earthquake cycle deformation in the tibetan plateau with a weak mid crustal layer 1 geodetic observations of interseismic deformation across the tibetan plateau contain information about both tectonic and earthquake cycle processes time variations in surface velocities between large earthquakes are sensitive to the rheological structure of the subseismogenic crust and in particular the viscosity of the middle and lower crust here we develop a semianalytic solution for time dependent interseismic velocities resulting from viscoelastic stress relaxation in a localized midcrustal layer in response to forcing by a sequence of periodic earthquakes earthquake cycle models with a weak midcrustal layer exhibit substantially more near fault preseismic strain localization than do classic two layer models at short 50 mm yr postseismic velocities in the years following the coseismic ruptures we suggest that earthquake cycle models with a localized midcrustal layer can simultaneously explain both preseismic and postseismic geodetic observations with a single maxwell viscosity while the classic two layer model requires a rheology with multiple relaxation time scales

the critical slip distance for seismic faulting experimentally based friction laws1 2 have been found to predict virtually the entire range of observed behaviour of natural faults3 4 these laws contain a critical slip distance l which plays a key role in determining the degree of fault instability the size of the zone of earthquake nucleation the frictional breakdown width and the proportion of pre and post seismic slip to co seismic slip in laboratory measurements l is found to be about 10 5m but modelling results show that it must be about 10 2m if natural earthquake behaviour is to be simulated the discovery that fault surfaces are fractal over the scale range 10 5 105 refs 5 6 even for faults with large net slip has confused the problem of scaling this parameter from laboratory experiments to natural faults because fractal surfaces have no characteristic length here i show that geometrically unmated fractal surfaces when in contact under a normal load develop a characteristic length in their contact because long wavelength apertures close under load whereas short wavelength apertures may remain open this critical distance may be identified with l and calculations based on fault topography data show that at seismogenic depths it will be in the range anticipated from the earthquake modelling studies

dynamics of izmit earthquake postseismic deformation and loading of the duzce earthquake hypocenter we have developed dynamic finite element models of izmit earthquake postseismic deformation to evaluate whether this deformation is better explained by afterslip via either velocity strengthening frictional slip or linear viscous creep or by distributed linear viscoelastic relaxation of the lower crust we find that velocity strengthening frictional afterslip driven by coseismic shear stress loading can reproduce time dependent global positioning system data better than either linear viscous creep on a vertical shear zone below the rupture or lower crustal viscoelastic relaxation our best frictional afterslip model fits the main features of postseismic slip inversions in particular high slip patches at and below the hypocenter and on the western karadere segment and limited afterslip west of the hersek delta burgmann et al 2002 the model requires a weakly velocity strengthening fault that is either low effective normal stress in the slipping regions or a smaller value for the parameter describing rate dependence of friction a b than is indicated by laboratory experiments our best afterslip model suggests that the coulomb stress at the duzce hypocenter increased by 0 14 mpa 1 4 bars during the izmit earthquake assuming right lateral slip on a surface dipping 50 to the north and by another 0 1 mpa during the 87 days between the izmit and duzce earthquakes in the marmara sea region within about 160 km of the izmit earthquake rupture this model indicates that the coulomb stresses increased by 15 25 of the coseismic amount during the first 300 days after the earthquake three hundred days after the earthquake postseismic contributions to coulomb stressing rate on the maramara region faults had fallen to values equal to or less than the inferred secular stress accumulation rate our estimates of postseismic coulomb stress are highly model dependent in the marmara region the linear viscous shear zone and viscoelastic lower crust models predict greater postseismic coulomb stresses than the frictional afterslip model near field stress and fault zone rheology estimates are sensitive to the earth9s elastic structure when a layered elastic structure is incorporated in our model it yields a coulomb stress of 0 24 mpa at the duzce hypocenter significantly more than the 0 14 mpa estimated from the uniform elastic model because of the higher near field coseismic stresses the layered elastic model requires a higher value of velocity strengthening parameter a b a b times effective normal stress r to produce comparable postseismic slip a b is estimated at 0 4 and 0 2 mpa respectively for the layered and uniform elastic models these results highlight the importance of understanding the earth9s elastic structure and the mechanism for postseismic deformation if we wish to accurately model coseismic and postseismic crustal stresses

seven years of postseismic deformation following the 1999 m 7 4 and m 7 2 izmit duzce turkey earthquake sequence 1 we report the results of nearly 7 years of postseismic deformation measurements using continuously recorded and survey mode gps observations for the 1999 izmit duzce earthquake sequence resolvable time dependent postseismic changes to the preearthquake interseismic velocity field extend at least as far as the continuous gps station in ankara 200 km southeast of the izmit rupture seven years after the earthquake sequence the relative postseismic velocity across the north anatolian fault naf reaches 10 12 mm a roughly 50 of the steady state interseismic rate with the highest postseismic velocities within 40 km of the coseismic ruptures we use a sequence of logarithmic time functions to fit gps site motions up to three logarithmic terms with decay constants of 1 150 and 3500 days are necessary to fit all the transient motion observed at the continuous gps stations the first term is required for the component of site motion parallel to the naf at near field sites strongly implicating rapid shallow afterslip the intermediate and longer term postseismic velocity components reflect more broadly distributed strain with a symmetric double couple pattern suggestive of either localized deep afterslip or viscoelastic relaxation of the upper mantle and or lower crust in two areas including the marmara sea this pattern is superimposed on north south extension centered on the naf we speculate that this extension may result from aseismic dip slip along coseismically weakened faults driven by the background tectonic stress

strain partitioning and stress rotation at the north anatolian fault zone from aftershock focal mechanisms of the 1999 izmit mw 7 4 earthquake summary we investigate aftershock focal mechanisms of the m w 7 4 izmit earthquake of 1999 august 17 on the western north anatolian fault zone nafz spatial clustering and the orientation of 446 fault plane solutions are analysed the izmit mainshock occurred as a right lateral slip on an ew trending near vertical fault plane aftershock clusters define four individual fault segments focal mechanisms surrounding the epicentres of the izmit and subsequent duzce mainshock m w 7 1 1999 november 12 indicate predominantly strike slip but also normal faulting aftershocks in the area between the izmit and duzce segments are mainly related to ew oriented normal faulting delineating a small pull apart structure beneath the easternmost sea of marmara alignments of aftershocks suggest branching of the nafz into three or more active segments that differ significantly in terms of their focal mechanism characteristics the distribution of aftershock focal mechanisms corresponds to fault segmentation of the nafz in the izmit duzce region produced by coseismic slip areas with large amounts of coseismic slip show aftershocks that are predominantly strike slip but low slip barriers show mostly normal faulting aftershocks stress tensor inversions of the aftershock focal mechanisms show rotations of the local stresses following the izmit mainshock in the izmit sapanca area the maximum horizontal compressive stress axis is horizontally rotated counter clockwise by 8 with respect to the coseismic and long term regional stress field towards the eastern end of the rupture karadere duzce area stresses are rotated clockwise we conclude that the izmit earthquake caused significant stress partitioning along the rupture the direction of stress rotation is related to the orientation of the individual fault segments along the nafz

relating viscosities from postseismic relaxation to a realistic viscosity structure for the lithosphere summary models of geodetic observations of postseismic relaxation most often represent the lithosphere with only a few layers with constant viscosity this is surpr ising because rock mechanical experiments consistently demonstrate that we should expect a profound vertical gradient in lithospheric viscosities due to the geothermal gradient i n this thermal boundary layer we isolate the effect of lower crustal flow where the effect of visc osity gradients has the largest impact on surface deformation we therefore explore postseismic deformation in models with realistic vertical viscosity gradients and seek to illustrate th e differences between these models and those with idealized uniform viscosity layers by means of synthetic experiments with a semianalytical viscoelastic relaxation model we show how for a given earthquake the averaged viscosity value obtained for a thick viscoelastic layer is d ependent on both the layout of the geodetic network and on the observation time window

two high levels of continental waters in the southern tunisian chotts at about 90 and 150 ka uranium and thorium content and activity ratios were measured on 20 samples 19 molluscs and 1 calcareous concretion from the great chotts in southern tunisia results were studied by the isochron method and by age frequency histograms they suggest that two major flood episodes took place about 150 and 90 ka uranium activity ratios indicate a ground water supply of continental origin in agreement with biological indicators which show large variations in salinity from fresh to marine like conditions the existence of a lacustrine phase radiocarbon dated to 17 40 ka as previously suggested for the northern sahara is highly questionable

kinematics of the mw 7 2 12 november 1999 duzce turkey earthquake the november 12 1999 duzce earthquake ruptured a 40 km long fault segment of the north anatolian fault system immediately to the east of the august 17 1999 izmit rupture we use displacements of 32 sites derived from gps measurements immediately before and after the duzce earthquake to estimate the geometry and slip distribution of the coseismic rupture the 51 northward dipping rupture plane the rake of the slip vector average 3 76 0 04 m right lateral 0 76 0 04 m normal slip and the slip distribution inferred from the gps data are consistent with seismic observations and the distribution of surface offsets measured in the field the geodetically determined moment magnitude is mw 7 2 the duzce earthquake had the highest slip to rupture length ratio of any historic earthquake along the north anatolian fault this is consistent with the duzce earthquake being a part of a composite rupture with the preceding izmit event

postseismic deformation induced by brittle rock damage of aftershocks 1 large earthquakes are commonly followed by abundant aftershocks that are densely located around the coseismic rupture zone laboratory experiments indicate that microscopic brittle rock failures acoustic emission are associated collectively with a macroscopic damage related inelastic relaxation utilizing basic relations between local brittle failures and gradual inelastic strain in a viscoelastic damage rheology model we develop connections between aftershock decay rates and the aftershocks induced component of geodetic deformation the discussed mechanism is relevant for postseismic relaxation produced by sources located within the seismogenic zone and especially in regions that overlap locations of high aftershocks activity assuming the omori utsu decay rate for aftershocks we find that the temporal decay of the damage related postseismic relaxation follows a generalized power law relation with the standard omori utsu law as a limit case the results provide a way for estimating the separate contributions to observed postseismic displacements that stem from brittle failures in the seismogenic zone aftershocks and other aseismic processes using the obtained theoretical expectations we analyze postseismic displacements measured by gps stations around the north anatolian fault 3 months following the 1999 m7 4 izmit earthquake we find that the observed postseismic displacements decay slower than the aftershock seismicity based on our theoretical results we conclude that up to 50 of the measured surface displacements at near fault sites can be attributed to aftershock induced inelastic deformation in the seismogenic zone the remainder postseismic deformation can generally be explained by relaxation in the deeper ductile substrate

postseismic and interseismic displacements near a strike slip fault a two dimensional theory for general linear viscoelastic rheologies 1 we present an analytic solution for the deformation near an infinite strike slip fault in an elastic layer overlying a linear viscoelastic half space the theory is valid for any linear viscoelastic rheology and any earthquake sequence this is a generalization of the work of j c savage and colleagues which only holds for models with a uniform shear modulus maxwell viscoelastic lower half space and periodic rupture recurrence we demonstrate the theory for models of an elastic layer over a maxwell standard linear solid burgers and triviscous half space for each of these models we calculate example postseismic displacements interseismic displacements in a periodic earthquake sequence and interseismic displacements for a nonperiodic earthquake sequence our solution is for a simple geometry however the model presents an elegant tool to explore the evolution of displacements for relatively complex rheologies and rupture recurrence histories

the use of land snail shells in paleoenvironmental reconstruction fossil land snail shells constitute a valuable source of paleoenvironmental information for the quaternary they can be dated by a variety of methods including radiocarbon amino acid racemization and epimerization and perhaps also thu and esr the vast majority of paleoenvironmental studies based on land snail shells have examined the faunal composition of fossil assemblages from which a variety of paleoenvironmental characteristics such as biome temperature and moisture conditions have been reconstructed still there are a number of problems involved in using this approach and these are discussed shell morphology has occasionally been used to reconstruct such factors as rainfall and temperature stable isotope studies on quaternary land snails include analysis of 18o values of organic matter in the shells to reconstruct c4 plant distributions from which rainfall amounts can be inferred and analysis of 18o values of shell carbonate from which trends in the oxygen isotope composition of rainfall can be reconstructed stable carbon isotopes of shell carbonate have also been studied but their interpretation is not clear amino acid epimerization analysis dalloisoleucinel isoleucine ratios of land snail shells has been used for estimation of paleotemperatures some potential uses of land snail shells for paleoenvironmental reconstruction include the study of stable isotopes of h and n periodic growth lines and deposits of pedogenic carbonates on the shells

the first dated eemian lacustrine deposit in romania abstract a complex interglacial sequence of lacustrine sediments has been found near the village of turbuta in nw romania mollusk plant macrofossil and pollen analyses reflect climatic and environmental changes around the last interglacial climatic optimum u th tims dating of snails strongly indicates an eemian age of the organic sediments

holocene and late pleistocene climate in the sub mediterranean continental environment a speleothem record from poleva cave southern carpathians romania the pp10 stalagmite from poleva cave provides a late pleistocene and holocene isotopic record characteristic for the sw of romania a sub mediterranean climatic region the speleothem was dated by eight tims and one alpha u series dates which showed that it was precipitated between 75 ka and 2 ka with at least two hiatuses the basal sector of the stalagmite showed a slow growing regime of 0 26 cm ka while the upper one grew relatively fast with about 5 cm ka the temporal resolution for the isotopic sampling is thus 2 ka sample for the lower sector and 150 years sample for the upper one the relationship between 18 o and temperature was found positive the isotopic record of the lower sector shows two marked cold intervals during 67 and 58 ka and 40 35 ka respectively which correlate well with the villars and soreq records the upper sector record is so far the most detailed holocene isotopic record in romania and the only one available for the regions located at the exterior of the carpathians range the signal shows a gradual warming after the gs1 event punctuated by several cold events at 8 7 2 and 4 2 ka and also by warm oscillations centered at about 5 2 and 3 3 ka the results seem to indicate that if the north atlantic firstorder signals may extend well to the south eastern europe their amplitude and general trend may be diminished by the interferences with the mediterranean circulation

on the mechanics of earthquake afterslip we propose a model for earthquake afterslip based on rate and state variable friction laws in the model afterslip is attributed to the interaction of a velocity weakening region at depth within which earthquakes nucleate with an upper region of velocity strengthening frictional behavior the existence of this upper region is supported by independent seismologic observations and the results of laboratory friction experiments in our model afterslip is the result of relaxation of a stress perturbation within the velocity strengthening region which arises when an earthquake propagates into that region from below we derive the stress perturbation and its decay from the friction constitutive law using a simple 1 degree of freedom approximation for the elastic interaction between the fault and its surroundings this approximation is based on thickness averaged displacements and slip velocities within the velocity strengthening region which is assumed to slip as a rigid block coseismic and postseismic slip are coupled through the thickness averaged stiffness k of the velocity strengthening region we assume k to be inversely proportional to the thickness of this region which means that thicker velocity strengthening regions have a greater tendency to arrest coseismic slip we model the afterslip time histories of the 1966 parkfield and 1987 superstition hills earthquakes and relate the model parameters to physical parameters which may govern the rheologic behavior of the faults in accord with field observations our model predicts 1 that afterslip on some faults scales with the thickness of the unconsolidated sedimentary cover and 2 that proportionally more afterslip occurs for earthquakes in which coseismic surface slip is small compared with coseismic slip at depth velocity strengthening frictional behavior is to be expected for faults within poorly consolidated sediments and for those that contain significant gouge zones about 500 m within their shallow regions 3 5 km combining our results with those of recent laboratory friction studies indicates that relatively young faults with little accumulated fault gouge should exhibit little afterslip

complex kinematic rupture of the mw 5 9 1999 athens earthquake as revealed by the joint inversion of regional seismological and sar data summary slip distributions of the moderate magnitude mw 5 9 1999 athens earthquake inverted from surface waves and interferometric synthetic aperture radar sar images show very different characteristics the robustness analysis proposed in this study confirms the discrepancy between the well constrained features of each individual solution irrespective of the hypotheses we made data modeling errors slow deformation post or pre seismic slip the joint inversion of the two data sets led to a complex and heterogeneous rupture model this model is characterized by a short rise time 5s slip patch centred on the hypocentre extending bilaterally up to 4 km depth and down to 17 km and releasing approximately 70 per cent of the total moment located further to the wnw and releasing the remaining 30 per cent of the total moment a long rise time slip patch extends from 8 to 17 km depth if the short rise time slip patch propagated above and below the brittle zone delineated by the aftershocks the long rise time slip patch slow deformation appears to be mostly confined below the brittle zone this unified model satisfies the analysis of the seismic and geodetic slip distributions as well as the location of the aftershock sequence and attests to the diversity of the crustal response even for moderate size faults

seismic hazard in the marmara sea region following the 17 august 1999 izmit earthquake on 17 august 1999 a destructive magnitude 7 4 earthquake occurred 100 km east of istanbul near the city of izmit on the north anatolian fault this 1 600 km long plate boundary 1 2 slips at an average rate of 2 3 cm yr 1 refs 3 5 and historically has been the site of many devastating earthquakes 6 7 this century alone it has ruptured over 900 km of its length 6 models of earthquake induced stress change 8 combined with active fault maps 9 had been used to forecast that the epicentral area of the 1999 izmit event was indeed a likely location for the occurrence of a large earthquake 9 10 here we show that the 1999 event itself significantly modifies the stress distribution resulting from previous fault interactions 9 10 our new stress models take into account all events in the region with magnitudes greater than 6 having occurred since 1700 ref 7 as well as secular interseismic stress change constrained by gps data 11 these models provide a consistent picture of the long term spatio temporal behaviour of the north anatolian fault and indicate that two events of magnitude equal to or greater than the izmit earthquake are likely to occur within the next decades beneath the marmara sea south of istanbul

an analysis of eemian climate in western and central europe on the basis of 31 pollen diagrams and additional data for botanical macrofossils an analysis is made of the last interglacial eemian climatic history in western and central europe the main tool for this analysis is the climatic indicator species method only selected woody species are used for the quantification of data partial climatic range diagrams are presented for abies alba acer monspessulanum acer tataricum buxus sempervirens tilia tomentosa the problem of time correlation and pollen zonation of the eemian is discussed the climatic analysis itself is based on an improved version of the indicator species method in this version not every site is analysed for its climatic values instead maps and tables on the migrational history of hedera ilex buxus abies and species of acer tilia and abies are the basis for climatic maps showing respectively january and july isotherms for the periods of the corylus zone e4a and the carpinus zone e5 it is concluded that mean january temperatures were as much as 3 c higher at amsterdam the netherlands than at present and mean temperatures in july were 2 c higher however the thermal maximum in winter was later zone e5 than the summer thermal maximum zone e4a winter temperatures changed parallel to rise and fall of global sea level precipitation changes are more difficult to estimate in the first part of the eemian precipitation must have been relatively low but from zone e4b onward it increased to higher values reaching 800 mm and probably substantially more in zones e5 and e6 hence the eemian climate was in its beginning relatively more contintental and later from e4b onward more oceanic however as compared with the holocene the eemian climate was generally speaking more oceanic

controls of shear zone rheology and tectonic loading on postseismic creep 1 postseismic deformation is well documented in geodetic data collected in the aftermath of large earthquakes in the postseismic time interval gps is most sensitive to creep in the lower crust or upper mantle activated by earthquake generated stress perturbations in these regions deformation may be localized on an aseismic frictional surface or on a ductile shear zone these two hypotheses imply specific rheologies and therefore time dependence of postseismic creep hence postseismic creep constitutes a potential probe into the rheology of aseismic regions of the lithosphere i present a simple shear zone model of postseismic creep in which the rheology of the creeping element can be varied in the absence of tectonic loading during the postseismic time interval the displacement history of the shear zone obeying a power law rheology with stress exponent n follows an analytical relaxation curve parameterized by 1 n for a frictional surface postseismic creep follows the same relaxation law in the limit 1 n 0 a rough estimate of the apparent stress exponent can be obtained from continuous gps records application to data collected after the 1994 sanriku earthquake yields 1 n 0 1 which is consistent with dislocation creep mechanisms however the records of two other subduction zone events the 2001 peru event and the 1997 kronotski earthquake and a continental strike slip earthquake the 1999 izmit earthquake require negative 1 n rather than characterizing the shear zone rheology these negative exponents indicate that reloading of the shear zone by tectonic forces is important numerical simulations of postseismic deformation with nonnegligible reloading produce curves that are well fit by the generalized relaxation law with 1 n 0 although the actual stress exponent of the rheology is positive while this prevents rheology from being tightly constrained by the studied gps records it indicates that reloading is important in the postseismic time interval in other words the stress perturbation induced by an earthquake is comparable to the stress supported by ductile shear zones in the interseismic period

post seismic motion following the 1997 manyi tibet earthquake insar observations and modelling summary on november 8 1997 a mw 7 6 earthquake occurred in the manyi region of northern tibet near the western end of the kunlun fault over 7 m of left lateral slip occurred on a 200 kmlong fault here we use insar observations of post seismic surface deformation following the manyi earthquake to investigate possible causal mechanisms time series of deformation are constructed from 26 interferograms covering the entire length of the fault for nearly 4 yr after the earthquake three different modelling approaches are used to try and understand the observed variations in surface displacement first order poroelastic models predict displacement fields which do not match those observed modelling of viscoelastic stress relaxation in a half space with standard linear solid rheology beneath an elastic lid provides a reasonable fit to the observations and demonstrates that two relaxation times are needed to characterize the post seismic transient the best fitting viscosity is 4 10 18 pa s and the fully relaxed shear modulus is 32 per cent of the purely elastic value a model with a maxwell viscoelastic halfspace underlying the lid cannot explain the observations at later times larger viscosities are required than at earlier times this increase in effective viscosity with time may be consistent with stress relaxation occurring in a power law rheology the time series are also inverted for distributed afterslip on an extension of the coseismic rupture along strike correlation of coseismic and post seismic slip maxima suggests that afterslip is a plausible mechanism the maximum slip in the afterslip model is 0 72 m after 3 yr and the equivalent moment release is approximately 20 per cent of the coseismic moment this study shows that it is possible to rule out certain mechanisms as the dominant post seismic process but with the current insar data set it is difficult to distinguish between other plausible options

postseismic strain following the 1989 loma prieta earthquake from gps and leveling measurements postseismic deformation in the 5 years following the 1989 loma prieta earthquake has been measured with the global positioning system and precise leveling postearthquake velocities at distances greater than 20 km from the coseismic rupture are not significantly different from those observed in the 20 years prior to the earthquake however velocities at stations within 20 km of the rupture exceed preearthquake rates and exhibit unanticipated contraction normal to the strike of the san andreas fault system a combination of forward modeling and nonlinear optimization suggests that the observed postseismic deformations were caused by aseismic oblique reverse slip averaging 2 9 cm yr on the san andreas fault and or the loma prieta rupture zone and 2 4 cm yr reverse slip along a buried fault within the foothills thrust belt the best fitting sources of postseismic deformation are all located at depths of less than 15 km we find no evidence for accelerated flow or shear below the loma prieta rupture in the first 5 years following the earthquake the inferred postseismic slip is likely to have been caused by the coseismic stress change updip of the 1989 rupture

viscoelastic afterslip concurrence a possible mechanism in the early post seismic deformation of the mw 7 6 1999 chi chi taiwan earthquake summary observed coseismic data as well as 97 days of post seismic gps data for the chi chi earthquake are used as constraints in the modelling of crustal evolution using the 3 d finite element method first the coseismic gps data are used to justify the use of the elastic earth model and the source rupture model subsequently the most likely rheological model is determined by analysing several modelled time dependent displacements for various viscosity structures the range of viscosities of the lower crust in central taiwan is determined in advance from laboratory measurements and the long term strain rate the estimated viscosity of 5 0 10 17 p as seems to be very low and a relaxation time of 116 days seems very short but the latter approximates the gps measurement of 86 days since earlier studies have indicated that both the viscoelastic response model and the afterslip model may affect post seismic deformation we compare theoretical surface displacements for each of the two models that we evaluate the results reveal that there is little doubt that while neither of these models alone is able to predict the gps measurements well in a 97 day period the combination of the two models improves the predictions considerably we conclude that the afterslip mainly dominated chi chi post seismic deformation in the rupture area while the viscoelastic model did so elsewhere

determining the geometry of the north anatolian fault east of the marmara sea through integrated stress modeling and remote sensing techniques abstract the 1200 km long north anatolian fault naf is part of an east west trending dextral shear zone naf system along the boundary between the anatolian and eurasian plates that widens to the west this widening zone of deformation complicates potential earthquake rupture paths and highlights the importance of understanding the geometry of active fault systems in the central portion of the naf system just west of the town of bolu the naf splits into two major faults the northern and southern strands these two faults diverge almost converge and then diverge again to border the marmara sea earthquake data from the region where the two faults converge indicate that they may be linked by an active fault we model the active fault geometries with and without the linking fault to explore its impact on the output regional stress field from a finite element model these results are compared to focal mechanism records and lineament analyses to determine which geometry best simulate the stress field in a regional model our results show that a linking fault between the northern and southern strands of the naf system is necessary to best match the primary stress orientations of the model with the maximum paleostress orientations inferred from deformation patterns and observed in earthquake focal mechanisms furthermore the linking fault should be a significant component in future models of the naf system within the region

equivalent strike slip earthquake cycles in half space and lithosphere asthenosphere earth models by virtue of the images used in the dislocation solution the deformation at the free surface produced throughout the earthquake cycle by slippage on a long strike slip fault in an earth model consisting of an elastic plate lithosphere overlying a viscoelastic half space asthenosphere can be duplicated by prescribed slip on a vertical fault embedded in an elastic half space for the case in which each earthquake ruptures the entire lithosphere thickness h the half space equivalent slip rate is as follows depth interval 0 h slip identical to that in lithosphere asthenosphere model i e abrupt coseismic slip and no subsequent slip depth interval 2n 1 h to 2n 1 h n 1 2 slip rate uniform in space and dependent upon time as fn t exp t a where fn is a n 1 degree polynomial in t a is twice the asthenosphere relaxation time and t is measured from the instant after the preceding earthquake the slip rate averaged over the seismic cycle in each depth interval equals the secular rate of relative plate motion for reasonable values of a slip rates below 5h do not vary much from that mean value and can be treated as constant thus the surface deformation due to the earthquake cycle in the lithosphere asthenosphere model can be calculated very simply from the half space model with time dependent slip in the two depth intervals h 3h and 3h 5h and uniform slip at a rate equal to the secular relative plate velocity below depth 5h inversion of 1973 1988 geodetic measurements of deformation across the segment of the san andreas fault in the transverse ranges north of los angeles for the half space equivalent slip distribution suggests no significant slip on the fault above 30 km and a uniform slip rate of 36 mm yr below 30 km one equivalent lithosphere asthenosphere model would have a 30 km thick lithosphere and an asthenosphere relaxation time greater than 33 years but other models are possible

crustal earthquake instability in relation to the depth variation of frictional slip properties recent stability studies using constitutive relations of the type found by dieterich ruina and others to describe frictional slip of rocks in the laboratory have provided a new explanation of the depth cutoff of shallow crustal earthquakes the class of friction laws discussed has the property that the sliding stress depends on normal stress temperature slip rate and slip history for sliding at a fixed slip rate v and fixed environment e g normal stress temperature etc the shear strength evolves toward a steady state value ss v stability analysis show that for d ss v dv 0 velocity strengthening implies stable steady state sliding at least for a broad class of constitutive laws more fully described in the paper experiments by dieterich and by tullis and weeks on westerly granite with mature sliding surfaces indicate that d ss v dv is negative at room temperature whereas higher temperature experiments by stesky show that d ss v dv becomes positive above approximately 300 c therefore in the case of the earth where temperature increases with depth the above observations seem to suggest that the depth cutoff of crustal earthquake activity can be understood in terms of the variation of the frictional response with depth from a regime with d ss v dv 0 this is not inconsistent with but rather refines the suggestion by sibson and others that the depth cutoff is due to a transition from brittle friction to ductile flow further our results show definitively that the shallow depth confinement of seismicity is compatible with a model in which deformation is localized to a fault zone extending well below the seismogenic depth the depth confinement does not require a model showing transition to a zone of broadly distributed creep flow beneath the seismogenic zone following mavko a two dimensional quasi static strike slip fault model is analyzed but using different numerical procedures and a depth variation of frictional properties based on the laboratory data mentioned above and the lachenbruch sass depth variation of temperature for the san andreas fault the resulting predictions of such features as the confinement of crustal earthquakes to shallow depths the development of locked patches the recurrence time for the seismic cycle the seismic stress drop and displacement etc are generally in agreement with the observed characteristics of large scale strike slip earthquakes along the san andreas fault calculations based on the laboratory data predict for example that stick slip nucleates around 5 7 km that large seismic motion occurs around the nucleation depth and above but diminishes gradually to zero at 13 15 km depths that rapid postseismic creep occurs over another 3 4 km depth and that at greater depths steady slip consistent with the average plate velocity is only modestly perturbed by the earthquakes occurring above the most uncertain parameter is the slip weakening distance l for evolution of fault surface state we illustrate how features of the predicted earthquake cycles vary with l over the range for which calculations are feasible

aseismic slip and seismogenic coupling in the marmara sea what can we learn from onland geodesy ever since the mw7 4 izmit earthquake in 1999 evaluation of seismic hazard associated with the last unbroken segments of the north anatolian fault is capital a strong controversy remains over whether marmara fault segments are locked or are releasing strain aseismically using a bayesian approach we propose a preliminary probabilistic interseismic model constrained by published gps data sets the posterior mean model show that ganos and cinarcik segments are locked while creep is detected in the central portion of marmara fault our analysis however reveals that creeping segments are associated with large model uncertainties which mainly results from the sparsity of current geodetic observations we then discuss how the gps network can be improved to attain more reliable assessment of interseismic slip rates with this purpose we implement a network optimization procedure to identify the most favorable distribution of stations measuring strain accumulation in the marmara sea

triggered slip observations of the 17 august 1999 izmit turkey earthquake using radar interferometry we use synthetic aperture radar interferometry insar to map the displacement field of the 17 august 1999 izmit earthquake which largely conforms to that predicted for an elastic upper crust we determine the earthquake source parameters and show that slip continues farther west than the mapped fault ruptures we also show that additional sub surface displacements occurred on parallel strands of the north anatolian fault zone we argue that this was caused by changes in static stress accompanying the mainshock or by the dynamic release of regional stresses

the signature of depth dependent viscosity structure in post seismic deformation summary geodetic observations of post seismic ground motion reflect the integrated effects of several relaxation mechanisms to evaluate the viscous relaxation component accurately the crustal viscosity structure beneath a region must be estimated in this study using a 3 d finite element model we describe the viscoelastic relaxation that follows an instantaneous strike slip faulting event in a crustal layer whose viscosity decreases exponentially with depth at any surface observation point the depth dependent viscosity ddv model displacement history closely fits the history predicted for a uniform viscosity unv model the difference can be minimized to obtain the unv viscosity u that best fits the ddv model displacement at that location the differences in displacement histories between ddv and best fit unv models are minor but depend on distance from fault the viscosity gradient and the fault configuration in the near field the ddv model prediction can be well approximated by the unv model regardless of the viscosity gradient and fault configuration on the other hand in the far field small differences between ddv model and best fit unv model become apparent the displacements are controlled by greater viscosities in later phases and the differences are greater for ddv models with greater viscosity gradient the more important result we obtain is that apparent viscosity u decreases with distance from the fault and its rate of decrease is directly diagnostic of the vertical viscosity gradient this result points to a practical method of analysing post seismic ground displacement data for the variation of viscosity in the ductile crust the apparent crustal viscosity should be determined at a series of points at increasing distance from the fault the variation of apparent viscosity with distance can then be used to directly infer the vertical gradient of viscosity in the crust

time dependent deformation of the eastern flank of mt etna after slip or viscoelastic relaxation abstract major results of post intrusive gps monitoring of the 5 months encompassing and following the onset of 2002 03 mt etna eruption are presented and discussed here the overall ground deformation pattern is characterized by a time dependent relaxation function we evaluated two different parametrizations of relaxation functions each one linked to a different relaxation process i viscoelastic relaxation and ii after slip mechanism the former indicated that the process occurred within a weak layer characterized by viscosity values ranging between 7 1 1014 pa s and 1 3 1015 pa s the latter evidenced that frictional processes occurred beneath a layer of velocity strengthening having a thickness with values ranging between 0 4 km and 1 7 km either model may explain the observed time dependent deformation both from the statistical point of view and the comparison with geologic and seismic information although we are unable to favour one model rather than the other these results indicate that the mechanism responsible for the observed post intrusive deformation occurs within a sliding zone located inside the clayey sedimentary basement

geodetic observations of postseismic creep in the decade after the 1999 izmit earthquake turkey implications for a shallow slip deficit the relationship between aseismic slip and tectonic loading is important for understanding both the pattern of strain accumulation along a fault and its ability to generate large earthquakes we investigate the spatial distribution and temporal evolution of aseismic creep on the western north anatolian fault naf using time series analysis of envisat interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar data covering the full extent of the 1999 izmit and duzce earthquake ruptures and spanning 2002 2010 discontinuities in the line of sight velocity across the fault imply that fault creep reaches the earth s surface at an average fault parallel rate of 5 mm yr along an 80 km section of the naf by combining insar and published gps velocities we are able to extract the vertical and east west components of motion and show that the adapazari basin is subsiding at a rate of 6 mm yr vertical motions have biased previous estimates of creep in this region the displacement time series close to the fault is consistent with an afterslip model based on rate and state friction which predicts a rapid deceleration in fault creep rate after the izmit earthquake to a near steady state 5 mm yr after 5 years projecting our model 200 years into the future we find that the cumulative displacement of 1 1 3 m is insufficient to account for the shallow coseismic slip deficit observed in previous studies distributed off fault deformation in the shallow crust or transient episodes of faster slip are likely required to release some of the long term strain during the earthquake cycle

slip rate and locking depth from gps profiles across the southern dead sea transform 1 the dead sea transform is a major strike slip fault bounding the arabia plate and the sinai subplate on the basis of two gps campaign measurements 6 years apart at 17 sites distributed in israel and jordan complemented by israeli permanent stations we compute the present day deformation across the southern segment of the dead sea transform the wadi araba fault elastic locked fault modeling of fault parallel velocities provides a slip rate of 4 9 1 4 mm a and a best fit locking depth of 12 km this slip rate is slightly higher than previous results based only on israeli permanent gps stations data which are located west of the fault it is in good agreement with results based on offset geomorphologic and geologic features that average longer periods of time 10 ka to 1 ma projection in itrf2000 reference frame allows using our data combined with results published earlier to further study the kinematics between arabia nubia and sinai systematic combination of euler poles available in the literature in addition to our new set of data shows that a wide range of arabia sinai pole positions and angular velocities predict reasonable slip rate on the dead sea fault we highlight uncertainties of calculating such poles due to the small size of the blocks and their slow relative motion along a short and almost straight strand of the transform fault which lead to a large trade off between pole location and angular velocity

frictional properties on the san andreas fault near parkfield california inferred from models of afterslip following the 2004 earthquake the abundance of geodetic and seismic data recording postseismic deformation following the 2004 parkfield earthquake provides an unprecedented opportunity to resolve frictional properties on the parkfield section of the san andreas fault the parkfield segment is a transition between the locked section to the southeast that last ruptured in the 1857 fort tejon earthquake and the creeping section to the northwest we develop three dimensional rate and state dependent friction models of afterslip following the 2004 earthquake to investigate the frictional behavior of the fault it is assumed that the coseismic rupture occurred on an area of the fault surrounded by aseismic creep that accelerated after the earthquake we estimate the distribution of coseismic slip afterslip and rate state frictional parameters by inverting a two step slip model in the model we 1 estimate the coseismic slip distribution from 1 hz global positioning system gps data and 2 use the corresponding coseismic shear stress change on the fault as input into a numerical afterslip model governed by rate state friction we find the rate state frictional parameter a b an indicator of frictional stability is in the range 10 4 10 3 at 50 mpa normal stress which is near the transition from potentially unstable negative a b to nominally stable positive a b friction the estimate of a b values falls within a wide range of experimental values reported for serpentinite which crops out along the san andreas fault zone the critical slip distance d c which characterizes the distance over which strength breaks down during a slip event is in the range 0 01 0 1 m consistent with seismic estimates and a fault gouge thickness of 1 10 m the afterslip model reproduces most features observed in the gps time series data including high surface velocities in the first few months after the earthquake and lower rates at later times as well as the cumulative postseismic displacement the model tends to underpredict the displacement data at later times suggesting that perhaps the modeled afterslip period ends too quickly or an unmodeled deformation process dominates the signal at later times

time dependent distributed afterslip on and deep below the izmit earthquake rupture surface deformation transients measured with the global positioning system during the 87 days between the 17 august 1999 izmit earthquake and the 12 november 1999 duzce earthquake indicate rapidly decaying aseismic fault slip on and well below the coseismic rupture elastic model inversions for time dependent distributed fault slip using a network inversion filter approach show that afterslip was highest between and below the regions of maximum coseismic slip and propa gated downward to or even below the base of the crust maximum afterslip rates decayed from greater than 2 m yr immediately after the i zmit earthquake to about 1 2 m yr just prior to the duzce earthquake maximum afterslip occurred below the eastern karadere rupture segment and near the i zmit hypocenter afterslip in the upper 16 km decayed more rapidly than that below the seismogenic zone these observations are consistent with a phase of rapid aseismic fault slip concentrated near the base of the seismogenic zone continued loading from the rapid deep afterslip along the eastern rupture zone is a plausible mechanism that helped trigger the nearby mw 7 2 12 november duzce earthquake

estimating slip distribution for the izmit mainshock from coseismic gps ers 1 radarsat and spot measurements we use four geodetic satellite systems global positioning system gps european remote sensing ers radarsat and satellite pour l9observation de la terre spot to measure the permanent deformation field produced by the izmit earthquake of 17 august 1999 we emphasize measurements from interferometric analysis of synthetic aperture radar sar images acquired by ers and radarsat and their geodetic uncertainties the primary seismological use of these data is to determine earthquake source parameters such as the distribution of slip and the fault geometry after accounting for one month9s postseismic deformation tropospheric delay and orbital gradients we use these data to estimate the distribution of slip at the time of the izmit mainshock the different data sets resolve different aspects of the distribution of slip at depth although these estimates agree to first order with those derived from surface faulting teleseismic recordings and strong motion careful comparison reveals differences of 40 in seismic moment we assume smooth parameterization for the fault geometry and a standard elastic dislocation model the root mean square residual scatter is 25 mm and 11 mm for the ers and radarsat range changes respectively our estimate of the moment from a joint inversion of the four geodetic data sets is m 0 1 84 10 20 n m a moment magnitude of m w 7 50 these values are lower than other estimates using more realistic layered earth models given the differences between the various models we conclude that the real errors in the estimated slip distributions are at the level of 1 m the prudent geophysical conclusion is that coseismic slip during the izmit earthquake tapers gradually from approximately 2 m under the hersek delta to 1 m at a point 10 km west of it we infer that the yalova segment west of the hersek delta may remain capable of significant slip in a future earthquake

postseismic deformation following the june 2000 earthquake sequence in the south iceland seismic zone 1 we observe postseismic deformation on two spatiotemporal scales following mw 6 5 earthquakes in the south iceland seismic zone on 17 and 21 june 2000 we see a rapidly decaying deformation transient lasting no more than 2 months and extending about 5 km away from the two main shock ruptures this local month scale transient is captured by several radar interferograms and is also observed at a few campaign gps sites located near the faults a slower transient with a characteristic timescale of about a year is detected only by gps measurements the month scale deformation pattern has been explained by poroelastic rebound due to postearthquake pore pressure changes in contrast the year scale deformation can be explained by either afterslip at 8 14 km depth or viscoelastic relaxation of the lower crust and upper mantle in response to the coseismic stress changes the optimal viscoelastic models have lower crustal viscosities of 0 5 1 1019 pa s and upper mantle viscosity of 3 1018 pa s because of the limitations of our gps campaign data we consider both afterslip and viscoelastic relaxation as plausible mechanisms explaining the deformation field both types of postseismic deformation models suggest that the areas of large coseismic stress increase east of the 17 june and west of the 21 june ruptures continue to be loaded by the postseismic deformation

coseismic and postseismic fault slip for the 17 august 1999 m 7 5 izmit turkey earthquake we use global positioning system gps observations and elastic half space models to estimate the distribution of coseismic and postseismic slip along the izmit earthquake rupture our results indicate that large coseismic slip reaching 5 7 meters is confined to the upper 10 kilometers of the crust correlates with structurally distinct fault segments and is relatively low near the hypocenter continued surface deformation during the first 75 days after the earthquake indicates an aseismic fault slip of as much as 0 43 meters on and below the coseismic rupture these observations are consistent with a transition from unstable episodic large earthquakes to stable fault creep sliding at the base of the seismogenic zone

postseismic deformation near the izmit earthquake 17 august 1999 m 7 5 rupture zone we present and interpret the results of postseismic global positioning system monitoring of the first 298 days following the 17 august 1999 izmit earth quake whereas the data suggest some spatial and temporal complexity in the post seismic motions the overall pattern can be characterized by time dependent relaxa tion functions and suggests exponential decay with an estimated 57 day relaxation time the very rapid deformation during the first few weeks following the mainshock suggests rapid afterslip on and below the coseismic rupture segments the exponen tial decay of the postseismic deformations through the end of the observation period suggests contributions from the lower crustal viscoelastic relaxation

nonlinear strain buildup and the earthquake cycle on the san andreas fault two contrasting models of the earthquake deformation cycle on strike slip faults predict significant temporal declines in shear strain rate near the fault accompanied by a progressive broadening of the zone of deformation adjacent to it in the thin lithosphere model transient deformation results from flow in the asthenosphere due to stress relaxation following faulting through most or all of the lithosphere for an earth model with a thick elastic lithosphere plate thickness depth of seismic slip transient motions are due to postearthquake aseisrnic slip below the coseismic fault plane data from the san andreas fault indicate a long term temporal decrease in strain rate that persists for at least 30 years and may extend through the entire earthquake cycle observations support a cycle long rate decrease and a temporal spreading of the deformation profile only if movement cycles on the northern and southern locked sections of the fault are basically similar if so the usually lower strain rates and broader deformation zone currently observed on the southern san andreas represent a later evolutionary stage of the northern locked section where a great earthquake is a more recent occurrence although the data allow some extreme models to be discarded no sufficiently strong constraints exist to decide between the thin and thick lithosphere models regardless of the appropriate model the geodetic observations themselves indicate that strain buildup is sufficiently nonlinear to cause significant departures from recurrence estimates based on linear strain accumulation and the time predictable model

direct u th dating of organic and carbonate rich lake sediments from southern scandinavia u th ages of holocene lacustrine sediments from southern sweden have been determined to assess the reliability of this technique for dating climatic events from the last interglacial glacial interglacial cycle and for calibration of the14c dating method the sediments are organic and carbonate rich and they are shown to be very well suited to high precision238u 234u 230th dating by thermal ionisation mass spectrometry tims twenty one samples from 2 58 m of sediment from lake igelsjon southern sweden yield ages between 3058 89 and 9426 262 yr 2 error the sediments consist of hydrogenous calcium carbonate 50 90 organic matter 5 50 and siliceous residue 5 the high u contents of the lake sediments between 6 and 76 ppm are in contrast to the low concentrations in the lake and groudwater 1 9 and 3 2 ppb respectively and mass balance calculations based on u content of water and sediments can be used to calculate a lakewter residence time of 24 days which is close to the residence time calculated using hydrologic data recent ground and lakewater 234u 238u 0 920 is enriched in 234u compared to soils from the catchment area 234u 238u 0 587 and 234u 238u in the lake sediments shows a marked decrease with time from 0 958 at 9426 yr bp to 0 919 at 3058 yr bp this is attributed to progressive leaching of u from soils which have experienced a previous history of recoil related u loss and it indicates that the assumption of constant initial 234u 238u ratios may be a source of significant error in the calculation of 234u 238u ages for continental deposits

what can gps data tell us about the dynamics of post seismic deformation summary this paper describes differences in time varying post seismic deformation due to after slip and viscoelastic relaxation following large strike slip earthquakes and how these differences may be exploited to characterize the configuration and rheology of aseismically deforming material in the subsurface the analysis involves two steps first near field time dependent post seismic deformation characteristics of a typical mw 7 4 strike slip earthquake is defined based on analysis of gps data from three recent earthquakes secondly this earthquake is modelled assuming uniform slip along a rectangular surface and several classes of after slip and viscoelastic relaxation models that can reproduce the evolution of early post seismic displacements with time at a near field reference point are developed postseismic displacements and velocities away from the reference point where the differences are greatest and thus most likely to be distinguished with gps are compared i find that displacements from a judiciously designed network of continuous or frequently occupied campaign mode gps sites are sufficiently precise to distinguish linear viscoelastic relaxation from after slip on a vertical surface extending the coseismic rupture furthermore both the thickness and viscosity of a relaxing linearly viscoelastic layer may be identified to maximize what post seismic gps surveys can tell us particularly concerning potential relaxation of low viscosity layers in the crust and or upper mantle some gps sites should be located along strike beyond the rupture tip also far field gps sites should be occupied as frequently as sites close to the rupture

the 1999 izmit earthquake sequence in turkey seismological and tectonic aspects the izmit duzce earthquake sequence is the largest sequence recorded by modern digital networks in the history of turkish earthquakes the m w 7 4 izmit mainshock occurred at 29 967 e and 40 729 n and 13 km depth at 00 hr 01 min 38 7 sec utc on 17 august 1999 and was preceded by at least eight immediate foreshocks of magnitude m l 3 0 aftershock locations show that a large region has become seismically very energetic following the mainshock and that most of the aftershock zone developed quickly in the first 3 days the distribution of the aftershocks illuminates numerous seismotectonic structures associated with the various branches of the north anatolian fault naf in the aftershock zone the seismicity pattern defines a rupture plane that extends about 80 km east and 75 km west of the mainshock epicenter confirming bilateral rupture during the mainshock the western aftershock activity is almost entirely located offshore extending along the axis of the izmit bay we show that the westernmost extent of the mainshock rupture reached the offshore region just 10 km south of the princes islands the dominance of strike slip motion is one of the main characteristics of the izmit sequence a number of significant aftershock clusters occur off the inferred mainshock rupture plane the spatial and temporal occurrence of these clusters show that they are triggered by the complex redistribution of stresses and dynamic strains imposed by the dislocation of the mainshock the focal mechanisms of the events located in the western end of the rupture zone show both strike slip and normal faulting mechanisms we infer that the yalova cluster was triggered by the mainshock the dominance of the normal faulting mechanisms supports the notion that dynamic extensional strains played a major role in triggering this cluster four events located off the princes islands indicate similar source mechanisms characterized by right lateral strike slip motion parallel to the strike of the northern boundary fault nbf and local trend of aftershock distribution this observation leads to a first order seismotectonic evidence that the nature of the nbf which is known to be a transtensional feature at the surface is dominated by strike slip motion at depth the coexistence of strike slip and extensional seismotectonic features in the sea of marmara highlights the importance of strain partitioning amongst shallow transtentional structures accommodating north south extension and deeper structures associated with the naf accommodating east west right lateral shear manuscript received 22 september 2000

a study of the tectonically active marmara region turkey using a global positioning system gps the marmara region is an active tectonic zone characterized by a transition in the dextral strike slip regime of the western part of the north anatolian fault zone the main goal of this paper is to assess the use of global posi tioning system gps data sets collected during five relatively short time intervals during the period december 2000 march 2002 to detect potential crustal deformations to determine if the deformations measured with gps are real or only a data artifact a statistical reliability analysis of the solutions is performed the results indicate that each station has statistically different temporal behavior and significant relative motions this area is consequently still very active with significant deformation patterns although the average magnitude for our estimated displacement rates with re spect to ankr station which represents the rigid motion of the anatolian plate is in the order of 1 1 cm year in the south of the north anatolian fault it increases to 2 3 cm year in the northern part of the area

afterslip and viscoelastic relaxation following the 1999 m 7 4 izmit earthquake from gps measurements summary intensive global positioning system gps monitoring after the 1999 izmit earthquake provides an opportunity to understand the postseismic behaviour of a strike slip fault and the rheology below the brittle upper crust two data sets are available displacements measured during the first 300 days after the izmit earthquake and velocity measurements between 2003 and 2005 using an inversion method and a forward modelling respectively we investigate two mechanisms 1 afterslip on and below the coseismic rupture plane and 2 viscoelastic stress relaxation in the lower crust and upper mantle described by a maxwell or a standard linear solid sls rheology the inversion results show that the first several months following the izmit earthquake were dominated by afterslip at depths shallower than 30 km and the slip amount decayed with time after that apparent afterslip has a very different spatial distribution and is located much deeper for viscoelastic relaxation a model with an elastic upper crust and a maxwell viscoelastic lower crust overlying a maxwell mantle e m m fits the data measured in the first 300 days better in the far field than in the near field however the observed far field 300 day displacement and the long term 2003 2005 displacement which might be dominated by viscoelastic relaxation cannot be described by a maxwell rheological model with constant viscosity the effective viscosity increases over time therefore we have built a refined rheological model an elastic upper crust and an sls lower crust overlying a maxwell viscoelastic mantle e sls m our best solution yields a viscosity for the lower crust of 2 1018 pa s a relaxation strength of 2 3 and a viscosity for the maxwell mantle of 7 1019 pa s finally we explain the data using a composite model consisting of the preferred e sls m model and the afterslip model obtained from the residual displacement after correcting for viscoelastic relaxation for the early time period the residual displacements can be mainly explained by a shallow afterslip whose magnitude decays with time and whose spatial distribution is stable whereas the residual displacements for the later time period require negligible afterslip it indicates that the postseismic deformation in the later time period induced by a deep source can be almost entirely explained by the e sls m model the composite model can generally explain the data in the entire spatial and temporal space

present day strain distribution across a segment of the central bend of the north anatolian fault zone from a persistent scatterers insar analysis of the ers and envisat archives

characterization of aftershock fault plane orientations of the 1999 izmit turkey earthquake using high resolution aftershock locations 1 joint inversion for hypocentral parameters and the velocity field is nowadays a state of the art tool to obtain high resolution images of seismically active regions in this study we focus on the location accuracy of aftershocks of the 1999 mw 7 4 izmit nw turkey earthquake we obtained a new velocity model for the region and depicted its improvement on absolute locations in terms of uncertainty and misfit two well developed aftershock clusters located in the akyazi area and karadere duzce region were analyzed in detail based on a waveform cross correlation approach that allowed improving the location accuracy by a factor of 6 relocation results reveal that hypocenters form narrow planes of activity that can be correlated with focal mechanisms of the larger aftershocks as well as nearby clouds of activity with no internal structure down to the resolved scale of 300 m

joint estimation of afterslip rate and postseismic relaxation following the 1989 loma prieta earthquake global positioning system gps data from campaigns carried out over the 5 years following the 1989 loma prieta earthquake and leveling data measured in 1990 and 1992 define the postseismic velocity field around the loma prieta rupture zone subtraction of a background velocity field yields a residual velocity pattern which we interpret as the product of two physical processes 1 slow afterslip along distinct planes in the upper cru st and 2 viscoelastic relaxation of the lower crust and upper mantle biirgmann et al 1997 previously derived an afterslip model involving uniform afterslip on two optimally determined planes in cluding oblique reverse slip on the coseismic rupture and reverse slip on a shallow thrust fault to the northeast of the san andreas fault we further consider models of distributed slip on these two fault planes plus a viscoelastic relaxation pattern which depends on a suitable cose ismic rupture model and crust and mantle viscosities several fault models from the literature were considered for the 1989 coseismic rupture with nearly identical impact on the results simultaneous maximum likelihood inversion of the gps and leveling data for afterslip distri bution and viscosity yields the following results 1 a good fit to the data is obtained by smooth afterslip distributions without any viscoelastic relaxation being required 2 tangible broad scale viscoelastic relaxation of the lower crust and upper mantle are present in this data set at 97 confidence and a lower crustal viscosity of 1029 pa s is obtained however the viscosity of both the lower crust and upper mantle are poorly constrained 3 for a given misfit 20 less integrated afterslip and smoother afterslip distributions result when viscoelas tic relaxation is included 4 maximum slip rates on the slip distributed models are 3 5 crn yr the dominant patches estimated on the two planes fill in the entire depth range 4 13 km without significant overlap and deeper afterslip is not required the afterslip distribution on the coseismic rupture plane is strongly dominated by reverse slip immediately southeast of the main center of coseismic reverse slip

deformation of western turkey from a combination of permanent and campaign gps data limits to block like behavior 1 we present a new geodetic velocity field covering western turkey south of the north anatolian fault our velocity field is derived from a combination of continuously recording gps stations operating since 2003 survey type gps measurements carried out in the period 1997 2005 and velocities from reilinger et al 2006 the velocity field indicates that western turkey currently undergoes extension whose rate increases from the anatolia plateau to the aegean coast the overall extension in westernmost turkey is about 20 mm yr making it one of the fastest areas of continental extension in the world we test whether the observed deformation is better represented by the rotation of crustal blocks or by more distributed deformation while no deformation is detected in the central anatolian plateau we observe a deformation field west of the plateau that cannot be explained by block models unless the blocks are so small as to be essentially indistinguishable from a continuum although concentration of strain rates up to 140 nstrain yr are found across the major grabens strain rates above 50 nstrain yr are found throughout western turkey the distributions of topography and crustal thickness in western turkey agree with the distributions expected if the crust there had a constant thickness at 5 ma equal to that of the present central anatolian plateau and had subsequently been thinned at the present day distribution of strain rates our results therefore suggest that extensional strain affects the whole continental lithosphere of western turkey rather than being restricted to a small number of block boundaries

younger dryas to mid holocene environmental history of the lowlands of nw transylvania romania pollen micro charcoal and total carbon analyses on sediments from the turbuta palaeolake in the transylvanian basin of nw romania reveal younger dryas to mid holocene environmental changes the chronostratigraphy relies on ams 14c measurements on organic matter and u th tims datings of snail shells results indicate the presence of pinus and betula open woodlands with small populations of picea ulmus alnus and salix before 12 000 cal yr bp a fairly abrupt replacement of pinus and betula by ulmus dominated woodlands at ca 11 900 cal yr bp likely represents competition effects of vegetation driven by climate warming at the onset of the holocene by 11 000 cal yr bp the woodlands were increasingly diverse and dense with the expansion of quercus fraxinus and tilia the establishment of corylus and the decline of upland herbaceous and shrubs taxa the marked expansion of quercus accompanied by tilia between 10 500 and 8000 cal yr bp could be the result of low effective moisture associated with both low elevation of the site and with regional change towards a drier climate at 10 000 cal yr bp corylus spread across the region and by 8000 cal yr bp it replaced quercus as a dominant forest constituent with only little representation of picea abies carpinus became established around 5500 cal yr bp but it was only a minor constituent in local woodlands until ca 5000 cal yr bp results from this study also indicate that the woodlands in the lowlands of turbuta were never closed

primary crustal melt compositions insights into the controls mechanisms and timing of generation from kinetics experiments and melt inclusions abstract we explore the controls mechanisms and timing of generation of primary melts and their compositions and show that the novel studies of melt inclusions in migmatites can provide important insights into the processes of crustal anatexis of a particular rock partial melting in the source region of granites is dependent on five main processes i supply of heat ii mineral melt interface reactions associated with the detachment and supply of mineral components to the melt iii diffusion in the melt iv diffusion in minerals and v recrystallization of minerals as the kinetics of these several processes vary over several orders of magnitude it is essential to evaluate in nature which of these processes control the rate of melting the composition of melts and the extent to which residue melt chemical equilibrium is attained under different circumstances to shed light on these issues we combine data from experimental and melt inclusion studies first data from an extensive experimental program on the kinetics of melting of crustal protoliths and diffusion in granite melt are used to set up the necessary framework that describes how primary melt compositions are established during crustal anatexis then we use this reference frame and compare compositional trends from experiments with the composition of melt inclusions analyzed in particular migmatites we show that for the case of el hoyazo anatectic enclaves in lavas the composition of glassy melt inclusions provides important information on the nature and mechanisms of anatexis during the prograde suprasolidus history of these rocks including melting temperatures and reactions and extent of melt interconnection melt homogenization and melt residue equilibrium compositional trends in several of the rehomogenized melt inclusions in garnet from migmatites granulites in anatectic terranes are consistent with diffusion in melt controlled melting though trace element compositions of melt inclusions and coexisting minerals are necessary to provide further clues on the nature of anatexis in these particular rocks

postseismic deformation associated with the 1992 m ω 7 3 landers earthquake southern california following the 1992 m 7 3 landers earthquake a linear array of 10 geodetic monuments at roughly 5 km spacing was established across the emerson fault segment of the landers rupture the array trends perpendicular to the local strike of the fault segment and extends about 30 km on either side of it the array was surveyed by global positioning system 0 034 0 048 0 381 1 27 1 88 2 60 and 3 42 years after the landers earthquake to measure both the spatial and temporal character of the postearthquake relaxation the temporal behavior is described roughly by a short term decay time 84 23 days exponential relaxation superimposed upon an apparently linear trend because the linear trend represents motions much more rapid than the observed preseismic motions we attribute that trend to a slower decay time greater than 5 years postseismic relaxation the curvature of which cannot be resolved in the short run 3 4 years of postseismic data about 100 mm of right lateral displacement and 50 mm of fault normal displacement accumulated across the geodetic array in the 3 4 year interval covered by the postseismic surveys those displacements are attributed to postseismic right lateral slip in the depth interval 10 to 30 km on the downward extension of the rupture trace the right lateral slip amounted to about 1 m directly beneath the geodetic array and the fault normal displacement is apparently primarily a consequence of the curvature of the rupture these conclusions are based upon dislocation models fit to the observed deformation however no dislocation model was found with rms residuals as small as the expected observational error

global positioning system constraints on plate kinematics and dynamics in the eastern mediterranean and caucasus we present and interpret global positioning system gps measurements of crustal motions for the period 1988 1997 at 189 sites extending east west from the caucasus mountains to the adriatic sea and north south from the southern edge of the eurasian plate to the northern edge of the african plate sites on the northern arabian platform move 18 2 mm yr at n25 5 w relative to eurasia less than the nuvel 1a circuit closure rate 25 1 mm yr at n21 7 w preliminary motion estimates 1994 1997 for stations located in egypt on the northeastern part of africa show northward motion at 5 6 2 mm yr also slower than nuvel ia estimates 10 1 mm yr at n2 4 e eastern turkey is characterized by distributed deformation while central turkey is characterized by coherent plate motion internal deformation of 2 mm yr involving westward displacement and counterclockwise rotation of the anatolian plate the anatolian plate is de coupled from eurasia along the right lateral strike slip north anatolian fault naf we derive a best fitting euler vector for anatolia eurasia motion of 30 7 0 8 n 32 6 0 4 e 1 2 0 1 myr the euler vector gives an upper bound for naf slip rate of 24 1 mm yr we determine a preliminary gps arabia anatolia euler vector of 32 9 1 2 n 40 3 1 1 e 0 8 0 2 myr and an upper bound on left lateral slip on the east anatolian fault eaf of 9 1 mm yr the central and southern aegean is characterized by coherent motion internal deformation of 2 mm yr toward the sw at 30 1 mm yr relative to eurasia stations in the se aegean deviate significantly from the overall motion of the southern aegean showing increasing velocities toward the trench and reaching 10 1 mm yr relative to the southern aegean as a whole

postseismic deformation following the landers earthquake california 28 june 1992 accelerated strain followed the landers and big bear earthquakes returning to the normal rate only after a period of several months we observed this strain throughout most of southern california using the global positioning system gps three gps receivers operating continuously in fixed positions at pinyon flat jet propulsion laboratory pasadena and goldstone all recorded postseismic deformation in a relative sense in addition we established 16 sites where we deployed portable receivers occasionally over a period of about 6 months near the rupture zones of the earthquakes anomalous postseismic displacements ranged from 55 mm near the epicenter to a few millimeters far from the fault we modeled the displacements using dislocation theory as due to variable slip on the faults that were displaced at the times of the earthquakes the model suggests that the postseismic strain released the equivalent of about 15 of the seismic moment of the mainshock while the strain released from the upper 10 km is about the same as what can be explained by direct effects of aftershocks the major contribution of strain release comes from the lower layer below 10 km depth significant afterslip or viscous relaxation must have occurred below 10 km depth to explain the observed deformation more than 100 km from the fault one interpretation is that high stress on the margin of the co seismic rupture zone drives the rupture to extend itself into urbroken rock below and along the initial rupture zone

inference of multiple earthquake cycle relaxation timescales from irregular geodetic sampling of interseismic deformation abstract characterizing surface deformation throughout a full earthquake cycle is a challenge due to the lack of high resolution geodetic observations of duration comparable to that of characteristic earthquake recurrence intervals 250 10 000 years here we approach this problem by comparing long term geologic slip rates with geodetically derived fault slip rates by sampling only a short fraction 0 001 0 1 of a complete earthquake cycle along 15 continental strike slip faults geodetic observations provide snapshots of surface deformation from different times through the earthquake cycle the timing of the last earthquake on many of these faults is poorly known and may vary greatly from fault to fault assuming that the underlying mechanics of the seismic cycle are similar for all faults geodetic observations from different faults may be interpreted as samples over a significantly larger fraction of the earthquake cycle than could be obtained from the geodetic record along any one fault alone as an ensemble we find that geologically and geodetically inferred slip rates agree well with a linear relation of 0 94 0 09 to simultaneously explain both the ensemble agreement between geologic and geodetic slip rate estimates with observations of rapid postseismic deformation we consider the predictions from simple two layer earthquake cycle models with both maxwell and burgers viscoelastic rheologies we find that a two layer burgers model with two relaxation timescales is consistent with observations of deformation throughout the earthquake cycle whereas the widely used two layer maxwell model with a single relaxation timescale is not suggesting that the earthquake cycle is effectively characterized by a largely stress recoverable rapid postseismic stage and a much more slowly varying interseismic stage

coseismic and early post seismic slip associated with the 1999 izmit earthquake turkey from sar interferometry and tectonic field observations summary we use combined tectonic field observations and sar data to determine an improved model of the slip associated with the 1999 izmit earthquake which ruptured the north anatolian fault at the eastern end of the sea of marmara the leading goal is to understand the main features of the coseismic and post seismic deformation which are captured together in the sar data to achieve this we make a critical analysis of the ers1 2 sar data which allows atmospheric effects to be identified and removed we also use detailed field mapping and measurements of the earthquake surface rupture dislocations in elastic half space and a forward modelling strategy allow us to obtain a slip model by steps a trial and error approach is combined with conventional inversion techniques to determine the slip in the different regions of the fault the sar data are well explained with three main zones of high slip along the fault releasing a total moment of 2 3 10 20 nm mw 7 6 which is higher than the seismological estimates 1 7 2 0 10 20 n m the inhomogeneous slip distribution correlates with fault segments identified at the surface the izmit rupture appears to have extended 30 km west of the hersek peninsula into the sea of marmara with slip tapering fro m2mt ozero the western end of the rupture is located 40 km sse from istanbul we show that some features seen near to mudurnu and gevye and previously interpreted as slip on secondary faults are explained mostly as atmospheric effects correlated with the topography using our approach and the available gps data we obtain a slip model that represents the coseismic slip alone which suggests that the moment release during the main shock was 1 9 10 20 nm mw 7 5 consistent with the seismological estimates we conclude that the sar data include the effects of 2 m of fast after slip during the month following the main shock within a zone of the fault located 12 24 km below the epicentral region near the hypocentre at a depth of 18 km the fault appears to have experienced dynamic slip of 1 m associated with the main shock followed by 2 m of rapidly decelerating post seismic shear during the following month we suggest that the distribution of heterogeneous slip and loading along the different fault segments may be important factors controlling the propagation of large earthquake ruptures along the north anatolian fault

heightened odds of large earthquakes near istanbul an interaction based probability calculation we calculate the probability of strong shaking in istanbul an urban center of 10 million people from the description of earthquakes on the north anatolian fault system in the marmara sea during the past 500 years and test the resulting catalog against the frequency of damage in istanbul during the preceding millennium departing from current practice we include the time dependent effect of stress transferred by the 1999 moment magnitude m 7 4 izmit earthquake to faults nearer to istanbul we find a 62 15 probability one standard deviation of strong shaking during the next 30 years and 32 12 during the next decade

izmit earthquake postseismic deformation and dynamics of the north anatolian fault zone 1 we have modeled postseismic deformation from 1999 to 2003 in the region surrounding the 1999 izmit and duzce earthquake ruptures using a three dimensional viscoelastic finite element method our models confirm earlier findings that surface deformation within the first few months of the izmit earthquake is principally due to stable frictional afterslip on and below the izmit earthquake rupture a second deformation process is required however to fit the surface deformation after several months viscoelastic relaxation of lower crust and or upper mantle with a viscosity of the order of 2 to 5 1019 pa s improves the models fit to later gps site velocities however for a linear viscous rheology this range of values is inconsistent with highly localized interseismic deformation around the north anatolian fault zone nafz that was well observed prior to the earthquake sequence the simplest solution to this problem is to assume that the effective viscosity of the relaxing material increases with time after large earthquakes that is that it has a power law or burger s body transient rheology a burger s body rheology with two characteristic viscosities 2 to 5 1019 pa s and at least 2 1020 pa s in the mantle is consistent with deformation around the nafz throughout the earthquake cycle