most and least likely locations of large to great earthquakes along the pacific coast of mexico estimated from local recurrence times based on b values we mapped t l and p l local recurrence time and local probability density respectively for m max 7 2 earthquakes along the plate margin of the pacific coast of mexico in order to test two hypotheses the first is that the minima in t l or maxima in p l extracted probabilistically from the frequency magnitude distribution map asperities the second hypothesis is that recurrence times for characteristic events are estimated more correctly by local recurrence times than by the overall recurrence times of the zone comparing these results to the observed recurrence times for events of m 7 0 we find good agreement the coast of guerrero between longitude west 100 5 and 101 5 and the segment off the coast of southern chiapas show the shortest t l estimated as about 20 yr the location at longitude 98 5 near the boundary of guerrero with oaxaca the ometepec segment follows with estimates of about 30 yr as the next shortest t l along the coast of guerrero between 99 and 100 5 longitude t l is estimated as about 40 yr and finally in the segments off the oaxacan coast near 95 7 and 97 7 longitude t l ranges from 40 to 60 yr these volumes we define as asperities long local recurrence times are observed for the areas offshore from the isthmus of tehuantepec on the pacific plate off the coast of guerrero on land along the coast of most of oaxaca and along the northernmost 40 km of the guerrero coast if our ideas are correct then major moment release should emanate from the volumes we defined as asperities and relatively minor moment release should emanate from the volumes identified by the relatively long local recurrence times

earthquake scaling laws for creeping and non creeping faults the dependence of the summed moment release on the fault dimension differs between non creeping faults and creeping faults or volcanic regions this can be attributed to different earthquake scaling laws the number n of events with fault length l scales for non creeping faults as n l l 2 and for creeping faults as n l l 3 this difference offers a means for mapping the distribution of creep in the seismogenic crust

the relative timing of serpentinisation and mantle exhumation at the ocean continent transition iberia constraints from oxygen isotopes legs 173 and 149 of the ocean drilling program profiled a zone of exhumed mantle peridotite at the ocean continent transition oct beneath the iberia abyssal plain the zone of exhumed peridotite appears to be tens of kilometers wide and is situated betw

how do asperities fracture an experimental study of unbroken asperities abstract the fracture of a shear fault containing several unbroken asperities in a granitic porphyry is examined in detail via acoustic emission ae data collected by a high speed multi channel waveform recording system the experimental results reveal that a quasi static nucleation of the shear faulting corresponds to the fracture of coupled asperities on the fault plan aes caused by the fracture of individual asperities exhibit similar characteristics to the sequence for natural earthquakes including foreshock mainshock and aftershock events foreshocks initiated at the edge of the asperity occur with an event rate that increases according to a power law of the temporal distance to the mainshock and with a decreasing b value from 1 1 to 0 5 one or a few mainshocks then initiate at the edge of the asperity or the front of the foreshocks the aftershock period is characterized by a remarkable increase and subsequent gradual decrease in b value and a decreasing event rate obeying the modified omori law which has been well established for earthquakes the fracture of neighboring asperities is then initiated after the mainshock of a particular asperity presumably due to redistribution of the strain energy accumulated within an asperity which is released by the mainshock resulting in enhancement of the stress concentration around the nearest neighboring intact asperities the progressive fracturing of multiple coupled asperities during the nucleation of shear faulting results in short term precursory fluctuations in both b value and event rate which may prove useful information in the prediction of failure of the main fault plane of seismic earthquakes

a stable isotope study of serpentinization and metamorphism in the highland border suite scotland u k abstract d h and 18 o 16 o ratios have been measured for whole rock samples and mineral separates from the mafic and ultramatic rocks of the cambro ordovician highland border suite the h and o isotopic compositions of these rocks record individual stages in a relatively complex 500 myr old hydrothermal metamorphic history lizardite serpentinites d 105 18 o 6 2 record a premetamorphic history and indicate that parent harzburgites dunites and pyroxenites were serpentinized through low temperature interaction with meteoric waters during cooling the other rocks of the highland border suite record subsequent interaction with metamorphic fluids amphibolite facies hornblende schists were produced through thrust related dynamothermal metamorphism of spilitic pillow lavas during dehydration d enriched fluids were driven off from the spilites thus leaving the hornblende schists to equilibrate with a relatively d depleted internal fluid reservoir d 45 the expelled d enriched fluids may have mixed with more typical dalradian metamorphic waters which then exchanged with the remaining mafic rocks and lizardite serpentinites during greenschist facies regional metamorphism to produce antigorite serpentinites d 62 18 o 8 and greenschist metaspilites d 57 18 o 7 3 with similar h and o isotopic compositions serpentinites which have been only partially metamorphosed show intermediate h isotopic compositions between that of metamorphic antigorite d 62 and non metamorphic lizardite d 105 end members

δ2h of water from fluid inclusions in proterozoic halite evidence for a deuterium depleted hydrosphere abstract 2h were measured in water present in tiny primary fluid inclusions trapped in mesoproterozoic 1 4 ga and neoproterozoic 0 8 ga halite crystals while the hydrogen concentrations range from 300 to 1500 ppm for the whole sample collection 2h values range from 74 to 54 vsmow for the mesoproterozoic halite sampled from the sibley group ontario canada and from 89 to 38 for the neoproterozoic halite from the browne formation officer basin australia the amount of evaporation required to precipitate halite is accompanied by a deuterium enrichment of 30 to 90 it means that the original aqueous solutions had 2h values comprised between 140 and 90 considering the estimated tropical paleolatitudes for both depositional environments surface waters were most likely significantly deuterium depleted relative to modern ones if such interpretation is partly at variance with the geological record it could be reconciliated with some modelling outputs of the long term water cycle indeed several mechanisms produce a progressive deuterium enrichment of the oceans those identified so far are the addition of deuterium rich extraterrestrial water cometary dust the loss of h during water photodissociation by ultraviolet radiation in the upper atmosphere and the isotopic fractionation that takes place during the hydroxylation of nominally anhydrous mantle rock forming minerals we also propose that the major process able to shift through time the 2 of the hydrosphere is the reduction of h2o into h2 during the serpentinization of mantle rocks at mid ocean ridges

mapping asperities by minima of local recurrence time san jacinto elsinore fault zones minima of the local recurrence time tl m are correlated with the locations of historical main shocks in the san jacinto sj elsinore e fault zones of southern california we define tl m as the recurrence time calculated from the local b and a values of the frequency magnitude distribution earthquakes within 6 and 10 km from each point in the sj and e fault zones respectively we propose that anomalously low tl m values map asperities out of six historic main shocks 1899 1968 five ruptured substantial parts of four asperities mapped by our method which uses solely the modern earthquake catalog m 1 2 1981 0 1998 8 we estimate the probability for this correlation to occur at random as 10 2 to 10 3 depending on the scenario chosen it appears that the minima in tl m are tied to minima in b values more than to maxima in a values thus locations of low b values can also be used as an indication where asperities may be located and where main shocks are most likely the anza gap a segment of the san jacinto fault with low a values is mapped as an asperity by our method the heterogeneity in b values is strong throughout the study area the b values range from 0 5 to 1 8 over distances of 10 km volumes with approximately constant b values have radii of r 8 6 km our results suggest that detailed mapping of b values and local recurrence times in volumes with a few kilometers radius reveals important information about the local seismic hazard hitherto untapped by conventional seismicity analyses

locked and creeping patches along the hayward fault california the results of mapping locked and unlocked patches on the hayward fault using the local recurrence time method are compared with models derived from surface creep and geodetic measurements the data used were the m 1 0 earthquakes in the usgs catalog since 1981 0 located within 5 km of the fault trace along the central and southern segments agreement with the other methods is satisfactory the 1868 rupture except for its two ends is classified as a locked segment by our method in the northern part of the hayward fault the data are poor and the results of the three methods differ short local recurrence times in the northern part suggest that an asperity exists there which is capable of an m6 5 class event

anisotropic response of surface currents to the wind in a coastal region analysis of coastal surface currents measured off the coast of san diego for two years suggests an anisotropic and asymmetric response to the wind probably as a result of bottom coastline boundary effects including pressure gradients in a linear regression the statistically estimated anisotropic response explains approximately 20 more surface current variance than an isotropic wind ocean response model after steady wind forcing for three days the isotropic surface current response veers 42 86 28 to the right of the wind regardless of wind direction whereas the anisotropic analysis suggests that the upcoast onshore wind stress generates surface currents with 10 86 48 71 86 38 to the right of the wind direction the anisotropic response thus reflects the dominance of alongshore currents in this coastal region both analyses yield winddriven currents with 3 5 of the wind speed as expected in addition nonlinear isotropic and anisotropic response functions are considered and the asymmetric current responses to the wind are examined these results provide a comprehensive statistical model of the wind driven currents in the coastal region which has not been well identified in previous field studies but is qualitatively consistent with descriptions of the current response in coastal ocean models

seismicity patterns are they always related to natural causes by analyzing data from two catalogs of seismicity one local and one regional examples are drawn that demonstrate artificial seismicity patterns which can arise when changes in magnitude reporting or in detection ability are introduced by changes in operating procedures of a seismic network in the first case a catalog which comprises seismic data from guerrero mexico is revised and a correction is applied to magnitudes suspected of being affected by different operative practices next several time windows are analyzed which compare the seismicity rate within the window to that of the total record mapped as a function of space the same procedure is applied to the original i e uncorrected catalog a significant seismic quiescence apparent in the original data set in the center of the seismic network all but disappears in the corrected data indicating that this anomaly is not naturally induced in the second case we investigate the homogeneity of seismicity reporting for the interior of alaska we computed the standard deviate z as a function of time by comparing the overall seismicity rate with the rate in a 3 year window the maps z values were inspected for all times the most outstanding rate change is found around 1992 5 since the b value remained unchanged the most reasonable explanation for the observed rate change around mid 1992 is a decrease in the detection ability of the network in the interior of alaska both case studies demonstrate the usefulness of systematic comparisons of the cumulative and noncumulative frequency magnitude distribution and of spatial and temporal mapping of the seismicity rates as a tool to investigate the homogeneity of earthquake reporting

interplate coupling and transient slip along the subduction interface beneath oaxaca mexico summary we describe and model gps measurements of surface deformation from the oaxaca segment of the mexican subduction zone to characterize interseismic strain accumulation and episodic transient slip in this region and test seismologically based models of strain accumulation and release along subduction interfaces deformation measured from 2001 to 2007 within our dense 31 station gps array has consisted of 1 trench normal horizontal contraction at rates that decrease monotonically inland from the coast 2 rapid coastal subsidence that changes gradually to slow uplift at locations more than 100 km inland and 3 periods of transient slip that interrupt the otherwise steady deformation inverse modelling of transient station offsets in 2004 and 2006 indicates that transient slip along the subduction interface occurred downdip from the rupture limits of previous large earthquakes in this region in both 2004 and 2006 gps site velocities that are corrected for the effects of this transient slip vary significantly over distances of only tens of kilometres both along the coastline and inland implying that similar spatial variations occur in the degree of locking across the subduction interface deformation rates measured along the coast reach their maximum above the core of the rupture zone of the 1978 ms 7 8 shallow thrust earthquake and generally decrease outwards towards the edges of the rupture zone bounded value inverse modelling of the interseismic gps velocity field with a finite element mesh that simulates the study region indicates that much of the rupture zone of the 1978 shallow thrust earthquake is fully locked at the plate convergence rate but that this region is surrounded by weakly locked areas of the subduction interface which may slow or arrest the propagation of future earthquakes much of the deeper region of transient slip downdip from the seismogenic zone is also fully locked between the episodes of transient slip however the elastic energy that accumulated due to locking of this deeper transitional zone between 2002 and 2006 appears to have been mostly or completed released by the 2004 and early 2006 transient slip events the approximately balanced energy budget for the deeper zone of transient slip implies that this region is unlikely to contribute significant elastic energy to future earthquakes that originate along the seismogenic zone our results support a model in which seismic asperities coincide with regions of strong locking between earthquakes the potential elastic energy that has re accumulated since 1978 in the seismogenic zone is already sufficient to cause a repeat of the 1978 earthquake

chlorine isotope chemistry of serpentinites from elba italy as an indicator of fluid source and subsequent tectonic history chlorine concentrations and 37cl and d values are reported for serpentinites in different tectonic positions on elba italy serpentinites from high in the nappe sequence contain 0 01 0 1wt cl with 37cl values from 0 9 to 1 4 samples with positive 37cl values occur beneath gabbro and basalt and are interpreted as having been serpentinized by interaction with seawater samples with negative 37cl values are in direct contact with sedimentary rocks these samples were juxtaposed against and or buried by sediments in response to low angle normal faulting on the seafloor and serpentinization probably occurred by subsequent interaction with sedimentary pore fluids most samples from a structurally lower nappe and from areas affected by contact metamorphism lost their original cl during heating low d values for all samples suggest postserpentinization interaction with meteoric water but neither cl nor o isotope ratios were affected by this interaction our results demonstrate that chlorine can be retained in obducted serpentinites up to low greenschist conditions and that the cl isotope composition of such serpentinites preserves a record of seafloor tectonic processes

relationship between subduction and seismicity in the mexican part of the middle america trench two catalogs of earthquakes in the mexican part of the middle america trench are analyzed to elucidate principal relations between structure of the subducting cocos plate and seismicity a catalog of historical events that have occurred during the last two centuries with large magnitudes ms 6 0 is used to obtain cumulative seismic moment mo and seismic moment release rate m 0 distributions along the mexican subduction zone the catalog of instrumentally observed earthquakes from 1963 to 1990 international seismological center and u s geological survey with 4 5 mb 6 0 is applied to investigate background seismicity for the region the strength of coupling between the cocos and north american plates would be expected to grow gradually from the southeast to the northwest according to the variation of convergence rate v and age a of the cocos plate this correlates in general with a steady reduction in background seismicity and a slight average increase of m 0 and seismic energy release rate w at the sites where the main fracture zones of the cocos plate tehuantepec o gorman orozco and rivera undergo the subduction the general correlation breaks down the background seismicity increases at fracture zones while m0 and m 0 decrease significantly this feature is interpreted as a drop of the coupling at the areas where transform faults are being subducted seismic slip rates along the trench obtained from m 0 are lower then the values of plate convergence rates but the average seismic slip is in agreement with the estimates from the v model interaction between lithospheric plates at convergent zones through the viscous layer of subducted sediments variability of m 0 and seismic slip rate in relation with tectonics should be taken into account when the seismic gap model is being used for the prediction of strong earthquakes an examination of space time plots for the historical catalogs supposes a probable tendency of northwest migration of strong events with a rate of 10 km yr

near surface measurements of quasi lagrangian velocities in open water abstract near surface water velocities have been measured in the coastal zone of lake huron and cape cod bay by tracking drifters and drogues using acoustic travel time and compass sighting techniques the near surface current defined as the velocity of near surface drifters and drogues relative to a drogue set at 1 8 m varied on the depth scale on the order of 1 m and was directed nearly parallel to the wind and to predominant wave propagation velocity velocity profiles were logarithmic with depth to order 1 m depth and realistic values of stress were calculated using a law of the wall formula and a karman s constant of 0 4 inferred roughness lengths were of the order of 30 cm anomalously high values of wind stress were inferred from velocity profiles observed during conditions of light wind and steady swell these may be due to the similarity of stokes drift distribution to turbulent shear flow profiles

on varying b values with depth results from computer intensive tests for southern california summary the gutenberg richter b value is thought to reflect the stress conditions in the crust therefore spatial and or temporal variations of the b value can provide important information regarding crustal tectonics we investigate the variation of b value with depth in seven selected areas of southern california a previous study provided a detailed mapping of the variations of b with depth in california our study is less systematic than this study our approach is more similar to the regional one used by mori abercrombie in comparison to these previous studies our investigation indicates that the variability of b is often not statistically significant and that the decrease of b with depth should be interpreted with caution the seismic catalogues used are subsets of a set of about 100 000 seismic events recorded by the southern california seismic network scsn and relocated by richards dinger shearer we study the performance of utsu s test compared to bootstrap tests for comparison of b values the results of our investigation also raise the question of the relevancy of utsu s test when comparing b values both simulations and real cases show that the utsu s test is biased towards rejection of the null hypothesis in favour of the hypothesis that b values are significantly different

isotope composition and volume of earth s early oceans oxygen and hydrogen isotope compositions of earth s seawater are controlled by volatile fluxes among mantle lithospheric oceanic and continental crust and atmospheric reservoirs throughout geologic time the oxygen mass budget was likely conserved within these earth system reservoirs but hydrogen s was not as it can escape to space isotopic properties of serpentine from the approximately 3 8 ga isua supracrustal belt in west greenland are used to characterize hydrogen and oxygen isotope compositions of ancient seawater archaean oceans were depleted in deuterium expressed as d relative to vienna standard mean ocean water vsmow by at most 25 5 but oxygen isotope ratios were comparable to modern oceans mass balance of the global hydrogen budget constrains the contribution of continental growth and planetary hydrogen loss to the secular evolution of hydrogen isotope ratios in earth s oceans our calculations predict that the oceans of early earth were up to 26 more voluminous and atmospheric ch4 and co2 concentrations determined from limits on hydrogen escape to space are consistent with clement conditions on archaean earth

analysis of temporal and spatial heterogeneity of magnitude frequency distribution inferred from earthquake catalogues summary statistical models are introduced for the simultaneous estimation of the changes of the b value and detection rate of earthquakes in a catalogue which develops in time or varies in space the three characteristic parameters including b for the magnitude frequency distribution of detected earthquakes are represented by respective three b spline functions of time or location in a space an objective bayesian method is adopted for the optimal estimate of such functions with many unknown coefficients the present procedure is applied to earthquake catalogues for japanese seismic activity

mapping the b value anomaly at 100 km depth in the alaska and new zealand subduction zones a positive anomaly in the frequency magnitude distribution b value is detected at approximately 90 100 km depth in two subduction zones the b value in this anomalous zone is 40 higher than in adjacent volumes we use regional catalogs with a magnitude of completeness of 2 6 central alaska and cook inlet 2 0 shumagin islands and 3 5 new zealand to resolve the b value as a function of space in more detail we project all earthquakes onto planes perpendicular to the strike of the slab these cross section views of the b value distribution locate the high b value anomalies at a depth of 90 100 km on the upper surface of the wadati benioff zone at these depths slab dehydration may increase pore pressure thus lowering the effective stress and increasing the b value increased pore pressure would also lower the liquidus in the overlying asthenosphere giving rise to the volcanism that occurs directly above this zone

the 14 september 1995 m 7 3 copala mexico earthquake a source study using teleseismic regional and local data we analyze source characteristics of the 14 september 1995 copala mexico earthquake m 7 3 using teleseismic regional and local seismograms in the analysis of the teleseismic and the regional seismic waves we apply the empirical green s function egf technique the recording of an appropriate aftershock is taken as the egf and is used to deconvolve the mainshock seismogram thus obtaining an apparent far field source time function at each station the deconvolution has been done using surface waves for teleseismic data we apply a spectral deconvolution method that enables us to obtain 37 apparent source time functions astfs at 29 stations in the analysis of the regional broadband seismograms we use two different aftershocks as egf and the deconvolution is performed in the time domain with a nonlinear method imposing a positivity constraint and the best azimuth for the directivity vector is obtained through a grid search approach we also analyze two near source accelerograms the traces are inverted for the slip distribution over the fault plane by applying a linear inversion technique with the aid of a time window analysis we obtain an independent estimation of the source time function and a more detailed description of the source process the analysis of the three datasets permits us to deduce the main characteristics of the source process the rupture initiated at a depth of 16 km and propagated in two directions updip along the plate interface toward 165 n and toward 70 n the source duration was between 12 and 14 sec with the maximum of energy release occurring 8 sec after the initiation of the rupture the estimated rupture dimension of 35 45 km is about one fourth of the aftershock area the average dislocation over the fault was 1 4 m with a maximum dislocation of 4 1 m located 10 km south of the hypocenter which gives roughly 1 mpa as the average static stress drop

variations in the frequency magnitude distribution with depth in two volcanic areas mount st helens washington and mt spurr alaska the frequency magnitude distribution of earthquakes characterized using the b value is examined as a function of space beneath mount st helens 1988 1996 and mt spurr 1991 1995 at mount st helens two volumes of anomalously high b b 1 3 can be observed at depths of 2 6 3 6 km below the crater floor and below 6 4 km these anomalies coincide with 1 the depth of vesiculation of ascending magma and 2 the suggested location of a magma chamber at mount st helens study of mt spurr reveals an area of high b value b 1 3 at a depth of about 2 3 4 5 km below the crater floor of the active vent crater peak we propose that the higher material heterogeneity in the vicinity of a magma chamber or conduit due to vesiculation of the ascending magma is the main cause of the increased b value at shallow depths alternatively interaction of magma with groundwater may have increased pore pressure and lowered the effective stress the deeper anomaly at mount st helens is likely caused by high thermal stress gradients in the vicinity of the magma chamber our results indicate that detailed mapping of the frequency magnitude distribution can be used as a tool to trace vesiculation and locate active magma chambers

temporal and three dimensional spatial analyses of the frequency magnitude distribution near long valley caldera california summary the 3 d distribution of the b value of the frequency magnitude distribution is analysed in the seismically active parts of the crust near long valley caldera california the seismicity is sampled in spherical volumes containing n 150 earthquakes and centred at nodes of a grid separated by 0 3 km significant variations in the b value are detected with b ranging from b 0 6 to b 2 0 high b value volumes are located near the resurgent dome and at depths below 5 km at mammoth mountain b values are found to be much lower south of the long valley caldera we interpret this to indicate that an active magma body has advanced from depths below 8 km to depths of 4 to 5 km beneath mammoth mountain in 1989 and that anomalous crust either highly fractured or containing unusually high pore pressure such as is the case in the vicinity of active magma bodies exists north of the seismically active area beneath the resurgent dome at all depths we also investigate the spatial distribution of temporal variations of the frequency magnitude distribution by introducing diverential b value maps b values increased from b 0 8 to b 1 5 underneath mammoth mountain at the onset of the 1989 earthquake swarm and remained high thereafter this suggests that an intrusion permanently altered the average distribution of cracks at 5 10 km depth or that the pore pressure permanently increased we propose that high b values are a necessary but not suycient condition near a magmatic body and therefore spatial b value mapping can be used to aid in the identification of active magma bodies

geochemical and stable isotope resetting in shear zones from taschalp constraints on fluid flow during exhumation in the western alps fluid flow at greenschist facies conditions during exhumation of the western alps occurred in several penecontemporaneous systems including shear zones at lithological contacts deformed contacts between serpentinite bodies and metabasalts albite veins within metabasalts and calcite quartz veins within calcareous schists fluid flow in shear zones that juxtapose metasediments and ophiolitic rocks within the piemonte unit reset o and h isotope ratios 18o values are buffered by the wall rocks however calculated fluid 2h values are similar within all the shear zones suggesting that they formed an interconnected network the similarity of 2h values of the sheared rocks and those of unsheared calcareous schists suggests that the fluids were derived from or had equilibrated with the schists that envelop the ophiolite rocks time integrated fluid fluxes at the sheared contacts estimated from changes in si in metabasalts were up to 105 m3 m 2 with the fluid flowing up temperature driven either by topography or seismic pumping individual shear zones were active for c 2 3 myr implying average fluid fluxes of up to 10 9 m3 m 2 s 1 rocks in shear zones within the ophiolite away from contacts with the metasediments show much less marked isotopic and geochemical changes implying that fluid volumes decreased into the ophiolite unit consistent with the source of fluids being the metasediments fluids were generated by dehydration reactions that were intersected during exhumation and while many rocks show the affects of fluid rock interaction large scale fluid flow between major units was not common

magnitudes of large shallow earthquakes from 1904 to 1980 abstract in order to obtain a uniform magnitude catalogue surface wave magnitudes ms and broad band body wave magnitudes mb have been determined for large shallow earthquakes from 1904 to 1980 in making the catalogue homogeneous the author consistently adheres to the original definitions of ms and mb given by gutenberg 1945 and gutenberg and richter 1956 the determinations of ms and mb are all based on the amplitude and period data listed in gutenberg and richter s unpublished notes bulletins from stations worldwide and other basic information mb is measured on broad band instruments in periods of 8 s consistency of the magnitude determinations from these different sources is carefully checked in detail more than 900 shallow shocks of magnitude 7 and over are catalogued the meaning of the magnitude scales in various catalogues is examined in terms of ms and mb most of the magnitudes listed by gutenberg and richter 1954 in their seismicity of the earth are basically ms for large shocks shallower than 40 km but are basically mb for large shocks at depths of 40 60 km the surface wave magnitudes given by earthquake data reports are higher than ms by 0 2 unit whether the combined horizontal amplitude or the vertical amplitude is used mb and the currently used 1 s body wave magnitude are measured at different periods and should not be directly compared

spatial variations in the frequency magnitude distribution of earthquakes at mount pinatubo volcano the frequency magnitude distribution of earthquakes measured by the b value is mapped in two and three dimensions at mount pinatubo philippines to a depth of 14 km below the summit we analyzed 1406 well located earthquakes with magnitudes m d 0 73 recorded from late june through august 1991 using the maximum likelihood method we found that b values are higher than normal b 1 0 and range between b 1 0 and b 1 8 the computed b values are lower in the areas adjacent to and west southwest of the vent whereas two prominent regions of anomalously high b values b 1 7 are resolved one located 2 km northeast of the vent between 0 and 4 km depth and a second located 5 km southeast of the vent below 8 km depth the statistical differences between selected regions of low and high b values are established at the 99 confidence level the high b value anomalies are spatially well correlated with low velocity anomalies derived from earlier p wave travel time tomography studies our dataset was not suitable for analyzing changes in b values as a function of time we infer that the high b value anomalies around mount pinatubo are regions of increased crack density and or high pore pressure related to the presence of nearby magma bodies manuscript received 16 december 2002

stable isotope geochemistry of alpine ophiolites a window to ocean floor hydrothermal alteration and constraints on fluid rock interaction during high pressure metamorphism the subduction of hydrated oceanic lithosphere potentially transports large volumes of water into the upper mantle however despite its potential importance fluid rock interaction during high pressure metamorphism is relatively poorly understood the stable isotope and major element geochemistry of pennine ophiolite rocks from italy and switzerland that were metamorphosed at high pressures are similar to that of unmetamorphosed ophiolites suggesting that they interacted with little pervasive fluid during high pressure metamorphism cover sediments also have oxygen isotope ratios within the expected range of their protoliths in the rocks that escaped late greenschist facies retrogression different styles of sub ocean floor alteration may be identified using oxygen isotopes petrology and major or trace element geochemistry within the basalts zones that have undergone high and low temperature sub ocean floor alteration as well as relatively unaltered rocks can be distinguished serpentinites have 18o and 2h values that suggest that they were formed by hydration on or below the ocean floor the development of high pressure metamorphic mineralogies in metagabbros occurred preferentially in zones that underwent sub ocean floor alteration and which contained hydrated fine grained reactive assemblages given that the transformation of blueschist facies metabasic rocks to eclogite facies assemblages involves the breakdown of hydrous minerals e g lawsonite zoisite and glaucophane and will thus liberate considerable volumes of fluids metamorphic fluid flow must have been strongly channelled high pressure quartz calcite omphacite glaucophane titanoclinohumite veins that cut the ophiolite rocks represent one possible channel however stable isotope and major element data suggest that they were not formed from large volumes of exotic fluids fluids were more likely channelled along faults and shear zones that were active during high pressure metamorphism such strong fluid channelling may cause fluids to migrate toward the accretionary wedge especially along the slab mantle interface which is probably a major shear zone this may preclude all but a small fraction of the fluids entering the mantle wedge to flux melting additionally because fluids probably interact with relatively small volumes of rock in the channels they cannot scavenge elements from the subducting slab efficiently

inadvertent changes in magnitude reported in earthquake catalogs their evaluation through b value estimates a simple procedure is presented for analyzing magnitudes and seismicity rates reported in earthquake catalogs in order to discriminate between inadvertently introduced changes in magnitude and real seismicity changes we assume that the rate and the frequency magnitude relation of the independent background seismicity do not change with time observed differences in the frequency magnitude relation a and b values between data from two periods are modeled as due to a transformation of the magnitude scale the transformation equation is found by a least squares fitting process based on the seismicity data for earthquakes large enough to be reported completely and by comparing the linear relation of one period to the other for smaller events an additional factor accounting for increased decreased detection is allowed this fitting technique is tested on a data set from parkfield for which two types of magnitudes amplitude and duration were computed for each earthquake we found that the b value fitting technique yielded virtually the same result as a linear regression assuming the same errors in the two magnitudes the technique is also applied to interpret the nature of reporting rate changes in a local guerrero mexico and a regional italy earthquake catalog in guerrero a magnitude change in 1991 37 can be modeled about equally well by m new m old 0 5 or by m new 1 02 m old 0 38 but residuals with the latter transformation are smaller in italy a magnitude change in 1980 21 cannot be modeled satisfactorily by a simple magnitude shift but is well described by a compression of the magnitude scale given by m new 0 67 m old 1 03 the proposed b slope fitting method provides a means to interpret quantitatively and in some cases correct for artificial reporting rate changes in earthquake catalogs

mg metasomatism and formation conditions of mg chlorite muscovite quartzphyllites leucophyllites of the eastern alps w hungary and their relations to alpine whiteschists the lower austroalpine orthogneiss micachist complex of the sopron fertorakos area of w hungary contains mg chlorite muscovite quartzphyllites leuco phyllite and mg chlorite bearing kyanite quartzites whose chemical compositions differ greatly from their surrounding rocks formation of leucophyllites took place in shear zones and was associated with depletion in alkalies and iron and enrichment of magnesium and h2o mg zonation of relict igneous muscovites of leucophyllites and changes in the whole rock chemical compositions suggest mg metasomatism material gains and losses have been assessed using the composition volume relationship approach proceeding from metagranite through transition rocks to leucophyllites mgo h2o feo and alkalies show continuously increasing dispersion in isocon plots with mg enrichment even in sheared gneiss not in contact with leucophyllite the metasomatic processes that formed the mg rich rocks may be similar to those responsible for the formation of high pressure whiteschists in the central and western alps the geochemical characteristics of the dora maira whiteschists italy and their country gneisses are very similar to those of the sopron leucophyllites supporting the theory that mg metasomatism produced the whiteschist chemistry on the basis of oxygen isotope compositions of relict igneous muscovites the precursor granitic rock had a 18o value around 13 proving its crustal anatectic origin the leucophyllites have whole rock oxygen isotope compositions around 8 5 which is in conflict with the theory of an mg rich sedimentary protolith rather the low 18o values reflect fluid rock interaction with a low 18o fluid quartz mineral oxygen isotope fractionations yield a metamorphic temperature of 560 30 c which agrees with earlier estimates from mineral stabilities silicon contents of phengites correspond to a metamorphic pressure of 13 gpa at this temperature indicating eclogite facies metamorphism the fluids in equilibrium with leucophyllites had oxygen isotope compositions around 7 9 similar to those calculated for the ultrahigh pressure dora maira whiteschists 7 6 further supporting the genetic link between the leucophyllites and whiteschists hydrogen isotope compositions of mixed white mica chlorite samples from leucophyllites range from 40 to 35 correlating with chlorite contents the calculated endmember chlorite and white mica have d values of 30 and 40 respectively the similar d values of the white micas in leucophyllites gneisses and metagranites suggest an overall equilibration with respect to h isotopes the calculated d value of the fluid is approximately 0 suggesting a seawater origin this conclusion was also reached for the dora maira whiteschists a possible fluid source that satisfies both metasomatic and isotopic data is dehydration of hydrothermally altered oceanic crust the mafic ultramafic complex of the alpine penninic unit underlying the austroalpine nappes is a likely candidate the subduction and subsequent dehydration of the ophiolite series would supply the mg rich fluids whose migration brought about the metasomatic alteration of the overlying gneiss micaschist complexes

spatial variability of seismicity parameters in aftershock zones the spatial variability of the b value of the frequency magnitude relationship and the decay rate of aftershocks as described by the p value of the modified omori law is investigated by using dense spatial grids we map out the distribution of b and p values within the landers northridge morgan hill and kobe aftershock sequences considerable spatial variability is found with b values of independent subvolumes ranging from 0 6 to 1 4 and p values ranging from 0 6 to 1 8 these systematic and statistically highly significant differences argue that it is an oversimplification to assign one single p and b value to an aftershock sequence that extends up to 100 km the spatial distribution of these two parameters is compared with the slip distribution during the mainshock suggesting that the areas of largest slip release correlate with high b value regions we hypothesize that the frictional heat created during the event may influence the p value distribution within an aftershock zone while applied shear stress crack density and pore pressure govern the frequency magnitude distribution by investigating the frequency magnitude distribution separately for preseismic and postseismic periods for the morgan hill mainshock we find that only the volume in the vicinity of the highest slip release shows a significant increase in the b value which decays to premainshock values within a year surrounding areas of the aftershock zone show an approximately constant b value with time because the aftershock hazard after a mainshock depends strongly on both the b and p value we propose that aftershock hazard assessment can be improved by taking into account the spatial distribution of the parameters

mapping active magma chambers by b values beneath the off ito volcano japan the b value of the frequency magnitude relation and thus the mean magnitude in the off ito volcanic area is not uniform based on detailed b value tomography using about 10 000 events in an area of 10 km radius and in the upper 15 km of the crust a high b value anomaly b 15 below 7 km depth and with a radius of about 2 km located below the coast southeast of ito contrasts with lower values of typically b 0 7 north of it and at shallower depths on the basis of surface deformations a tensile crack dislocation source was located above 7 km depth thus we surmise that the magma chamber in the off ito area was located below 7 km depth the correlation of a high b value anomaly with this model supports our hypothesis that active magma chambers may be mapped by high b value anomalies the magma body may be described as consisting of two parts a lower well established chamber below 11 km depth and a shallower part 11 7 km depth the b value in the volume surrounding the magma chamber increased from 0 7 during the 1980s to 1 5 during the earthquake swarms of the 1990s this may reflect a trend of increasing crack density due to the intrusion activity

detailed analysis of acoustic emission activity during catastrophic fracture of faults in rock abstract the detailed time space distribution of acoustic emission ae events during the catastrophic fracture of rock samples containing a pre existing joint or potential fracture plane is obtained under triaxial compression using a high speed 32 channel waveform recording system and the results are discussed with respect to the prediction and characterization of catastrophic fault failure ae activity is modeled quantitatively in terms of the seismic b value of the magnitude frequency relation the self excitation strength of the ae time series and the fractal dimension of ae hypocenters consistent with previous studies on rock samples containing a fracture plane with several asperities the present analyses reveal three long term phases of ae activity associated with damage creation on heterogeneous faults each clearly identifiable based on the above parameters a long term decreasing trend and short term fluctuation of the b value in the phase immediately preceding dynamic fracture are identified as characteristic features of the failure of heterogeneous faults based on the experimental results it is suggested that precursory anomalies related to earthquakes and other events associated with rock failure are strongly dependent on the heterogeneity of the fault or rock mass a homogeneous fault or rock mass appears to fracture unpredictably without a consistent trend in precursory statistics while inhomogeneous faults fracture with clear precursors related to the nature of the heterogeneity

interactions between serpentinite devolatilization metasomatism and strike slip strain localization during deep crustal shearing in the eastern alps the greiner shear zone in the tauern window eastern alps changes from a zone of distributed dominantly sinistral shear in supracrustal rocks to a series of narrow gully forming dextral splays where it enters basement gneisses within these splays granodiorite is transformed into quartz poor biotite and or chlorite schists reflecting hydration removal of si ca and na and concentration of fe mg and al stable isotope analyses show a prominent increase in d and a decrease in 18o from granodiorite into the shear zones these changes indicate significant channelized flow of an externally derived low 18o high d fluid through the shear zones the shear zone schists are chemically similar to blackwall zones developed around serpentinite bodies elsewhere in the greiner zone and the stable isotope data support alteration via serpentinite derived fluid monazite in schist from one shear zone yields spot dates of 29 20 ma indicating that the fluid influx and switch from sinistral to dextral shear occurred at or shortly after the thermal peak of the alpine orogeny c 30 ma we suggest that alpine metamorphism of serpentinites released large amounts of high d low 18o si undersaturated fe mg saturated fluids that became channelized along prior zones of weakness in the granodiorite infiltration of this fluid facilitated growth of chlorite and biotite which in turn localized later dextral strain in the narrow splays via cleavage parallel slip this dextral strain event can be linked to other structures that accommodated tectonic escape of major crustal blocks during dextral transpression in the eastern alps this study shows that serpentinite devolatilization can play an important role in modifying both the chemistry and rheology of surrounding rocks during orogenesis

spatial variations in the frequency magnitude distribution of earthquakes at soufriere hills volcano montserrat west indies the frequency magnitude distribution of earthquakes measured by the b value is determined as a function of space beneath soufriere hills volcano montserrat from data recorded between august 1 1995 and march 31 1996 a volume of anomalously high b values b 3 0 with a 1 5 km radius is imaged at depths of 0 and 1 5 km beneath english s crater and chance s peak this high b value anomaly extends southwest to gage s soufriere at depths greater than 2 5 km volumes of comparatively low b values b 1 are found beneath st george s hill windy hill and below 2 5 km depth and to the south of english s crater we speculate the depth of high b value anomalies under volcanoes may be a function of silica content modified by some additional factors with the most siliceous having these volumes that are highly fractured or contain high pore pressure at the shallowest depths

minimum magnitude of completeness in earthquake catalogs examples from alaska the western united states and japan we mapped the minimum magnitude of complete reporting m c for alaska the western united states and for the junec earthquake catalog of japan mc was estimated based on its departure from the linear frequency magnitude relation of the 250 closest earthquakes to grid nodes spaced 10 km apart in all catalogs studied mc was strongly heterogeneous in offshore areas the mc was typically one unit of magnitude higher than onshore on land also mc can vary by one order of magnitude over distance less than 50 km we recommend that seismicity studies that depend on complete sets of small earthquakes should be limited to areas with similar mc or the minimum magnitude for the analysis has to be raised to the highest com mon value of mc we believe that the data quality as reflected by the mc level should be used to define the spatial extent of seismicity studies where mc plays a role the method we use calculates the goodness of fit between a power law fit to the data and the observed frequency magnitude distribution as a function of a lower cutoff of the magnitude data mc is defined as the magnitude at which 90 of the data can be modeled by a power law fit mc in the 1990s is approximately 1 2 0 4 in most parts of california 1 8 0 4 in most of alaska aleutians and panhandle excluded and at a higher level in the junec catalog for japan various sources such as ex plosions and earthquake families beneath volcanoes can lead to distributions that cannot be fit well by power laws for the hokkaido region we demonstrate how neglecting the spatial variability of m c can lead to erroneous assumptions about deviations from self similarity of earthquake scaling

accessory chromium spinels their coexistence and alteration in serpentinites abstract accessory chromium spinel occurring in serpentinites is usually altered the extent of this alteration and its relationship to alteration processes such as serpentinization and metamorphism is not defined complicating the use of altered spinel as a petrogenetic indicator here the relationship between different alteration processes and spinel alteration is evaluated in terms of accessory chromium spinel occurring in serpentinites of progressive metamorphism in the eastern central alps two coexisting cr spinels were identified i e an altered fe rich cr spinel i with cr al and an fe poor cr spinel ii with al cr which exsolved a cr fe 3 phase and which resisted alteration alteration of cr spinel i is evident from decreasing al mg and cr values with a trend leading to ferrite chromite trend a an enrichment in cr trend b related to co 2 in the serpentinizing fluid indicated by the presence of carbonate talc or tremolite is superimposed to a alteration is a decomposition of the spinel structure caused by the dissolution of mg al and cr during serpentinization dissolution of cr is favored in a reduced environment whereas reprecipitation occurs under locally oxidizing conditions indicated by the presence of co 2 sio 2 detected in spinel is a relative measure of the degree of alteration metamorphism up to amphibolite facies recrystallized and homogenized preexisting spinel phases to various degrees whether or not and to what extent a spinel alters depends on its fe content fe 2 stabilized in the octahedral site high cfse is responsible for an inverse and less stable spinel structure fe rich spinels cr spinel i are therefore readily subjected to alteration whereas fe poor spinels cr spinel ii are resistant to alteration during the serpentinization processes

nucleation points of recent mainshocks in southern iceland mapped by b values the earthquake catalog in southern iceland between 20 25 w and 21 3 w is complete down to approximately mw 0 and shows no evidence for mag nitude shifts as a function of time since 1991 this means that 6902 earthquakes m 0 1 depth 20 km are available for studies of seismicity patterns preceding the two ms 6 6 mainshocks in 2000 in their source volumes and vicinity 20 25 w and 20 9 w the power law of the frequency magnitude relationship holds down to m0 detailed mapping including 3d mapping of the b value of the frequency magnitude distribution shows that variations from b 0 6 to 1 4 exist over distances of about 2 km this suggests that the tectonic fabric in southern iceland is hetero geneous on a small scale the hypocenters of the two ms 6 6 mainshocks and one additional m 4 5 mainshock are associated with low b values 0 6 0 8 statistically significantly different from volumes in their vicinity therefore one can expect future mainshocks in southern iceland to also emanate from volumes characterized by low b values however the small dimensions of these asperities may render it difficult to identify them before the mainshocks occur low values of estimated local recur rence times 500 2000 years map the two fault zones that ruptured in 2000 against a background of local recurrence times longer than 5000 years the first of the two m 6 6 mainshocks emanated from a volume of short estimated local recurrence time this supports the hypothesis that asperities with short local recurrence times control locations of major ruptures mapping of b values in cross sections shows anomalies of high b at the bottom of the seismogenic crust correlating with the change of its thickness in the middle of the study area these high b value anomalies and other pockets of such anomalies at shallower depths are best interpreted as caused by high pore pressure because evidence of fluids under high pressure is ubiquitous in this area

mineralogy and stable isotope geochemistry of hydrothermally altered oceanic rocks mineralogical and isotopic variations observed in altered glassy and crystalline rocksfrom the east pacific rise and the mid atlantic ridge provide information about the temperatures of alteration and seawater rock ratios for various hydrothermal regimes within the oceanic crust a systematic increase in alteration temperature is evident for the glassy rocksin the sequence 1 nontronite and celadonite vesicle fillings 35 c 2 saponite rich pillow breccias 130 170 c 3 calcite rich greenstone breccias and epidote rich greenstone 200 350 c theseresults include the highest temperatures thus far reported for saponite formation the seawater dominated hydrothermal alteration process that formed the saponite rich pillow breccias is characterized by high water rock ratios 0 1 low to moderate temperatures a seawater origin of most of the carbon in vein calcites 13 c 0 and the predominance of fe rich saponite and calcite as secondary phases greenstones chlorite quartz epidote and greenstone breccias chlorite quartz albite calcite are altered in a rock dominated system with lower water rock ratios 50 1 to 13 c 4 the crystalline rocks diabase gabbro and metagabbro are affected to varying degrees by pervasive high temperature seawater interactions that commence soon after solidification producing varying proportions of fine grained secondary minerals including talc smectite chlorite vermiculite actinolite and sodicplagioclase hydrothermal solutions derived from alteration of the crystalline rocks are of the appropriate temperature and isotopic composition to alter the overlying glassy rocks to the observed mineralogies as well as being the source of metal rich deposits associated with the oceanic spreading centers

the tectono metamorphic evolution of a dismembered ophiolite tinos cyclades greece the six exposures of the upper tectonic unit of the cycladic massif occurring on the island of tinos are shown to comprise a metamorphosed dismembered ophiolite complex the common stratigraphic section consisting of tens of metres thick tectonic slices of mafic phyllites overlain by serpentinites and gabbros is considered to have been derived by a combination of thrusting during obduction and subsequent attenuation by low angle normal faults all rock types show evidence of a phase of regional greenschist facies metamorphism which in the case of the phyllites is accompanied by penetrative deformation the greenschist facies metamorphism in gabbros is preceded by high temperature sea floor amphibolite facies alteration whereas in the serpentinites the antigorite forsterite greenschist facies assemblage overprinted an earlier low temperature lizardite serpentinite trace element patterns of the mafic phyllites and a harzbur gitic origin of meta serpentinites suggest a supra subduction zone ssz affinity for the ophiolitic suite 5 o values of phyllites gabbros and serpentinites range from 6 to 15 o model calculations indicate that such values are consistent with low temperature 50 200 c alteration of parent rocks by sea water at varying water rock ratios this would agree with the early low temperature mineralogy of the serpentinites but the early high temperature alteration of the gabbros would require the presence of o enriched sea water the following overall history is suggested for tinos ophiolitic slices 1 oceanic crust was generated at a supra subduction zone spreading centre with high temperature alteration of gabbros 2 tectonic distur bance its early hot stages recorded in an amphibolitic shear zone at the base of serpentinites brought the already cooled ultramafics into direct contact with sea water and caused low 7 serpentinization 3 tectonism after cooling involved thrusting which caused repetition and inversion of the original order of the oceanic suite 4 regional metamorphism of all the ophiolite components at greenschist facies conditions 450 c overprinted the early alteration mineralogy it was probably induced by continued thrusting and piling up of nappes the tinos ophiolite dated as late cretaceous and genetically related to other low pres sure rock units of the same age in the aegean differs in age and degree of dismemberment and metamor phism from ophiolites in mainland greece

spatiotemporal variations in the b value of earthquake magnitude frequency distributions classification and causes abstract interpretation of the b value of earthquake frequency magnitude distributions has received considerable attention in recent decades this paper provides a comprehensive review of previous investigations of spatial and temporal variations in b value including their classification and possible causes based on least squares regression of seismicity data compiled from the neic iris and isc catalogs we find an average value of 1 02 0 03 for the whole earth and its two hemispheres consistent with the general view that in seismically active regions the long term average value is close to unity nevertheless wide ranging b variations 0 3 b 2 5 have been reported in the literature this variability has been interpreted to arise from one or more of the following factors prevailing stress state crustal heterogeneity focal depth pore pressure geothermal gradient tectonic setting petrological environmental geophysical characteristics clustering of events incomplete catalog data and or method of calculation excluding the latter all of these factors appear to be linked directly or indirectly with the effective state of stress although time dependent changes in b value are well documented conflicting observations reveal either a precursory increase or decrease in b value before major earthquakes our compilation of published analyses suggests that statistically significant b variations occur globally on various timescales including annual monthly and perhaps diurnal taken together our review suggests that b variations are most plausibly linked with changes in effective stress

source time functions of large mexican subduction earthquakes morphology of the benioff zone age of the plate and their tectonic implications we study source parameters of large shallow mexican subduction zone earthquakes 95 w to 106 w which occurred between 1928 and 1986 by modeling the p waves recorded on galitzin wilip seismograph in debilt dbn holland for post 1962 events the source parameters retrieved from dbn seismograms alone agree well with those obtained from long period world wide standardized seismograph network records giving us confidence in our results for pre 1962 events all earthquakes are shallow h 10 to 20 km with few exceptions the sources in oaxaca 95 w to 99 w are very simple to the northwest of 99 w they are simple as well as complex the ratio of surface wave to body wave seismic moment mos mop which is a measure of long to short period radiation is smaller in oaxaca 1 5 0 5 than in the regions northwest of 99 w 3 1 1 3 these results suggest a change in the plate interface characteristics near 99 w the sharp change in the rupture mode and the intersection of the o gorman fracture zone ofz with the trench occur near 99 w two strike slip events offshore close to ofz suggest a segmentation of the subducting plate near 99 w the age of the plate near the trench in oaxaca is not well known it is possible that it does not increase continuously from northwest to southeast in the region but jumps across 99 w if so then the older age of the subducted plate southeast of 99 w may be the cause of the distinct rupture mode of the oaxaca earthquakes the length of the benioff zone which is greatest below oaxaca 400 km and decreases toward the northwest can be explained by the correlation between the length of the subducted slab and the product of the lithosphere age and convergence rate the relative complexity of sources the weaker background seismicity and the lesser number of aftershocks northwest of oaxaca may be explained by a stronger interface coupling resulting from subduction of younger oceanic slabs 5 to 13 m y old in this region this however explains neither larger mos mop values northwest of oaxaca nor the low stress drop estimates obtained from the analysis of near field strong motion data for the michoacan earthquake of 1985 both of which indicate weaker coupling of the interface thus the issue of whether subduction of very young plates 10 m y old results in strong or weak coupling remains unsolved from the presently available mexican data

seismic gaps and recurrence periods of large earthquakes along the mexican subduction zone a reexamination abstract seismic gaps and recurrence periods of large shallow interplate earthquakes along the mexican subduction zone are reexamined after combining information from a catalog of nineteenth century9s earthquakes some relocated epicenters of the early part of this century source parameters of recent large earthquakes and redetermined magnitudes of great shallow earthquakes of this century tehuantepec and michoacan gaps have not experienced a large shock in this century and perhaps none in the past century they are either aseismic or have anomalously large repeat times guerrero jalisco and ometepec regions presently appear to have a high seismic potential observed average repeat times of large earthquakes m s 7 4 in six regions east central and west oaxaca san marcos petatlan and colima are between 32 to 56 yr data of this century indicate that the strain is released mostly in large events m s 7 4 a simple dislocation model with parameters obtained from the studies of recent earthquakes explains the observed recurrence periods quite well the b value for this zone is not meaningful an observation which is of significance for seismic risk estimation most of seismic moment or equivalently seismic energy release since 1800 appears to occur for 15 yr followed by relative quiescence in the next 15 yr

earthquake statistics at parkfield 1 stationarity of b values 1 in this paper paper 1 we quantitatively show that the heterogeneous pattern of b values of the gutenberg richter relation in the parkfield segment of the san andreas fault is to a high degree stationary for the past 35 years this prepares the grounds for paper 2 where we test the hypothesis that our model of spatially varying b values forecasts future seismicity more accurately than the approach in which one assumes a constant b value equal to the average regional value the method we develop to measure stationarity in the presence of spatial heterogeneity consists of the following steps 1 determine the optimal dimensions of the sampling volume by mapping b values with a wide range of radii and selecting the largest radius that gives the most detailed resolution of the b value heterogeneity along the selected fault segment the high data density permits the definition of the dominant dimensions of the seismotectonic fabric which is about 8 10 km 2 map the difference in b value between two periods selecting numerous possible catalog divisions 3 identify significant changes of b values by the utsu test utsu 1992 along the studied fault segment of 110 km length only one patch of radius 5 km showed a significant increase in b from below average to above as a function of time this change in b initiates around 1993 and thus correlates in space and time with a well documented episode of creep at depth using the derived spatial variable b value distributions we find that the highest probability for earthquakes with magnitude m 6 is in the middle mountain asperity where the 1966 parkfield earthquake nucleated and where all m 4 5 events in the data set occurred in contrast if only the regional average b value of 0 92 is used to predict future seismicity the creeping segment north of parkfield should produce major earthquakes most frequently a conclusion that contradicts the observations

space time clustering of large thrust earthquakes along the mexican subduction zone an evidence of source stress interaction the spatiotemporal plot of epicenters of large m s 6 9 subduction earthquakes in mexico 1900 to present day suggests that these earthquakes cluster in space and time in this work we test the hypothesis that the coseismic stress transfer may lead to this clustering for the analysis we estimate the spatial extent of the coseismic coulomb stress change for these large events and then perform a statistical analysis using the 2 goodness of fit test for the interevent time intervals we find that there are at least two groups of time intervals where the observed frequencies are much higher than that expected from a poisson model indicating a bimodal pattern for the first mode the observed frequencies for the 0 to 5 year interval becomes about 2 1 times the expectation with a probability of occurrence of about 30 these results show that large thrust mexican earthquakes between 1900 and 2003 are clustered in space and time probably due to stress interactions among them the second mode includes the time interval of 30 50 years in the interval of 30 40 years the observed frequencies become about 1 7 times the expectation and about 1 2 times the expectation for the 40 to 50 year interval this second mode could be associated with a reloading interval of tectonic stress due to the plate convergence and appears consistent with the long term recurrence periods of large thrust earthquakes in the mexican subduction zone

damage formation associated with bending under a constant moment abstract deformation within the earth s lithosphere is largely controlled by the rheology of the rock fracture and faulting are characterized by elastic rheologies with brittle mechanisms while folding and flow are characterized by plastic and or viscous rheologies due to ductile mechanisms however it has been recognized that deformation that resembles ductile behavior can be produced within the confines of the brittle lithosphere specific examples are folds that form in the shallow crust steep hinges at subduction zones that are accompanied by seismicity and large scale deformation at plate boundaries in these cases the brittle lithosphere behaves elastically with fracture and faulting yet produces ductile behavior in this paper we attempt to simulate such ductile behavior in elastic materials using continuum damage mechanics engineers utilize damage mechanics to model the continuum deformation of brittle materials we utilize a modified form of damage mechanics that represents a reduction in frictional strength of preexisting fractures and faults we use this empirical approach to simulate the bending of the lithosphere under the application of a constant moment we use numerical simulations to obtain elastostatic solutions for plate bending and where the longitudinal stress at a particular node exceeds a yield stress we apply damage to reduce young s modulus at the node damage is calculated at each time step by a power law relationship of the ratio of the yield stress to the longitudinal stress and the yield strain to the longitudinal strain this results in the relaxation of the material due to increasing damage to test our method we apply our damage rheology to an infinite plate deforming under a constant bending moment we simulate a wide range of behaviors from slow relaxation to instantaneous failure over timescales that span six orders of magnitude using this method stress relaxation produces elastic perfectly plastic behavior in cases where failure does not occur for cases of failure we observe a rapid increase in damage leading to failure analogous to the acceleration of microcrack formation and acoustic emissions prior to failure the changes in the rate of damage accumulation in failure cases are similar to the changes in b values of acoustic emissions observed in triaxial compression tests of fractured rock and b value changes prior to some large earthquakes thus continuum damage mechanics can simulate the phenomenon of ductile behavior due to brittle mechanisms as well as observations of laboratory experiments and seismicity

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

contrasting serpentinization processes in the eastern central alps stable isotope compositions have been determined for serpentinites from between davos arosa platta nappe switzerland and the valmalenco italy d and 18o values 120 to 60 and 6 10 respectively in the arosa platta nappe indicate that serpentinization took place on the continent at relatively low temperatures in the presence of limited amounts of metamorphic fluids that contained a component of meteoric water one sample of chrysotile has a 18o value of 13 providing evidence of high w r ratios and low formation temperature of lizardite chrysotile in this area in contrast relatively high d values 42 to 34 and low 18o values 4 4 7 4 for serpentine in the eastern part of the valmalenco suggest a serpentinization process that took place at moderate temperatures in fluids that were dominated by ocean water the antigorite in the valmalenco is the first reported example of continental antigorite with an ocean water signature an amphibole sample from a metasomatically overprinted contact zone to metasediments d 36 indicates that the metasomatic event also took place in the presence of ocean water lower d values 93 to 60 of serpentines in the western part of the valmalenco suggest a different alteration history possibly influenced by fluids associated with contact metamorphism low water rock ratios during regional metamorphism and metasomatism have to be assumed for both regions

complements to magnitudes of large shallow earthquakes from 1904 to 1980 abstract in the previous paper magnitudes of large earthquakes of the world were determined on a very uniform basis and catalogued in order to arrive at a more homogeneous catalogue for a study of global seismicity some complements are presented the major complements are as follows 1 the m s values for the period 1904 1909 in the previous paper were overestimated in the extreme case by 0 5 magnitude units 2 the m b values for the period 1904 1908 in the previous paper were also overestimated 3 the magnitudes of deep and intermediate shocks which are listed in seismicity of the earth by gutenberg and richter are found to be approximated by m b m b 7 4 4 the catalogues of m b for shallow intermediate and deep shocks are continued for the period up to 1980

second order moment of central california seismicity 1969 1982 the second order moment cross correlation function of earthquakes in the u s geological survey central california catalog between 1969 and 1982 was calculated with respect to a magnitude threshold m 4 0 over interevent distances up to 80 km and interevent times up to 320 days the statistical procedure results in a representation of the spatial temporal structure of the catalog associated with m 4 0 earthquakes and is capable of revealing patterns too weak to be detected in the space time distribution of seismicity for individual earthquake sequences a method is introduced for identifying aftershocks based on a physical two parameter model of the earthquake interaction process the results show that the aftershock process dominates the second order moment and may even obscure the statistical expression of a precursory process a concentration of foreshocks within 15 km and 3 days of m 4 0 main shocks exhibits an apparent migration toward the main shock loci with velocity 2 6 5 3 km d this concentration may be related to an observed tendency for m 4 0 events to cluster auto correlate over this interevent range with the identified aftershocks removed the residual catalog is poissonion in space and time when two m 4 0 earthquakes occur within 80 km and 40 days of each other aftershock productivity appears to be relatively enhanced in the earlier sequence this suggests that aftershock populations are not solely dependent on their main shocks and that unusually productive aftershock sequences may be predictors of future moderate earthquakes

o and h stable isotope compositions of oceanic crust and upper mantle rocks exposed in the hess deep near the galapagos triple junction abstract a large variety of rocks consisting of basalts dolerites gabbros and ultramafics are exposed on the intra rift ridge in the hess deep representing a section of the oceanic crust formed at the east pacific ridge 1 we conducted a stable isotope study of o and h to assess the nature of the interaction between seawater and the oceanic crust in this region fresh basalt and dolerite samples have magmatic morb values 18o 6 0 105 d 70 and low h2o content 57 and h2o contents 1 3 most gabbros have 18o 5 6 essentially identical to their initial magmatic values their d values are generally higher than 57 suggesting that they have reacted with some seawater derived fluids as is also suggested by their mineralogy in gabbros displaying little or no visual evidence of alteration of their plagioclases and pyroxenes 18oplagioclase pyroxene is small 0 3 and consistent with magmatic values the calcic an 50 plagioclases have magmatic 18o 5 8 albitized prehnitized plagioclases have variable 18o values 4 8 it also appears that the 18o modified gabbros are those in which plagioclases are transformed into albite and or prehnite which are characteristic of greenschist facies conditions the lack of calcic an 50 plagioclases depleted in 18o and hornblende suggests that most of the gabbros did not react extensively under amphibolite facies conditions with seawater derived fluids t 400 c or that they were subsequently altered to greenschist facies gabbros the serpentinized peridotites were depleted in 18o 3 3 4 9 in one sample the 18oserpentine magnetite 5 7 corresponds to a temperature of about 325 50 c these values are compatible with serpentinization by seawater derived fluids at temperatures between 200 and 350 c another sample has a higher 18o value of 10 corresponding to a serpentinization temperature of less than 50 c the 18o mass balance between seawater and the oceanic crust seems to have attained steady state where enrichment in 18o of metabasalts is balanced by the depletion in 18o of metadolerites the contribution of the gabbros is minor the depletion in 18o of the serpentinized peridotites is not taken into account since we believe that the high temperature serpentinization is characteristic of the hess deep and cannot be extrapolated to the normal oceanic crust

universality of the seismic moment frequency relation we analyze the seismic moment frequency relation in various depth ranges and for different seismic regions using flinn engdahl s regionalization of global seismicity three earthquake lists of centroid moment tensor data have been used the harvard catalog the usgs catalog and the huang et al 1997 catalog of deep earthquakes the results confirm the universality of the values and the maximum moment for shallow earthquakes in continental regions as well as at and near continental boundaries moreover we show that although fluctuations in earthquake size distribution increase with depth the values for earthquakes in the depth range of 0 500 km exhibit no statistically significant regional variations the regional variations are significant only for deep events near the 660 km boundary for declustered shallow earthquake catalogs and deeper events we show that the worldwide values have the same value of 0 60 0 02 this finding suggests that the value is a universal constant we investigate the statistical correlations between the numbers of seismic events in different depth ranges and the correlation of the tectonic deformation rate and seismic activity the number of earthquakes above a certain threshold level per year the high level of these correlations suggests that seismic activity indicates tectonic deformation rate in subduction zones combined with the universality of the value this finding implies little if any variation in maximum earthquake seismic moment among various subduction zones if we assume that earthquakes of maximum size are similar in different depth ranges and the seismic efficiency coefficient is close to 100 for shallow seismicity then we can estimate for deeper earthquakes for intermediate earthquakes 5 and 1 for deep events these results may lead to new theoretical understanding of the earthquake process and better estimates of seismic hazard

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

mapping the frequency magnitude distribution in asperities an improved technique to calculate recurrence times we hypothesize that highly stressed asperities may be defined by mapping anomalously low b values along the san andreas fault near parkfield the asperity under middle mountain with its b 0 46 can be distinguished from all other parts of the fault surface likewise along the calaveras fault the northern asperity of the morgan hill 1984 m6 2 rupture can be identified by its low b of 0 5 as a high stress patch along the fault we add further evidence to the observations that the b value of the frequency magnitude relationship of earthquakes is inversely proportional to stress by showing that it decreases with depth in the parkfield segment of the san andreas and along the calaveras fault in both of these areas b values above and below 5 km depth are 1 2 and 0 8 respectively we propose that probabilistic recurrence times tr based on the seismicity parameters a and b should be calculated from their values within asperities only instead of from the values of the entire rupture area of the maximum expected earthquake the strong patches on faults control the time of rupture because they are capable of accumulating larger stresses than the rest of the fault zone which slips along passively when an asperity breaks therefore no information on tr is contained in the passive fault segments only in the asperities at parkfield the probabilistic estimates of tr derived from the data in the whole rupture and in the asperity only are 72 18 24 and 23 12 18 years respectively compared to the historically observed repeat time of 22 years at morgan hill the tr estimates are 122 46 76 and 78 47 110 years respectively compared to the observed repeat time of 72 years

imaging b value depth variations within the cocos and rivera plates at the mexican subduction zone abstract by a systematic mapping of the b value along profiles perpendicular to the mexican wadati benioff zone we obtained important characteristics pertaining the stress state and faulting style related to the subduction process to this purpose we used data from the earthquake catalog reported by the servicio sismologico nacional 1988 2016 we investigate depth variations of the b value for the cocos and rivera under north american plates interface by a detailed analysis of 15 cross sections the obtained b value profiles vary from 0 50 to 2 50 which nevertheless appear related to the faulting style and stress state by comparing the locations and focal mechanism of the largest events with the b values of the surrounding regions our analysis corroborates the dependence of the b value on the faulting style thrust events occur in regions of low and high b value at depths 30 km in agreement with global studies these results support the hypothesis that differential stress processes may be behind the occurrence of the different faulting style on the contrary by analyzing the mean b values for both types of faulting mechanism at each of the cross sections we found a significantly lower mean b value related to normal faulting for those regions where the 8 mw 8 2 and 19 mw 7 1 september 2017 earthquakes occur these results lead us to conclude that those regions experienced an increased stress state prone to the occurrence of normal intraplate events we also compare the b value distribution with vp and q tomography studies obtaining a good correlation between them we found evidence to relate b value variations with subduction processes such as stress state due to tectonic and flexural conditions and to a lesser extent to material heterogeneity and fluid dehydration

pseudomorphic replacement of diopside during interaction with ni mg cl2 aqueous solutions implications for the ni enrichment mechanism in talc and serpentine type phases abstract a hydrothermal experimental study of diopside interaction with ni mg cl2 aqueous solutions has been carried out to clarify the replacement mechanism and pattern of element mobilization and its relevance to peridotite alteration three different solution compositions were used with ni mg ratios of 0 0 5 and 1 respectively experiments were carried out in cold seal pressure vessels at 300 600 c and 100 mpa pressure for 15 days in gold capsules for 600 c nicl2 experiments the solutions were also spiked with 50 h218o to study the behavior of isotopic exchange and hence the replacement mechanism the diopside pseudomorph interface is compositionally and structurally sharp after the mgcl2 experiments pure talc and or serpentine comprised the replacement phases whereas reaction in the ni bearing fluids produced talc willemseite and or lizardite nepouite series compositions additionally a complex rim of ni poor and ni rich regions developed in the nicl2 and ni mg cl2 experiments raman spectroscopy of the ni rich talc from the experiment with 18o enriched solution showed a shift of 10 1 cm 1 for the si o bridging si band towards lower wavenumbers relative to unspiked solution experiments indicating that 18o was incorporated into the silicate framework thus the reaction progressed via an interface coupled dissolution precipitation mechanism overgrowths of an olivine type phase at 500 600 c and serpentine type phases in 300 400 c experiments were also observed for a simple binary composition e g ni mg of the interacting solution the fluid composition different ni mg ratio at the reacting interface and its silica activity has a strong control on the phase precipitated the sequential formation of a ni poor inner phase and ni rich outer phase indicates a stepwise increase in ni incorporation within the neo formed phase that is representative of a cyclic dissolution precipitation process during supergene enrichment of ni in natural ore deposits additionally ca transport occurs in the opposite direction to ni during alteration which may be important as a geochemical tracer for economic ni deposits and as a source of ca for the rodingitization processes that are often associated with peridotite occurrences

most likely locations of large earthquakes in the kanto and tokai areas japan based on the local recurrence times abstract we examined the hypothesis that minima in local recurrence time tl or equivalently maxima in local probability pl may map asperities in the kanto and tokai areas of japan where the earthquake catalog of the national research institute for earth science and disaster prevention nied is complete at the m 1 5 m1 5 level we mapped tl pl based on the a and b values of the nearest earthquakes within 20 km of every node of a grid spaced 0 01 for m7 target events only earthquakes within the top 33 km were used the b values increase strongly with depth in several areas therefore some of the tl pl anomalies are not revealed if data from the entire crustal seismogenic zone are mixed thus we mapped tl pl separately for the top 15 km and the rest of the depth range as well as for the entire seismogenic crust the resulting tl and pl maps show that approximately 12 of the total area shows anomalously short recurrence times out of six shallow target events with m 6 5 and which occurred since 1890 five are located within the anomalous areas with tl

on the vertical structure of wind driven sea currents abstract the vertical structure of wind driven sea surface currents and the role of wind wave breaking in its formation are investigated by means of both field experiments and modeling analysis of drifter measurements of surface currents in the uppermost 5 m layer at wind speeds from 3 to 15 m s 1 is the experimental starting point of this study the velocity gradients beneath the surface are found to be 2 to 5 times weaker than in the wall boundary layer surface wind drift identified via drift of an artificial slick with respect to 0 5 m depths is about 0 7 which is even less than the velocity defect over the molecular sublayer in the wall boundary layer at a smooth surface to interpret the data a semiempirical model describing the effect of wave breaking on wind driven surface currents and subsurface turbulence is proposed the model elaborates on the idea of direct injection of momentum and energy from wave breaking including microscale breaking into the water body momentum and energy tran

stable isotopic evidence for large scale seawater infiltration in a regional metamorphic terrane the trois seigneurs massif pyrenees france oxygen isotopic analyses of 95 metamorphic and igneous rocks and minerals from a hercynian metamorphic sequence in the trois seigneurs massif pyrenees france indicate that all lithologies at higher metamorphic grades than the andalusite in isograd have relatively homogeneous 18o values the extent of homogenization is shown by the similarity of 18o values in metacarbonates metapelites and granitic rocks 11 to 13 and by the narrow range of oxygen isotopic composition shown by quartz from these lithologies these values contrast with the 18o values of metapelites of lower metamorphic grade 18o about 15 homogenization was caused by a pervasive influx of hydrous fluid mass balance calculations imply that the fluid influx was so large that its source was probably high level groundwaters or connate formation water hydrogen isotopic analyses of muscovite from various lithologies are uniform and exceptionally heavy at d 25 to 30 suggesting a seawater origin many lines of petrological evidence from the area independently suggest that metamorphism and anatexis of pelitic metasediment occurred at depths of 6 12 km in the presence of this water rich fluid the composition of which was externally buffered deep penetration of surface waters in such environments has been hitherto unrecognized and may be a key factor in promoting major anatexis of the continental crust at shallow depth three types of granitoid are exposed in the area the leucogranites and the biotite granite quartz diorite are both mainly derived from fusion of local paleozoic pelitic metasediment because all these rocks have similar whole rock 18o values 11 to 13 the post metamorphic biotite granodiorite has a distinctly different 18o 9 5 to 10 0 and was probably derived from a deeper level in the crust rare mafic xenoliths within the deeper parts of the biotite granite quartz diorite also have different 18o 8 0 to 8 5 and possibly represent input of mantle derived magma which may have provided a heat source for the metamorphism