just above the knickpoints station c 0 6 mm year and station g 1 4 mm year the incision rates are highest just below the knickpoints station f 2 4 mm year and farther downstream stations h and i 5 6 and 2 9 mm year respectively the high incision rates can be attributed to subduction related uplift of the jalisco block other features attributable to uplift are emergent paleoshorelines and uplifted marine sediments along the coast and relatively lower incision rates were measured north of the jalisco block

accretion timescale and impact history of mars deduced from the isotopic systematics of martian meteorites abstract high precision sm nd isotopic analyses have been completed on a suite of 11 martian basaltic meteorites in order to better constrain the age of silicate differentiation on mars associated with the formation of their mantle sources these data are used to evaluate the merits and disadvantages of various mathematical approaches that have been employed in previous work on this topic ages determined from the sm nd isotopic systematics of individual samples are strongly dependent on the assumed nd isotopic composition of the bulk planet this assumption is problematic given differences observed between the nd isotopic composition of earth and chondritic meteorites and the fact that these materials are both commonly used to represent bulk planetary nd isotopic compositions ages determined from the slope of 146sm 142nd whole rock isochrons are not dependent on the assumed 142nd 144nd ratio of the planet but require the sample suite to be derived from complementary contemporaneously formed reservoirs in this work we present a mathematical expression that defines the age of formation of the source regions of such a suite of samples that is based solely on the slope of a 143nd 142nd whole rock isochron and is also independent of any a priori assumptions regarding the bulk isotopic composition of the planet this expression is also applicable to mineral isochrons and has been used to successfully calculate 143nd 142nd model crystallization ages of early refractory solids as well as lunar samples this permits ages to be obtained using only nd isotopic measurements without the need for 147sm 144nd isotope dilution determinations when used in conjunction with high precision nd isotopic measurements completed on martian meteorites this expression yields an age of formation of the martian basaltic meteorite source regions of 4504 6 ma because the sm nd model ages for the formation of martian source regions are commonly interpreted to record the age at which large scale mantle reservoirs formed during planetary differentiation associated with magma ocean solidification the age determined here implies that magma ocean solidification occurred several tens of millions of years after the beginning of the solar system recent thermal models however suggest that mars sized bodies cool rapidly in less than 5 ma after accretion ceases even in the presence of a thick atmosphere assuming these models are correct an extended period of accretion is necessary to provide a mechanism to keep portions of the martian mantle partially molten until 4504 ma late accretional heating of mars could either be associated with protracted accretion occurring at a quasi steady state or alternatively be associated with a late giant impact if this scenario is correct then accretion of mars sized bodies takes up to 60 ma and is likely to be contemporaneous with the core formation and possibly the onset of silicate differentiation this further challenges the concept that isotopic equilibrium is attained during primordial evolution of planets and may help to account for geochemical evidence implying addition of material into planetary interiors after core formation was completed

the 1995 colima jalisco mexico earthquake mw 8 a study of the rupture process in this study we map rupture characteristics of the great shallow thrust earthquake of october 9 1995 which caused extensive damage to the coastal towns of colima and jalisco to isolate the earthquake rupture details we deconvolve surface waves with two empirical green s functions the aftershock of october 12 1995 mw 5 9 and the foreshock of october 6 1995 mw 5 8 from the corresponding mainshock records specifically we use a spectral water level deconvolution to obtain 80 apparent source time functions astf at 62 stations rayleigh and love waves durations of the astf as a function of azimuth indicate that the rupture propagated toward n70 w the duration of the source time function stf is around 62 s with a large pulse at 45 s to map the main characteristics of the rupture we use an inverse radon transform of the astfs assuming a ribbon fault model aligned in the direction of the rupture propagation our analysis indicates that the rupture initiated about 20 km offshore of manzanillo and propagated almost unilaterally for 150 km towards n70 w with an average rupture velocity of approximately 2 8 km s the earthquake was a composite of three significant subevents the largest occurred 45 s after the initiation of the rupture and was located about 100 km away this result is in good agreement with the inversion of deformation data measured with gps melbourne et al 1997

noble gases in mineral separates from three shergottites shergotty zagami and eeta79001 this study provides a complete data set of all five noble gases for bulk samples and mineral separates from three martian shergottites shergotty bulk pyroxene maskelynite zagami bulk pyroxene maskelynite and elephant moraine eet a79001 lithology a bulk pyroxene we also give a compilation of all noble gas and nitrogen studies performed on these meteorites our mean values for cosmic ray exposure ages from 3he 21ne and 38ar are 2 48 myr for shergotty 2 73 myr for zagami and 0 65 myr for eeta79001 lith a serious loss of radiogenic 4he due to shock is observed cosmogenic neon results for bulk samples from 13 martian meteorites new data and literature data are used in addition to the mineral separates of this study in a new approach to explore evidence of solar cosmic ray effects while a contribution of this low energy irradiation is strongly indicated for all of the shergottites spallation ne in chassigny allan hills alh 84001 and the nakhlites is fully explained by galactic cosmic ray spallation implanted martian atmospheric gases are present in all mineral separates and the thermal release indicates a near surface siting we derive an estimate for the 40ar 36ar ratio of the martian interior component by subtracting from measured ar in the k poor pyroxenes the small radiogenic component as well as the implanted atmospheric component as indicated from 129xe excesses unless compromised by the presence of additional components a high ratio of 2000 is indicated for martian interior argon similar to that in the martian atmosphere since much lower ratios have been inferred for chassigny and alh 84001 the result may indicate spatial and or temporal variations of 40ar 36ar in the martian mantle

que94201 shergottite crystallization of a martian basaltic magma abstract basaltic shergottites are commonly described as having crystallized from magmas that contained entrained or cumulus pyroxenes complexly zoned clinopyroxenes in que94201 a newly recovered antarctic shergottite are similar to those formed during continuous growth in some lunar basaltic melts pyroxene cores have nuclei of magnesian pigeonite mantled by augite in turn rimmed by strongly zoned ferroan pigeonite with outer rims of pyroxferroite fe ti oxide compositions indicate that this meteorite crystallized under relatively reducing conditions more like lunar basalts than other shergottites ree and other trace element abundances in zoned pyroxenes maskelynite and phosphates are consistent with continuous pyroxene crystallization from an evolving magma punctuated by the appearance of new phases on the liquidus the higher proportion of maskelynite in que94201 suggests that its composition may be closer to multiple saturation with pyroxenes plagioclase than other shergottites and all pyroxene zones show negative eu anomalies thus this meteorite may represent the first example of a martian magma unaffected by crystal accumulation the fe fe mg ratio and proportions of incompatible elements reflected in 4 modal whitlockite are high implying that this is a fractionated melt the calculated bulk ree pattern shows extreme lree depletion suggesting either less contamination with enriched crustal materials or a more lree depleted source than other basaltic shergottites

an impact melt origin for lithology a of martian meteorite elephant moraine a79001 mixing models using major and trace elements show that the bulk composition of lithology a xenocryst bearing magnesian basalt of elephant moraine a79001 eeta79001 can be reasonably approximated as a simple mixture of 44 eeta79001 lithology b ferroan basalt and 56 of allan hills a77005 alha7705 light lithology incompatible element poor lherzolite micro instrumental neutron activation analysis inaa data on xenocryst free groundmass samples of lithology a show that about 20 25 of the melt phase could be dissolved lherzolite the bulk and groundmass samples of lithology a have excesses in au which indicates either meteoritic contamination or addition by some unknown martian geochemical process previous workers have suggested that lithology a was formed by either assimilation of cumulates like alha77005 by a basalt like lithology b or by mixing of basaltic and lherzolitic magmas the former scenario is energetically improbable and unlikely to explain the normal fe mg zonation in lithology a groundmass pyroxenes whereas the latter scenario is unlikely to satisfy the constraints of the mixing model indicating the ultramafic component is poor in incompatible elements we suggest rather that eeta79001 lithology a is an impact melt composed dominantly of basalt like lithology b and lherzolitic cumulates like the trace element poor fraction of alha77005 or y 793605 this model can satisfy the energetic petrologic and geochemical constraints imposed by the samples if eeta79001 lithology a is an impact melt this would have considerable consequences for current models of martian petrologic evolution it would call into question the generally accepted age of magmatism of martian basalts and preclude the use of lithology a groundmass as a primary martian basalt composition in experimental studies regardless the latter is required because lithology a groundmass is a hybrid composition

noble gases and nitrogen in martian meteorites dar al gani 476 sayh al uhaymir 005 and lewis cliff 88516 efa and extra neon meteorite finds from the terrestrial hot deserts have become a major contributor to the inventory of martian meteorites in order to understand their nitrogen and noble gas components we have carried out stepped heating experiments on samples from two martian meteorites collected from hot deserts we measured interior and surface bulk samples glassy and non glassy portions of dar al gani 476 and sayh al uhaymir 005 we have also analyzed noble gases released from the antarctic shergottite lewis cliff 88516 by crushing and stepped heating for the hot desert meteorites significant terrestrial ar kr xe contamination is observed with an elementally fractionated air efa component dominating the low temperature releases the extremely low ar kr xe ratios of efa may be the result of multiple episodes of trapping loss during terrestrial alteration involving aqueous fluids we suggest fractionation processes similar to those in hot deserts to have acted on mars with acidic weathering on the latter possibly even more effective in producing elementally fractionated components addition from fission xenon is apparent in dag 476 and sau 005 the ar kr xe patterns for lew 88516 show trends as typically observed in shergottites including evidence for a crush released component similar to that observed in eeta 79001 a trapped ne component most prominent in the surface sample of dag 476 may represent air contamination it is accompanied by little trapped ar 20ne 36ar 50 and literature data suggest its presence also in some antarctic finds data for lew 88516 and literature data on the other hand suggest the presence of two trapped ne components of martian origin characterized by different 20ne 22ne possibly related to the atmosphere and the interior caution is recommended in interpreting nitrogen and noble gas isotopic signatures of martian meteorites from hot deserts in terms of extraterrestrial sources and processes nevertheless our results provide hope that vice versa via noble gases and nitrogen in meteorites and other relevant samples from terrestrial deserts martian secondary processes can be studied

depth of seismic coupling along subduction zones underthrusting at subduction zones can cause large earthquakes at shallow depths but it is always accommodated by aseismic deformation below a certain depth the maximum depth of the seismically coupled zone or seismogenic zone is a transition from unstable to stable sliding along the plate interface we have determined the depth of this stability transition for the circurn pacific subduction zones of honshu kuriles kamchatka aleutians alaska mexico and chile these subduction zones have experienced great interplate earthquakes and the aftershock regions are well located depth estimates of interplate events that are located at the downdip edge of the aftershock regions are used to determine the maximum depth of seismic coupling for an average p wave velocity of 6 7 km s 1 above the plate interface we find that for most subduction zones the stability transition occurs at 40 5 km depth there are however several exceptions at the hokkaido trench junction where the japan trench and the kurile trench intersect seismic coupling is deep and extends down to 52 55 km deep coupling was also found in the coquimbo region in central chile the mexico subduction zone has shallow coupling the transition occurs at 20 30 km depth previous studies of micro earthquakes in honshu hokkaido the aleutians and alaska show that earthquakes within the upper plate extend no deeper than the downdip edge of the coupled zone that we find given our measurements of seismic coupling depth we then explore the mechanism that may determine coupling depth the concept of critical temperature has been used to explain the depth of seismic coupling in other tectonic environments thus we first test whether a critical temperature can explain our results temperatures at the plate interface are dependent on many variables but two that are poorly determined are shear stress and radiogenic heat generation shear stress has been constrained by inversion of heat flow data assuming a crustal radiogenic heat production rate of 3 1 exp z 8 5 wm 3 and a constant coefficient of friction we find two critical temperatures of about 400 c and 550 c the lower critical temperature may be characteristic of regions with a relatively thick continental crust and the higher temperature of regions with a relatively thin continental crust on the other hand one single critical temperature of about 250 c can explain the coupling depths if shear stresses are constant with depth

implications of the october 1995 colima jalisco mexico earthquakes on the rivera north america euler vector rivera north america euler vectors fall into three groups based on the predicted motion of the rivera plate relative to the north america plate along the middle america trench north of 18 5 n namely those that predict 1 a slow more easterly directed motion 2 a slow more northerly directed motion and 3 a faster more northerly directed motion the focal mechanism solution rupture area and seismic moment of the great m w 8 0 colima jalisco mexico earthquake of october 9 1995 and its foreshocks and aftershocks provide additional constraints on the rivera north america euler vector the slip direction n30 e of the main event clearly favors those euler poles which predict a more northerly direction of motion this direction lies within 5 of those predicted by these poles whereas it differs by between 9 and 18 from those poles which predict a more easterly motion the amount of slip which occurred during the main event suggests a minimum convergence rate of between 4 3 and 6 5 cm yr this favors euler vectors which predict higher convergence rates however a firm conclusion cannot be made due to the uncertainty in the recurrence time estimation a new rivera north america euler pole calculated incorporating the information provided by the 1995 events lies at 21 87 n 109 58 w it predicts a n30 3 e directed motion of the rivera plate relative to north america at the location of the main event a difference of only 0 3 from the slip direction of the main event

the geodetic signature of the m8 0 oct 9 1995 jalisco subduction earthquake the october 1995 mw 8 0 jalisco subduction earthquake has provided a thorough geodetic observation of the coseismic subduction process an 11 station regional gps network located directly onshore of the rupture demonstrates consistent vertical subsidence verified by tide gauge data and southwest directed extension with measured displacements reaching 1 meter unusually shallow and non uniform faulting is required to explain the displacements we determine that up to 5 meters of slip occurred within the upper 15 km of the thrust fault zone and 2 meters possibly as shallow as 8 km and that slip was likely distributed in two main patches the paucity of continental sediments in this subduction zone could be responsible for the anomalously shallow faulting

petrography and mineralogy of two basalts and olivine pyroxene spinel fragments in achondrite eeta79001 three lithologies occur in shocked achondrite eeta79001 a1 exotic irregular crystals and clusters of coarse grained olivine fo81 55 cao 0 2 cr2o3 0 06 nio 0 5 wt low ca pyroxene en82wo2 en58wo12 and low ti chromite cr2o3 59 feo 27 tio2 0 7 wt a2 basaltic host to a1 containing pyroxene mainly pigeonite en67wo12 en52wo13 maskelynite an61 55or0 7 high ti chromite some rimming low ti chromite whitlockite minor cl apatite ilmenite pyrrhotite and mesostasis and b a homogeneous basalt containing augite laths en40 50wo25 35 in a matrix of pigeohite augite maskelynite an62 56 or1 2 ulvospinelilmenite intergrowth whitlockite cl apatite and mesostasis mineral compositions indicate an oxidation state similar to that of shergottites lithology a1 represents an unmetamorphosed cumulate that was disrupted and partly resorbed by a basaltic magma incorporation of low ca magnesian pyroxenes and olivine increased the mg fe ratio of the basaltic magma responsible for a2 and resulted in abundant crystallization of pigeonite lithology b was generated from a distinct magma lacking fragments of a1 the parental spinel harzburgite of a1 was not annealed and is probably a near surface igneous cumulate from a shergottite type basalt ringwood and majorite were found in shock veins

were limpets or mosasaurs responsible for the perforations in the ammonite placenticeras abstract we present evidence defending the hypothesis that specimens of the ammonite placenticeras from the upper cretaceous bearpaw formation of southern alberta were preyed upon by mosasaurs perforations linked to diagenetic modification of limpet home scars are anomalous features that are rare in comparison to true tooth marks point loading of the ammonite phragmocone wall by mosasaur teeth produced distinct perforations without the development of long angular fractures this was due to low pressure and rate of loading permitted by the unusually loose articulation of the lower jaw of mosasaurs combined with the nearly uniform internal support of the shell wall by complexly fluted septa and their sutures in contrast the body chamber which lacked septal support except at its posterior end tended to shatter remnants of the body chamber preserve distinctive notches that resemble tooth marks and sometimes show evidence of healing thorough reassessment of the perforations and associated features indicates that the large majority of perforations in shells of placenticeras at least those from southern alberta are best explained by predatory activities of mosasaurs the currently popular hypothesis that all perforations preserved in shells of cretaceous ammonites were produced by sediment loading and collapse of limpet home scars fails to explain many diagnostic features of the perforations these include the shape siting and arrangements of perforations as well as the equal puncturing of all size classes of alleged limpet home scars the limpet hypothesis also fails to consider structural differences between shells of ammonoids and nautilus and erroneously assumes point loading by sediment compaction furthermore the extreme rarity of limpets that had the potential of excavating home scars in placenticeras from the upper cretaceous bearpaw formation of alberta canada cannot be attributed to preservational bias and is at odds with the large number of perforated specimens known from this formation the mosasaur bite hypothesis on the other hand accommodates all of these features

teleseismic body wave analysis of the 9 october 1995 mw 8 0 colima jalisco mexico earthquake and its largest foreshock and aftershock the source process of the october 9 1995 colima jalisco mexico earthquake mw 8 0 and its largest foreshock and aftershock were determined from teleseismic body waves using a least squares inversion scheme the three events are shallow dipping thrust fault earthquakes in agreement with the relative plate motions for rivera north america and cocos north america plate boundaries neither the foreshock nor the largest aftershock show significant differences in focal mechanism nor centroidal depth with respect to the average mechanism of the mainshock the rupture of the mainshock began near the foreshock hypocenter and propagated with a variable rupture velocity towards the nw the source time function for this event shows four distinct episodes of energy release about 50 of the moment was released at the northern end of the rupture between 90 and 110 km from the epicenter this rupture geometry is in agreement with crustal deformation observed inland using gps measurements however the scalar seismic moment of the main shock obtained in this study mo 1 84 1020 is smaller with respect to the lower frequency cmt results reported by harvard mo 1 15 1021

coseismic crustal deformation from the 1994 hokkaido toho oki earthquake monitored by a nationwide continuous gps array in japan using a brand new nationwide continuous gps array we monitored coseismic displacements from the october 4 1994 hokkaido toho oki kurile islands earthquake mjma 8 1 based on 2 week time series of site coordinates of 21 gps stations we present a coseismic deformation field of whole hokkaido within 1 cm precision for example the station at nemuro 170 km west of the epicenter moved 44 cm to the east and subsided 10 cm even stations in southern hokkaido 600 km apart from the epicenter moved a few cm horizontally toward the epicenter we compare the gps result with displacements calculated from two preliminary models assuming fault planes parallel or perpendicular to the kurile trench since the observed were far field displacements on land both models can explain the gps result

rare earth elements in minerals of the alha77005 shergottite and implications for its parent magma and crystallization history abstract rare earth element ree and selected trace element abundances were measured in individual grains of pyroxenes whitlockite maskelynite and olivine of the alha77005 shergottite minor 1 whitlockite which displays a negative eu anomaly indicative of co crystallization with plagioclase dominates the bulk rock ree pattern detectable ce anomalies in 20 of the pyroxene grains analyzed appear to be the result of weathering in the antarctic environment and indicate that pyroxene is particularly susceptible to element remobilization mineral compositions and textural observations suggest that alha77005 is a cumulate with 50 cumulus material olivine chromite olivine re equilibrated with intercumulus liquid on cooling the intercumulus liquid then crystallized as a closed system to form successively poikilitic low ca and high ca pyroxene followed by interstitial pyroxenes plagioclase whitlockite and other minor phases and reacted with cumulus crystals to form rims of different composition this crystallization sequence provides a constraint on the shergottite source region composition the alha77005 and shergotty intercumulus liquids had similar ree compositions however as opposed to shergotty if alha77005 was formed during the last 0 72 ga its parent melt was not contaminated by lree enriched material

defining the mechanisms that disturb the sm nd isotopic systematics of the martian meteorites examples from dar al gani 476 and allan hills 77005 microbeam studies of martian meteorites dar al gani dag 476 and allan hills alh 77005 have been conducted to identify potential causes of disequilibrium exhibited in their sm nd isotopic systematics olivine and maskelynite mineral fractions on the dag 476 isochron are displaced relative to their positions as dictated by measured mineral compositions the olivine mineral fractions from alh 77005 not only have a relatively low sm nd ratio but appear to contain an unradiogenic component that shifts the olivine mineral fraction off the isochron defined by the pyroxene and maskelynite mineral fractions trace components such as melt inclusions impact melt high si mesostasis and altered olivine were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy quantitative electron microscopy and secondary ion mass spectrometry to determine their potential for disturbing the isotopic systematics of the mineral fractions assuming that the mineral fractions were not completely pure mixing models indicate that the presence of melt inclusions in the dag 476 olivine mineral fraction lowered its sm nd ratio the maskelynite mineral fraction contains a related but more evolved mesostasis component that raised the sm nd ratio of the fraction the position of two olivine mineral fractions below the alh 77005 isochron is interpreted to reflect small additions of impact melt with a light rare earth element enriched pattern and a non indigenous unradiogenic nd component furthermore the presence of rare earth elements in olivine and maskelynite from both igneous and non igneous components such as melt inclusions mesostasis and impact melt is observed on a fine 30 m scale despite the addition of this material the sm nd ages are not affected this study demonstrates that detailed mineral separation procedures as employed by modern geochronology laboratories permit reliable ages to be derived from shocked and altered samples

deformation of mexico from continuous gps from 1993 to 2008 1 we combine the velocities of 13 continuous global positioning system stations from mexico and 448 north american plate stations to better understand deformation and earthquake cycle effects in mexico velocities estimated at the mexican sites from high quality gps data collected since 2003 show no evidence for a previously reported eastward bias at sites in and near the yucatan peninsula the new velocities are compared to the predictions of two models one in which all motion in mexico is attributed to north american plate motion and the second of which attributes site motions to a combination of plate motion and the elastic effects of frictional coupling along the mexican subduction zone and faults in the gulf of california the second model fits the velocities within their estimated uncertainties mainland mexico thus moves with the north american plate to within 1 mm per year and undergoes elastic interseismic deformation far into its interior two stations inland from the guerrero and oaxaca segments of the mexican subduction zone have alternated between several year long periods of landward motion and several month long periods of trenchward motion frequently since 1993 consistent with previously described repeating transient slip events along the subduction interface the motions of two stations inland from the rivera plate subduction zone are dominated by the coseismic and postseismic effects of the m 8 0 9 october 1995 colima jalisco earthquake and m 7 5 22 january 2003 tecoman earthquake offshore from western mexico

loci and maximum size of thrust earthquakes and the mechanics of the shallow region of subduction zones earthquakes do not extend updip along the plate interface at most subduction zones all of the way to the plate boundary at the trench axis or deformation front rather the shallowest part of that interface moves mainly through stable aseismic slip that part of the plate boundary referred to here as the aseismic zone occurs along the base of an accreted wedge of young sediments the probable primary cause for the existence of this aseismic zone is the stable slip properties of the unconsolidated and semiconsolidated sediments in that zone subducted sediment is progressively dewatered and underplated to the base of the overriding plate through this process more consolidated rocks eventually come into contact at depth across both sides of the plate boundary from the point where sufficiently hard rock is found across the plate interface that interface will change its slip behavior to unstable stick slip sliding which is characteristic of consolidated material under most conditions this type of motion is accommodated seismically as episodic slip in large earthquakes the location of this transition to seismic behavior referred to as the seismic front marks the deep end of the aseismic zone and the top of the seismogenic zone i e that part of the plate interface that moves primarily in thrust earthquakes several convergent plate margins are discussed to illustrate the seismic front and the aseismic zone we find that the seismic front defined by smaller earthquakes that occur during the interval between large events is nearly the same as that for large events as inferred from the locations of their aftershocks the location of the seismic front is important for making estimates of the maximum possible size of thrust earthquakes along the plate boundary because it delimits the trenchward limit of the potential rupture area of these events the size of large thrust earthquakes is proportional to rupture area and to at least the cube of the downdip width w of that area thus by defining the location of the seismic front for convergent margins it is possible to make better estimates of w and hence to deduce the maximum size of future interplate earthquakes the average repeat time of such events is also related to w and so better estimates of average repeat time are possible from improved knowledge of w the hypothesis that the location of the seismic front is related to the maximum depth of subduction of unconsolidated sediment has implications for forearc mechanics we use a mechanical analysis laboratory modeling and multichannel seismic information to develop a simple model explaining the growth of forearcs the outer arc high or trench slope break that occurs arcward of most accretionary wedges represents an abrupt change in the critical taper of the accretionary wedge we argue that that change is caused by a large arcward increase in the strength of the material within the overriding plate that stronger material is called the backstop our laboratory modeling experiments indicate that a backstop with a trenchward dipping upper surface results in the development of an overlying structure that includes all of the primary morphologic features observed in modern forearcs in our modeling an accretionary wedge develops trenchward of the backstop an outer arc high develops above the trenchward toe of the backstop and farther arcward a passive forearc basin forms above the stronger material of the backstop this model is consistent with the observation that earthquakes do not extend updip along the plate interface all the way to the trench axis we hypothesize that plate motion is accommodated seismically along the base of the consolidated backstop and mostly or entirely aseismically trenchward of the toe of the backstop along the base of the accretionary wedge at several margins the seismic front is approximately coincident with the outer arc high supporting this interpretation

imaging coseismic rupture in far field by slip patches summary since the end of the 1970s teleseismic waves are used routinely to infer the first order characteristics of the event location depth duration focal mechanism but finding the second order kinematic parameters spatial distribution of slip rupture velocity and more basically the discrimination between the fault plane and the other nodal plane of distant events remains a difficult task classically these events are studied by two different methods either they are seen as a succession of subevents each of which is considered as a point source or like in near field as extended sources where the kinematic parameters are retrieved on a grid the first approach is not physically satisfactory and can lead to erroneous interpretations of the

a dislocation model of strain accumulation and release at a subduction zone strain accumulation and release at a subduction zone are attributed to stick slip on the main thrust zone and steady aseismic slip on the remainder of the plate interface this process can be described as a superposition of steady state subduction and a repetitive cycle of slip on the main thrust zone consisting of steady normal slip at the plate convergence rate plus occasional thrust events that recover the accumulated normal slip because steady state subduction does not contribute to the deformation at the free surface deformation observed there is completely equivalent to that produced by the slip cycle alone the response to that slip is simply the response of a particular earth model to embedded dislocations for a purely elastic earth model the deformation cycle consists of a coseismic offset followed by a linear in time recovery to the initial value during the interval between earthquakes for an elastic viscoelastic earth model elastic lithosphere over a viscoelastic asthenosphere the postearthquake recovery is not linear in time records of local uplift as a function of time indicate that the long term postseimic recovery is approximately linear suggesting that elastic earth models are adequate to describe the deformation cycle however the deformation predicted for amore simple elastic half space earth does not reproduce the deformation observed along the subduction zones in japna at all well if stick slip is restricted to the main thrust zone as recognized earlier by shimazaki seno and kato the uplift profiles could be explained if stick slips were postulated to extend along the plate interface beyond the main thrust zone to a depth of perhaps 100 km but independent evidence suggests that stick slip at such depths if unlikely less

shape of the subducted rivera and cocos plates in southern mexico seismic and tectonic implications the geometry of the subducted rivera and cocos plates beneath the north american plate in southern mexico was determined based on the accurately located hypocenters of local and teleseismic earthquakes the hypocenters of the teleseisms were relocated and the focal depths of 21 events were constrained using a body wave inversion scheme the suduction in southern mexico may be approximated as a subhorizontal slab bounded at the edges by the steep subduction geometry of the cocos plate beneath the caribbean plate to the east and of the rivera plate beneath north america to the west the dip of the interplate contact geometry is constant to a depth of 30 km and lateral changes in the dip of the subducted plate are only observed once it is decoupled from the overriding plate on the basis of the seismicity the focal mechanisms and the geometry of the downgoing slab southern mexico may be segmented into four regions 1 the jalisco region to the west where the rivera plate subducts at a steep angle that resembles the geometry of the cocos plate beneath the caribbean plate in central america 2 the michoacan region where the dip angle of the cocos plate decreases gradually toward the southeast 3 the guerrero oaxaca region bounded approximately by the onshore projection of the orozco and o gorman fracture zones where the subducted slab is almost subhorizontal and underplates the upper continental plate for about 250 km and 4 the southern oaxaca and chiapas region in southeastern mexico where the dip of the subduction gradually increases to a steeper subduction in central america these drastic changes in dip do not appear to take place on tear faults suggesting that smooth contortions accommodate these changes in geometry the inferred 80 and 100 km depth contours of the subducted slab lie beneath the southern front of the trans mexican volcanic belt suggesting it is directly related to the subduction thus the observed nonparallelism with the middle american trench is apparently due to the changing geometry of the rivera and cocos plates beneath the north american plate in southern mexico and not to zones of weakness in the crust of the north american plate as some authors have suggested

the geology and petrology of volcan san juan nayarit mexico and the compositionally zoned tepic pumice abstract volcan san juan is the westernmost quaternary composite volcano in the mexican volcanic belt its activity is divided into three stages of decreasing eruptive volume during stage 1 activity the main cone of san juan and the adjacent cerro alto grew to a combined volume of 60 km3 through eruption of hornblende bearing andesites dacites and rhyodacites stage 1 included explosive eruptions of hornblende dacite and an andesite dated at 33 750 a years ago and 23 010 a stage 2 activity involved a major plinian eruption 14 770 a that produced the hypersthene hornblende bearing compositionally zoned rhyodacitic andesitic tepic pumice and led to formation of an oval shaped caldera 4 1 km in diameter tepic the capital city of nayarit state with a population of 250 000 lies at the ne foot of volcan san juan this location was buried under 2 9 m of rhyodacitic pumice fall deposits from the tepic pumice eruption erosion has since removed virtually all exposures of tepic pumice 15 km from the caldera the estimated volume of erupted tephra is 5 6 km3 equivalent to 1 2 km3 of magma modeling of the eruption dynamics indicates that as the eruption evolved the column height increased from 15 km to 24 km and maximum mass discharge rate increased from 3 106 kg s to 6 107 kg s during stage 3 activity a hornblende andesitic lava dome partially filled the caldera and sent block lava flows down the north slope of the cone total erupted volume was 0 55 km3 compared to other composite volcanoes of the western mexican volcanic belt the products from san juan have the highest sr contents and the lowest rb y yb and lu contents resulting in high la yb and sr y with low rb sr these observations indicate a strong slab melt component at san juan consistent with its proximity to the middle america trench where young hot lithosphere is subducting the san juan andesites dacites and rhyodacites also have relatively high 87sr 86sr 206pb 204pb 207pb 204pb and 208pb 204pb and low end values compared to these other volcanoes which appear to reflect significant crustal contamination of san juan s magmas

sulfide mineralogy and redox conditions in some shergottites magmatic sulfide mineralogy has been studied in 2 olivine phyric shergottites dag 476 and sau 005 and 4 basaltic shergottites zagami shergotty los angeles and nwa 480 modal abundances of magmatic sulfides as estimated by image analysis on thin section are high 0 16 to 0 53 area percent and correlate positively with abundances of fe ti oxides sulfides are mesostasis minerals being mostly interstitial grains or locally enclosed in post cumulus melt inclusions e g sau 005 in olivine sulfides in shergottites are composed of major pyrrhotite containing pentlandite exsolutions associated with minor amounts of cu sulfides chalcopyrite and or cubanite hot desert finds e g dag 476 show abundant fracture filling iron oxy hydroxides of probable terrestrial origin unaltered sulfides show metal rich hexagonal pyrrhotite compositions with metal sulfur m s ratio ranging between 0 936 0 005 and 0 962 0 01 this compositional range corresponds to the two phase structural domain 2c nc of the fe s system however the high temperature disordered hexagonal 1c pyrrhotite structure would be in better agreement with magnetic properties of shergottites ni contents in pyrrhotite increase from los angeles 0 05 at to shergotty zagami and nwa 480 0 2 0 5 at and dag 476 and sau 005 up to 3 at the higher ni values of pyrrhotite in olivine phyric shergottites correlate with the abundance of pentlandite exsolutions both reflecting more primitive ni rich sulfide liquids where abundant olivine crystallized this result and the strong correlation between sulfide abundances and fe ti oxides argue for a primary magmatic origin of these sulfides although they reproduce the trend of magmatic oxygen fugacity conditions determined from fe ti oxide pairs observed pyrrhotite compositions are systematically more metaldeficient compared to those calculated from the fe s o system this suggests post magmatic oxidation during cooling on mars followed by terrestrial weathering for hot desert finds

thermal modeling of shock melts in martian meteorites implications for preserving martian atmospheric signatures and crystallization of high pressure minerals from shock melts the distribution of shock melts in four shergottites having both vein and pocket geometry has been defined and the conductive cooling time over the range 2500 c to 900 c calculated isolated 1 mm2 pockets cool in 1 17 s and cooling times increase with pocket area an isolated vein 1 7 mm in northwest africa nwa 4797 cools to 900 c in 4 5 s interference between thermal haloes of closely spaced shock melts decreases the thermal gradient extending cooling times by a factor of 1 4 to 100 this is long enough to allow differential diffusion of ar and xe from the melt small pockets 1 mm2 lose 2 2 ar and 5 2 xe during cooling resulting in a small change in the ar xe ratio of the dissolved gas over that originally trapped with longer cooling times there is significant fractionation of xe from ar and the ar xe ratio increases rapidly the largest pockets show less variation of ar xe and likely preserve the original trapped gas composition considering all of the model calculations even the smallest isolated pockets have cooling times greater than the duration of the pressure pulse i e 0 01 s the crystallization products of these shock melts will be unrelated to the peak shock pressure experienced by the meteorite

petrology and chemistry of the basaltic shergottite north west africa 480 north west africa nwa 480 is a new martian meteorite of 28 g found in the moroccan sahara in november 2000 it consists mainly of large gray pyroxene crystals the largest grains are up to 5 mm in length and plagioclase converted to maskelynite excluding the melt pocket areas modal analyses indicate the following mineral proportions 72 vol pyroxenes extensively zoned 25 maskelynite 1 phosphates merrillite and chlorapatite 1 opaque oxides ilmenite ulvospinel and chromite and sulfides and 1 others such as silica and fayalite the compositional trend of nwa 480 pyroxenes is similar to that of queen alexandra range que 94201 but in nwa 480 the pyroxene cores are more mg rich en 77 en 65 maskelynites display a limited zoning an 42 50 ab 54 48 or 2 4 our observations suggest that nwa 480 formed from a melt with a low nuclei density at a slow cooling rate the texture was achieved via a single stage cooling where pyroxenes grew continuously a similar model was previously proposed for que 94201 by mcsween et al 1996 nwa 480 is an al poor ferroan basaltic rock and resembles zagami or shergotty for major elements and compatible trace element abundances the bulk rock analysis for oxygen isotopes yields delta 17 o 0 42parts per thousand a value in agreement at the high margin with those measured on other shergottites clayton and mayeda 1996 romanek et al 1998 franchi et al 1999 its ci normalized rare earth element pattern is similar to those of peridotitic shergottites such as allan hills alh a77005 suggesting that these shergottites shared a similar parent liquid or at least the same mantle source

regional and stress drop effects on aftershock productivity of large megathrust earthquakes the total number of aftershocks increases with mainshock magnitude resulting in an overall well defined relationship observed variations from this trend prompt questions regarding influences of regional environment and individual mainshock rupture characteristics we investigate how aftershock productivity varies regionally and with mainshock source parameters for large mw 7 0 circum pacific megathrust earthquakes within the past 25 years drawing on extant finite fault rupture models aftershock productivity is found to be higher for subduction zones of the western circum pacific than for subduction zones in the eastern circum pacific this appears to be a manifestation of differences in faulting susceptibility between island arcs and continental arcs surprisingly events with relatively large static stress drop tend to produce fewer aftershocks than comparable magnitude events with lower stress drop however for events with similar co seismic rupture area aftershock productivity increases with stress drop and radiated energy indicating a significant impact of source rupture process on productivity

exposure history of shergottites abstract the cosmogenic nuclides 36 cl t 1 2 3 0 10 5 years 26 al 7 05 10 5 years 10 be 1 6 10 6 years and 53 mn 3 7 10 6 years were measured in three shergottites alha 77005 eeta 79001 and shergotty by accelerator mass spectrometry and neutron activation the cosmogenic nuclide data constrain the history and origin of shergottites alha 77005 was ejected from its parent body about 2 7 my ago and was exposed to cosmic rays as a body of 5 6 cm radius solar cosmic ray produced 26 a1 and 53 mn were first clearly observed in this meteorite the exposure age of eeta 79001 was 0 6 my and the preatmospheric radius was about 15 cm the exposure age of shergotty was calculated to be 2 2 my and the preatmospheric size was about 10 15 cm in radius the terrestrial age of alha 77005 was 0 2 my and that of eeta 79001 was less than 0 06 my all cosmogenic nuclide data indicate that the three shergottites were never exposed to cosmic rays in their parent bodies whether that parent body was mars or an asteroid all shergottites were ejected from greater than a 3 m depth in their parent bodies the ejection of eeta 79001 was a different event from that of the other shergottites

shallow depth of seismogenic coupling in southern mexico implications for the maximum size of earthquakes in the subduction zone abstract studies of locally recorded microearthquakes and the centroidal depths of the largest earthquakes analyzed using teleseismic data show that the maximum depth of thrust faulting along the mexican subduction zone is anomalously shallow this observed maximum depth of about 25 5 km is about half of that observed in most subduction zones of the world a leveling line that crosses the rupture zone of the 19 september 1985 michoacan event was revisited after the earthquake and it shows anomalously low deformation during the earthquake the comparison between the observed coseismic uplift and dislocation models of the seismogenic interplate contact that extend to depths ranging from 20 to 40 km shows that the maximum depth at which seismic slip took place is about 20 km this unusually shallow and narrow zone of seismogenic coupling apparently results in the occurrence of thrust events along the mexican subduction zone that are smaller than would be expected for a trench where a relatively young slab subducts at a rapid rate of relative motion a comparison with the chilean subduction zone shows that the plate interface in mexico is half that in chile not only in the down dip extent of the seismogenic zone of plate contact but also in the distance of the trench from the coast and in the thickness of the upper continental plate it appears that the narrow plate contact produced by this particular plate geometry in mexico is the controlling variable defining the size of the largest characteristic earthquakes in the mexican subduction zone

strong interseismic coupling fault afterslip and viscoelastic flow before and after the oct 9 1995 colima jalisco earthquake continuous gps measurements from colima mexico 1 continuous gps measurements from colima mexico during 4 93 6 01 bracketing the oct 9 1995 m 8 0 colima jalisco earthquake provide new constraints on rivera plate subduction mechanics modeling of margin normal strain accumulation before the earthquake suggests the rivera north america subduction interface was fully locked transient postseismic motion from 10 95 6 97 is well fit by a model that includes logarithmically decaying fault afterslip elastic strain from shallow fault relocking and possibly a minor viscoelastic response but is fit poorly by models that assume a dominant maxwell viscoelastic response of the lower crust and upper mantle independent of the assumed viscosities landward margin normal motion since mid 1997 is parallel to but 75 slower than the pre seismic velocity afterslip alone fails to account for this slowdown the viscoelastic response predicted by a fem correctly resolves the remaining velocity difference within the uncertainties both processes thus offset elastic strain accumulating from the relocked subduction interface

petrology chemistry and isotopic compositions of the lunar highland regolith breccia dar al gani 262 lunar meteorite dar al gani 262 dg 262 found in the libyan part of the sahara is a mature anorthositic regolith breccia with highland affinities the origin from the moon is undoubtedly indicated by its bulk chemical composition radionuclide concentrations noble gas n and o isotopic compositions and petrographic features dar al gani 262 is a typical anorthositic highland breccia similar in mineralogy and chemical composition to queen alexandra range que 93069 about 52 vol of the studied thin sections of dar al gani 262 consist of fine grained 100 m constituents and 48 vol is mineral and lithic clasts and impact melt veins the most abundant clast types are feldspathic fine grained to microporphyritic crystalline melt breccias 50 2 vol includes recrystallized melt breccias whereas mafic crystalline melt breccias are extremely rare 1 4 vol granulitic lithologies are 12 8 vol intragranularly recrystallized anorthosites and cataclastic anorthosites are 8 8 and 8 2 vol respectively and devitrified glasses are 2 7 vol impact melt veins 5 5 vol of the whole thin sections cutting across the entire thin section were probably formed subsequent to the lithification process of the bulk rock at pressures below 20 gpa because the bulk rock never experienced a higher peak shock pressure mafic crystalline melt breccias are very rare in dar al gani 262 and are similar in abundance to those in que 93069 the extremely low abundance of mafic components and the bulk composition may constrain possible areas of the moon from which the breccia was derived the source area of dar al gani 262 must be a highland terrain lacking significant mafic impact melts or mare components on the basis of radionuclide activities an irradiation position of dg 262 on the moon at a depth of 55 85 g cm3and a maximum transit time to earth 0 15 ma is suggested dar al gani 262 contains high concentrations of solar wind implanted noble gases the isotopic abundance ratio 40ar 36ar 3 is characteristic of lunar soils the terrestrial weathering of dg 262 is reflected by the occurrence of fractures filled with calcite and by high concentrations of ca ba cs br and as there is also a large amount of terrestrial c and some n in the sample which was released at low temperatures during stepped heating high concentrations of ni co and ir indicate a significant meteoritic component in the lunar surface regolith from which dg 262 was derived

teleseismic inversion for the second degree moments of earthquake space time distributions summary determining detailed descriptions of the space time distribution of an earthquake s rupture using only teleseismic data is often a difficult and non unique process however a description of an earthquake that goes beyond a point source is often needed for many seismotectonic problems we have developed a method that inverts measurements of the shifts in traveltime and amplitude of various seismic phases at global stations for the second degree polynomial moments of an event s space time distribution our values for the second moments of the 1995 mw 8 0 jalisco mexico thrust event correspond to a characteristic rupture length of 121t10 km along strike a characteristic rupture width of 76t11 km downdip a characteristic duration of 29t2 s and a direction of rupture propagation along the strike of the subduction zone to the nw for the 1995 mw 7 2 gulf of aqaba earthquake our estimates of the second moments correspond to a characteristic rupture length of 53t2 km a characteristic duration of 12t1 s and rupture propagation to the ne along the strike of the dead sea transform our estimates of the first and second moments agree well with values from local seismic and geodetic networks for both the jalisco and aqaba events we are able to resolve the fault plane ambiguity associated with the events moment tensors using our estimates of the second spatial moment

source area and rupture parameters of the 31 december 1881 mw 7 9 car nicobar earthquake estimated from tsunamis recorded in the bay of bengal 1 on the morning of 31 december 1881 a submarine earthquake beneath the andaman islands generated a tsunami with a maximum crest height of 0 8 m that was recorded by eight tide gauges surrounding the bay of bengal since the earthquake occurred 8 years before the construction of the world s first teleseismic recording seismometer little has been known about its rupture parameters or location waveform and amplitude modeling of the tsunami indicate that it was generated by a mw 7 9 0 1 rupture on the india andaman plate boundary resulting in 10 60 cm of uplift of the island of car nicobar the rupture consisted of two segments the northern 40 km long segment is separated from the southern 150 km long segment by a 100 km region corresponding to the westward projection of the west andaman spreading center the main rupture occurred between 8 5 n and 10 n with a total area of 150 km 60 km dipping 20 e with a mean slip of 2 7 m the recurrence time for 1881 type events is estimated to be 114 200 years on the basis of inferred gps convergence rates and inferred plate closure vectors although slip partitioning in the region may extend this estimate by as much as 30

constraints on jalisco block motion and tectonics of the guadalajara triple junction from 1998 2001 campaign gps data a gps campaign network in the state of jalisco was occupied for 36 h per station most years between 1995 and 2005 we use data from 1998 2001 to investigate tectonic motion and interseismic deformation in the jalisco area with respect to the north america plate the twelve stations used in this analysis provide coverage of the jalisco block and adjacent north america plate and show a pattern of motion that implies some contribution to jalisco block boundary deformation from both tectonic motion and interseismic deformation due to the offshore 1995 earthquake the consistent direction and magnitude of station motion on the jalisco block with respect to the north america reference frame 2 mm year to the southwest 95 confidence level perhaps can be attributed to tectonic motion however some station velocities within and across the boundaries of the jalisco block are also non zero 95 confidence level and the overall pattern of station velocities indicates both viscoelastic response to the 1995 earthquake and partial coupling of the subduction interface together termed interseismic deformation our results show motion across the northern colima rift the eastern boundary of the jalisco block which is likely to be sinistral oblique extension rather than pure extension we constrain extension across both the colima rift and the northeastern boundary of the jalisco block the tepic zacoalco rift to 8 mm year 95 confidence level slow compared to relative rates of motion at nearby plate boundaries

ejection times of martian meteorites noble gas isotopic analyses were made for four meteorites whose origin is mars basaltic shergottites queen alexandra range 94201 zagami the iherzolite lew88516 and orthopyroxenite allan hills 84001 the latter one was separated into orthopyroxene chromite and maskelynite fractions ejection times were calculated for all martian meteorites using cosmic ray exposure ages based on 3he 21ne and 38ar concentrations and literature data on the terrestrial ages we discuss the arguments for a scenario in which they were ejected from mars by asteroidal or cometary impact as small meteoroids and were delivered to earth within and up to 15 million years the basaltic shergottites que94201 shergotty and zagami show an ejection age cluster at 2 76 ma the fourth basaltic shergottite eet79001 being younger 0 82 ma lherzolites lew88516 and alh77005 were ejected by a later event 3 84 ma ago all nakhlites nakhla governador valadares and lafayette originate from an event 11 0 ma ago although chassigny is chemically distinct from the nakhlites its ejection age is 11 6 ma whether this is a separate event cannot be decided from the available data finally orthopyroxenite alh84001 was launched from mars 14 4 ma ago the distribution of the delivery times for martian meteorites to earth reflect individual impact events onto five or six different source terrains this result is significant in the context of a comprehensive knowledge of the martian crust composition finally we derived the k 40ar gas retention age of alh84001 mineral fractions adopting two different models assuming a component of martian atmospheric ar with 40ar36ar 1790 trapped by this meteorite we obtained an age of 3390 ma on the other hand assuming no contribution of martian atmospheric ar the resulting k 40ar age is about 4100 ma that is roughly 500 ma younger than the reported sm nd crystallization age

assessment of scardec source parameters of global large mw 7 5 subduction earthquakes rapid and accurate source characterizations of large shallow subduction earthquakes are key for improved tsunami warning efforts we assess the quality of source parameters of large magnitude mw 7 5 shallow subduction earthquakes of the past 20 yr determined using scardec a recent fully automated broad band body wave source inversion technique for the fast estimation of the moment magnitude depth focal mechanism and source time functions of global events we find that scardec source parameters agree well with those reported in the global centroid moment tensor gcmt catalogue with only the fault dip angle showing a tendency for steeper scardec dip values than gcmt we investigate this discrepancy through independent validation tests of the source models by i testing how well they explain data not used in their construction notably low frequency normal mode data and ii assessing the data fit using 3 d forward modelling tools more sophisticated than those used to build the source models specifically we use a spectral element method for a 3 d earth model we find that scardec source parameters explain normal mode data reasonably well compared to gcmt solutions in addition for the 3 d earth model used in our experiments scardec dip angles explain body wave data similarly or slightly better than gcmt moreover scardec dip angles agree well with results from individual earthquake studies in the literature and with geophysical constraints for different subduction zones our results show that scardec is a reliable technique for rapid determinations of source parameters of large mw 7 5 subduction earthquakes since the scardec method provides realistic source time functions allowing the fast identification of long duration tsunami earthquakes it is complementary to existing methods routinely used for earthquake monitoring and suitable for ocean wide tsunami warning purposes

crustal deformation at the nankai subduction zone southwest japan derived from gps measurements the interseismic strain accumulation process at the nankai subduction zone the plate boundary region between the philippine sea and the eurasian plates off southwest japan has been revealed by gps measurements spanning five years large strains characterized by a contraction of 2 2 3 4 10 7 yr have accumulated in a narrow region extending parallel to the strike of the plate boundary the contraction axes lie in a northwest southeast direction nearly parallel to the direction of relative motion of the philippine sea plate with respect to the eurasian plate gps derived deformation data including both rate and direction are consistent with the expected earthquake deformation cycle at the nankai subduction zone current interplate coupling in this zone is strong much of the relative plate motion has been taken up by deformation of the marginal parts of the eurasian plate

a reappraisal of the martian 36ar 38ar ratio the currently used value of 4 1 0 2 for the 36 ar 38 ar isotopic ratio in the martian atmosphere is reappraised and a significantly lower ratio is suggested previous analyses of noble gases in impact glass from some martian meteorites demonstrate that large quantities of martian atmospheric gases were shock emplaced into these samples however several observations indicate that this trapped martian gas is composed of two components one atmospheric and one probably from the martian mantle these observations include large variations in 36 ar 38 ar during stepwise gas release variations in the ar kr xe elemental ratios among martian meteorites and variations in the cosmogenic corrected trapped 36 ar 38 ar ratios over 3 5 4 3 among shock glass samples uncertainties in applied corrections for cosmogenic ar cannot explain these variations by assuming a range of reasonable values for martian atmospheric and mantle 40 ar 36 ar the observed 40 ar 36 ar ratios in shock glass are used to correct for the mantle component and to derive a more precise ratio for the atmospheric component using this procedure one obtains an upper limit for martian atmospheric 36 ar 38 ar of 3 9 and a probable but poorly defined range for martian atmospheric 36 ar 38 ar of 3 0 3 6 these lower ratios imply that the degree of mass fractionation during ar loss from mars upper atmosphere is considerably larger than that previously calculated

10be 26al 53mn and light noble gases in the antarctic shergottite eeta 79001 a abstract the radionuclides 10 be 26 al and 53 mn as well as the noble gases he ne and ar were measured on aliquots of a sample of lithology a from the shergottite eeta 79001 the radionuclide data yield and exposure age of 0 78 0 14 ma and a terrestrial residence time of 0 32 0 17 ma the exposure ages derived from 3 he 21 ne and 38 ar all range between 0 4 and 0 6 ma these data rule out a common ejection of all known shergottites from their parent body as small objects in a single event about 2 5 ma ago

nitrogen isotopes in thermal fluids of a forearc region jalisco block mexico evidence for heavy nitrogen from continental crust 1 the jalisco block jb is a geologically and tectonically complex part of northwestern mexico characterized by active subduction type volcanism rifting and old stable structures thermal springs and groups of springs are widely distributed over jb bubbling gas from seven thermal springs located within different tectonic environments of the jb was analyzed for he 20ne and n2 concentrations and 15n ratios all gases are n2 dominant 84 with the exception of one sample rio purificacion which has a significant ch4 content about 50 all collected gas samples are relatively high in he up to 1500 ppm vol and with 3he 4he values ranging from 0 6 to 4 5 ra all measured nitrogen isotope ratios are heavier than air with 15n values ranging from 0 5 to 5 0 the relative n2 excess with respect to air saturated water computed on the basis of n2 and 20ne contents indicates the contribution of a nonatmospheric n2 source all the samples show a good correlation between 15n and the relative excess of n2 with 15n 5 3 for the maximum n2 excess of 100 due to a presumed lack of seafloor sediment involved in the subduction process such a 15n positive value seems to reflect the addition to the fluids of a heavy nitrogen originating from metamorphism processes of rocks occurring within the overlying continental crust

slip kinematics and dynamics during and after the 1995 october 9 mw 8 0 colima jalisco earthquake mexico from gps geodetic constraints we use horizontal and vertical crustal displacements derived from gps measurements at 26 sites in western mexico to study the coseismic and post seismic kinematics and dynamics of the 1995 october 9 m w 8 0 colima jalisco earthquake along the middle america trench the measurements bracket the entire landward edge of the approximately 150 km long rupture zone and span a 4 yr period for most sites we solve for the temporal evolution of slip along the subduction interface by inverting gps displacements for the coseismic and four post seismic intervals march 1995 march 1999 subject to the assumption that the crust responds elastically to slip along a shallow dipping curved subduction interface coseismic rupture of up to 5 m was largely focused above depths of 20 km and was limited to a 120 140 km long segment of the subduction zone within one week of the earthquake post seismic slip migrated downdip to depths of 16 35 km where it has since decayed logarithmically we also find evidence for shallow aseismic slip during 1996 or early 1997 northwest of the coseismic rupture zone and increasingly widespread relocking of shallow regions of the subduction interface after early 1997 the relative lack of afterslip in shallow regions of the subduction interface suggests that the interface lies in the unstable frictional regime and hence is strongly coupled between earthquakes by 1999 the cumulative slip moment associated with post seismic slip equaled 70 per cent of the coseismic moment with nearly all of this slip occurring downdip from the coseismic rupture zone the migration of slip after the earthquake to a deeper and presumably velocity strengthening area of the subduction interface and the logarithmic decay of afterslip conform to the qualitative and quantitative predictions of a model in which the fault kinematics are prescribed by rate and state variable frictional laws however misfits to the geodetic displacements exceed the average displacement uncertainties for all epochs implying one or more of the following 1 the elastic response is heterogeneous due to slip along unmodelled upper crustal faults or variations in the elastic properties of the crust 2 other post seismic mechanisms such as viscoelastic or poroelastic effects contribute to or possibly dominate the post seismic response 3 we have underestimated the uncertainties in the gps displacements