propagation characteristics of lg across the tibetan plateau abstract we present the results of a study on the propagation of lg within the tibetan plateau we analyze over 1200 seismograms for lg propagation from 185 local and regional earthquakes recorded at distances from 150 to 2000 km 52 of which are located within the tibetan plateau although the propagation of lg has been observed across most of asia lg has not been observed for paths crossing the tibetan plateau we analyze paths that cross the plateau boundaries and paths contained entirely within the tibetan plateau lg is generated within the tibetan plateau and can propagate to epicentral distances of at least 600 km for events located outside of the tibetan plateau lg is either absent or severely diminished for paths that cross both the himalayan and kunlun ranges confirming that the margins of the plateau weaken lg transmission based on the observations from our qualitative analysis we invert lg amplitudes for event station paths that are confined to the tibetan plateau to estimate the quality factor q the inversion yields a frequency dependent q function q f 366 37 f 0 45 0 06 0 5 f 16 h z similar observations in other areas indicate that frequency dependent apparent q within the tibetan plateau is well below that expected for a typical continental interior instead it has a frequency dependence that is characteristic of a tectonically active region

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

a revised magnitude scale for south australian earthquakes a new local magnitude scale for south australian earthquakes has been developed from first principles the scale is defined by m l s a 0 7 log 10 a w a 1 10 log 10 0 0013 c i where awa is the equivalent wood anderson trace amplitude in millimeters is the epicentral distance in kilometers and ci is a station correction the formula accommodates the local attenuation function for south australia it is significantly less than richter s log a function but agrees closely with the recent results of boore and hutton 1984 for southern california the attenuation constants and the station corrections were determined by detailed statistical analysis of data from hundreds of earthquakes station corrections vary from 0 6 to 0 2 magnitude units and show a broad correlation with the regional geology south australian earthquake magnitudes are obtained from short period vertical component seismographs of dissimilar frequency response to that of the horizontal wood anderson instrument preliminary analysis of three component data from the longer period characteristic adelaide ade seismic station suggests that the departure from standard instrument type makes little difference to actual magnitude determinations

theoretical study of the excitation spectral characteristics and geometrical attenuation of regional seismic phases abstract we present a theoretical study of the generation and geometrical attenuation of regional crustal phases we do this through the computation of seismograms in the epicentral distance range from 60 to 500 km the geometrical attenuation of lg waves with epicentral distance is of the form r 0 83 pg wave amplitudes display a much stronger decay of the form r 1 5 the spectral density of the crustal transfer function for pg waves is relatively flat for frequencies between 0 1 and 5 hz while lg wave spectra strongly fall off beyond 2 to 3 hz the excitation of pg wave is insensitive to the depth of the source within the crust while the lg amplitude is about 50 per cent higher for a source in the upper and middle crust than in the lower crust the amplitudes of these two phases drastically decrease when the source is below the moho these results illustrate the important role of wave guide played by the crust for the propagation of lg and pg we find that the geometrical attenuation of pg and lg waves is independent of source mechanisms in the case of an explosion the excitation of pg is insensitive to the source depth the lg wave amplitude is small in comparison to pg and rayleigh waves and depends on the closeness of the source to an interface or to the free surface

effects of internal structure and local stresses on fracture propagation deflection and arrest in fault zones the way that faults transport crustal fluids is important in many fields of earth sciences such as petroleum geology geothermal research volcanology seismology and hydrogeology for understanding the permeability evolution and maintenance in a fault zone its internal structure and associated local stresses and mechanical properties must be known this follows because the permeability is primarily related to fracture propagation and their linking up into interconnected clusters in the fault zone here we show that a fault zone can be regarded as an elastic inclusion with mechanical properties that differ from those of the host rock as a consequence the fault zone modifies the associated regional stress field and develops its own local stress field which normally differs significantly both as regard magnitude and orientation of the principal stresses from the regional field the local stress field together with fault rock heterogeneities and interfaces discontinuities fractures contacts determine fracture propagation deflection along discontinuities interfaces and arrest in the fault zone and thereby its permeability development we provide new data on the internal structure of fault zones in particular the fracture frequency in the damage zone as a function of distance from the fault core new numerical models show that the local stress field inside a fault zone modelled as an inclusion differ significantly from those of the host rock both as regards the magnitude and the directions of the principal stresses also when the mechanical layering of the damage zone due to variation in its fracture frequency is considered the numerical models show abrupt changes in local stresses not only between the core and the damage zone but also within the damage zone itself abrupt changes in local stresses within the fault zone generate barriers to fracture propagation and contribute to fracture deflection and or arrest also analytical solutions of the effects of material toughness the critical energy release rate of layers and their interfaces show that propagating fractures commonly become deflected into and often arrested at the interfaces generally fractures propagating from a compliant soft layer towards a stiffer one tend to become deflected and arrested at the contact between the layers whereas fractures propagating from a stiff layer towards a softer one tend to penetrate the contact thus it is normally easier for fractures to propagate from the host rock into the damage zone than vice versa similarly it is easier for fractures to propagate from the outer stiffer parts of the damage zone to the inner softer parts and from the stiff host rock to the outer damage zone than in the opposite directions these conclusions contribute to increased understanding as to how fractures propagate and become arrested within fault zones and how the fault zone thickness is confined at any particular time during its evolution

the moho in australia and new zealand abstract australia and new zealand share in part a history in the gondwana supercontinent australia has a long and complex tectonic history with the last major accretion in the early paleozoic whereas new zealand is still undergoing major plate boundary processes the australian continent is relatively well covered with both active and passive seismic techniques multiple sources of information are therefore available for building a model of moho depth results from on shore and off shore refraction experiments are supplemented by receiver functions from a large number of portable stations and the recently augmented set of permanent stations moho picks from more than 10 500 km of full crustal reflection profiles provide valuable additional constraints the composite data set provides good sampling of much of australia though coverage remains low in some remote desert areas the various datasets provide multiple estimates of the depth to moho in many regions and the consistency between the different techniques is high some of the thinnest crust lies beneath the archean craton in the pilbara and in the neighbourhood of the simpson desert thick crust is encountered beneath parts of the proterozoic in central australia and beneath the paleozoic lachlan fold belt in southeastern australia there are a number of zones of sharp contrast in depth to moho notably in the southern part of central australia despite most of the continental material around new zealand being submerged moho data for this region is mainly onshore concentrating on the australia pacific plate boundary two major wide angle reflection transects provide the bulk of the active source data with just a few traditional reflection profiles offshore the plate boundary provides an abundance of local earthquakes for tomographic imaging and this data is supplemented with receiver functions from both portable and permanent networks onshore the combined coverage is as dense as that of australia although it could be argued that a higher spatial resolution is required to capture the nature of the moho of tectonically active new zealand three regions of thickened crust can be identified one beneath the southern alps another beneath fiordland and below the wanganui basin between the north and south island thin crust is identified west of the volcanic arc with extensive underplating below the back arc region

regional seismic characteristics of the 9 october 2006 north korean nuclear test we investigate the regional seismic signature of the 9 october 2006 north korean nuclear test broadband regional data for the nuclear test and a group of earthquakes close to the test site were obtained between december 2000 and no vember 2006 epicentral distances from the stations to the test site are between 371 and 1153 km we first use these regional events to calibrate the lg wave magnitude in the network then the network is used to calculate mblg 3 93 for the north ko rean nuclear explosion using a modified fully coupled magnitude yield relation the yield of the north korean nuclear test is estimated to be 0 48 kt because of large uncertainties in the source depth the estimate is preliminary the p s type spectral ratios pg lg pn lg and pn sn are calculated for the nuclear explosion and a group of earthquakes close to the test site at frequencies above 2 hz the network averaged p s spectral ratios clearly separate the 9 october 2006 explosion from the regional earthquakes our result indicates that a single blast explosion in the north korea re gion shows different seismic characteristics from an earthquake any well coupled single blast explosion detonated in this region with yield similar to that for the north korean nuclear test has a large probability of being identified by a regional seismic network such as the one adopted in this study

average qlg qsn and observation of lg blockage in the continental margin of nova scotia the term lg blockage refers to the sudden disappearance of the lg phase along a particular propagation path which is commonly seen at continental oceanic transition zones in this paper we present observational evidence of lg blockage across the continental margin of nova scotia in eastern canada regional lg and sn spectra from 91 events with epicentral distances between 100 and 1200 km and magnitudes between 2 5 and 4 7 are inverted simultaneously for the source spectrum site amplification and average attenuation the vertical displacement spectra were estimated between 0 9 and 10 75 hz the assumptions include a fixed frequency independent geometric spreading rate for lg and a frequency dependent spreading model for the sn estimates for the apparent regional attenuations are qlg f 615 25 f0 35 0 04 and qsn f 404 23 f0 45 0 03 results from this study provide an accurate parameterization of observed amplitude spectra and are valuable for representing wave propagation in the region based on the observation of a strong trade off between sn and lg amplitudes which have different attenuation characteristics we conclude any attenuation study based on measuring amplitude of a package of several different phases without taking into consideration the propagation characteristics of individual waveforms at the region of study may bias the estimation of average regional q

barotropic rossby wave radiation from a model gulf stream 1 the barotropic rossby wave field in the north atlantic ocean is studied in an eddy resolving ocean model simulation the meandering model gulf stream radiates barotropic rossby waves southward through preferred corridors defined by topographic features the smoother region between the bermuda rise and the mid atlantic ridge is a particularly striking corridor of barotropic wave radiation in the 20 50 day period band barotropic rossby waves are also preferentially excited at higher frequencies over the bermuda rise suggesting resonant excitation of topographic rossby normal modes the prevalence of these radiated waves suggests that they may be an important energy sink for the equilibrium state of the gulf stream

on the nature of regional seismic phases ii on the influence of structural barriers summary the blockage of the lg wave by crustal barriers such as continental margins and graben structures has long been recognized as providing a very useful tool for mapping large scale lateral crustal variations along the propagation path numerical simulation of lg wave propagation in complex anelastic media using the pseudospectral method provides insight into the nature of the propagation process using both snapshots of the wavefield and synthetic seismograms a variety of 2 d structures have been investigated including the influence of sediments crustal thickness and attenuation thick sedimentary basins covering a graben structure can have a major influence since they remove lg energy by generating p conversion and scattering the principal mechanisms for strong lg attenuation across a graben the reduction of the lg energy is reinforced by anelastic attenuation in the sediments as well as the influence of the gradually thinning crustal waveguide associated with an elevated moho the extinction of lg in a sequence of explosions fired across the central graben of the north sea can be simulated by numerical calculations for the structure derived from refraction experiments

subinertial oscillations on the amundsen sea shelf antarctica abstractmooring data from the western flank of dotson trough amundsen sea shelf region show the presence of barotropic oscillations with a period of 40 80 h the oscillations are visible in velocity temperature salinity and pressure and are comparable to tides in magnitude the period of the oscillations corresponds to topographic rossby waves of low group velocity and a wavelength of about 40 km that is the half width of the channel it is suggested that these resonant topographic rossby waves cause the observed peak in the wave spectra the observations show that sparse ctd data from this region should be treated with caution and need to be complemented with moorings or yo yo stations in order to give a representative picture for the hydrography

the ml scale in southern california measurements 9 941 of peak amplitudes on wood anderson instruments or simulated wood anderson instruments in the southern california seismographic network for 972 earthquakes primarily located in southern california were studied with the aim of determining a new distance correction curve for use in determining the local magnitude m l events in the mammoth lakes area were found to give an unusual attenuation pattern and were excluded from the analysis as were readings from any one earthquake at distances beyond the first occurrence of amplitudes less than 0 3 mm the remaining 7 355 amplitudes from 814 earthquakes yielded the following equation for m l distance correction log a 0 log a 0 1 110log r 100 0 00189 r 100 3 0 where r is hypocentral distance in kilometers a new set of station corrections was also determined from the analysis the standard deviation of the m l residuals obtained by using this curve and the station corrections was 0 21 the data used to derive the equation came from earthquakes with hypocentral distances ranging from about 10 to 700 km and focal depths down to 20 km with most depths less than 10 km the log a 0 values from this equation are similar to the standard values listed in richter 1958 for 50 200 km the effect at close distances is consistent with that found in several other studies and is simply due to a difference in the observed 1 r geometrical spreading for body waves and the 1 r 2 spreading assumed by gutenberg and richter in the construction of the log a 0 table m l s computed from our curve and those reported in the caltech catalog show a systematic dependence on magnitude small earthquakes have larger magnitudes than in the catalog and large earthquakes have smaller magnitudes by as much as 0 6 units to a large extent these systematic differences are due to the nonuniform distribution of data in magnitude distance space small earthquakes are preferentially recorded at close distances relative to large earthquakes for large earthquakes however the difference in the two magnitudes is not solely due to the new correction for attenuation magnitudes computed using richter s log a 0 curve are also low relative to the catalog values the differences in that case may be due to subjective judgment on the part of those determining the catalog magnitudes the use of data other than the caltech wood anderson seismographs the use of different station corrections or the use of teleseismic magnitude determinations whatever their cause the departures at large magnitude may explain a 1 0 0 7 proportionality found by luco 1982 between m l s determined from real wood anderson records and those from records synthesized from strong motion instruments if it were not for the biases in reported magnitudes luco s finding would imply a magnitude dependent shape in the attenuation curves we studied residuals in three magnitude classes 2 0 m l 3 5 3 5 m l 5 5 and 5 5 m l 7 0 and found no support for such a magnitude dependence based on our results we propose that local magnitude scales be defined such that m l 3 correspond to 10 mm of motion on a wood anderson instrument at 17 km hypocentral distance rather than 1 mm of motion at 100 km this is consistent with the original definition of magnitude in southern california and will allow more meaningful comparison of earthquakes in regions having very different attenuation of waves within the first 100 km

rupture process of a multiple main shock sequence analysis of teleseismic local and field observations of the tennant creek australia earthquakes of january 22 1988 on january 22 1988 three large intraplate earthquakes with ms 6 3 6 4 and 6 7 occurred within a 12 hour period near tennant creek australia these earthquakes which occurred over a small interval of time and within a small volume of space present a unique opportunity to study the rupture process of the class of intraplate earthquakes that occur as multiple main shocks broadband displacement and velocity records of body waves from teleseismically recorded data are analyzed to determine source mechanisms depths and complexity of rupture of each of the three main shocks hypocenters of an additional 150 foreshocks and aftershocks constrained by local arrival time data and field observations of surface rupture are used to complement the source characteristics of the main shocks in order to derive as complete a description of the rupture process as possible the interpretation of the combined data sets suggests that the overall rupture process involved unusually complicated stress release as locations of the main shock hypocenters progressively moved from west to east we infer that the first and third main shocks denoted as ms1 and ms3 produced the southeast northwest trending scarps observed at the western end the kunayungku fault and at the eastern end the east end of the lake surprise fault respectively of the rupture zone the epicenter of the only immediate foreshock was located in the gap between these two fault scarps ms1 nucleated near this epicenter and ruptured upward and to the northwest from a depth of 6 5 km ms3 ruptured predominantly to the se at a depth of 4 5 km the second main shock ms2 is inferred to have produced the deformation of the southwest trending central scarp segment the western end of the lake surprise fault from the sense of thrusting seen at the surface and from the distribution of aftershock hypocenters the south dipping nodal planes derived from waveform modeling are identified as the fault planes for earthquakes ms1 and ms3 in contrast the dip of the central fault scarp is reversed relative to the dips of the western and eastern fault scarps the rupture process of ms2 turns out to be commensurately complex and sufficiently explains the geological complexity ms2 consisted of three subevents the southeast dipping nodal plane of the first two subevents is coplanar with a southeast dipping plane implied by locations of aftershocks which did not break the surface choice of the north dipping plane as the rupture plane of the third subevent consistent with the surface deformation and coplanar with a second plane delineated by aftershocks would imply conjugate faulting the majority of the aftershocks are concentrated near the edges of the fault planes and there is an absence of activity in the center of the planes the areas of absent activity may represent the failed asperities of the main shocks in which substantial stress relief occurred the rupture process of each main shock is characterized by the rapid release of energy followed by a much slower release of moment and by aftershock zones whose dimensions exceed the inferred dimensions of the rupture these characteristics suggest that substantial slow slip occurred on each of the three fault interfaces that was not accompanied by major energy release the first main shock nucleated at the deepest part of its aftershock zone and ruptured upward in contrast ms2 and ms3 nucleated at depths that were one third to one half of the maximum depth of their aftershock zones this variation of focal depth and the strong increase of moment and radiated energy with each main shock imply that lateral variations of strength were more important than vertical gradients of shear stress in controlling the progression of rupture

a continent wide map of 1 hz lg coda q variation across eurasia and its relation to lithospheric evolution 1 we present new maps of lg coda q qo and its frequency dependence at 1 hz that cover virtually all of eurasia qo is relatively high up to 650 or more in the east european siberian indian and kazakh platforms but is surprisingly low 300 500 in the arabian platform and western portion of the siberian platform as well as in great britain and the northwestern portion of mainland europe it is generally low throughout the tethysides orogenic belt but there too it displays substantial regional variations 150 400 most qo anomalies appear to be related to the tectonic history of the eurasian crust the four regions with lowest values coincide with four of eurasia s most active concentrations of earthquake activity observed eurasian qo values are consistent with a previously determined empirical plot of global values in which qo in any region is proportional to the time elapsed since the most recent episode of tectonic or orogenic activity there comparisons of the new qo map with maps of rayleigh wave velocity temperature subducted lithosphere and seismicity lead us to infer that lg coda wave attenuation is most easily explained by energy lost in moving fluids through permeable rock or in being scattered from fluid enhanced zones the fluids are likely to have originated by hydrothermal release from subducting lithosphere or other upper mantle heat sources anomalies in qo and other lithospheric properties in some cases extend well outside the tethysides belt and other regions where upper mantle heat sources are known to occur possible explanations include earlier episodes of subduction activity crustal deformation due to collision of the afro arabian and indian plates or broader than expected back arc activity beneath eurasia

attenuation of coda waves in western mexico using local seismicity coda waves are an important instrument to study the elastic properties of the lithosphere the attenuation of coda waves in western mexico is analyzed using seismograms recorded during the mapping of the rivera subduction zone experiment the coda wave attenuation is measured by means of q within the single backscattering model and the single isotropic scattering model schemes the frequency dependence of q is analyzed using the power fit formulation q f q f the resulting q q and are then used to study the seismic attenuation properties in western mexico we compare our results with the crustal structure by means of the surface geology seismic activity crustal thickness and p wave velocity patterns in the study area there is a poor correlation of the attenuation parameters with such crustal features however an analysis of the variations of the p wave velocity shows that the seismic attenuation parameters correlate to some extent with seismic velocity variations previously noted in the study area where low attenuation and weak frequency dependence correlate with low velocity variation

attenuation of multiphase surface waves in the basin and range province part i lg and lg coda summary broad band data recorded by the lawrence livermore laboratory network are used to investigate whether or not lg q and lg coda q have similar values in the basin and range province of north america in order to retrieve spectral estimates of the broad band lg and lg coda signals a hybrid method is used which retains high fidelity at lower frequencies while strongly smoothing the spectral estimates and minimizing the number of spectral points at high frequencies a stochastic approach is used to model the lg signal and ambient noise and to analyse results from two station determinations of lg q in the basin and range the effects of ambient noise frequency dependent station site response and focusing defocusing on lg q inversion are analysed it is shown that after averaging spectral ratios determined from repeated observations over four two station paths a modest site effect will not cause significant errors in the resulting lg q relation using this inversion scheme and spectral ratio estimates averaged over those paths at frequencies between 0 2 and 2 5 hz we obtain the relation qlg f 267 f 56 f0 37 0 06 for the basin and range province further constraints on lg q were obtained from lg coda which due to the natural averaging effect of scattering is insensitive to effects of focusing defocusing to investigate the validity of the single isotropic scattering model for lg coda in the basin and range province we calculated ischrons for scatterers corresponding to later lg coda signals as required by the single scattering model it is found that when significant portions of these isochrons are oceanic lg coda amplitude decay becomes irregular and abnormally slow suggesting a strong scattering reflection effect caused by the rapidly changing crustal structure along the coast applying the single isotropic scattering model to lg coda records with isochrons mostly confined to the continental crust results in q f 275 f 26 f 0 36 0 03 which is nearly identical to our qlg relation this indicates that even in a complicated geological province a joint interpretation of the dynamic properties of lg and lg coda can be successful and fruitful inconsistent lg q and coda q relations found in earlier studies in the basin and range province may be attributed to different settings of parameter trade offs different seismic phases or different dynamic properties being used

propagation of lg waves in the north australian craton influence of crustal velocity gradients abstract aftershocks of three large earthquakes near tennant creek in the northern territory of australia provide a unique opportunity to study regional seismic phases in the north australian craton three portable digital seismographs were operated near the source zone to provide control on earthquake locations and seven recorders formed a line between tennant creek and the seismic array at alice springs which is 430 km to the south eleven earthquakes of sufficient size for analysis were recorded during a one week deployment two months following the main shocks the group velocity observed for lg waves along this profile of 3 7 km sec is at the high end of the normal range and appropriate for a stable continental interior we estimate attenuation in discrete frequency bands by measuring the decay of amplitude as a function of distance from the source and assuming the common r 5 6 relationship for geometrical spreading however this assumption leads to frequency dependent q values q 230 36 f 0 66 0 12 that are abnormally low for a stable continental region the apparent q is also not consistent with other observations such as the high lg group velocity the positive bias in m l estimates obtained for other parts of australia using standard attenuation relations the size of felt areas for large central australian earthquakes nor with the high frequency content of seismic reflection data collected near our profile some crustal models for northern australia derived from seismic refraction work show a gradient zone between 30 and 55 km rather than a sharp moho discontinuity we therefore investigate the effect of gradient zones at the crust mantle transition on the decay of lg amplitudes using synthetic seismograms calculated with the wavenumber integral method the modeling suggests that some of the s wave energy that would be trapped in a crustal wave guide with a sharp lower boundary can leak out in the presence of a gradient and so enhance the attenuation in addition there are focusing effects due to the formation of caustics from the gradient zones which cannot be represented by a single analytic amplitude correction

circulation and thermohaline variability of the hanna shoal region on the northeastern chukchi sea shelf we analyzed velocity and hydrographic data from 23 moorings in the northeast chukchi sea from 2011 to 2014 in most years the eastern side of hanna shoal was strongly stratified year round while weakly stratified regions prevailed on the shelf south and west of the shoal stratification differences cause differential vertical mixing rates which in conjunction with advection of different bottom water properties resulted in seasonally varying along isobath density gradients in agreement with numerical models we find that bottom waters flow anticyclonically around the shoal whereas most of the shelf responded barotropically to wind forcing there was a strong baroclinic component to the flow field northeast of hanna shoal resulting in no net vertically integrated transport on average in contrast there is a net eastward transport from west of the shoal which implies convergence north of the shoal convergence and along isobath density gradients may foster cross shelf exchange north of hanna shoal modal analyses indicate that the shelf south of the shoal and barrow canyon responded coherently to local and remote winds whereas the wind current response around hanna shoal was less coherent barotropic topographic waves of 3 day period were generated episodically northeast of the shoal and propagate clockwise around hanna shoal but are blocked from entering barrow canyon and are possibly scattered by the horizontally sheared flow and converging isobaths on the western side of the shoal analysis of water properties on the western side of hanna shoal suggests that these include contributions from the western and southern portions of the chukchi sea

lg wave attenuation in the australian crust abstract we estimate the lg wave quality factor q across the australian continent from vertical component lg waveforms a tomographic inversion is performed to construct an lg attenuation model for 58 frequencies between 0 05 and 10 0 hz the available spatial resolution is approximately 1 5 1 5 for the 0 5 2 0 hz band at 1 0 hz the lg wave q over the whole island continent varies from 50 to 1250 with an average value of 850 significant regional variations in the lg wave q images tie well with many geological features and boundaries in australia the cratons in western northern and southern parts of australia usually have higher q values 700 1250 while the volcanic regions sedimentary basins and orogenic areas in eastern australia are characterized by increased attenuation lower q values 50 650 we determine the frequency dependent q of lg waves for different blocks across australia and find the frequency dependence of q is much more complex than the traditional single power law representation when combined with the assumed geometrical spreading relation the lg q maps provide a new way of assessing potential ground motion across the continent for any event location

a topographic rossby mode resonance over the iceland faeroe ridge abstract an array of current meter moorings along 12 w on the southern side of the lceland faeroe ridge reveals a narrowband barotropic oscillation with period 1 8 days in spectra of velocity the signal is coherent over at least 55 km scales and propagates phase with shallow water on the right toward the northwest velocity ellipses tend to be elongated crossing contours of f h and rotate anticyclonically solutions of the rigid lid barotropic shallow water equations predict the occurrence of a topographic rossby normal mode on the south side of the ridge with spatial scales exceeding 250 km and with intrinsic period near 1 84 days this fundamental mode of the south side of the ridge has predicted spatial structure phase propagation and velocity ellipses consistent with the observed oscillation the frictional amplitude e folding decay time for this normal mode is estimated from the observations to be 13 days the observed ocean currents are significantly coherent with zonal wind stress fluctuatio

seismic crustal structure of the proterozoic north australian craton between tennant creek and mount isa seismic recording along a 600 km traverse across the southern part of the north australian craton indicates that lateral velocity variations exist in the middle lower crust taken together with other data from the craton there is evidence for midcrustal velocities increasing from east to west and from south to north these trends could result from a greater proportion of high velocity granulites being emplaced at higher levels in the crust between tennant creek and mount isa the velocity structures near the surface are compatible with an assemblage of younger and older metamorphic rocks intruded by granites near surface 0 5 km p wave velocities on the tennant creek inlier increase from 5 47 km s at the surface to about 6 2 km s at 6 km depth and correspond with low grade metamorphics of the warramunga group interspersed with weathered granites overlying amphibolite facies rocks of older metamorphic domains in the mount isa geosyncline velocities of 6 03 6 15 km s correspond to the leichhart metamorphics interspersed with granites in the middle crust p wave velocities of 6 85 km s occur at a depth of 26 km near tennant creek whereas such velocities are not evident until depths of about 37 km near mount isa there is therefore a trend for midcrust velocities to increase from east to west the lower crust is characterized by velocities of 7 3 7 5 km s and the upper mantle velocities of 8 16 8 20 km s are reached at depths of 51 54 km exposed granulite facies rocks in central australia are low in heat producing elements and are compatible with the low surface heat flow generally measured in precambrian australia these data taken together with laboratory velocity measurements on worldwide samples reported elsewhere indicate that middle to lower crustal rocks could be an assemblage of granulite facies rocks varying from pyroxene granulite in the middle crust through hornblende granulite to garnet granulite in the lower crust

a novel technique for measuring lg attenuation results from eastern canada between 1 to 10 hz spectral amplitudes of regionally recorded lg waves are studied in detail between 0 6 and 10 hz using vertical component velocity seismograms of the eastern canada telemetered network stations and a supplementary seismic research observatory type station at glen almond gac quebec we find that the site responses vary among these stations by more than a factor of 3 within the frequency range of interest furthermore they are found to be strongly frequency dependent consequently it is essential that they be taken into consideration in studies of lg wave attenuation and lg source spectra of regionally recorded seismic events we present a new method of measuring interstation surface wave attenuation which is closely related to the conventional two station method while retaining all the desirable features of the conventional two station method the new technique which we will call the reversed two station method allows simple direct one parameter determination of the lg wave attenuation from sparse spectral data in a manner unaffected by station site effects and associated instrument error the reversed two station method is successfully tested over weakly attenuating short 53 to 210 km interstation paths in eastern canada a difficult experimental condition by normal standards the lg attenuation coefficient 0 6 to 10 hz in eastern canada is found to be frequency dependent and of the form f 0 0008 f 0 81 km 1 at higher frequencies the lg attenuation appears to be essentially frequency independent this latter finding is preliminarily interpreted as evidence that regionally recorded lg waves in the canadian shield are as in the case of lg waves propagating through the structurally complex appalachian province contaminated by the high frequency coda of sn waves the lg contamination over the shield paths becomes severe starting at 14 hz twice the frequency above which the lg signal propagating over the appalachian province becomes completely dominated by non lg arrivals

geophysical evidence for thick skinned crustal deformation in central australia until now there has been no clear evidence from deep seismic reflection profiles of crustal faults that displace the moho new data from central australia show such a structure in a region characterized by large thrust structures large gravity anomalies and abrupt changes in teleseismic travel times here the principal thrust the redbank deformed zone cuts through the crust and the moho is significantly displaced across it the geological and geophysical evidence leads to a model of thick skinned crustal deformation which occurred in an intra cratonic environment in late devonian time

new insights into path attenuation of ground motions in northeast india and northwest himalayas abstract we compile a data set of 585 weak broadband and strong ground motion recordings from 184 earthquakes covering hypocentral distances ranging from 9 to 436 km in northeast india and the northwest himalayas source normalized vertical component fourier amplitude s wave spectra are used to study path attenuation characteristics namely geometrical spreading and quality factor in the two regions a trilinear model of geometrical spreading of r 1 0 for hypocentral distance r r 0 0 for r between 125 km and 140 km and r 1 0 for r 140 km approximates the decay of low frequency 1 0 hz amplitudes in northeastern india better than the conventional theoretical bilinear geometrical spreading of r 1 0 for r r 0 5 otherwise in the northwestern himalayas the geometrical spreading is found to be r 1 0 which is the same as that of a bilinear model at hypocentral distances r f given by in the frequency range of 0 9 20 hz

passive seismic imaging of a craton edge central australia abstract passive seismic recordings of teleseismic p wave arrivals and their immediate coda along a dense profile of stations can be used to image the reflection structure beneath the profile the process exploits the autocorrelation of the seismic signals that extracts the reflection response from the transmitted signals recorded at the surface which can be migrated to provide a depth image this common reflection point crp imaging exploits the same portion of the seismic record used in receiver function studies but is much less influenced by multiple problems in the presence of sediments this style of passive seismic imaging is applied to a dense line of 68 stations at 3 5 km spacing at the northern edge of the gawler craton in south australia in the mal experiment with nine months of passive seismic monitoring it has been possible to image fine scale structural variations throughout the lithosphere there is a strong variation in crustal thickness as the mal profile crosses the inferred location of the craton edge under sedimentary cover a transitional zone between crust and mantle can be identified that extends beneath the receiver function moho pinching out gently at the craton edge the crp imaging reveals distinct reflectivity in the lithospheric mantle with horizontal scales of 10 30 km and vertical scales of no more than a few kilometres the character of this reflectivity appears to change across the craton edge there are indications of a semi continuous mid lithosphere discontinuity at around 90 km depth

cover deformation above steep basement normal faults insights from 2d discrete element modeling abstract a discrete element model is used to investigate progressive cover deformation above a steep 70 basement normal fault the cover materials are homogenous with frictional material behavior in the model shown here both normal and reverse faults in the cover accommodate displacement on the underlying basement fault the earliest faults are curved reverse faults which propagate upwards from the basement fault tip into the proto hanging wall these are replaced progressively towards the footwall by subvertical to steep normal faults and finally by a normal fault which dips at an angle predicted by mohr coulomb theory thus most early secondary structures are located in the hanging wall of the final through going fault this structural evolution produces an asymmetric triangular zone of deformation above the basement fault tip which superficially resembles that associated with trishear however its progressive development is quite different results also emphasize that the occurrence of reverse faults in extensional settings is not diagnostic of inversion

extension fracture propagation in rocks with veins insight into the crack seal process using discrete element method modeling 1 we investigate how existing veins interact with extension fractures in rocks using 3 d discrete element method models with a geometry inspired by tension tests with notched samples in a sensitivity study we varied a the angle between the vein and the bulk extension direction and b the strength ratio between host rock and vein material results show a range of vein fracture interactions which fall into different robust structural styles veins which are weaker than the host rock tend to localize fracturing into the vein even at high misorientation angles veins which are stronger than the host rock cause deflection of the fracture tip along the vein host rock interface fractures are arrested at the interface from weak to stronger material when propagating from a stronger to a weaker material macroscopic bifurcation of the fracture is common complex interactions are favored by a low angle between the vein and the fracture and by high strength contrast the structural styles in the models show good agreement with microstructures and mesostructures of crack seal veins found in natural systems we propose that these structural styles form the basis for criteria to recognize strength contrasts and stress of crack seal systems in nature

determination of seismic energy from lg waves seismic energy is a physical concept related to broadband information on the source radiation this is different from seismic moment which is related to low frequency information improved estimates of seismic moment and radiated energy can improve the scientific framework for interpreting observed seismicity in terms of physical source processes this study evaluates the utility of regional lg waves the dominant feature of seismograms for regional earthquakes for the estimation of radiated seismic energy the rms lg which is defined as the root mean square of lg wave ground velocity within a certain group velocity range is proportional to the square root of lg wave radiated energy flux we find that rms lg is a good quantity for estimating the energy release of earthquakes because a large fraction of the total seismic energy is radiated as lg waves we scale the network averaged rms lg value to a reference distance of 100 km for a set of 52 earthquakes in the northeastern united states using an empirically derived relation between rms lg and epicentral distance we apply the source parameters estimated for these earthquakes to boatwright s deceleration source model and calculate the total seismic energy expected to have been radiated by each event assuming it can be modeled by this source we then obtain for earthquakes in the northeastern united states the scaling of the total radiated seismic energy of earthquakes with network averaged rms lg values from synthetic seismograms it is found that different velocity structures have an effect on the efficiency of lg wave radiation using measurements of rms lg made from synthetics we find that the vertical strike slip source tends to radiate less lg wave energy than other source mechanisms manuscript received 4 february 1998

empirical attenuation of ground motion spectral amplitudes in southeastern canada and the northeastern united states a database of 1700 digital seismograms from 186 earthquakes of mag nitude mn 2 5 5 6 that occurred in southeastern canada and the northeastern united states from 1990 to 2003 was compiled maximum likelihood regression analysis of the database was performed to determine a model for the attenuation of fourier spectral amplitudes for the shear window for the vertical and horizontal component of motion for frequencies from 0 2 to 20 hz fourier amplitudes follow a hinged trilinear attenuation model fourier spectral amplitudes decay as r 1 3 where r is hypocentral distance within 70 km of the source there is a transition zone from 70 to 140 km as the direct waves are joined by strong postcritical reflections where the attenuation is described as r 0 2 spectral amplitudes actually increase with distance in this range for low frequencies beyond 140 km the attenuation is well described by r 0 5 corresponding to geometric spreading in two dimensions the associated model for the regional quality factor for frequencies greater than 1 hz can be ex pressed as q 893f 032 q can be better modeled over a wider frequency range 0 2 20 hz by a polynomial expression log q 3 052 0 393 log f 0 945 log f 2 0 327 log f 3 the polynomial expression accommodates the observation that q values are at a minimum about 1000 near 1 hz and rise at both lower and higher frequencies correction factors for the spectral amplitude model that describe the effects of focal depth on the amplitudes and their attenuation are developed using the subset of events with known focal depth the attenuation model is similar to that determined from an earlier study with more limited data atkinson and mereu 1992 but the enlarged database indicates more rapid near source amplitude decay and higher q the attenuation model is used to play back attenuation effects to determine the apparent source spectrum for each earthquake in the database and hence determine moment magnitude m and brune stress drop the events have moment magnitude in the range from 2 5 to 5 stress drop increases with moment magnitude for events of m 4 3 then appears to attain a relatively constant level in the range from 100 to 200 bars for the larger events as previously noted in atkinson 1993b the results of this study provide a useful framework for improving regional ground motion relations in eastern north america they further our understanding of attenuation in the region through analysis of an enlarged ground motion database in particular the inclusion of the three component broadband data gathered over the last decade allows extension of attenuation models to both horizontal and vertical components over a broad frequency range 0 2 20 hz

on the nature of regional seismic phases iii the influence of crustal heterogeneity on the wavefield for subduction earthquakes the 1985 michoacan and 1995 copala guerrero mexico earthquakes summary the most prominent feature of the regional seismic wavefield from about 150 to over 1000 km is usually the lg phase this arrival represents trapped s wave propagation within the crust as a superposition of multiple reflections and its amplitude is quite sensitive to the lateral variation in the crust along a propagation path in an environment where the events occur in a subduction zone such as the western coast of mexico quite complex influences on the character of the regional wavefield arise from the presence of the subduction zone the great 1985 michoacan earthquake mw 8 1 which occurred in the mexican subduction zone was one of the most destructive earthquakes in modern history and its notable character was that at mexico city located over 350 km from the epicentre there was strong ground shaking almost comparable to that in the epicentral region that lasted for several minutes considerable effort has been expended to explain the origin of the unusual observed waves that caused the severe damage in the capital city during the destructive earthquake the nature of the propagation process in this region can be understood in part by using the detailed strong motion records from the 1995 copala guerrero mw 7 4 earthquake near the coast to the south of mexico city which also had an enhanced amplitude in the valley of mexico numerical modelling of both p and s seismic waves in 2 d and 3 d heterogeneous crustal models for western mexico using the pseudospectral method provides direct insight into the nature of the propagation processes through the use of sequences of snapshots of the wavefield and synthetic seismograms at the surface a comparison of different models allows the influences of different aspects of the structure to be isolated 2 d and 3 d modelling of the 1985 michoacan and 1995 copala earthquakes clearly demonstrates that the origin of the long duration of strong ground shaking comes from the sn and lg wave trains these s wave arrivals are produced efficiently from shallow subduction earthquakes and are strongly enhanced during their propagation within the laterally heterogeneous waveguide produced by the subduction of the cocos plate beneath the mexican mainland the amplitude and duration of the lg coda is also strongly reinforced by transmission through the mexican volcanic belt from the amplification of s waves in the low velocity surficial layer associated withs to p conversions in the volcanic zone the further amplification of the large and long lg wave train impinging on the shallow structure in the basin of mexico city with very soft soil underlain by nearly rigid bedrock with a strong impedance contrast gives rise to the destructive strong ground shaking from the mexican subduction earthquakes

the shape of ground motion attenuation curves in southeastern canada the shape of the attenuation curve of the fourier spectrum of acceleration is established for southeastern canada from empirical data the dataset is comprised of 1200 digital vertical component seismograms from 100 earthquakes recorded on 30 stations of the eastern canada telemetered network the distance range of the observations is 10 to 1700 km focal depths are from 5 to 30 km results indicate that the attenuation curve has three distinct sections at distances less than 70 km corresponding to attenuation of the direct wave amplitudes decay slightly more rapidly than 1 r r 1 1 between 70 and 130 km where the direct wave is joined by sms spectral amplitudes are approximately constant beyond 130 km corresponding to the lg phase amplitudes decay at a rate that is consistent with r 0 5 and q 670 f 0 33 the findings support the hypothesis of burger et al 1987 that postcritical reflections from the moho discontinuity play an important role in determining the shape of the attenuation curve however the influence of sms is subtle allowing the shape to be approximated by simple functional forms for example the commonly assumed bilinear form r 1 r 0 5 with frequency dependent q fits well if the transition from direct wave to lg spreading is placed at approximately 60 km a linear form r 1 over all distances with constant q 2000 also provides a satisfactory fit overall we find little evidence for the dependence of attenuation on focal depth or tectonic province

intensity relations for australian earthquakes although intensity data are essentially derived from qualitative observations they can be used to estimate basic earthquake parameters such as hypocentres and magnitudes particularly when instrumental observations are not available in this study the intensity information was used from 138 earthquakes to derive relations which enable earthquake magnitudes to be determined from intensity data the earthquakes ranged in size from ml 1 3 to ml 7 2 and the felt areas ranged from 8 km2 to 2 5 106 km2 we obtained the following results 1 ml 0 35 0 12 log rp 2 0 63 0 41 log rp 1 87 0 36 2 ml 0 38 0 19 log riv 2 0 49 0 66 log riv 2 38 0 57 3 ml 1 35 0 34 0 57 0 06 io 4 ml 0 024 0 014 k2 0 061 0 029 k 1 51 1 46 where io is the maximum observed modified mercalli mm intensity k the sponheuer earthquake parameter rp the equivalent radius of the mmiii isoseismal riv the equivalent radius of the mmiv isoseismal and ml the richter magnitude quadratic terms are necessary in relations 1 2 and 4 because of the breakdown of the simple kanai relation at distances close 10 km to the epicentre rather surprisingly it was found that for earthquakes smaller than ml 6 eqns 1 and 3 are more consistent with richter s results for california than with those obtained by nuttli et al for the eastern united states there is excellent agreement between our results and those obtained by sibol et al for central and eastern north america for estimating ml eqn 1 is preferred because the observations have a lower rms deviation about the line of least squares fit

source spectra for the 1988 saguenay quebec earthquakes abstract source spectra are obtained for the 1988 saguenay quebec earthquake m n 6 5 its foreshock m n 4 8 and largest aftershock m n 4 1 using recordings from analog and digital seismographs on rock sites at epicentral distances from 40 to 700 km the source spectra of the foreshock and the aftershock are well matched by a single corner frequency 2 model with seismic moments of 2 2 10 22 and 2 2 10 21 dyne cm respectively and a stress parameter of 65 bars for both events by contrast the spectrum of the mainshock differs dramatically from this simple shape a stress parameter of 500 bars is required to match the observed high frequency amplitudes using the seismic moment determined from teleseismic observations as a constraint this single corner frequency model however overestimates amplitudes at frequencies near 1 hz by a factor of about 2 the relative radiation of short and long period energy for the mainshock is inconsistent with that from other intraplate earthquakes the fore and aftershocks appear typical in this regard the extraction of source spectra from the regional data required a careful examination of attenuation azimuthal variations were observed with the attenuation being most severe to the southeast normal to the st lawrence valley and the dominant structural grain of the region the st lawrence river coincides in part with the boundary between the grenville and appalachian tectonic provinces and the difference in attenuation may be related to the difference in tectonic province the distribution of data however makes it difficult to obtain good estimates of the attenuation in each province lumping the data from both provinces and the three earthquakes together results in an anelastic attenuation factor given by q 755 f 0 5 for frequencies f from 0 6 to 18 hz using data at distances r beyond 100 km from the sources and assuming 1 r geometrical spreading this attenuation is similar to that obtained in a number of other studies in the general area three component recordings were available at a few stations and from these the following frequency dependent ratio of horizontal to vertical motion was obtained hiv 1 14 0 118 f 0 00638 f 2 for frequencies from 0 2 to 15 hz different methods of correcting observations for attenuation in order to derive source spectra were examined source spectra derived by simple regression analyses of observed data assuming a uniform medium are very similar to those based on a more complicated synthetic seismogram correction which accounts for wave propagation in a layered earth

multiple oscillatory modes of the argentine basin part ii the spectral origin of basin modes in this paper the spectrum of barotropic basin modes of the argentine basin is shown to be connected to the classical rossby basin modes of a flat bottom constant depth rectangular basin first the spectrum of basin modes is calculated for the argentine basin by performing a normal mode analysis of the barotropic shallow water equations then a homotopy transformation is performed that gradually morphs the full bathymetry geometry through a flat bottom configuration into a rectangular basin following the eigenmodes through this transition establishes a connection between most of the basin modes and the classical rossby basin modes of a rectangular geometry in particular the 20 day mode of the argentine basin is identified with the lowest order mode of classical theory sensitivity studies show that the decay rate of each mode is controlled by bottom friction but that it is insensitive to lateral friction lateral friction strongly impacts the oscillation frequency in addition the modes are found to be only slightly sensitive to the presence of a background flow

crustal structure of western tibet revealed by lg attenuation tomography abstract the lateral lg wave attenuation in western tibet and surrounding regions is studied a total of 706 two station method tsm and 533 reverse two station method rtsm pairs are generated from 282 regional earthquakes the earthquakes are recorded at 48 seismic stations operated across western kunlun and western tibet regions the lg phases are extracted from the vertical component of seismograms with magnitude greater than 4 6 mb and focal depth less than 50 km to measure the tsm and rtsm lg q at 1 hz q0 the lgq0 tomography map is generated with grid size 0 5 0 5 using the least squares orthogonal factor decomposition lsqr algorithm lateral variation of lg attenuation is found to exist across the region the results provide new insights into the attenuation properties of the crust and its linkage with regional geodynamics the low lgq0 200 is revealed in the central part of lhasa terrane in western tibet from both tsm and rtsm images the high lgq0 values complemented with the high pn velocities beneath the central part of lhasa terrane reveal the trace of underthrusting indian lithosphere beneath the western tibet

empirical attenuation of ground motion spectral amplitudes in southwestern western australia a dataset comprising some 389 strong and weak motion records for 69 events from the burakin 2001 2002 earthquake swarm and additional recent events is compiled to develop a regional ground motion model for the yilgarn craton southwestern western australia events range in size from moment magnitude 2 2 m 4 6 the decay of horizontal component spectral amplitudes can be approximated by a geometrical attenuation coefficient of r 1 0 within 80 km of the source the associated regional seismic quality factor can be expressed as q f 457 f 0 37 for frequencies 1 07 f 25 0 hz average corner frequencies for events with magnitude m 3 0 do not vary significantly with seismic moment m 0 indicating a steep distribution of m 0 versus corner frequency this causes anomalously low estimates of stress drop for smaller magnitude events m fourier spectral amplitudes corrected for geometric and anelastic attenuation were regressed with m to obtain quadratic attenuation coefficients modeled horizontal component displacement spectra fit the observed data well amplitude residuals predicted observed amplitudes are on average relatively small and do not vary significantly with hypocentral distance source spectra i e at r 1 km predicted from the regression parameters give self consistent amplitudes at low frequency f less than approximately 2 hz equivalent to predictive models from eastern north america ena for the same moment magnitude however our model predicts lower spectral amplitudes with increasing frequency as a consequence of the low stress drop events this is particularly apparent for the smaller magnitudes western australian source spectra begin to converge with ena models at increasing magnitudes if hypocentral distance is increased i e r 1 km the models begin to diverge at low frequencies owing to differences in geometrical attenuation coefficients the bulk of these data were recorded from an earthquake swarm with very shallow focal depths h

characteristics of short period wave propagation in regions of fennoscandia with emphasis on lg abstract wave propagation of crustal phases in particular lg near the arcess array in northern norway is examined and compared to propagation characteristics near the noress array in southern norway relying on array analysis we show that ray theory explanations of arrivals in local and regional seismograms are very useful in deducing the composition of the crustal wave trains frequency wavenumber analysis is applied to the array data to identify the arrivals then a composite of array beams is used to approximate each event record sections of composite seismograms are constructed for different directions from arcess to study propagational characteristics with distance and azimuth and then compared to composite seismogram record sections from noress to study different regional characteristics to model the observed character of lg and rg synthetic record sections are constructed by wavenumber integration in velocity models representative of structure in the different regions the results show that rg propagation distance varies significantly between regions and that the velocity gradient in the lower crust is the dominant factor in specifying lg characteristics in the baltic shield region lg is dominated by several discrete arrivals representing multiple moho reflections or by multiple moho reflections and turning waves with each multiple confined to a small distance range so that only one multiple set dominates at each distance furthermore we demonstrate that incomplete knowledge of the propagation characteristics leads to mislocations of local and regional events and inhibits source depth discrimination of events we identify three earthquakes in the arcess data set based on source depths these are constrained by phase velocities and depth phases none of which were properly identified by the automatic array detection software

simulating fracture and friction of aue granite under confined asymmetric compressive test using clumped particle model abstract fracture and friction behaviors of aue granite erzgebirge germany under confined asymmetric load are simulated using a clumped particle model in contrast to conventional circular bonded particle assemblies clumped particle models consist of groups of neighboring individual particles tied together to mimic unbreakable larger grains of irregular shape clumps an optimized clumped model is used for all calculations which is calibrated by the strength and deformation data from laboratory data of uniaxial and triaxial compression at a first order approximation the simulated fracture paths obtained from the clumped particle model match the observed fracture paths from laboratory experiments at various confinements under low confinement b values shows low b values in the fracturing regime and higher b values during stick slip and frictional sliding post failure regime which are in accordance with the laboratory findings

dem simulation of normal faults in cohesive materials abstract we performed discrete element method dem simulations of the formation of normal faults in a brittle cohesive material above a basement fault focusing on the formation of open fractures and cavities in areas of low normal stress i e near the surface of the model the simulations produce a wide range of fundamental structures similar to those observed in nature and in analogue models comparisons with these sandbox experiments show that the fundamental structures generated are similar between the analogue and the numerical models in a parameter study of the material properties and the model geometry we have investigated the effect of these parameters far beyond what is possible in analogue models over a range of parameters we show that the evolving structural style is robust i e all the models develop similar structures in a similar sequence results show a systematic dependence of some structural features such as location an style of faults on the simulation parameters in particular we observe that the maximum depth of the open fractures varies linearly with the cohesion suggesting that we can predict the depth of open cavities formed by tensile failure in natural fault systems if the material properties are known

constraints on locations of large intraplate earthquakes in the northern territory australia from observations at the warramunga seismic array three earthquakes of ms 6 3 6 4 and 6 7 near tennant creek northern territory australia on january 22 1988 produced 35 km of surface rupture in the precambrian shield the surface deformation consists of low angle 20 30 thrust faulting on 2 main scarps separated by a 7 km gap the kunayungku western fault and the eastern end of the lake surprise eastern fault dip to the south while the western end of the lake surprise fault dips to the north although these earthquakes are among the largest ever recorded on the australian continent there is no record of earthquakes larger than magnitude 5 within 500 km prior to 1987 data from the warramunga wra seismic array located 30 km east of the rupture show no local activity between 1965 and 1986 two small events in the fault area were observed in february 1986 and were followed by a series of 6 mb 4 to 5 2 earthquakes in january 1987 and their aftershocks the 1986 1987 and january 22 1988 mainshocks all nucleated within a zone about 5 km across from north to south but elongated radially away from wra by up to 30 km although the distribution of these events is in the direction of poorest hypocentral resolution we can place meaningful constraints on the epicenters by examining the range of solutions that fit the p arrival time data the 1986 and largest 1987 events were restricted to the western part of the fault zone the three mainshocks progressed from west to east suggesting that the kunayungku scarp was produced by the first mainshock and the west and east ends of the lake surprise scarp by the second and third respectively

lg coda q and its relation to the structure and evolution of continents a global perspective tomographic maps of lg coda q q lg c variation are now available for nearly the entire african eurasian south american and australian continents as well as for the united states q lg c at 1 hz q 0 varies from less than 200 to more than 1000 and q lg c frequency dependence varies between 0 0 and nearly 1 0 q 0 appears to increase in proportion to the length of time that has elapsed since the most recent major episode of tectonic or orogenic activity in any region a plot of q 0 versus time since that activity indicates that a single q 0 time relation approximates most mean q 0 values those that deviate most from the trend lay in australia the arabian peninsula and the east african rift the increase in q 0 with time may be due to a continual increase in crustal shear wave q q caused by the loss of crustal fluids and reduction of crustal permeability following tectonic or orogenic activity extrapolated values of q lg c at 5 hz using q 0 and values measured at 1 hz and assuming that is constant in all regions between 1 and 5 hz show a similar percentage wise increase with times that has elapsed since the most recent activity other factors that can reduce q 0 in continental regions include thick accumulations of sediment especially sandstone and shale of mesozoic age and younger severe velocity gradients at the crust mantle transition and possibly lateral variations in the depth thickness and severity of those gradients severe and large increases of q in the mid crust of some regions can cause relatively large values of even if the frequency dependence of q is small

attenuation of multiphase surface waves in the basin and range province iii inversion for crustal anelasticity summary a combined inversion forward modelling procedure in which the frequency dependence of shear wave internal friction q 1 is allowed to vary with depth was developed and applied to selected rayleigh wave and lg attenuation data in the basin and range province of the south western united states both q and the frequency dependence of lg waves were used to constrain the models many models can explain rayleigh wave and lg data sets within their uncertainties but at 1 hz most have low values of q 50 80 in the upper 8 km of the crust rapidly increasing values to about 1000 at mid crustal depths and decreasing values at greater depths models which include a layer of higher q values 80 150 in the upper few kilometres of the crust overlying a region of lower q values cannot be precluded by the attenuation data of this study assuming that q varies with frequency as f models for which the frequency dependence is low 0 0 0 1 in the upper crust best explain the data of this study in the lower crust that frequency dependence is not well determined but the models which best explain both the fundamental mode and lg data and produce realistic models of q are characterized at 1 hz by high values of both q and its frequency dependence because of that frequency dependence q may be an order of magnitude lower at a period of 100 s 100 than it is at 1 s 1000 investigations of the effects of changing crustal velocity on values for lg q and its frequency dependence indicate that realistic velocity changes cause only small changes in those values and thus are inconsequential to our results the low q values and their constancy with frequency in the uppermost crust can be explained by fluid flow in a network of cracks in brittle rock increasing q with depth to 10 15 km can be explained by the closing of those cracks due to pressure and their enhanced healing with increasing temperature plastic flow at greater depths may contribute further to the dissipation of cracks and to further increases in q decreasing q values at greater depths can be explained as being the result of increasing temperature increasing content of partial melt enhanced dislocation motion or some combination of these effects

the upper mantle s and p velocity structure beneath northern australia from broad band observations abstract good coverage of seismic wave propagation through the upper part of the mantle can be obtained for sources in the earthquake belt through indonesia and new guinea recorded at broad band seismometers in the northern territory of australia the midpoints of the propagation paths lie along the northern margin of the australian continent most of the observations come from a guralp cmg3 seismometer at the warramunga array but these have been supplemented by field deployments using comparable instrumentation two groups of sources 1 along the flores arc indonesia with propagation under northwestern australia and 2 in new guinea with paths to the nne of the array have been used to construct composite record sections for p sv and sh waves over the distance range 1250 3600 km the choice of the two source zones was based on earlier short period studies and the broad band observations confirm the presence of noticeable differences in p velocity profiles for paths whose turning points are separated by about 1000 km the s waves recorded on the radial sv and tangential sh components are of comparable quality because the hard rock recording sites minimise the influence of coupling to p on the radial component as the p and s sections are prepared from the same events we are able to make direct estimates of p s velocity ratios for the mantle transition zone this ratio increases from 1 77 at the top of the mantle to 1 85 at the 410 km transition indicating that the s wave velocity gradients are rather lower than might be expected however through the transition zone down to 660 km the s wave gradients increase and the p s velocity ratio is less than 1 81 below the 660 km transition there is a significant difference in the frequency content of p and s waves beyond 2000 km the p waves remain high frequency but the s waves returned from the transition zone and below are of intermediate period 0 25 0 3 hz associated with significant attenuation zone for s beneath 210 km

simulation of the frictional stick slip instability a lattice solid model capable of simulating rock friction fracture and the associated seismic wave radiation is developed in order to study the origin of the stick slip instability that is responsible for earthquakes the model consists of a lattice of interacting particles in order to study the effect of surface roughness on the frictional behavior of elastic blocks being rubbed past one another the simplest possible particle interactions were specified corresponding to radially dependent elastic brittle bonds the model material can therefore be considered as round elastic grains with negligible friction between their surfaces although breaking of the bonds can occur fracturing energy is not considered stick slip behavior is observed in a numerical experiment involving 2d blocks with rough surfaces being rubbed past one another at a constant rate slip is initiated when two interlocking asperities push past one another exciting a slip pulse the pulse fronts propagate with speeds ranging from the rayleigh wave speed up to a value between the shear and compressional wave speeds in agreement with field observations and theoretical analyses of mode ii rupture slip rates are comparable to seismic rates in the initial part of one slip pulse whose front propagates at the rayleigh wave speed however the slip rate is an order of magnitude higher in the main part of pulses possibly because of the simplified model description that neglected intrinsic friction and the high rates at which the blocks were driven or alternatively uncertainty in slip rates obtained through the inversion of seismograms particle trajectories during slip have motions normal to the fault indicating that the fault surfaces jump apart during the passage of the slip pulse normal motion is expected as the asperities on the two surfaces ride over one another the form of the particle trajectories is similar to those observed in stick slip experiments involving foam rubber blocks bruneet al 1993 additional work is required to determine whether the slip pulses relate to the interface waves proposed by brune and co workers to explain the heat flow paradox and whether they are capable of inducing a significant local reduction in the normal stress it is hoped that the progressive development of the lattice solid model will lead to realistic simulations of earthquake dynamics and ultimately provide clues as to whether or not earthquakes are predictable

lg wave attenuation in britain summary the lg wave quality factor qlg in britain has been modelled using data from the uk seismic network operated by the british geological survey the data set consists of 631 vertical mostly short period recordings of lg waves from 64 earthquakes 2 7 4 7 ml and 93 stations we have inverted for both regional average qlg and tomographic images of qlg and simultaneously a source term for each event and a site term for each station for 22 frequencies in the band 0 9 10 0 hz the regional average model is 266 f 0 53 between 1 0 and 10 0 hz and indicates that attenuation in britain is slightly higher than in france and significantly higher than in eastern north america and scandinavia tomographic inversions at each frequency indicate that qlg varies spatially broadly speaking southeastern england the lake district and parts of the east irish sea basin and a small region between the highland boundary fault and the southern uplands fault are characterized by higher than average attenuation southwestern england eastern central england and northwestern scotland are regions of relatively low attenuation to some extent these regions correlate with what is known about the tectonics and structure of the crust in the uk

finite difference modelling of lg blockage summary a p sv finite difference method is used to calculate seismic wave propagation in the crust and upper mantle the anelastic effect is excluded from the calculation and therefore any wavefield changes can be attributed to either geometrical or structural effects snapshots of displacement distrihutions within and synthetic seismograms at the free surface of different models revealed that the inclusion of a water column over an appropriate section of the crust is necessary to explain the severe lg attenuation widely observed in many parts of the world in particular for an oceanic propagation path they clearly show that the effect of a water column over the crust is an important factor in blocking lg piupagation a propagation path of more than 100 km over an oceanic crust can completely block the transmission of lg waves originating in a neighbouring continental crust the energy of the lg wavetrain is redistributed at continental margins most of the incoming energy is either converted to waves which propagate into the mantle or is backscattered to form waves which propagatc in the continental crust in the opposite direction very little energy is presented at the expected arrival times at the other side of the oceanic crust which is consistent with the lg blocking phenomena simplified 2 d models of the north sea central graben are used to simulate lg propagation in a laterally varying continental path the inclusion of a water column over the crust enhances the attenuation of lg the deeper the water column the greater the attenuation the undulation of sea bottom can further enhance the attenuation of lg

an improved uk local magnitude scale from analysis of shear and lg wave amplitudes the amplitudes of shear and lg waves recorded at uk seismograph stations from local earthquakes in the range 0 600 km have been subjected to an analysis of variance allowing separation of the effects of earthquake size distance and station corrections for each recording site the propagation paths sample mainly the central to western part of the uk with good north south coverage the analysis of 385 amplitude readings at 28 stations from 40 earthquakes showed that the effects of both distance and station site corrections were statistically significant tables of corrections for both distance and station effects have been derived to allow local magnitude ml to be determined more accurately from horizontal and vertical component records one set of tables allows the estimation of an ml which is consistent with the original richter definition of ml with a standard deviation which is smaller than that produced by the theoretical attenuation curve defined according to attenuation in southern california which has customarily been used to calculate ml in the uk the reduction in standard deviation is mainly due to the incorporation of station terms to correct for station effects since the theoretical and observed variations of attenuation with distance are similar this similarity implies that southern california and the uk show a similar variation of distance dependent attenuation for lg waves which was not expected in view of the differences in geology and tectonics another set of tables is provided to calculate an ml which is consistent with the body wave magnitude mb determined by the international data centre from station records of the comprehensive test ban treaty organization s global monitoring network the decay with distance of the predominantly lg wave amplitude values gives a value of 440 50 for lg q at a frequency of 3 hz in agreement with estimates obtained from spectral displacement amplitudes of lg waves in the uk

attenuation of high frequency shear waves in the crust measurements from new york state south africa and southern california we compare the attenuation of high frequency 3 30 hz shear waves for crustal paths in new york state south africa and southern california over source receiver distances of about 10 400 km the data consist of digital recordings of s waves 5 100 km and lg waves 100 400 km produced by earthquakes we use a coda normalization method to remove the effects of site amplification and source excitation from the amplitudes of the s and lg waves over the entire distance range studied 10 400 km the amplitude decay of 3 hz shear wave energy is considerably less for the tectonicaily stable areas of new york and south africa than for the tectonicaily active region of southern california high frequency 30 hz s wave attenuation is significantly less for new york and south africa than for southern california for distances between 15 and 90 km we parameterize the decay with distance r of coda normalized shear wave amplitudes with a frequency independent q and geometrical spreading exponent where geometrical spreading is proportional to r for new york state the s wave amplitude decay 3 30 hz is well described by a frequency independent q of 2100 330 490 and of 1 3 0 1 the decay of lg wave amplitudes from 3 to 15 hz in the new york state region is fit with a frequency independent q of 1600 280 330 of 0 70 0 2 the s wave amplitudes 3 30hz in south africa yield a q of 1500 190 380 and of 1 3 0 1 fixing the geometrical spreading at r 0 5 produces an lg wave q estimate at 3 hz in south africa of 360 50 80 this lg wave q is low considering that south africa is a cratonic tectonicaily stable area the s wave amplitudes from southern california are described with a frequency independent q of 800 150 240 and a large geometrical spreading exponent of of 1 9 0 2 we find an lg wave q at 3 hz of 260 30 for southern california after constraining the geometrical spreading at r 0 5

discrete element modeling of boudinage insights on rock rheology matrix flow and evolution of geometry 1 we use discrete element model simulations to model the full boudinage process from initial fracturing of intact material to post fracture flow of material into gaps between fragments and to investigate the role which the material properties of the weak and strong layers play in this process the models are deformed in 2d plane strain under a range of confining stresses in coaxial bulk flow results show that the material properties i e mohr coulomb or quasi viscous for the matrix and elastic brittle for the competent layer lead to the development of natural looking boudin morphologies and deformation patterns in the matrix the details of the matrix rheology only have a minor influence on the morphology of the boudins by varying the material properties of the competent layer between fully brittle and semi ductile we obtain a wide range of deformation patterns ranging from pinch and swell structures to a variety of boudin types including drawn shear band and straight sided torn boudins in a number of models we observe rotation of the boudin blocks despite the applied deformation being purely coaxial these rotations are generally related to asymmetrical rhombic boudin shapes some features observed in natural boudins such as concave block faces or the formation of veins between fragments are not modeled because pore fluids are not yet included in our model

attenuation of ground motion in the eastern united states abstract frequency dependent attenuation of ground motion in the eastern united states is investigated for both vertical and horizontal components of motion this is accomplished by digitizing and analyzing three component short period long range seismic measurements data from over 200 earthquake station pairs with epicentral distances less than about 1000 km pseudo relative velocity as well as velocity response spectra for 5 per cent damping are obtained for the frequency range of 0 5 to 7 hz a multi variate least squares inversion is used to derive the station and source terms as well as the mean q analysis of data for the entire eastern united states indicates q values for the vertical and horizontal components to be indistinguishable substantial increase in q with frequency a factor of about 2 from 1 to 7 hz large as much as a factor of 20 in amplitude site terms for both the vertical and horizontal components and the mean ratio of the peak horizontal to peak vertical component to be a stable characteristic of the site large regional variations in q are also indicated by subsets of data such as for the central united states and the appalachian mountains region

measurement of frequency dependent lg attenuation in the great basin measurement of the spatial decay of spectral amplitudes of the higher mode seismic surface wave train lg indicates that in the great basin the apparent seismic quality factor q is a function of frequency observations along a 300 km profile recording of a nuclear explosion yield the function q 206 0 68 over the band 0 3 10 0 hz similar analysis using numerous recordings of earthquakes along paths which provide a good average sampling of the great basin crust gives q 214 15 0 54 0 09 for 0 3 5 0 hz if the crustal sampling by lg energy from nuclear explosions surface sources is primarily in the shallow crust as has been suggested then these results indicate a greater frequency dependence of apparent q there than at depth

regional variation of lg coda q in the continental united states and its relation to crustal structure and evolution records from broadband digital stations have allowed us to map regional variations of lg coda q across almost the entire united states using a stacked ratio method we obtained estimates of q 0 lg coda q at 1 hz and its frequency dependence for 218 event station pairs those sets of estimates were inverted using a back projection method to obtain tomographic images showing regional variations of q 0 and q 0 is lowest 250 300 in the california coastal regions and the western part of the basin and range province and highest 650 750 in the northern appalachians and a portion of the central lowlands intermediate values occur in the colorado plateau 300 500 the columbia plateau 300 400 the rocky mountains 450 550 the great plains 500 650 the gulf coastal plain and the southern portion of atlantic coastal plain 400 500 and the portions of the central lowlands surrounding the high q region 500 550 the pattern of q 0 variations suggests that the united states can be divided into two large q provinces one province spans the area from the rocky mountains to the atlantic coast is tectonically stable and exhibits relatively high q 0 the other extends westward from the approximate western margin of the rocky mountains to the pacific coast is tectonically active and exhibits low q 0 the transition from high to low lg coda q in the western united states lies further to the west than does an upper mantle transition for q and electrical resistivity found in earlier studies the difference in q 0 between the western and eastern united states can be attributed to a greater amount of interstitial crustal fluids in the west regions of moderately reduced q within the stable platform often occur where there are accumulations of mesozoic and younger sediments reduced q 0 in the southeastern united states may not be due to anelasticity but may rather be explained by a gradational velocity increase at the crust mantle boundary that causes shear energy to leak into the mantle

lg attenuation tomographic models of himalaya and southern tibet abstract we investigate the lg attenuation structure of the crust beneath the tectonically complex himalaya and southern tibet regions adopting a tomographic regionalization method a total of 1671 earthquake waveforms registered at 38 seismic stations operated in the region are selected for the initial lgq measurements using the standard two station method q0 1 hz lgq values of 76 high quality interstation paths are finally considered as input for the tomographic inversion the estimates of q0 exhibit distinct variations in the crustal attenuation from north to south across the whole region the zones of lowest q0 values

low frequency waves in the santa barbara channel observed by high frequency radar are antisymmetric with a mean propagation speed of 5k m d 1 and relative vorticity of order 0 1 f complex empirical orthogonal function decomposition in the 10 20 day passband partitions variance into two dominant modes the first mode represents the vortices with an average period of 14 4 days the second mode represents alongshore fluctuations with an average period of 13 3 days amplitude functions of the two modes correlate with in situ current time series at 5 and 45 m depths obtained from moorings at the east and west channel entrances suggesting coupling with the larger scale circulation of the northern southern california bight the observations support interpretation of mode 2 as a coastal trapped wave since the period and alongshore flow are consistent with previous observations and predictions we hypothesize that mode 1 is a resonant response of the santa barbara basin in the form of a trapped topographic rossby mode the spatial mode resembles the predicted pattern based on a simplified analytical model of the fundamental mode the amplitude of mode 1 is consistently large when the frequencies of modes 1 and 2 converge suggesting that the vortices are a basin scale resonant response to coastal trapped waves index terms 4520 oceanography physical eddies and mesoscale processes 4512 oceanography physical currents 4508 oceanography physical coriolis effects 4516 oceanography physical eastern boundary currents 4544 oceanography physical internal and inertial waves keywords propagating eddies santa barbara channel coastal trapped waves citation beckenbach e and l washburn 2004 low frequency waves in the santa barbara channel observed by high frequency radar j geophys res 109 c02010 doi 10 1029 2003jc001999

aftershocks of the 1988 january 22 tennant creek australia intraplate earthquakes evidence for a complex thrust fault geometry summary on 1988 january 22 three earthquakes of ms 6 3 6 7 occurred in a 12 hr period near tennant creek northern territory in the proterozoic north australian craton and produced 32 km of surface rupture on two main scarps the lake surprise scarp is shaped like a boomerang with the east arm trending ese and the west arm wsw the kunayungku scarp lies 7 km to the northwest and trends ese locations of 211 aftershocks determined using data from portable seismograph arrays define a 10 km by 40 km aftershock zone elongated parallel to the trend of the surface ruptures in the western and eastern part of the fault zone aftershocks occur only south of the kunayungku and eastern lake surprise scarps respectively in the central section in contrast aftershocks lie primarily to the north of the western arm of the lake surprise scarp focal depths range from the surface to 8km in all sections the shallowest earthquakes lie closest to the scarps whereas deeper events lie further away in cross section the aftershocks lie in three distinct inclined zones which delineate fault surfaces ruptured by the main shocks aftershocks are concentrated near the edges of the inferred fault surfaces suggesting that stress was relieved in the centre of the faults by rupture during the main shocks the inferred fault plane dips are 45 to the ssw for the kunayungku fault 55 to the nnw for the western lake surprise fault and 35 to the ssw for the eastern lake surprise fault these dip directions are consistent with the sense of thrust movement inferred from surface deformation the reversal of fault dip and sense of movement between the central and end segments requires a complicated fault geometry the aftershock data would allow a second south dipping plane in the central section that does not intersect the surface this blind fault may be responsible for much of the moment release interpreted from the modelling of broad band teleseismic waveforms choy bowman 1989 rupture of the north dipping plane may have been controlled by a pre existing fault marked at the surface by a quartz ridge 5 km long and may be of secondary importance although the quartz ridge suggests previous faulting the absence of significant topographic relief together with estimates of erosion rates suggest an average repeat time in excess of 104yr preliminary interpretation of water withdrawal histories and water level data from a borefield adjacent to the eastern lake surprise scarp does not support a causal relationship between the borefield and the occurrence of the earthquakes the nearby warramunga wra seismic array provides a record of local earthquake activity from 1965 to the present the fault area was essentially aseismic until two small earthquakes in 1986 february and a series of six magnitude 4 5 earthquakes in 1987 january which were followed by more than 1000 aftershocks the frequency of occurrence of aftershocks declined very slowly in 1987 with p 0 2 in the modified omori formula whereas for the 1988 aftershock sequence p 1 the low p during 1987 may have been diagnostic of high stress in the source and water authority provided partial financial support for j r b and g g

ausmoho the variation of moho depth in australia summary since 2004 more than 7000 km of full crustal reflection profiles have been collected across australia to give a total of more than 11000 km providing valuable new constraints on crustal structure a further set of hitherto unexploited results comes from 150 receiver functions distributed across the continent mostly from portable receiver sites these new data sets provide a dramatic increase in data coverage compared with previous studies and reveal the complex structure of the australian continent in considerable detail a new comprehensive model for moho depth across australia and its immediate environment is developed by utilizing multiple sources of information on shore and off shore refraction experiments are supplemented by receiver functions from a large number of portable stations and the recently augmented set of permanent stations and moho picks from the full suite of reflection transects the composite data set provides a much denser sampler of most of the continent than before though coverage remains low in the remote areas of the simpson and great sandy deserts the various data sets provide multiple estimates of the depth to moho in many regions and the consistency between the different techniques is high in a number of instances differences in estimates of moho depth can be associated with the aspects of the structure highlighted by the particular methods the new results allow considerable refinement of the patterns of moho depth across the continent some of the thinnest crust lies beneath the archean cratons in the pilbara and the southern part of the yilgarn thick crust is encountered beneath parts of the proterozoic in central australia and beneath the palaeozoic lachlan fold belt in southeastern australia the refined data indicate a number of zones of sharp contrast in depth to moho notably in the southern part of central australia

attenuation of ground motion spectral amplitudes in southeastern australia a dataset comprising some 1200 weak and strong motion records from 84 earthquakes is compiled to develop a regional ground motion model for southeastern australia sea events were recorded from 1993 to 2004 and range in size from moment magnitude 2 0 m 4 7 the decay of vertical component fourier spectral amplitudes is modeled by trilinear geometrical spreading the decay of low frequency spectral amplitudes can be approximated by the coefficient of r 1 3 where r is hypocentral distance within 90 km of the seismic source from approximately 90 to 160 km we observe a transition zone in which the seismic coda are affected by postcritical reflections from midcrustal and moho discontinuities in this hypocentral distance range geometrical spreading is approximately r 0 1 beyond 160 km low frequency seismic energy attenuates rapidly with source receiver distance having a geometrical spreading coefficient of r 1 6 the associated regional seismic quality factor can be expressed by the polynomial log q f 3 66 1 44 log f 0 768 log f 2 0 058 log f 3 for frequencies 0 78 f 19 9 hz fourier spectral amplitudes corrected for geometrical spreading and anelastic attenuation are regressed with m to obtain quadratic source scaling coefficients modeled vertical component displacement spectra fit the observed data well amplitude residuals are on average relatively small and do not vary with hypocentral distance predicted source spectra i e at r 1 km are consistent with eastern north american ena models at low frequencies f less than approximately 2 hz indicating that moment magnitudes calculated for sea earthquakes are consistent with moment magnitude scales used in ena over the observed magnitude range the models presented represent the first spectral ground motion prediction equations developed for the southeastern australian region this work provides a useful framework for the development of regional ground motion relations for earthquake hazard and risk assessment in sea

differences in attenuation among the stable continental regions 1 there are systematic differences in the attenuation of damaging earthquake ground motions between different stable continental regions scrs seismic intensity and weak motion data show that the attenuation in seismic waves for eastern north america ena is less than for india africa australia and northwest europe if ena ground motion attenuation relations are used in seismic hazard models for other scrs as is commonly done then the estimated ground motions and resulting hazard may be too large if an attenuation model that averages observations from ena and the other scrs is used to estimate the magnitudes of large historical earthquakes in ena as is the case for recent estimates of m for the 1811 1812 new madrid missouri and the 1886 charleston south carolina events then the magnitude estimates for these events will be too large as will be the resulting hazard

lg coda q in australia and its relation to crustal structure and evolution we have determined lg coda q lg c from ground motion recorded at seven broadband stations in australia using a stacked spectral ratio method in spite of the relatively small number of events and less than optimum station coverage we were able to use those data to obtain a tomographic map q lg c and its frequency dependence at 1 hz for almost the entire island continent

comparison of earthquake source spectra and attenuation in eastern north america and southeastern australia abstract the paucity of ground motion data in stable continental regions scrs remains a key limitation when developing relations that seek to predict effects of strong ground shaking from large damaging earthquakes it is desirable to combine data from more than one scr in order to increase database size but this raises questions as to whether the source and attenuation properties of the scrs are equivalent we merge recently compiled spectral amplitude databases from small to moderate events moment magnitudes 2 0 m 5 0 in both southeastern australia and eastern north america in order to compare the key characteristics of ground motion in these two regions both are scrs but are widely separated spatially and in tectonic history we statistically compare ground motions by plotting mean and standard deviations of spectral amplitudes for data grouped in magnitude and distance bins these comparisons show that the source and attenuation properties of the two regions are very similar particularly at shorter hypocentral distances