a geodynamic model of mantle density heterogeneity using cenozoic and mesozoic plate motion reconstructions we derive a model of present day mantle density heterogeneity under the assumption that subducted slabs sink vertically into the mantle the thermal buoyancy of these slabs is estimated from the observed thermal subsidence cooling of oceanic lithosphere slab velocities in the upper mantle are computed from the local convergence rate we assume that slabs cross the upper lower mantle interface and continue sinking into the lower mantle with a reduced velocity for a velocity reduction factor between 2 and 5 our slab heterogeneity model is as correlated with current tomographic models as these models are correlated with each other we have also computed a synthetic geoid from our density model for a viscosity increase of about a factor of 40 from the upper to lower mantle our model predicts the first 8 spherical harmonic degrees of the geoid with statistical confidence larger than 95 and explains 84 of the observed geoid assuming that the model c21 and s21 terms are absent due to a long relaxation time for earth s rotational bulge otherwise 73 of the geoid variance is explained the viscosity increase is consistent with our velocity reduction factor for slabs entering the lower mantle since downwelling velocities are expected to scale roughly as the logarithm of viscosity loge 40 3 7 these results show that the history of plate tectonics can explain the main features of the present day structure of the mantle the dynamic topography induced by this heterogeneity structure consists mainly of about 1 km amplitude lows concentrated along the active continental margins of the pacific basin our model can also be used to predict the time variation of mantle heterogeneity and the gravity field we find that the age of the geoid defined as the time in the past before which the geoid becomes uncorrelated with the present geoid is about 50 m y our model for the history of the degree 2 geoid which is equivalent to the history of the inertia tensor should give us a tool to study the variations in earth s rotation pole indicated in paleomagiietic studies

mantle phase changes and deep earthquake faulting in subducting lithosphere inclined zones of earthquakes are the primary expression of lithosphere subduction a distinct deep population of subduction zone earthquakes occurs at depths of 350 to 690 kilometers at those depths ordinary brittle fracture and frictional sliding the faulting processes of shallow earthquakes are not expected a fresh understanding of these deep earthquakes comes from developments in several areas of experimental and theoretical geophysics including the discovery and characterization of transformational faulting a shear instability connected with localized phase transformations under nonhydrostatic stress these developments support the hypothesis that deep earthquakes represent transformational faulting in a wedge of olivine rich peridotite that is likely to persist metastably in coldest plate interiors to depths as great as 690 km predictions based on this deep structure of mantle phase changes are consistent with the global depth distribution of deep earthquakes the maximum depths of earthquakes in individual subductions zones and key source characteristics of deep events

inversion of complex body waves we have developed a method that inverts seismic body waves to determine the mechanism and rupture pattern of earthquakes the rupture pattern is represented as a sequence of subevents distributed on the fault plane this method is an extension of our earlier method in which the subevent mechanisms were fixed in the new method the subevent mechanisms are determined from the data and are allowed to vary during the sequence when subevent mechanisms are allowed to vary however the inversion often becomes unstable because of the complex trade offs between the mechanism the timing and the location of the subevents many different subevent sequences can explain the same data equally well and it is important to determine the range of allowable solutions some constraints must be imposed on the solution to stabilize the inversion we have developed a procedure to explore the range of allowable solutions and appropriate constraints in this procedure a network of grid points is constructed on the i plane where and i are respectively the onset time and the distance from the epicenter of a subevent the best fit subevent is determined at all grid points then the correlation is computed between the synthetic waveform for each subevent and the observed waveform the correlation as a function of and i and the best fit mechanisms computed at each i grid point depict the character of allowable solutions and facilitate a decision on the appropriate constraints to be imposed on the solution the method is illustrated using the data for the 1976 guatemala earthquake

a new self organizing mechanism for deep focus earthquakes the mechanism of deep focus earthquakes has been a puzzle since their discovery almost 70 years ago1 2 because brittle fracture and frictional sliding at depths in excess of 100 200 km would require unrealistic rock strengths3 4 rock strength does increase with pressure but a few hundred mpa equivalent to 10 20 km depth suffices to inhibit most fracture and elevated temperature activates ductile mechanisms that operate at stresses less than the fracture stength a range of mechanisms has been proposed for deep earthquakes including plastic instabilities5 7 shear induced melting8 11 and instabilities accompanying recrystallization12 13 or polymorphic phase transformation14 23 each of these proposed mechanisms has exhibited certain inherent weaknesses see kirby22 for review and discussion here we report experimental observations of high pressure faulting of metastable mg2geo4 olivine as it undergoes incipient transformation to a spinel 24 25 structure we present a model in which this faulting arises from the generation propagation and linking up of spinel filled anticracks26 when applied to the olivine spinel transformation in the earth s mantle the anticrack model27 satisfactorily accounts for the similarities and differences between shallow and deep earthquakes and removes the problems associated with frictional sliding

rupture characteristics of the deep bolivian earthquake of 9 june 1994 and the mechanism of deep focus earthquakes the m w 8 3 deep 636 kilometers bolivian earthquake of 9 june 1994 was the largest deep focus earthquake ever recorded seismic data from permanent stations plus portable instruments in south america show that rupture occurred on a horizontal plane and extended at least 30 by 50 kilometers rupture proceeded at 1 to 3 kilometers per second along the down dip azimuth of the slab and penetrated through more than a third of the slab thickness this extent is more than three times that expected for a metastable wedge of olivine at the core of the slab and thus appears to be incompatible with an origin by transformational faulting these large events may instead represent slip on preserved zones of weakness established in oceanic lithosphere at the earth s surface

rupture complexity of the mw 8 3 sea of okhotsk earthquake rapid triggering of complementary earthquakes we derive a finite slip model for the 2013 m w 8 3 sea of okhotsk earthquake z 610 km by inverting calibrated teleseismic p waveforms the inversion shows that the earthquake ruptured on a 10 dipping rectangular fault zone 140 km 50 km and evolved into a sequence of four large sub events e1 e4 with an average rupture speed of 4 0 km s the rupture process can be divided into two main stages the first propagated south rupturing sub events e1 e2 and e4 the second stage e3 originated near e2 with a delay of 12 s and ruptured northward filling the slip gap between e1 and e2 this kinematic process produces an overall slip pattern similar to that observed in shallow swarms except it occurs over a compressed time span of about 30 s and without many aftershocks suggesting that sub event triggering for deep events is significantly more efficient than for shallow events

morphology of the subducting slab boundary in the northeastern japan arc abstract the detection and location of the subducting slab boundary is crucial for a better understanding of the mechanical coupling between the subducting oceanic plate and the overlying continental plate and of the occurrence of large and destructive earthquakes on the main thrust zone in the forearc region of subduction zones it is also important for the understanding of the dehydration of the subducting slab and the genesis of island arc magmatism and volcanism in this study we have estimated the morphology of the upper surface of the subducting pacific plate under northeastern ne japan by using 1372 sp converted waves at the slab boundary and 666 earthquakes beneath the pacific ocean that are well located with sp depth phases we found that the pacific slab beneath ne japan subducts at a small dip angle of less than 10 for the first descent to about 20 km depth and has a steeper dip angle of 15 25 at 30 50 km depth and about 30 at deeper areas the slab depth is approximately 50 km under the pacific coast 150 km under the japan sea coast and nearly 100 km beneath the volcanic front at 60 150 km depths earthquakes in the lower plane of the double seismic zone occur in the central part of the slab while the upper plane events occur within 10 15 km beneath the slab boundary there is a change in the slab surface geometry around 38 n which corresponds to the landward extension of an oceanic fracture zone the strike of the slab is nne in the north and becomes ne in the south the southern part of the slab has a steeper dip angle than the northern part we believe that these features are related to the different patterns of interplate seismicity and mechanical coupling between the northern and southern parts of ne japan many great m8 0 8 5 interplate earthquakes have occured in northern ne japan during recorded history 830 1995 and microearthquakes show a wide distribution in the forearc region from the japan trench to the pacific coast suggesting strong interplate seismic coupling in that region in contrast only a few m7 0 7 5 class earthquakes have occurred in southern ne japan in the same period and microearthquakes tend to cluster in many small areas suggesting weaker interplate coupling there the subducted slab may be segmented by the oceanic fracture zones and the degree of seismic coupling changes from segment to segment the behavior of the segment in southern ne japan might be affected by the subducted seamounts so that the slab subducts at a steeper dip angle this interpretation is supported by geomagnetic topographic and geological studies which show that many small sized seamounts were subducted in the past from the southern part of the japan trench but almost no seamounts were subducted beneath the northern part

tectonic implications of serpentinite weakening summary the observation that serpentinite becomes weak and brittle at its dehydration temperature provides an experimental basis for the hypothesis that mantle earthquakes are caused by shear fracturing where interstitial fluid pressure effectively reduces the frictional resistance to a low or negligible value if convection currents in the mantle turn down at the foredeeps of the pacific island arcs dehydration of an oceanic crust of serpentinite and downward convection of the dehydration products beneath the island arc would give rise to the anomalously low shallow mantle velocities and heat flows in the region between the trenches and island arcs seismic activity would be confined to the zone along which the weak and brittle dehydration products move downward against the immobile continental mantle and would be concentrated at the leading edge of the focal zone due to release of stored elastic strain upon the initiation of weakening pore fluid pressures giving rise to faulting in the deepest earthquakes are considered to be due to interstitial magma

imaging of subducted lithosphere beneath south america tomographic images are produced for the deep structure of the andean subduction zone beneath western south america the data used in the imaging are the delay times of p pp and pwp phases from relocated teleseismic earthquakes in the region regionally structural features larger than about 150 km are resolved by the data presentations of layer anomaly maps and cross sections reveal 1 the nazca slab is probably continuous laterally and at depth over most regions 2 the offset between the north and south deep earthquake zones containing the 1994 deep bolivia main shock and its aftershocks can be modelled by a northwest striking and steeply northeast dipping slab structure and 3 the nazca slab clearly penetrates the lower mantle beneath central south america but is partly deflected in the southern deep zone

the effect of small amounts of h2o on olivine to ringwoodite transformation growth rates and implications for subduction of metastable olivine abstract it has been suggested that in relatively cold subduction zones the interior of down going lithospheric plates may be cool enough to inhibit the transformation of olivine to its high pressure polymorphs wadsleyite and ringwoodite resulting in the persistence of metastable olivine in the mantle transition zone the rapid transformation of this metastable olivine has been identified as a possible cause of deep focus earthquakes however it is known that olivine can incorporate hydrogen at high pressure and this hydrogen may enhance transformation rates we conducted a series of high pressure experiments to hydrate and then partially transform olivine to ringwoodite we measured transformed rim thickness as a function of run duration and fit a linear function to our results to determine transformation growth rates the addition of h2o to olivine appears to promote olivine to ringwoodite transformation by increasing the growth rate decreasing the activation enthalpy for growth and weakening the ringwoodite and or olivine to allow for dissipation of elastic strain sufficient to maintain constant or near constant growth rates throughout transformation the addition of approximately 300 ppmw 2h2o to olivine increases the growth rate of olivine to ringwoodite transformation at 1100 c and 18 gpa by almost a factor of 40 from 4 0 0 8 10 9 ms 1 to 1 5 0 3 10 7 ms 1 there is a corresponding decrease in the activation enthalpy of growth from 392 kj mol to 237 kj mol assuming activation volume of 0 cm3 mole analyses of hydrogen distributions in partially transformed samples suggest that the hydrogen concentration in the bulk of the olivine crystal may be less important than hydrogen at the olivine and ringwoodite interface

dynamic triggering of deep earthquakes within a fossil slab the 9 november 2009 mw 7 3 fiji deep earthquake is the largest event in a region west of the tonga slab defined by scattered seismicity and velocity anomalies the mainshock rupture was compact but the aftershocks were distributed along a linear feature at distances of up to 126 km the aftershocks and some background seismicity define a sharp northern boundary to the zone of outboard earthquakes extending westward towards the vitiaz deep earthquake cluster the northern earthquake lineament is geometrically similar to tectonic reconstructions of the relict vitiaz subduction zone at 8 10 ma suggesting the earthquakes are occurring in the final portion of the slab subducted at the now inactive vitiaz trench a coulomb stress change calculation suggests many of the aftershocks were dynamically triggered we propose that fossil slabs contain material that is too warm for earthquake nucleation but may be near the critical stress susceptible to dynamic triggering

the 1996 june 17 flores sea and 1994 march 9 fiji tonga earthquakes source processes and deep earthquake mechanisms summary source parameters of the 1996 flores sea and 1994 fiji tonga deep earthquakes are derived from teleseismic body waves recorded by the global seismic network of broad band seismograph stations both events consisted of several subevents models to approximate the spatial and temporal extent of the source process include point sources propagating point sources and a combination of these for the flores sea event rupture lasted about 23 s and terminated some 70 km east of the nucleation point as inferred from the duration of p wave pulses in agreement with the findings reported by other investigators our preferred model suggests bilateral rupture propagation it consists of four point sources that have variable double couple radiation patterns and source time histories and explains well the large compensated linear vector dipole clvd component inferred from the harvard centroid moment tensor cmt solution the main moment release in the fiji tonga event lasted only about 15 s our best model consists of two point sources with a total moment release of 2 8 1020 n m rupture propagated subhorizontally from the nucleation point to the north the termination of rupture was located about 40 km to the north of rupture initiation the inferred velocity of moment release in the flores sea and fiji tonga events was 3 5 km s 1 a value which is higher than that inferred for the great bolivian earthquake of june 1994 other derived source parameters static stress drop radiated seismic energy and maximum seismic efficiency are also significantly different from those inferred for the 1994 bolivian event suggesting that deep earthquake processes do not follow an easily detectable common mechanism

stress distribution due to olivine spinel phase transition in descending plate and deep focus earthquakes the stress field due to olivine spinel phase transition in and around a descending plate is studied based on the calculations for an equilibrium phase transition with a constant clapeyron s slope and for a nonequilibrium transition taking a kinetic effect into consideration the material concerned is assumed to be a viscoelastic body whose physical coefficients are functions of temperature and pressures the calculated stress distribution for the equilibrium transition is characterized by a compressional stress near the upper and or lower surfaces of the plate and by a tensional stress at the central part in the depth range from 200 to 550 km the magnitude of principal stress being greater than 0 5 gpa however for the nonequilibrium transition a tensional stress predominates near the upper and lower surfaces and the central part is compressional in the depth range from 300 to 600 km unlike the case of equilibrium transition the maximum principal stress in the latter case is greater than 2 gpa which is much more than that for the equilibrium transition the principal axes in the high stressed region are oriented almost parallel to the descending direction in both cases comparison of the calculated results to the actually observed seismicity depth relation and to focal mechanisms of deep focus earthquakes in descending plates beneath island arcs shows that the nonequilibrium phase transition agrees better with the observations

seismicity and shape of the subducted nazca plate an updated compilation of earthquake locations and focal mechanism solutions from the international seismological centre and preliminary determination of earthquakes is the basis of a comprehensive study of the geometry of the wadati benioff zone beneath western south america the new data support previous mapping of a sharp flexure rather than a tear in the subducted nazca plate beneath southern peru and provide evidence for a similar flexure in the southward transition from nearly horizontal subduction to a slab with 30 dip at latitude 33 s in contrast the transition from 30 slab dip beneath bolivia to a nearly horizontal dip in the region between 28 s 32 s is more gradual occurring over several hundred kilometers of along strike distance between 20 s and 32 s this southward flattening corresponds to a broadening of a horizontal benchlike part of the subducted plate formed between 100 and 125 km depth the transition in continental tectonic style near 27 s 28 s from a wide volcanically active plateau to a narrow nonvolcanic cordillera appears not to be associated with the main slab flattening which begins to the north of these latitudes but with a more abrupt change in curvature of the subducted slab from convex upward to concave upward immediately below the plate boundary interface the concept of gaussian curvature is applied to slab bending to explain how subduction geometry is affected by the shape of the south american plate we hypothesize that the polarity of vertical curvature in the subducting slab is governed by the orientation of lateral curvature of the plate margin focal mechanism solutions for intermediate and deep earthquakes are grouped by geographic region and inverted for the orientation and relative magnitudes of the principal stresses results of the inversion indicate that downdip extension dominates in the slab above 350 km while downdip compression dominates at greater depths

flow law for ringwoodite at subduction zone conditions the plastic properties of ringwoodite a high pressure modification of olivine are experimentally determined at the pressure of 20 gpa and temperatures up to 1350 c stress relaxation experiments have been carried out on fine grained samples using a two stage t cup multiple anvil high pressure apparatus with synchrotron generated x rays we observe the presence of a significant weakening of the shear strength with a decrease from 2 5 to 0 2 gpa between 600 and 1000 c in this region the activation energy u is about 275 kj mol and it decreases with increasing stress reaching a value of about 200 kj mol when the shear stress attains 2 5 gpa we propose that the plasticity is associated with vigorous dislocation glide controlled by short range lattice resistance forces at lower temperatures the shear strength is mildly dependent on temperature reaching 3 gpa at room temperature while above 1000 c the flow may be governed by a power law relation with n about 3 5 2003 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

a source extent analysis of the imperial valley earthquake of october 15 1979 and the victoria earthquake of june 9 1980 a new method for estimating source extent parameters has been applied to the imperial valley earthquake of october 15 1979 and the victoria earthquake of june 9 1980 from the stations of the world wide standard seismograph network and canadian seismic network estimates of the duration of far field long period sh waves were made by computing the variance or second central moment 2 of instrument corrected attenuation corrected pulses seventeen measurements for the imperial valley event and 25 for the victoria event were made we inverted for the source duration t the fault length l and the directivity parameter d by least squares we find that for the imperial valley t 9 0 0 5 s d 130 43 km s and l 46 13 km and for the victoria event t 10 9 0 6 s and d 251 71 km s l is not well constrained for this second event the inversion gives 23 km the lower bound obtained by constraining 2 to be positive everywhere on the focal sphere although a value as high as 40 km would still be within the uncertainties the positive values of d for both events indicate that rupture propagation was predominantly to the northwest in order to estimate the degree of unilateralness we have computed the rupture mode index defined by r d lt which is 1 for a unilateral rupture and zero for a bilateral rupture we find a value of r 0 31 0 14 for the imperial valley event significantly less than unity which indicates that a southern component of rupture is also present assuming uniform slip we estimate the northern and southern fault segments to be 26 and 20 km respectively the presence of a bilateral component is supported by near field studies which have made use of stations along the southern half of the imperial fault for the victoria event due primarily to the uncertainty in l the value of r can vary from 0 6 to 1 with the value of 1 being most probable assuming that the rupture is unilateral we can obtain an estimate of fault length from the relation l d t which yields l 23 6 km geodetic data and the distribution of aftershocks are consistent with a unilateral rupture mode and the fault length that we have obtained values of seismic moment from measurements of the zeroth moment of the displacement pulse are found to be 5 8 0 4 for imperial valley and 4 8 0 4 for victoria in units of 1018 n m the presence of a southern component of rupture for the imperial valley event would suggest a closer and perhaps causal relationship to the victoria event which occurred 8 months later and about 60 km to the south in a tectonic framework we interpret these two earthquakes as the failure of adjacent transform faults and consider the possibility that a concurrent spreading event may have occurred in the vicinity of cerro prieto

comparison of the rupture and radiation characteristics of intermediate and deep earthquakes we study the depth dependence of the rupture and radiation characteristics of earthquakes below 70 km depth by investigating the source properties of intermediate 70 300 km depth and deep 300 km depth earthquakes along the fiji and japan subducting slabs the source properties are explored by retrieval of the moment rate functions and by spectral analysis using p waves thirty two earthquakes in the period 1986 1997 with seismic moment 1 1018 n m are analyzed the main conclusions are 1 the dependence of the source duration on the scalar seismic moment m0 follows the usual one third trend on average 2 this behavior is still visible when the source durations are adjusted for the shear wave velocity and the modulus of rigidity at the hypocentral depth 3 the effective stress drop and the effective strain drop for subcrustal earthquakes in fiji and japan tend to be larger than those for the crustal ones 4 the duration and shape of the moment rate functions do not show any systematic difference between intermediate and deep events and 5 no obvious difference in the spectral properties of intermediate and deep events is seen

gutenberg richter law for deep earthquakes revisited a dual mechanism hypothesis deep earthquake b values appear to vary with slab thermal state and earthquake magnitude the physical reason for the variations and the relation with deep rupture mechanisms are still unclear here i confirm the spatial variations of b value and the dependence on slab temperature using about 40 yr of data from the global centroid moment tensor catalog a new bimodal pattern is observed for the 500 700 km depth range b is close to 1 in the cold tonga slab while in warmer slabs e g south america japan kuril izu bonin mariana b is close to 0 5 for intermediate magnitudes m w 5 3 6 5 and increases to 1 for large magnitudes m w 6 5 to explain these observations i propose a dual mechanism hypothesis in which deep earthquakes nucleate only within the metastable olivine wedge mow but can rupture outside mow by a different mechanism the fractal dimension of earthquake size distribution changes from 2 to 1 as the thermally controlled mow thickness decreases and back to 2 as the mechanism outside mow dominates

a deep earthquake aftershock sequence and implications for the rupture mechanism of deep earthquakes a distinguishing characteristic of deep earthquakes has been the absence of observable aftershock sequences1 2 here we report the first extensive deep earthquake aftershock sequence to be observed it was recorded by an array of eight broadband seismographs following the 9 march 1994 deep tonga earthquake the aftershocks show a power law decay with time following the main shock as is typical of shallow events most of the well located aftershocks are concentrated along a steeply dipping plane consistent with one of the nodal planes of the main shock mechanism and the mechanisms of three large aftershocks assuming these aftershocks denote the main shock rupture area they define a 50 65 km fault plane extending across the entire width of the active seismic zone and into the surrounding aseismic region the width of the aftershock zone is wider than the expected width of the metastable olivine wedge demonstrating that either the width of the metastable olivine material exceeds previous estimates or the aftershocks are not confined in such a wedge

earthquake mechanics and deformation in the tonga kermadec subduction zone from fault plane orientations of intermediate and deep focus earthquakes 1 we make use of rupture directivity to analyze 82 deep earthquakes 100 km depth in the tonga kermadec subduction zone identifying the fault planes for 25 of them we are able to place new constraints on both the physical mechanism of intermediate and deep focus earthquakes and deformation within the subducting slab we find that half of deep earthquakes with mw 6 have detectable directivity we compare the obtained fault orientations with those expected for the reactivation of outer rise normal faults and with those expected for the creation of new faults in response to the ambient stress field earthquakes 300 km depth match the patterns expected for the creation of a new system of faults we observe both subhorizontal and subvertical fault planes consistent with a downdip compressional stress field slip along these faults causes the slab to thicken rupture propagation shows no systematic directional pattern in contrast at intermediate depths 100 300 km all ruptures propagate subhorizontally and all identified fault planes whether in the upper or lower region of the double seismic zone are subhorizontal rupture propagation tends to be directed away from the top surface of the slab after accounting for the angle of subduction the subhorizontal fault plane orientation is inconsistent with the orientation of outer rise normal faults allowing us to rule out mechanisms that require the reactivation of these large surface faults subhorizontal faults are consistent with only one of the two failure planes expected from the slab stress field suggesting that isobaric rupture processes or preexisting slab structures may also influence the fault plane orientation if all deformation takes place on these subhorizontal faults it would cause the slab to thin assuming the slab is incompressible this implies that the slab is also lengthening and suggests that slab pull rather than unbending is the primary force controlling slab seismicity at intermediate depths

deep earthquake rupture histories determined by global stacking of broadband p waveforms 1 we conduct a systematic investigation of time histories of moment release in deep earthquakes whose physical mechanism remains unknown we have constructed source time functions stfs of 111 large deep earthquakes depth 100 km and mw 6 4 by stacking p waveforms from broadband seismograms recorded by the global seismographic network aligning and stacking waveforms cancels noise and allows us to identify the rupture initiation and termination times accurately each stf is scaled to a reference moment of 1019 n m using the duration moment relation m01 3 in order to investigate depth dependence of the stfs we bin them into three depth ranges 100 350 km 350 550 km and deeper than 550 km based on physical properties of the mantle and the distribution of the data we infer a change in character near 550 km earthquakes deeper than about 550 km are shorter have simpler time functions and are more uniform in their characteristics further we find longer than expected scaled durations and greater complexity in the 350 550 km depth range the scaled durations of the 350 550 km earthquakes do not decrease with depth as 1 vs instead possessing a slightly longer average scaled duration than those 100 350 km deep we further categorize the earthquakes by subduction zone and find a similar depth dependence within individual zones finally the events that have achieved highest moment rate in the first 1 2 s after initiation tend to be deeper and or larger events the latter suggesting that dynamic rupture propagation affects the final size of the earthquake the depth dependence of duration and complexity suggests more complicated rupture histories between 350 and 550 km and a possible change in the physical mechanism of rupture at about 550 km

source process of the great 1977 sumba earthquake in order to investigate the applicability of the asperity model to intraplate earthquakes we have studied the rupture process of the great 1977 sumba normal faulting earthquake mw 8 2 8 3 one of the largest earthquakes since 1963 this event has been variously interpreted as a plate detachment event i e rupture through the entire lithosphere or a shallow plate bending event we have analyzed long period body waves in order to determine the spatiotemporal rupture characteristics including the depth extent of the rupture area visible depth phases in the initial stage of weak radiation beginning about 15 s before the main pulse suggest that the earthquake nucleated near 29 km depth which corresponds to the maximum depth of the aftershock sequence the excitation of a strong tsunami implies that rupture extends to the surface while deconvolutions of long period p waves suggest a relatively shallow 50 km maximum depth extent however the existence of slip below this depth cannot be ruled out particularly if it preferentially radiates frequencies below the passband of the body waves used 0 02 hz for undiffracted phases the source time function of the principal rupture which initiated 30 km west of the epicenter of the precursor comprises a dominant initial short duration 24 s triangular pulse followed by several smaller pulses however slightly diffracted phases indicate a simple basic underlying character for the rupture consisting of the initial 24 s triangle superimposed on a longer duration 42 44 s trapezoid the absence of observable directivity in the deconvolved source time functions suggests a bilateral rupture mode although the body waves do not require a fault length greater than 80 km the aftershock area and surface wave results of zhang and kanamori 1988 imply a total length of at least 200 km the body wave source functions are well modeled by a 200 km long fault extending to 30 50 km depth on which slip nucleates at the center of the fault and has variable displacement along strike the peak moment release of the deconvolved source functions indicates higher displacement in the hypocentral area than in other areas of the fault the spatial relationship of the precursor and the main pulse is suggestive of rupture initiating at and propagating along the edge of an asperity prior to the rupture of the asperity itself the large size of the event may be due to an unusual stress environment arising from strong lateral gradients in seismic interplate coupling along the java timor arc

localized polymorphic phase transformations in high pressure faults and applications to the physical mechanism of deep earthquakes earthquake mechanisms based on frictional instabilities are widely accepted for relatively shallow earthquakes such mechanisms in unmodified form are highly unlikely for deep earthquakes because of the expected high frictional shear stresses at depths of 300 700 km several alternative mechanisms have been proposed here i discuss a new type of shear instability observed in experiments on ordinary polycrystalline ice and polycrystalline tremolite by my colleagues and me these shear instabilities lead to rapid stress drops and sound emissions and have the following characteristics 1 a single sharp shear zone forms in the maximum shear stress orientation 2 confining pressure does not suppress the instability and under some conditions raising confining pressure pc lowers the differential stress at which it occurs 3 stress drops can occur repeatedly after reloading at about the same differential stress 4 the mean stress vs temperature conditions at which the instabilities occur in ice and tremolite place them in the fields of thermodynamic stability of ice ii and diopside talc respectively although i have not as yet confirmed the existence of these high pressure phases in the shear zones transformation in the shear zone is implicated because such shear instabilities do not occur in similar materials in which polymorphic phase changes do not occur reconstructive polymorphic phase changes localized along shear zones may be a general phenomenon in crystalline materials stressed non hydrostatically near transition boundaries moreover by analogy the reconstructive phase transformations that are thought to occur in deeply subducted lithosphere may lead to localized shear instabilities manifested by deep earthquakes and produce the observed double couple first motion distribution finally if this is the earthquake source mechanism in deeply subducted lithosphere then earthquakes should shut off when all of the polymorphic phase changes have occurred this may explain the maximum depth of earthquakes at about 680 km

thermochemistry and phase equilibria of hydrous phases in the system mgo sio2 h2o implications for volatile transport to the mantle calorimetric phase equilibrium and in situ equation of state data for antigorite talc and dense hydrous magnesium silicate dhms phases have been obtained to construct a self consistent thermodynamic data set that ensures internal consistency well behaved extrapolation and physically reasonable values of h s v k k and for talc antigorite and hydrous phase a used in conjunction with temperature profiles of subducting oceanic lithosphere the calculated phase equilibria show that there is no barrier to subducting substantial amounts of water to depth of 400 600 km in colder slabs since the slab can remain in the stability field of hydrous phases throughout its descent once water is brought to these depths it can probably diffuse into hotter mantle regions via hydrous mg2sio4 or by other mechanisms indicating that the transition zone is unlikely to be dry

kinetics of the olivine spinel transformation in subducting lithosphere experimental constraints and implications for deep slab processes abstract the persistence of metastable olivine to depths greater than 400 km in subducting slabs has implications for the generation of deep focus earthquakes the magnitude of buoyancy forces driving plate motion and the state of stress in the slab the depth to which metastable olivine can survive in a subduction zone and the depth interval over which transformation to or mg fe 2sio4 occurs have been evaluated from experimental kinetic data for the mg2geo4 and ni2sio4 transformations and the mg2sio4 transformation the data were extrapolated using a kinetic model for grain boundary nucleation and interface controlled growth under non isothermal and non isobaric conditions the results predict that metastable mg1 8fe0 2sio4 olivine survives to depths greater than 500 km in the cold interior of rapidly subducting slabs of old lithosphere the onset of transformation to mg fe 2sio4 spinel depends only on growth kinetics and coincides with the 550 50 c isotherm including the effects of latent heat production causes the transformation to occur by a runaway process over a very narrow depth interval at the onset of transformation high nucleation rates and low growth rates are consistent with the formation of very fine grained reaction products which are required for the transformational faulting mechanism of deep focus earthquakes when olivine crosses the equilibrium boundaries at higher temperatures e g higher than 700 c at 400 km depth transformation to or occurs much closer to equilibrium at a depth controlled by nucleation kinetics in this case the effect of latent heat production on the transformation kinetics is small and microstructural evolution is unlikely to result in transformational faulting below the depth of olivine breakdown cold slabs are likely to have a complex rheological structure owing to temperature dependent microstructural evolution during the phase transformation

body wave inversion of the 1970 and 1963 south american large deep focus earthquakes a comprehensive set of teleseismic waveforms from two south american deep focus earthquakes of the predigital era the 1970 colombia mw 8 1 and 1963 peru bolivia mw 7 7 events are inverted for source mechanism seismic moment rupture history and centroid depth the p and sh wave inversion of the colombia event confirms previous work indicating that rupture occurred on a plane that dips steeply west rupture direction paralleled the trend of the wadati benioff zone we decompose the source into subevents based on a source time function which shows two major moment release pulses separated by 20 s the first subevent is located near the initiation point at a depth of 630 km the main moment release was located 70 km to the southeast and 20 km shallower rupture subsequently propagated farther southeast the source time function has an initial subevent accounting for 30 of the moment release of the entire event whereas the long period centroid moment tensor cmt analysis russakoff et al 1997 has the initial subevent yielding 50 the high angle nodal plane rotated 15 clockwise during the rupture explaining the large compensated linear vector dipole clvd component inferred from cmt solutions individual subevents have large clvd and compressive isotropic components a full moment tensor inversion of the colombia and 1994 bolivia events suggests that the initial subevents might contain a large non double couple ndc component for the 1963 peru bolivia event using p waves rupture propagated nnw for a distance of 70 km parallel to the high angle nodal plane and the trend of the wadati benioff zone the focal mechanism changed dramatically after the second subevent causing a very large ndc component both events together with the 1994 bolivia earthquake have a precursor separated in space and time from the main rupture and show rupture velocities varying between 3 and 4 km s between subevents with 2 0 km s on average for the entire event low seismic efficiencies and rupture velocities support a highly dissipative temperature dependent rupture mechanism for large deep focus south american earthquakes compared with events in cold subducting slabs

stress drop and frictional heating during the 1994 deep bolivia earthquake we use the slip model of the bolivian earthquake obtained by ihmle 1998 to investigate the spatial distribution of stress drop and calculate the frictional heat generated locally on the fault we find that the stress drop associated with the earthquake averages between 5 and 10 m pa over the fault the total frictional energy is estimated at between 3 1017 and 2 1018j if the fault width is as thin as the one produced by transformational faulting in laboratory experiments where it is about two orders of magnitude smaller than the local shear displacement melting likely occurred on a significant portion of the fault in this event as proposed by kanamori et al 1998 once rupture is triggered shear melting can quickly promote extensive slip

the effect of strain energy on growth rates during the olivine spinel transformation and implications for olivine metastability in subducting slabs we have studied growth kinetics during the transformation of mg1 8fe0 2sio4 san carlos olivine to its high pressure polymorphs wadsleyite phase and ringwoodite phase at 800 1200 c and nominal pressures of 16 20 gpa in experiments in which a large 500 600 m olivine single crystal contained in a matrix of either fine grained olivine or nacl was transformed reaction rims of wadsleyite ringwoodite form on the margins of the single crystal by incoherent grain boundary nucleation and interface controlled growth contrary to theoretical expectations the growth rate of these reaction rims decreases sharply as a function of time for instance at 1100 c and 18 gpa growth ceases on an experimental timescale after the rim width reaches 20 25 m in order to explain this observation we develop an elastic model based on the theory of a misfitting inclusion comparing the results of this model with the experimental data suggests that elastic strain energy which develops because of the large volume decrease associated with the transformation is responsible for the decreasing growth rates on the other hand experimental and theoretical results suggest that elastic strain energy is relatively unimportant when grains of the product phase are randomly dispersed and distinct reaction rims do not form this is the case when the nucleation rate is low the growth rate is fast and the reactant olivine is fine grained on a geological timescale in subducting lithosphere where the grain size of the olivine is large the growth rates of grain boundary nucleated reaction rims are likely to be controlled by viscoelastic relaxation therefore current kinetic models of olivine metastability in subducting slabs which are based on simple extrapolations of experimental data and on the assumption that the growth rate is constant at fixed temperature and pressure need to be reevaluated

a broadband p wave analysis of the large deep fiji island and bolivia earthquakes of 1994 the complex broadband p wave displacement recordings of the 570 km deep march 9 1994 mw 7 6 fiji island and the 660 km deep june 9 1994 mw 8 2 bolivia earthquakes are analyzed to estimate the spatial and temporal characteristics of their ruptures we model relative arrival times and amplitudes of coherent subevents in p waveforms and perform waveform analyses we resolve 1 short rupture durations relative to their seismic moments 12 and 40 s for the fiji and bolivia earthquakes respectively 2 small areas of main moment release for both earthquakes 30 40 km 3 high stress drops compared to shallow earthquakes with the stress drop of the bolivia event 283 mpa being significantly higher than the stress drop of the fiji event 26 mpa 4 small changes in mechanism up to 10 changes in fault plane orientation and 5 a steeply dipping rupture plane for the fiji earthquake and a shallowly dipping rupture plane for the bolivia earthquake details of the ruptures are difficult to resolve using teleseismic p waveforms

rupture history of the great bolivian earthquake slab interaction with the 660 km discontinuity teleseismic body waves of the great bolivian earthquake of june 9 1994 are analyzed to determine the focal parameters and rupture history broadband seismograms reveal a complex rupture process a small initial event mw 7 2 was followed about 10 s later by a large moment release pulse of about 40 s duration focal mechanisms determined for the mainshock indicate normal faulting with one very shallow ne dipping plane azimuthal variation in body wave displacement pulse widths suggest northward rupture from master event and body wave inversion the main moment release is located 25 50 km ne of the initiation point at about 650 km depth with only small depth variations between the initial and main event this suggests that rupture was n directed on the near horizontal plane because the slab along other parts of the andean arc at about 600 km depth dips steeply a sub horizontal plane may imply shearing perpendicular to slab dip downdip compression on a sub horizontal plane would then imply that the slab does not penetrate the 660 km seismic discontinuity but rather is being sheared out to the ne this interpretation is not unique as other scenarios are also possible such an event immediately above the 660 km discontinuity suggests massive deformation above the discontinuity with no smooth slab penetration into the lower mantle

variation in 14c age of macrofossils and different fractions of minute peat samples dated by ams accurate 14c dating of peat samples is crucial if peat stratigraphies are to be used as historical archives to analyse the variation in 14c age within small peat samples the 14c age of different mire plant remains and peat fractions n 39 from 2 cm thick peat slices was determined using accelerator mass spectrometry the 14c ages of mosses were assumed to be the most accurate to verify this we also tested the possibility that uncertainties could be introduced by mosses at the mire surface reassimilating co2 produced during the decomposition of old peat the average 14c content of living mosses 110 5 110 9 absolute modern pm did not differ between threesphagnum species representing hummock carpet and lawn growing species their 14c contents were also identical within experimental limits to the current 14c content of the atmosphere depending on sampled depth and peat type the differences in calibrated 14c age between different fragments or fractions within specific 2 cm thick peat samples

a model for the layered upper mantle abstract numerical modeling of mantle convection by liu 1994 science 264 1904 1907 favors a two layer convection if the results are reinterpreted for the correct phase relations in mg fe 2sio4 the resulting chemical isolation of the upper and lower mantle suggests a highly differentiated and layered upper mantle to account for the discrepancy between the observed compositions of mantle xenoliths and the cosmic abundances of elements it is shown that a layered upper mantle with a hidden reservoir can have a structure consistent with the observed seismic velocity profiles and an average bulk composition corresponding to the cosmic abundances the evolution of the upper mantle and the origin of komatiites are discussed in the context of the proposed model

mantle dynamics of western pacific and east asia insight from seismic tomography and mineral physics abstract recent results of high resolution seismic tomography and mineral physics experiments are used to study mantle dynamics of western pacific and east asia the most important processes in subduction zones are the shallow and deep slab dehydration and the convective circulation corner flow processes in the mantle wedge the combination of the two processes may have caused the back arc spreading in the lau basin affected the morphology of the subducting philippine sea slab and its seismicity under southwest japan and contributed to the formation of the continental rift system and intraplate volcanism in northeast asia which are clearly visible in our tomographic images slow anomalies are also found in the mantle under the subducting pacific slab which may represent a small mantle plumes b upwellings associated with the slab collapsing down to the lower mantle or c sub slab dehydration associated with deep earthquakes caused by the reactivation of large faults preserved in the slab combining tomographic images and earthquake hypocenters with phase diagrams in the systems of peridotite water we proposed a petrologic model for arc volcanism arc magmas are caused by the dehydration reactions of hydrated slab peridotite that supply water rich fluids to the mantle wedge and cause partial melting of the convecting mantle wedge a large amount of fluids can be released from hydrated morb at depths shallower than 55 km which move upwards to hydrate the wedge corner under the fore arc and never drag down to the deeper mantle along the slab surface slab dehydration reactions at 120 km depth are the antigorite related 5 reactions which supply water rich fluids for forming the volcanic front phase a and mg surssasite breakdown reactions at 200 and 300 km depths below 700 c cause the second and third arcs respectively moreover the dehydration reactions of super hydrous phase b phases d and e at 500 660 km depths cause the fluid transportation to the mantle boundary layer mbl 410 660 km depth the stagnant slabs extend from japan to beijing china for over 1000 km long indicating that the arc trench system covers the entire region from the japan trench to east asia we propose a big mantle wedge bmw model herein where hydrous plumes originating from 410 km depth cause a series of intra continental hot regions fluids derived from mbl accumulated by the double sided subduction zones rather than the india asia collision and the subsequent indentation into asia are the major cause for the active tectonics and mantle dynamics in this broad region

acoustic emissions produced by anticrack faulting during the olivine spinel transformation anticrack faulting during the phase transformations of olivine to its denser polymorphs is a principal contender for the mechanism of deep focus earthquakes the original work on mg2geo4 established that initiation of faulting by this mechanism is not due to brittle fracture and subsequent experiments on olivine of mantle composition showed that it can operate at pressures of at least 14 gpa here we report acoustic emissions accompanying anticrack faulting in mg2geo4 thereby confirming that this mechanism involves a dynamic instability accompanied by elastic radiation

the march 9 1994 m w 7 6 deep tonga earthquake rupture outside the seismically active slab we investigate the rupture process of the march 9 1994 m w 7 6 deep tonga earthquake and its relationship to the background seismicity of the subducted tonga slab variations in observed p and s wave pulse duration indicate that the rupture propagated to the nne and extended well beyond the background seismicity we inverted 47 p and sh waveforms including regional broadband waveforms from the southwest pacific seismic experiment using a method that solves for the focal mechanism change during the rupture and the distribution of moment release along the fault plane the results indicate that significant moment release occurred in previously aseismic regions outside the active seismic zone and that the rupture terminated 10 20 km beyond the bounds of the previous seismic activity a significant change in focal mechanism occurred when the rupture propagated into the previously aseismic region rupture along the near vertical nne striking nodal plane provides a somewhat better fit to the body waveforms than rupture along the near horizontal nodal plane this result combined with the planar alignment of aftershocks and the general nne directivity of the waveforms provides strong evidence that the rupture occurred on the near vertical plane thermal modeling of the tonga slab indicates that the rupture terminated in material about 200 c warmer than the temperature that normally limits the occurrence of smaller earthquakes additionally aftershocks seem to be suppressed in the outer regions of the rupture which contain about half of the moment release but only 1 of the 15 well located aftershocks we suggest that slabs may be composed of an inner cold core where seismic rupture initiates and small earthquakes occur and a thermal halo of warmer material which can sustain rupture and only a few aftershocks the mechanism by which rupture propagates through the warmer material need not be similar to the process governing rupture nucleation in the cold slab core nucleation may occur through a process limited to the cold core such as transformational faulting and propagation through the warmer material may occur through ductile faulting or plastic instabilities isolated deep earthquakes in other subduction zones such as the 1994 bolivia event may occur almost completely within the warmer zone accounting for the lack of background seismicity and the dearth of aftershocks

seismicity gaps and the shape of the seismic zone in the banda sea region from relocated hypocenters 1 we relocate hypocenters for more than 800 earthquakes deeper than 50 km with mb 5 0 along the banda arc using several thousand handpicked direct depth and core reflected phases in addition to phases reported by the international seismological centre the seismicity distribution is found to be very nonuniform both along the arc and in depth gaps in the relocated hypocenters exist along depth in most places of the arc with the upper edge of the gaps varying from 100 to 450 km depth and the lower edge varying from 350 to 670 km in different portions of the arc the seismic zone between 129 and 131 e in the 100 200 km depth range is the widest along the arc both in strike and downdip this region near the highest arc curvature has the highest seismic activity and is the only part of the arc with earthquakes continuously occurring from the surface down to below 600 km the very deep earthquakes under sulawesi are shown to be part of the west southwest dipping seram slab in the westernmost part of the banda arc the slab is under downdip tension in the 50 250 km depth range while the deepest portion of the slab in this region is under compression from 128 to 131 e the slab between 100 and 200 km depth is under mainly horizontal compression our study supports the two slab model for the banda arc the depth of the wadati benioff zone below the volcanoes is 60 100 km for the five volcanoes between 128 and 130 e and 150 km for the 23 volcanoes between 118 and 124 e

directivity analysis of the deep bolivian earthquake of june 9 1994 the june 9 1994 deep bolivian earthquake m w 8 3 d 636 km occurred on a nearly horizontal rupture plane with an approximate area of 2000 km 2 the rupture plane is constrained by directivity analysis of the p wave displacement pulses recorded at local regional and teleseismic distances the fact that there are local recordings of the displacement provides a strong constraint on the vertical extent of faulting which is less than 10 km the moment release had at least four distinct episodes or subevents the best overall explanation for the subevents is rupture which initiates on the western margin of the fault plane propagates to the east and then continues bilaterally along a 350 azimuth with most of the moment release occurring to the north the apparent rupture velocity between subevents is very low approximately 1 2 km s

frictional sliding in serpentine at very high pressure abstract using a new four channel system for detecting acoustic emissions in a multianvil apparatus we have assessed the pressure temperature range for such emissions as well as the role of dehydration by deforming samples of extensively serpentinized peridotite we show that in the absence of dehydration and for samples initially faulted at low pressure acoustic emissions occurred well outside the expected pressure temperature field of unassisted brittle failure emissions were also detected during and after dehydration of serpentine microstructures of post run specimens revealed fault slip with offsets up to 500 m regardless of whether or not dehydration took place dehydration appears to effectively stop slip on pre existing faults and create new ones analysis of p wave travel times from the four sensors confirmed that the acoustic emissions originated within the specimen during fault slip these observations suggest that earthquakes can be triggered by slip along an existing fault containing serpentine under significantly higher pressure and temperature conditions than previously thought possible without dehydration

metastable mantle phase transformations and deep earthquakes in subducting oceanic lithosphere earth s deepest earthquakes occur as a population in subducting or previously subducted lithosphere at depths ranging from about 325 to 690 km this depth interval closely brackets the mantle transition zone characterized by rapid seismic velocity increases resulting from the transformation of upper mantle minerals to higher pressure phases deep earthquakes thus provide the primary direct evidence for subduction of the lithosphere to these depths and allow us to investigate the deep thermal thermodynamic and mechanical ferment inside slabs numerical simulations of reaction rates show that the olivine spinel transformation should be kinetically hindered in old cold slabs descending into the transition zone thus wedge shaped zones of metastable peridotite probably persist to depths of more than 600 km laboratory deformation experiments on some metastable minerals display a shear instability called transformational faulting this instability involves sudden failure by localized superplasticity in thin shear zones where the metastable host mineral transforms to a denser finer grained phase hence in cold slabs such faulting is expected for the polymorphic reactions in which olivine transforms to the spinel structure and clinoenstatite transforms to ilmenite it is thus natural to hypothesize that deep earthquakes result from transformational faulting in metastable peridotite wedges within cold slabs this consideration of the mineralogical states of slabs augments the traditional largely thermal view of slab processes and explains some previously enigmatic slab features it explains why deep seismicity occurs only in the approximate depth range of the mantle transition zone where minerals in downgoing slabs should transform to spinel and ilmenite structures the onset of deep shocks at about 325 km is consistent with the onset of metastability near the equilibrium phase boundary in the slab even if a slab penetrates into the lower mantle earthquakes should cease at depths near 700 km because the seismogenic phase transformations in the slab are completed or can no longer occur substantial metastability is expected only in old cold slabs consistent with the observed restriction of deep earthquakes to those settings earthquakes should be restricted to the cold cores of slabs as in any model in which the seismicity is temperature controlled via the distribution of metastability however the geometries of recent large deep earthquakes pose a challenge for any such models transformational faulting may give insight into why deep shocks lack appreciable aftershocks and why their source characteristics including focal mechanisms indicating localized shear failure rather than implosive deformation are so similar to those of shallow earthquakes finally metastable phase changes in slabs would produce an internal source of stress in addition to those due to the weight of the sinking slab such internal stresses may explain the occurrence of earthquakes in portions of lithosphere which have foundered to the bottom of the transition zone and or are detached from subducting slabs metastability in downgoing slabs could have considerable geodynamic significance metastable wedges would reduce the negative buoyancy of slabs decrease the driving force for subduction and influence the state of stress in slabs heat released by metastable phase changes would raise temperatures within slabs and facilitate the transformation of spinel to the lower mantle mineral assemblage causing slabs to equilibrate more rapidly with the ambient mantle and thus contribute to the cessation of deep seismicity because wedge formation should occur only for fast subducting slabs it may act as a parachute and contribute to regulating plate speeds wedge formation would also have consequences for mantle evolution because the density of a slab stagnated near the bottom of the transition zone would increase as it heats up and the wedge transforms to denser spinel favoring the subsequent sinking of the slab into the lower mantle

long range backscatter from the mid atlantic ridge acoustic backscatter returns measured with a vertical source and horizontal receiving array are beamformed and charted to respective scattering sites on the western flank of the mid atlantic ridge mar well defined patterns of high level backscatter resembling bottom morphology occur within the direct path and at convergence zone ranges measured backscatter is compared with modeled two way transmission loss using the wide angle parabolic equation pe and high resolution supporting bathymetry the level of backscatter is found to be strongly dependent upon two way transmission loss tl specifically tl selects prominent bathymetric features from which high backscatter is returned with backscatter maxima corresponding to tl minima scattering strength estimated for the wide area surveyed shows low variance and relatively minimal spatial variation apparently distinct scattering contributions are so well mixed in long range backscatter that dominant variations are generally due to propagation these

seismological constraints on the mechanism of deep earthquakes temperature dependence of deep earthquake source properties abstract seismological observations are of vital importance for understanding the mechanism of deep earthquakes most of the seismological observables for earthquakes deeper than 300 km are similar to shallow earthquakes deep earthquakes clearly represent shear failure on a planar surface as shown by their double couple mechanisms deep earthquake aftershock sequences show temporal decay rates and magnitude frequency relations b values that are similar to shallow earthquakes with the aftershocks occurring preferentially along the mainshock fault planes in addition deep earthquake rupture velocities are similar to those of shallow earthquakes however there are also some observations that are clearly distinctive relative to shallow earthquakes stress drops of deep earthquakes show a large variation but are larger on average than shallow earthquakes different deep seismic zones show very different b values in contrast to shallow earthquakes which show similar b values worldwide in addition deep earthquakes show fewer aftershocks than shallow earthquakes a variety of observations suggest that deep earthquakes are highly sensitive to the temperature of the slab both deep earthquake b values and the rate of deep earthquake aftershock occurrence are inversely correlated with the temperature of the deep slabs suggesting that these factors are temperature controlled to an extent much greater than with shallow earthquakes large deep earthquakes in warm slabs show slower rupture velocities larger stress drops and lower seismic efficiencies than similar earthquakes in cold slabs the width of deep seismic zones is also probably temperature controlled but deep earthquake rupture can propagate outside the normal limits of benioff zone seismicity simple thermal models for the tonga slab near the 1994 deep earthquake suggest that the temperature at the rupture termination point was at least 200 c warmer than the temperature that limits smaller earthquakes in the slab these observations can be used to evaluate physical models for deep earthquakes including brittle slip along fluid weakened faults transformational faulting and thermal and perhaps melt lubricated shear instabilities it is difficult to explain the large fault widths of some deep earthquakes using a fluid weakening model since hydrated materials are expected in only a narrow depth zone at the top of the slab and the fault planes do not have the expected orientations for reactivated faults the lateral extent of the largest deep earthquakes cast doubt on the transformational faulting model in which events should be confined within a narrow metastable wedge seismological studies have also failed to find evidence for the existence of metastable olivine in slabs the temperature dependence of deep earthquakes argues in favor of a temperature activated phenomenon such as thermal shear instabilities and perhaps fault zone melting

state of stress in slabs as a function of large scale plate kinematics the state of stress of slabs subducting worldwide as revealed by seismicity is extremely variable both with depth and between different subduction zones although in principle slab pull should enhance downdip extension in the slab the reconstructed stress fields for intermediate depths between 100 and 300 km range from downdip compression to downdip extension using 2 d viscoelastic plane strain models we investigate the dependency of the stress field of slabs on geometry dip of the slab and kinematics velocity of convergence between upper and lower plates and their absolute velocity with respect to the underlying mantle of subduction zones we conclude that although the state of stress in slabs is also controlled by other processes downdip compression in the subducting slab is enhanced by mantle flow opposing the direction of the dip of the slab whereas downdip extension is favored by mantle flow in the same direction of the slab dip i e sustaining it these predictions are in agreement with available geophysical observations although exceptions to this simple pattern are observed worldwide in addition if the slab is decoupled from the upper plate convergence between upper and lower plates induces a downdip compressional component of stress within the slab decreasing the magnitude of extension in models characterized by mantle flow sustaining the slab and increasing compression in models with mantle flow opposing subduction however these are second order variations when compared to the control exerted by absolute plate kinematics and by the magnitude of slab pull sensitivity analysis of rheological parameters allows us to conclude that these results are generally consistent although low values of viscosity of the lithospheric mantle render this prediction less stable

first geodetic observations of a deep earthquake the 2013 sea of okhotsk mw 8 3 611 km deep event we analyze the first ever gps observations of static surface deformation from a deep earthquake the 24 may 2013 mw 8 3 sea of okhotsk 611 km deep event previous studies of deep earthquake sources relied on seismology and might have missed evidence for slow slip in the rupture we observed coseismic static offsets on a gps network of 20 stations over the sea of okhotsk region the offsets were inverted for the best fitting double couple source model assuming a layered spherical earth the seismic moment calculated from static offsets is only 7 larger than the seismological estimate from global centroid moment tensor gcmt thus gps observations confirm shear faulting as the source model with no significant slow slip component the relative locations of the u s geological survey hypocenter gcmt centroid and the fault from gps indicate slip extending for tens of kilometers across most of the slab thickness

seismological evidence for metastable olivine inside a subducting slab the nature and location of the olivine spinel phase transition inside subducting slabs differ greatly from the situation in the surrounding mantle due to the different temperature distribution inside the slabs two models have been proposed for this phase transition one in which the location of the phase boundary between olivine and modified phase spinel is determined by equilibrium thermodynamics1 and the other including a metastable olivine phase which persists to a depth of 550 km ref 2 the location of the olivine spinel transition in the slab may be relevant to the generation of deep earthquakes3 5 and to the buoyancy forces driving subduction6 here we use travel time residuals from deep earthquakes recorded by the dense seismograph network in japan to investigate the configuration of the olivine spinel phase boundary inside the subducting pacific plate theoretical travel time residuals for the equilibrium model do not fit the observed residuals whereas those for the metastable model do implying the presence of metastable olivine inside the subducting slab

laboratory experiments on the structure of subducted lithosphere abstract mantle seismic tomography images indicate a variety of shapes for slabs of oceanic lithosphere subducted into the transition zone in the vicinity of the 660 km discontinuity both horizontally deflected slabs and nearly vertical slabs have been inferred at subduction zones on the pacific and indian plates here we determine experimentally the behavior of a cold negatively buoyant and highly viscous slab incident on a fluid interface with a viscosity and a density increase the experiments are scaled to mantle conditions with realistic subduction peclet number ratio of trench migration to subduction velocities and physical properties of the interface a wide range of slab deformation styles is observed when slight changes in the parameters are imposed sinking slab stagnant slab spreading slab sinking pile and stagnant pile represent the five different modes identified we show that these deformation modes are governed by two velocity ratios which characterize the horizontal and the vertical components of the slab velocity near the interface slab penetration into the lower layer takes the form of folded slab piles for large values of the velocity ratios and stagnant behavior is promoted by rapid retrograde trench motion the sensitivity of slab behavior to transition zone density and viscosity changes and to trench migration can account for the coexistence of different modes of deformation in subducted lithosphere

crustal structure of the altiplano from broadband regional waveform modeling implications for the composition of thick continental crust we have modeled the full waveforms from six intermediate depth and two shallow earthquakes recorded at regional distances by the banjo broadband andean joint experiment banjo and seismic exploration of the deep altiplano seda portable seismic networks in the central andes in this study we utilize data from those banjo and seda stations located within the altiplano and eastern cordillera we used reflectivity synthetic seismograms and a grid search to constrain four parameters of the altiplano eastern cordillera lithosphere crustal thickness average crustal velocity vp and crustal and upper mantle poisson s ratios crust and mantle using our grid search we investigated the crustal and upper mantle structure along 36 individual event station paths and applied forward modeling to 56 event station paths robust models for the altiplano that provide the best overall fit between the data and synthetic seismograms are characterized by an average vp of 5 75 6 25 km s crustal thicknesses of 60 65 km crust 0 25 and mantle 0 27 0 29 we find a north south variation in the structure of the altiplano with the crust south of the banjo transect characterized by either lower than average crustal p wave velocities or a slightly higher crust relative to crust north of the banjo transect these results are consistent with a model of crustal thickening caused predominantly by tectonic shortening of felsic crust rather than by underplating or magmatic intrusion from the mantle

deep earthquakes in real slabs deep earthquakes shouldn9t happen yet they do at depths greater than about 50 kilometers rock begins to flow rather than fracture and fracture is the phenomenon associated with seismic activity in their perspective stein and rubie discusses the highlights of a recent conference on subduction the geological process whereby one lithospheric plate is pushed under another deep earthquakes can take place in subducting slabs owing to the complex phase transformations that occur as minerals are heated and put under pressure as they are pushed deeper conference participants debated current models of deep seismic activity and their limitations

evidence for transformational faulting from a deep double seismic zone in tonga double seismic zones planes or earthquakes parallel to the dip of a subducting slab and separated by 20 40 km provide important clues about the earthquake generating mechanisms and strain distribution inside subducting slabs double seismic zones have been found at intermediate depths 70 200 km in many subduction zones1 6 but have not been previously reported in deep slabs here by relocating earthquakes with a hypocentroidal decomposition technique7 and visualizing the earthquake positions and uncertainties in three dimensions we identify a double seismic zone at depths of 350 460 km in the tonga subduction zone source parameters of the earthquakes determined by waveform analysis suggest different stress orientations for the two zones with in plane compression in the lower zone and in plane tension in the upper zone the double zone may be due to transformational faulting as olivine along the edges of a metastable olivine wedge becomes warmer and transforms to spinel8 11

implications of spatial and temporal development of the aftershock sequence for the mw 8 3 june 9 1994 deep bolivian earthquake on june 9 1994 the mw 8 3 bolivia earthquake 636 km depth occurred in a region which had not experienced significant deep seismicity for at least 30 years the mainshock and aftershocks were recorded in bolivia on the banjo and seda broadband seismic arrays and on the san calixto network we used the joint hypocenter determination method to determine the relative location of the aftershocks we have identified no foreshocks and 89 aftershocks m 2 2 for the 20 day period following the mainshock the frequency of aftershock occurrence decreased rapidly with only one or two aftershocks per day occuring after day two the temporal decay of aftershock activity is similar to shallow aftershock sequences but the number of aftershocks is two orders of magnitude less additionally a mb 6 apparently triggered earthquake occurred just 10 minutes after the mainshock about 330 km east southeast of the mainshock at a depth of 671 km the aftershock sequence occurred north and east of the mainshock and extends to a depth of 665 km the aftershocks define a slab striking n68 w and dipping 45 ne the strike dip and location of the aftershock zone are consistent with this seismicity being confined within the downward extension of the subducted nazca plate the location and orientation of the aftershock sequence indicate that the subducted nazca plate bends between the nnw striking zone of deep seismicity in western brazil and the n s striking zone of seismicity in central bolivia a tear in the deep slab is not necessitated by the data a subset of the aftershock hypocenters cluster along a subhorizontal plane near the depth of the mainshock favoring a horizontal fault plane the horizontal dimensions of the mainshock beck et al this issue silver et al 1995 and slab defined by the aftershocks are approximately equal indicating that the mainshock ruptured through the slab

shear promoted phase transitions in fe2sio4 and mg2sio4 and the mechanism of deep earthquakes phase transformations in end member olivines have been investigated in the temperature range comparable to the interior of subducting slabs this work constitutes the experimental evidence that the kinetics of transformation of silicate olivine phase to modified spinel and spinel phases is enhanced by shear deformation natural fayalite fe2sio4 subjected to a pressure gradient from 0 to 25 gpa at 380 c in the diamond anvil cell dac developed a ring of phase where the pressure was in the stability field of the phase and shear stress was large enough to promote the transition the sample inside the ring despite being at higher pressure remained dominantly as phase the outermost lower pressure region of the sample also remained as phase in the mg2sio4 system the transition from to was observed at 575 c in runs in which pressure covered the stability fields of phase phase and mixed oxides these results show that the characteristic transformation temperature tch can be lowered as much as 200 c by shear deformation on the basis of these observations we propose a nonhydrostatic kinetic boundary for the and transitions in mantle olivine for temperatures below this boundary the transformations are kinetically inhibited while above it the transformations can be promoted by shear deformation therefore olivine carried to a depth of several hundred kilometers in a subducting slab can remain as metastable phase until shear deformation causes its transformation we suggest that this region of shear promoted transformation in the cold interior of the subduction zone is responsible for the generation of deep earthquakes

seismic body wave constraint on mechanisms of intermediate depth earthquakes 1 source parameters of six large earthquakes 7 1 mw 7 7 in the depth range between 112 and 277 km from five different subduction zones are derived from teleseismic body waves recorded by global seismic networks except for the 21 october 1995 mexican event which is consistent with the model of simple rupture on a planar surface the investigated earthquakes show complex rupture processes that can be explained by irregularities in the focal region as is the case of shallow events the inferred velocity of the moment release varies between 2 5 and 4 km s corresponding to 40 90 of the shear velocity at the focus four of the six earthquakes show stress drops in the range observed for shallow events 1 10 mpa ruptures extend mainly parallel to the strike of subducting slabs with dimensions reaching up to 50 km the extent of rupture perpendicular to slab dip of generally less than 15 km is comparatively small this suggests that the rupture during large intermediate depth earthquakes propagates predominantly parallel to the strike of the subducting plate and that the seismogenic zone perpendicular to the dip direction is limited to a narrow width the relatively small rupture size perpendicular to slab dip suggests that the rupture process does not extend into regions of significantly different temperatures the spatial extent of the investigated earthquakes is consistent with the orientation of trench parallel faults that are generally observed in near trench outer rise regions suggesting that these events may result from reactivation of such preexisting faults at intermediate depths through dehydration of hydrous minerals concentrated in these zones of weakness depths of most of the earthquakes are consistent with the dehydration embrittlement of serpentine the bolivian earthquake of 23 january 1997 seems to be too deep 277 km for such an explanation

rupture process of the february 4 1965 rat islands earthquake the great rat islands underthrusting earthquake mw 8 7 of february 4 1965 represents subduction of the pacific plate beneath the north american plate along a 600 km segment of the western end of the aleutian islands body wave inversion techniques are used to determine the spatial and temporal heterogeneities associated with the rat islands earthquake we have deconvolved world wide standard seismograph network long period teleseismic p wave seismograms to obtain source time functions directivity associated with the three major pulses of moment release in the source time functions indicates a total source duration of 160 s unilateral rupture in the direction 300 fault length of 420 km and average rupture velocity of 2 5 km s the three pulses of moment release are located along the fault and these regions of high moment release are interpreted as asperities the first asperity extends from the epicenter to 100 km to the wnw this is the largest asperity and corresponds to a smooth pulse of moment release in the source time function with a duration of 50 s the second pulse of moment release is very jagged is less coherent between stations and is centered 200 km wnw of the epicenter the third pulse of moment release extends from 360 to 420 km wnw of the epicenter although the aftershock area is 600 km in length we can not resolve any moment release from the p waves beyond 420 km wnw of the epicenter the rat islands event was closely followed by a large tensional outer rise event on march 30 1965 ms 7 5 which is located oceanward of the largest moment release associated with the rat islands mainshock rupture detailed analysis of the p waves for this large outer rise event confine the depth extent to the upper 30 5 km of the crust the spatial and temporal association between the february 4 mainshock and the march 30 tensional outer rise event suggests the tensional event may have been triggered by the large displacement near the mainshock epicenter the overriding plate along the western aleutian subduction zone is laterally segmented into a series of rigid tectonic blocks separated by fault controlled canyons and extensional basins geist et al 1988 we suggest that the central undeformed parts of the blocks have the strongest coupling with the down going plate and hence are the sites of the largest moment release during an underthrusting earthquake the three asperities determined from the p waves correspond to the rat buldir and near tectonic blocks respectively hence the p wave seismic moment release of the rat islands earthquake is controlled by the lateral segmentation of the overriding plate

sliding skis and slipping faults the mechanisms of earthquakes are a matter of debate with different models capable of explaining different aspects of the process in his research commentary wiens discusses work reported in the same issue by kanamori et al 1 in which the authors propose that deep earthquakes occur through melting as the fault ruptures a thin layer of molten rock lubricates the sliding surfaces much as a thin layer of water lubricates ski surfaces on snow wiens suggests that the model is best suited to explaining the deepest quakes including the 1994 bolivia event 1 http www sciencemag org cgi content short 279 5352 839

complex and diverse rupture processes of the 2018 mw 8 2 and mw 7 9 tonga fiji deep earthquakes author posting american geophysical union 2019 this article is posted here by permission of american geophysical union for personal use not for redistribution the definitive version was published in geophysical research letters 46 5 2019 2434 2448 doi 10 1029 2018gl080997

deep focus earthquakes and recycling of water into the earth s mantle for more than 50 years observations of earthquakes to depths of 100 to 650 kilometers inside earth have been enigmatic at these depths rocks are expected to deform by ductile flow rather than brittle fracturing or frictional sliding on fault surfaces laboratory experiments and detailed calculations of the pressures and temperatures in seismically active subduction zones indicate that this deep focus seismicity could originate from dehydration and high pressure structural instabilities occurring in the hydrated part of the lithosphere that sinks into the upper mantle thus seismologists may be mapping the recirculation of water from the oceans back into the deep interior of our planet

the mechanism of the deep bolivia earthquake of june 9 1994 we analyzed the iris broad band seismograms for the june 9 1994 bolivia earthquake the largest deep focus earthquake ever recorded we inverted the record sections with a duration of 330 sec which include p pp and sp phases and obtained a dip slip mechanism dip rake strike 13 4 1 or 89 103 95 with a scalar moment of mo 2 9 10 21 nm mw 8 2 this mechanism is similar to that obtained from long period 175 to 250 sec rayleigh and love waves 83 100 90 mo 3 0 10 21 nm mw 8 3 the main rupture was preceded by about 10 sec by a cluster of smaller events with a total moment of 1 2 10 20 nm mw 7 3 the main rupture starts at about 20 km east or northeast of the initial break and propagates horizontally in the east to northeast direction the source duration is 40 sec and the rupture dimension is about 40km if a fault area of 40 40km is assumed the stress drop is 110 mpa an inversion of body waves p pp and sp with 6 basis moment tensors yielded a best fit solution with a 10 implosive component this result is of marginal significance and its confirmation would require more detailed information on the structures near the source region pp bounce points and stations the observed amplitude of the radial mode 0s 0 1226 sec is consistent with a double couple model with less than 2 isotropic component

phase transition buoyancy contributions to stresses in subducting lithosphere the sequence of phase transitions undergone by minerals with increasing depth in earth s mantle is perturbed within subducting lithospheric slabs by their thermal structure such perturbation of equilibrium phase relations gives rise to relative buoyancy contrasts between slab and mantle that contribute to the state of stress within the slab while other factors contribute to overall slab stresses thermal and phase transition effects largely control the structure of the stress field within the slab the resulting maximum in down dip compressive stress within the slab corresponds to the observed peak in depth distribution of deep seismicity furthermore metastable persistence of lower pressure phases within the cold slab should give rise to localized shear stresses whose distribution corresponds to observed features of subduction zone seismicity these observations are independent of the variety of failure mechanisms proposed for deep seismogenesis

do intermediate and deep focus earthquakes occur on preexisting weak zones an examination of the tonga subduction zone it has been proposed that intermediate and deep focus earthquakes occur on preexisting planes of weakness that were created at shallow depth the purpose of this study is to test this hypothesis we examined fault plane solutions for 360 events that occurred in the tonga subduction zone from january 1976 to february 1999 for events in the slab each fault plane solution is rotated by the slab dip angle so that the slab is in its original horizontal position we then compare fault plane solutions for events in the slab with those for events at the outer rise we find that an asymmetric fault system corresponding to that found for outer rise events persists down to about 450 km depth this suggests that earthquakes down to this depth are caused by the reactivation of preexisting faults created in the oceanic plate before subduction a similar pattern though less well constrained is found in the kurile subduction zone down to 200 km depth for earthquakes deeper than 450 km the fault plane solutions are much more scattered in some places the fault plane pattern suggests the creation of new fault planes along orientations of maximum shear with zero internal friction the pattern of fault plane solutions in particular localized volumes cannot be easily explained by the creation of new faults in the direction of maximum shear under a coherent regional tectonic stress field thus either a highly heterogeneous stress field exists or preexisting planes of weakness also account for some deep earthquakes

mainshock and aftershock analysis of the june 17 1996 deep flores sea earthquake sequence implications for the mechanism of deep earthquakes and the tectonics of the banda sea one of the largest mw 7 8 deep earthquakes 595 km in recorded history occurred beneath the flores sea on june 17 1996 we analyze broadband body waveforms to determine the seismic source characteristics of this important earthquake the source time function has a small initial subevent 5 s duration followed by three major subevents with a total source duration of 29 s directivity analysis indicates an unilateral rupture to the east southeast with a subhorizontal rupture length of 75 km a time independent moment tensor timt inversion gives a total seismic moment of 5 4 1020 n m mw 7 8 a time dependent moment tensor tdmt inversion indicates rupture on a near vertical fault strike of 130 dip of 80 sw rake of 166 during the first 5 s releasing 8 of the seismic moment the major part of the moment was released along a shallower dipping plane strike of 100 dip of 55 rake of 45 this change of faulting geometry may imply that the rupture initiated at a structural thermal or phase boundary of high stress concentration and then triggered the major moment release along a regional weak zone the mainshock produced at least 23 mb 2 9 aftershocks within the first 3 days seventeen of the largest aftershocks were located using the joint hypocenter determination algorithm the aftershocks define a plane dipping antithetically to the dip of the subducting slab with lateral and depth dimensions of 145 km and 76 km respectively the aftershock locations correlate with the southeast striking nodal plane of the moment tensor mechanism

an implosive component to the source of the deep sea of okhotsk earthquake of 24 may 2013 evidence from radial modes and cmt inversion abstract we study the spectral amplitudes of the first two earth radial modes 0 s 0 and 1 s 0 excited by the sea of okhotsk earthquake of 24 may 2013 the largest deep event ever recorded in the search for an isotropic component to its source in contrast to the case of the 1994 bolivian earthquake we detect an implosive component m i 1 1 10 27 dyn cm equivalent to 3 of the full scalar moment but 14 of the lone deviatoric component exciting the earth s radial modes an independent moment tensor inversion using the standard globalcmt algorithm but after relaxing its zero trace constraint similarly yields an implosive isotropic component albeit with a larger amplitude while it fails to document one in the case of the 1994 bolivian deep earthquake an implosive component to the source is expected in the model of transformational faulting in which deep earthquake rupture nucleates and grows upon transformation of metastable olivine to ringwoodite in the cold subducting slab this interpretation is supported by quantitative estimates 0 9 4 m of the thickness of the transformed shear zone which scale favorably relative to earthquake fault length with the upper end of the range of laboratory results reported for ices germanates and silicates the resulting extent of the transformation in the metastable wedge is consistent with the local geometry of the deep slab as recently determined by rupture modeling and aftershock distribution our results are in contrast to those for the two runner up largest deep earthquakes the 1994 bolivian and 1970 colombian shocks for which a similar isotropic component could not be detected we attribute this difference to variability in the ratio of isotropic to deviatoric components which combined with the smaller size of the 1970 and 1994 events would make any putative implosive component fall below detection levels especially in the case of the 1970 colombian earthquake for which only analog narrow band records were available

the subduction of young lithosphere studies using a variety of techniques of the subduction beneath western south america and the southwest honshu kyushu region of japan indicate that volcano free segments occur where the subducted and continental lithospheres remain in contact without intervening asthenosphere the subduction is initiated at normal dip angles but the plate deforms at some depth 100 km under central peru to travel horizontally immediately beneath continental lithosphere the most plausible reason for this geometry is that the subducted plate is buoyant a model is developed constrained by age of the plate bathymetry and heat flow estimates of the density of oceanic plates as a function of age show that younger ocean floor may be less dense than the asthenosphere into which it subducts if the high density tranformation of crustal basalt to eclogite is retarded by low temperatures the plate can remain buoyant to considerable depth for long periods of time heat flow data from western south america are consistent with this model

systematic determination of earthquake rupture directivity and fault planes from analysis of long period p wave spectra summary if an earthquake has a primarily unilateral rupture the pulse width observed on seismograms will vary depending on the angle between the rupture direction and the takeoff vector to the station we have developed a method to estimate the amount of pulse broadening from the spectrum and apply it to a long period database of large globally distributed earthquakes that occurred between 1988 and 2000 we select vertical component p waves at epicentral distances of 20 98 w ecompute the spectrum from a 64 s long window around each p wave arrival each spectrum is the product of source receiver and propagation response functions as well as local source and receiver side effects since there are multiple receivers for each source and multiple sources for each receiver we can estimate and remove the source and receiverside terms by stacking the appropriate p log spectra for earthquakes deeper than 200 km source effects dominate the residual spectra we use our pulse width estimates to determine the best rupture direction and to identify which nodal plane of the harvard centroid moment tensor cmt solution is most consistent with this rupture direction for 66 events in about 30 per cent of the cases one of the two nodal planes produces a much better fit to the data and can be identified as the true fault plane when results from previous studies are available for comparison our rupture directions are usually consistent with their results particularly for earthquakes with simple rupture histories

the 1994 bolivia and tonga events fundamentally different types of deep earthquakes the 1994 bolivia and tonga events show large differences in source and aftershock properties the bolivia earthquake characterized by high stress drop slow rupture propagation and a weak aftershock sequence appears similar to other large deep earthquakes that are isolated from active seismic zones including the 1970 colombia earthquake in contrast the 1994 tonga event showed stress drop rupture propagation velocities and an aftershock sequence similar to that found for shallow earthquakes the aftershock sequence of the 1994 tonga event is many times stronger than has been observed for any other deep earthquake a survey of deep earthquake aftershocks suggests that aftershock occurrence is correlated with the overall subduction zone magnitude frequency relation b value the largest deep events occur in isolated regions lacking smaller earthquakes or in subduction zones characterized by anomalously low b values the 1994 tonga event is an exception and is the largest deep earthquake to occur within an active subduction zone showing a large b value perhaps explaining the strong aftershock sequence the bolivia and tonga events may represent end members of a population of deep earthquakes showing exceptional diversity in source properties or they may represent two fundamentally different types of deep earthquakes perhaps resulting from different physical mechanisms

anticrack associated faulting at very high pressure in natural olivine shallow earthquakes are produced by brittle shear fracture of rock and or fictional sliding on pre existing fault surfaces1 at very high pressures however brittle fracture and frictional sliding are impossible because frictional resistance to movement on any potential fault surface is so great that ductile stress relief processes accomodate strain at lower shear stresses than those necessary to activate faulting nevertheless more than 20 of earthquakes with magnitudes greater than five occur at depths greater than 300km where the pressure exceeds l0 gpa ref 2 possible explanations for this paradox have been offered by several recent experimental studies of shearing instabilities associated with phase transformations at high 3 8 one of these mechanisms is associated with anticrack development during the olivine spinel phase transformation in mg2geo4 at pressures of 1 2 gpa refs 4 6 it is particularly attractive because it operates between mineral structures known to occur in the mantle we show here that this mechanism also can operate in natural silicate olivine mg fe 2sio4 during onset of the transformation at the much higher pressures at which deep earthquakes occur these results lend strong support to the hypothesis that the anticrack mechanism is responsible for such earthquakes4

seismic constraints on mechanisms of deep earthquake rupture 1 observations of the depth distribution of seismicity suggest that several mechanisms cause deep earthquakes cold subducting slabs exhibit a broad peak in seismicity between 300 and 530 km depth that is best explained by transformational faulting of metastable olivine cumulative seismic moment release increases sharply at 530 km depth in both cold and warm slabs implying that events deeper than this are controlled by an equilibrium rather than a metastable phase change which would be temperature dependent this together with the observation that deep seismicity predominates near the garnet rich upper boundary of the subducting plate former oceanic crust suggests that the transformation of garnet to perovskite which may release considerable water is integral in the cause of earthquakes deeper than 530 km where most deep earthquakes occur

measurement of differential rupture durations as constraints on the source finiteness of deep focus earthquakes 1 the physical mechanism of deep earthquakes can be constrained by identifying their fault planes resolving the fault plane ambiguity is a classical problem in seismology and we present a method to distinguish the fault plane using observations of source finiteness source finiteness is observable on seismograms at different azimuths and distances for single event ruptures as variations in the apparent rupture duration and for complex ruptures as differences in the traveltime delay between subevents for each earthquake the rupture duration or traveltime delay will be shortest in the direction of rupture propagation and longest in the opposite direction rather than measuring the actual rupture duration at each station we use a cross correlation technique that includes a stretching factor to measure the differential rupture duration between each pair of stations these differential measurements then allow us to identify the rupture direction rupture velocity and fault plane for each earthquake first we test the method on two synthetic earthquakes which represent earthquakes composed of one and two events the method works well for both examples although attenuation can bias the determined rupture direction for the single event case next we apply this method to p waves from broadband seismograms from four intermediate and deep focus earthquakes composed of two subevents the 23 january 1997 bolivian earthquake mw 7 1 276 km depth the 27 october 1994 earthquake south of the fiji islands mw 6 7 549 km depth the 21 july 1994 japan sea earthquake mw 7 3 471 km depth and the 11 november 1998 fiji islands earthquake mw 6 3 149 km depth each focal mechanism contains a subvertical and a subhorizontal nodal plane for three of the events our analysis shows that rupture propagated subhorizontally and we identify the subhorizontal nodal plane as the fault plane for the smallest event the rupture azimuth but not the rupture dip is well constrained and we cannot conclusively identify the fault plane rupture velocities vary from 0 18 to 0 63 of the local p wave velocity

stabilities and equations of state of dense hydrous magnesium silicates abstract the thermodynamic stability of high pressure phases in the ternary system mgo sio2 h2o is reviewed with special emphasis on hydrated phases including the alphabet phases on the basis of recent experimental data a stability diagram for these phases along a geotherm appropriate for a subducting slab is constructed this suggests that at realistic water contents the breakdown of antigorite will produce olivine plus phase a in the upper mantle but that the ability of wadsleyite to accommodate wt levels of water means that phases e and d are unlikely to occur in the upper portion of the transition zone for the lower part of the transition zone in which ringwoodite becomes stable the coexisting hydrous phase would be superhydrous phase b provided ringwoodite is not able to accommodate significant amounts of water at the top of the lower mantle phase d is stable but only at temperatures below 1300 c as the maximum solubility of h2o in magnesium silicate perovskite is also quite low slabs may dehydrate somewhat as they enter the lower mantle the available thermodynamic data for these phases is also reviewed from the most recent measurements of equations of state it is concluded that the elasticity of the phases in the mgo sio2 h2o ternary system is primarily dependent upon the density and not upon the water content it is therefore concluded that the presence of even significant amounts of hydrated phases in subducting slabs could not be unequivocally identified from seismological observations

total moment spectra of fourteen large earthquakes total moment spectra mt m where m is the moment rate tensor are computed for 14 large earthquakes recorded by the international deployment of accelerometers ida network using the scalar moment retrieval method proposed by silver and jordan 1982 for each event we obtain estimates of mt averaged over the 10 disjunct 1 mhz intervals in the low frequency band 1 11 mhz typical ida record sets from events with mt 0 2 a 1 a 1027 dyne cm yield standard errors on the 1 mhz averages that are generally less than 20 our multiple band estimates of mt are usually consistent with comparable single band values found by other investigators from the total moment spectra we derive the zero frequency static moment mt 0 and the characteristic source duration c 2 var f t where f t is the time function of the moment rate tensor assumed to be the same for all components the parameter c formally depends on the second degree temporal spatial and mixed spatial temporal moments of an extended source but calculations with realistic source geometries indicate that the interpretation of tc strictly in terms of the second temporal moment leads to very little error a plot of c against shows considerable scatter some events lie significantly above the empirical scaling curve of kanamori and given 1981 slow earthquakes and some below fast earthquakes examples of the former include all three deep focus events analyzed here as well as the 1970 colombia and 1963 peru bolivia deep focus earthquakes whose total moment spectra are calculated from the moment tensor solutions of gilbert and dziewonski 1975 an example of the latter is the great sumbawa earthquake of august 9 1977 24 3 a which is inferred to have a relatively shallow spatial centroid 20 km and a nearly flat moment spectrum suggesting that the faulting was confined to the upper more brittle portion of the oceanic lithosphere three other large earthquakes tonga june 22 1977 23 2 a kuril islands december 6 1978 3 6 0 2 a and tumaco december 12 1979 25 2 a exhibit moment spectra which significantly decrease toward higher frequencies indicating larger values of c the aftershocks of both the tonga and kuril islands events are distributed over a considerable range of depths consistent with rupture into the lower more ductile portions of the oceanic lithosphere we speculate that the characteristic source duration may be causally related to the depth of coseismic rupturing within the lithosphere

a constitutive model for olivine spinel aggregates and its application to deep earthquake nucleation a constitutive model is developed to describe the creep behavior of olivine spinel aggregates and conditions for transformation shear instability and deep earthquake nucleation are predicted using the eshelby mori tanaka theory eshelby 1957 mori and tanaka 1973 a piecewise incremental method is employed to calculate the stress strain relation for the olivine spinel aggregate the creep strain and strain rate depend on differential stress the aspect ratio of spinel inclusions latent heat of the phase transformation the relaxation of the volumetric phase transformation strain e ph kk and the creep law parameters of spinel a constant strain rate calculation suggests that above a critical percentage transformation c an earthquake may nucleate owing to the system s potential for a shear stress drop provided e kk ph of 8 is not relaxed and spinel grain size d xp remains small a normalized critical stiffness calculated from the potential shear stress drop and the critical shear strain c needed to change from one steady state creep condition to another suggests that a plate like partially transformed region is required for deep earthquake nucleation such a region may be formed by localized deformation or preexisting heterogeneities in a subducting rock

slab pull slab weakening and their relation to deep intra slab seismicity received 8 march 2005 revised 3 june 2005 accepted 21 june 2005 published 21 july 2005 1 subduction zone seismicity is highly variable great earthquakes occur at few subduction zones around the world with significant variation in size and frequency of deep events interactions between overriding and subducting plates and slab pull strength for individual plates provide a framework for understanding these variations previous work suggests an inverse correlation between great earthquake moment release and the degree to which the subducted slab is connected to the surface plate we find positive correlations between degree of plate slab attachment and moment release from intermediate and deep earthquakes this implies that shallow slab weakening that occurs at trenches where compressive stresses and great earthquakes dominate not only detaches slabs from plates but is maintained as the slab descends discouraging deep seismicity regions of low shallow moment release are consistent with extensional shallow stress regimes and undamaged slabs such slabs maintain mechanical strength during descent and deform seismogenically at depth citation bilek s l c p conrad and c lithgowbertelloni 2005 slab pull slab weakening and their relation to deep intra slab seismicity geophys res lett 32 l14305