a crack like rupture model for the 19 september 1985 michoacan mexico earthquake evidence supporting a smooth crack like rupture process of the michoacan earthquake of 1985 is obtained from a major earthquake for the first time digital strong motion data from three stations caleta de campos la villita and la union recording near field radiation from the fault show unusually simple ramped displacements and permanent offsets previously only seen in theoretical models the recording of low frequency 0 to 1 hz near field waves together with the apparently smooth rupture favors a crack like model to a step or haskell type dislocation model under the constraint of the slip distribution obtained by previous studies a crack like rupture characterized by an approximated dynamic slip function and systematic decrease in slip duration away from the point of rupture nucleation produces the best fit to the simple ramped displacements observed spatially varying rupture duration controls several important aspects of the synthetic seismograms including the variation in displacement rise times between components of motion observed at caleta de campos ground motion observed at caleta de campos can be explained remarkably well with a smoothly propagating crack model however data from la villita and la union suggest a more complex rupture process than the simple crack like model for the south eastern portion of the fault

source finiteness of large earthquakes measured from long period rayleigh waves the source finiteness parameters of 11 large shallow earthquakes were determined from long period rayleigh waves recorded by the global digital seismograph network and international deployment of accelerometers networks the basic data sets are the seismic spectra of periods from 150 to 300 s in the determination of source process times we used furumoto s phase method and a linear inversion method in which we simultaneously inverted the spectra and determined the source process time that minimizes the error in the inversion these two methods yielded consistent results the source process times of the sumbawa indonesia colombia ecuador valparaiso chile and michoacan mexico earthquakes were estimated to be 79 118 69 and 77 s respectively from the linear inversion method the source process times determined from long period surface waves were in general longer than those obtained from body waves source finiteness of large shallow earthquakes with rupture on a fault plane with a large aspect ratio was modeled with the source finiteness function introduced by ben menahem the spectra were inverted to find the extent and direction of the rupture of the earthquake that minimize the error in the inversion for a rupture velocity of 2 5 km s 1 the estimated rupture was unilateral 100 km long and along the strike n26 w for the may 26 1983 akita oki japan earthquake 165 km and s57 e for the september 19 1985 michoacan mexico earthquake 256 km and n31 e for the december 12 1979 colombia ecuador earthquake and 149 km and s15 w for the march 3 1985 valparaiso chile earthquake the results for the august 19 1977 sumbawa indonesia earthquake showed that the rupture was bilateral and in the direction n60 e these results are in general consistent with the rupture extent inferred from the aftershock area of these earthquakes

broad band deconvolution of gdsn data summary advances in the theory of wave propagation and source mechanism have coincided with the recent deployment of a global network of digitally recording seismographs the gdsn global digital seismograph network we demonstrate that broad band records of body wave ground displacement and velocity with spectral information from several hertz to tens of seconds can be obtained by the simultaneous deconvolution of the long and short period components of the gdsn seismographs frequency dependent effects in body waves that may arise from source complexity or from propagation through the earth are much more apparent and measurable in the broad band records than in the original seismograms

origin and metamorphic history of an early cretaceous polybaric granulite terrain fiordland southwest new zealand regionally extensive two pyroxene granulites in fiordland southwest new zealand are products of metamorphism of a suite of anhydrous magmas which crystallized two pyroxenes the granulite protolith igneous charnockitic rock synkinematically intruded metasediment and other orthogneiss in an early cretaceous subduction related magmatic arc and during cooling experienced deformation induced recrystallization to form granoblastic gneiss the granulites occur side by side with coeval rocks of amphibolite facies mineral zoning and textural relationships in both granulites and amphibolite facies rocks provide evidence of two distinct periods of crystallization 1 an early high temperature comparatively low pressure event accompanying magmatic intrusion andalusite sillimanite facies series recorded locally in the country rock followed by 2 high pressure metamorphism under conditions of 650 700 c at 12 13 kbar garnet granulite locally overprinted earlier formed two pyroxene granulite during the latter event the pressure increase 6 kbar between the two events is attributed to crustal thickening by overthrusting and is equivalent to unloading of a 20 km thick slab over rocks already buried at mid crustal depths both events occurred over a 20 m y interval between the time of magmatic emplacement of the granulite protolith and uplift controlled final cooling of the terrain the phanerozoic granulites in fiordland share some petrologic similarities with precambrian granulite terrains suggesting that at least some aspects of the former may serve as a useful model for development of the latter

dynamic rupture of asperities and stress change during a sequence of large interplate earthquakes in the mexican subduction zone we investigate the spatial and temporal variations of shear stress due to the successive failures over an extensive segment of the mexican subduction zone during a sequence of large interplate earthquakes that occurred over a period of 13 yr for this purpose we develop 3d dynamic rupture models incorporating a shal lowly dipping fault located above the subducting plate the spatial distribution of dynamic stress drop over the fault has been estimated for each of the events through an inversion procedure using some of the previously derived kinematic fault param eters as observational constraints the results revealed quite heterogeneous stress changes during these earthquakes coming from medium to high dynamic stress drop due to the rupture of a few patch like asperities and from stress increase in between and around them two weak asperities located southeast of the michoacan segment were ruptured first by the 1979 petatlan event the 1981 playa azul event ruptured two asperities in the central zone with a stress drop higher than 80 bars the largest 1985 michoacan earthquake resulted from the rupture of two large size strong asperities located at both sides of the 1981 fault zone with high stress drop of 80 to 100 bars and from another two asperities at depth two days after this largest event two asperities were broken during the zihuatanejo aftershock in the southeastern adjacent zone many after shocks of these large events tend to be distributed in the zones of stress increase outside the asperities while only small numbers of aftershocks have been observed within these asperity zones it appears that several major asperities that existed in this extensive segment have been ruptured successively so as to fill unbroken gaps on the plate interface thus the stress change left over from the previous earthquake has dominant effects on the next event in this subduction zone

evidence of early cretaceous collisional style orogenesis in northern fiordland new zealand and its effects on the evolution of the lower crust structural metamorphic and kinematic data from a well exposed section of lower crustal rocks in northern fiordland new zealand reveal a history of intense contractional deformation and high p metamorphism at the roots of a convergent orogen high p 14 kbars granulite facies garnet clinopyroxene bearing reaction zones occur adjacent to anorthositic veins within gabbroic and dioritic gneiss these veins and reaction zones were variably deformed by two phases of high p granulite facies deformation quantitative kinematic analyses conducted using systems of rotated veins and reaction zones indicate that the first phase produced steeply dipping shear zones within a sinistral pure shear dominated flow regime wk 0 69 this deformation occurred at conditions of p 14 0 1 3 kbars and t 676 34 c and resulted in subhorizontal arc parallel ne sw stretching and up to 60 subhorizontal shortening in high strain zones of the lower crust at depths 45 km the second phase of deformation occurred at p 14 1 1 2 kbars and t 674 36 c and produced vertically stacked gently dipping ductile thrust faults that accommodated arc normal nw directed displacement these features reflect major tectonic thickening of the crust oblique convergence and high p metamorphism during the collision of the roots of a convergent orogen represented by plutons of the median tectonic zone in eastern fiordland with the paleo pacific margin of gondwana represented by western fiordland distinctive kinematic styles suggest that this collision resulted in a partitioning of the arc parallel ne sw and arc normal nw se components of oblique convergence onto sinistral strike slip and ductile thrust faults respectively at lower crustal levels

seismic moment catalog of large shallow earthquakes 1900 to 1989 we compile a worldwide catalog of shallow depth 70 km and large ms 7 earthquakes recorded between 1900 and 1989 the catalog is shown to be complete and uniform at the 20 sec surface wave magnitude ms 7 0 we base our catalog on those of abe 1981 1984 and abe and noguchi 1983a b for events with ms 7 0 those catalogs however are not homogeneous in seismicity rates for the entire 90 year period we assume that global rates of seismicity are constant on a time scale of decades and most inhomogeneities arise from changes in instrumentation and or reporting we correct the magnitudes to produce a homogeneous catalog the catalog is accompanied by a reference list for all the events with seismic moment determined at periods longer than 20 sec using these seismic moments for great and giant earthquakes and a moment magnitude relationship for smaller events we produce a seismic moment catalog for large earthquakes from 1900 to 1989 the catalog is used to study the distribution of moment released worldwide although we assumed a constant rate of seismicity on a global basis the rate of moment release has not been constant for the 90 year period because the latter is dominated by the few largest earthquakes we find that the seismic moment released at subduction zones during this century constitutes 90 of all the moment released by large shallow earthquakes on a global basis the seismic moment released in the largest event that occurred during this century the 1960 southern chile earthquake represents about 30 to 45 of the total moment released from 1900 through 1989 a frequency size distribution of earthquakes with seismic moment yields an average slope b value that changes from 1 04 for magnitudes between 7 0 and 7 5 to b 1 51 for magnitudes between 7 6 and 8 0 this change in the b value is attributed to different scaling relationships between bounded large and unbounded small earthquakes thus the earthquake process does have a characteristic length scale that is set by the downdip width over which rupture in earthquakes can occur that width is typically greater for thrust events at subduction zones than for earthquakes along transform faults and other tectonic environments

thermomechanical evolution of the crust during convergence and deep crustal pluton emplacement in the western province of fiordland new zealand 1 fiordland new zealand contains exposures of high pressure p 12 14 kbar granulite facies rocks that form one of earth s largest exposed lower crustal roots of an early cretaceous magmatic arc these exposures allowed us to examine the mechanisms and processes that controlled crustal thickening and large vertical displacements at the deepest levels of a deforming arc system we present structural and metamorphic data that show how the root of this arc was tectonically thickened by imbricate granulite facies thrust zones during and after the emplacement of sheeted plutons into the middle and lower crust the imbricate thrust zones form part of a well exposed 12 km wide two sided fold thrust belt that preferentially developed in crust that was thermally softened by magmatism changes in metamorphic mineral assemblages and microstructural data from the contact aureole of a composite arc batholith called the western fiordland orthogneiss record thrust and pluton emplacement conditions of p 7 9 kbar paleodepths of 25 30 km these data show that thrust imbrication and tectonic loading at 30 km depth is a viable mechanism of large vertical displacements and crustal thickening at the deepest levels of magmatic arcs this mechanism produced a characteristic up pressure metamorphic history that is similar to that observed in many other large magmatic belts worldwide

post processing removal of correlated errors in grace data 1 gravity fields produced by the gravity recovery and climate experiment grace satellite mission require smoothing to reduce the effects of errors present in short wavelength components as the smoothing radius decreases these errors manifest themselves in maps of surface mass variability as long linear features generally oriented north to south i e stripes the presence of stripes implies correlations in the gravity field coefficients here we examine the spectral signature of these correlated errors and present a method to remove them finally we apply the filter to a model of surface mass variability to show that the filter has relatively little degradation of the underlying geophysical signals we seek to recover

rupture kinematics of the 2005 mw 8 6 nias simeulue earthquake from the joint inversion of seismic and geodetic data the 2005 mw 8 6 nias simeulue earthquake was caused by rupture of a portion of the sunda megathrust offshore northern sumatra this event occurred within an array of continuous global positioning system gps stations and produced measurable vertical displacement of the fringing coral reefs above the fault rupture thus this earthquake provides a unique opportunity to assess the source character istics of a megathrust event from the joint analysis of seismic data and near field static co seismic displacements based on the excitation of the normal mode data and geodetic data we put relatively tight constraints on the seismic moment and the fault dip where the dip is determined to be 8 to 10 with corresponding moments of 1 24 10 22 to 1 00 10 22 n m respectively the geodetic constraints on slip distribution help to eliminate the trade off between rupture velocity and slip kine matics source models obtained from the inversion of various combinations of the teleseismic body waves and geodetic data are evaluated by comparing predicted and observed long period seismic waveforms 100 500 sec our results indicate a rela tively slow average rupture velocity of 1 5 to 2 5 km sec and long average rise time of up to 20 sec the earthquake nucleated between two separate slip patches one beneath nias and the other beneath simeulue island the gap between the two patches and the hypocentral location appears to be coincident with a local geological disrup tion of the forearc coseismic slip clearly tapers to zero before it reaches the trench probably because the rupture propagation was inhibited when it reached the accre tionary prism using the models from joint inversions we estimate the peak ground velocity on nias island to be about 30 cm sec an order of magnitude slower than for thrust events in continental areas this study emphasizes the importance of util izing multiple datasets in imaging seismic ruptures

gravity and potential changes due to shear and tensile faults in a half space analytic expressions derived from a simplified model are invaluable because they often provide deep insight into geophysical phenomena such is the case with potential and gravity changes here we present expressions of potential and gravity changes caused by faulting on a finite rectangular plane buried in a homogeneous half space the expressions can be used to evaluate coseismic changes in surface gravity and geoid height observed gravimetric data combined with our formulae thus provide constraints on the fault geometry and magnitudes of dislocation

coseismic and postseismic deformation of the 2011 tohoku oki earthquake constrained by grace gravimetry 1 spaceborne gravimetry data from the gravity recovery and climate experiment grace are processed using spatio spectral slepian localization analysis enabling the high resolution detection of permanent gravity change associated with both coseismic and postseismic deformation resulting from the great 11 march 2011 mw 9 0 tohoku oki earthquake the grace observations are then used in a geophysical inversion to estimate a new slip model containing both coseismic slip and after slip the grace estimated moment for the total slip up to the end of july 2011 is estimated as 4 59 0 49 1022 n m equivalent to a composite mw of 9 07 0 65 if the moment for the tohoku oki main shock is assumed to be 3 8 1022 n m the contribution from the after slip is estimated to be 3 0 1021 12 8 1021 n m in good agreement with a postseismic slip model inverted from gps data we conclude that grace data provide an independent constraint to quantify co and post seismic deformation for the tohoku oki event

crustal dilatation observed by grace after the 2004 sumatra andaman earthquake we report the detection of an earthquake by a space based measurement the gravity recovery and climate experiment grace satellites observed a 15 microgalileo gravity change induced by the great december 2004 sumatra andaman earthquake coseismic deformation produces sudden changes in the gravity field by vertical displacement of earth s layered density structure and by changing the densities of the crust and mantle grace s sensitivity to the long spatial wavelength of gravity changes resulted in roughly equal contributions of vertical displacement and dilatation effects in the gravity measurements the grace observations provide evidence of crustal dilatation resulting from an undersea earthquake

processes controlling vertical coupling and decoupling between the upper and lower crust of orogens results from fiordland new zealand the pre cenozoic configuration of western new zealand allows determination of the effects of magmatism and a changing lower crustal rheology on the evolution of a cretaceous orogen from upper to lower crustal levels 10 50 km beginning at 126 ma a composite batholith dominated by diorite was emplaced into the lower crust during emplacement deformation was partitioned into zones weakened by magma and heat leading to the development of two layer parallel shear zones at the upper and lower contacts of the batholith transient vertical decoupling of the crust above and below the batholith occurred from 126 ma until 120 ma as magma was emplaced into and moved through a weak thick lower crust by 116 ma however much of the batholith had crystallized and the lowermost crust had cooled from 750 c t 850 c to t 650 700 c cooling was aided by the juxtaposition of pre existing crust against hot new crust and by the efficient extraction of partial melts out of the lower crust cooling together with dehydration of the lower crust and mafic compositions led to the development of a strong dry lower crustal root by 116 ma a strong lower crust resulted in high degrees of vertical coupling between the upper and lower crust during contraction from 116 to 105 ma even as magma continued to be emplaced into the mid upper crust a narrow focused orogenic style in the upper crust at this time reflected a highly viscous lower crust through which compressional stresses were transferred vertically the results imply that changes in plate boundary dynamics rather than the thermal weakening of thick lower crust during convergence controlled the onset of regional extension at 108 105 ma

exhumation of high grade terranes a review high grade granulite facies terranes are brought to the surface by a combination of uplift and erosion exhumation the reported mechanisms and durations of exhumation are variable and depend pa

intra arc transpression in the lower crust and its relationship to magmatism in a mesozoic magmatic arc abstract structural observations and u pb geochronology from fiordland new zealand support a model of partitioned transpression within the lower crust of an early mesozoic magmatic arc called the median batholith we use this lower crustal section to test whether transpression was an efficient mechanism for transporting magma through the deep lithosphere a continentward migration of magmatic activity occurred within the margin of gondwana after 140 ma followed by a period of concentrated magmatism in a vertical 12 15 km wide lower crustal shear zone after 119 ma the shear zone named the indecision creek shear zone contains variably oriented dioritic intrusions and displays systematic variations in the three dimensional orientation of ductile structures from the margins to the center of the shear zone the pitch of stretching lineations on foliation surfaces changes from 10 35 to 55 82 with increasing finite strain this increase in pitch is accompanied by a steepening and counter clockwise rotation of foliation planes these and other structural patterns indicate that arc parallel sinistral oblique slip and strike slip displacements occurred at the shear zone margins and that deformation in its center was dominated by horizontal arc normal shortening and near vertical extrusion this style of partitioned transpression reflects the effects of rheological contrasts created by a heterogeneous pattern of magmatism within the arc field relationships and u pb dates on zircon suggest that the shear zone formed along the boundary between outboard older and inboard younger parts of the batholith and facilitated the transfer of small volumes of magma vertically through the lower crust until at least 111 ma when convergence and arc magmatism waned

local gravity anomalies produced by dislocation sources rundle 1978 and walsh and rice 1979 have shown that the change in the vertical component of gravity is proportional to uplift for a spherical source of dilatation and for slip on an infinitely long dip slip fault in the first case no free air gravity anomaly is produced and in the second case no bouguer gravity anomaly gravity anomalies due to other dislocation sources in three dimensions are as follows for strike slip faulting the ratio of the gravity change to uplift depends upon position however the gravity change contours are roughly similar to those corresponding to a zero free air gravity anomaly nor is the ratio constant for dip slip faulting except for the two special cases of dip slip on a vertical fault and horizontal slip on a horizontal fault neither of which produce a bouguer anomaly the bouguer anomaly produced by an open horizontal crack is the same as would be produced had the material within the crack been mined out without deforming the solid if the horizontal crack were filled with material of density equal to the host rock a good approximation to sill formation no bouguer anomaly is produced for cracks of other inclinations the ratio of gravity change to uplift is not constant thus dilatancy in general does not correspond to the absence of a free air anomaly as might be suggested by the special case of a spherical source of dilatation for two dimensional models a cylindrical source of dilatation produces no free air gravity anomaly dip slip faulting produces no bouguer anomaly and open cracks produce a bouguer anomaly equal to that which would be produced had the material within the crack been mined out without deforming the solid a two dimensional crack filled with material of density equal to that of the host rock would produce no bouguer anomaly jachens et al 1983 have reported temporal changes in gravity elevation and area strain along the san andreas fault in southern california such that the bouguer anomaly apparently remains unchanged and the uplift to strain ratio is about 100 km several dislocation mechanisms are proposed that fulfill these constraints but these mechanisms appear to be rather contrived and are not regarded as satisfactory explanations

grace measurements of mass variability in the earth system monthly gravity field estimates made by the twin gravity recovery and climate experiment grace satellites have a geoid height accuracy of 2 to 3 millimeters at a spatial resolution as small as 400 kilometers the annual cycle in the geoid variations up to 10 millimeters in some regions peaked predominantly in the spring and fall seasons geoid variations observed over south america that can be largely attributed to surface water and groundwater changes show a clear separation between the large amazon watershed and the smaller watersheds to the north such observations will help hydrologists to connect processes at traditional length scales tens of kilometers or less to those at regional and global scales

inversion for slip distribution using teleseismic p waveforms north palm springs borah peak and michoacan earthquakes we have inverted the teleseismic p waveforms recorded by stations of the global digital seismograph network for the 8 july 1986 north palm springs california the 28 october 1983 borah peak idaho and the 19 september 1985 michoacan mexico earthquakes to recover the distribution of slip on each of the faults using a point by point inversion method with smoothing and positivity constraints in the inversion procedure a fault plane with fixed strike and dip is placed in the region of the earthquake hypocenter and divided into a large number of subfaults rupture is assumed to propagate at a constant velocity away from the hypocenter and synthetic ground motions for pure strike slip and dip slip dislocations are calculated at the teleseismic stations for each subfault the observed seismograms are then inverted to obtain the distribution of strike slip and dip slip displacement for the earthquake results of the inversion indicate that the global digital seismograph network data are useful for deriving fault dislocation models for moderate to large events however a wide range of frequencies which includes periods shorter than those within the passband of the long period global digital seismograph network instruments is necessary to infer the distribution of slip on the earthquake fault although the long period waveforms define the size dimensions and seismic moment of the earthquake data at shorter periods provide additional constraints on the variation of slip on the fault dislocation models obtained for all three earthquakes are consistent with a heterogeneous rupture process where failure is controlled largely by the size and location of high strength asperity regions

relation between average slip and average stress drop for rectangular faults with multiple asperities abstract it is shown from numerical experiments that the average slip and seismic moment due to the fracture of multiple asperities on a rectangular fault is independent of the distribution of the asperities on the fault for all practical purposes as long as the average stress drop on the fault is the same for the different distributions hence using the relations between average slip and average stress drop for a smooth fault to estimate the stress drop for an earthquake which is due to the failure of a few large asperities gives a sufficiently good estimate of the stress drop relations between the average slip and average stress drop for simple rectangular faults of different length to width ratios are determined numerically both of the cases when the fault slip direction is parallel to the fault length and when it is parallel to the fault width are considered the 1985 mexican earthquake is discussed briefly as an example of this kind of earthquake model

patterns of late cenozoic exhumation deduced from apatite and zircon u he ages from fiordland new zealand new apatite and zircon u th he ages from the fiordland region of new zealand s south island expand on earlier results and provide new constraints on patterns of late cenozoic exhumation and cooling across this region zircon u th he cooling ages in combination with increased density of apatite ages show that in addition to a gradual northward decrease in cooling ages that was seen during an earlier phase of this study there is also a trend toward younger cooling ages to the east distinct breaks in cooling age patterns on southwestern fiordland appear to be correlated to the location of previously mapped faults the northward decrease in ages may reflect asynchronous cooling related to migration in the locus of exhumation driven by subduction initiation or it may reflect synchronous regional exhumation that exposed different structural levels across fiordland or some combination of these effects in either case differential exhumation accommodated by major and minor faults that dissect fiordland basement rocks apparently played an important role in producing the resulting age patterns

co and postseismic deformation of the 28 march 2005 nias mw 8 7 earthquake from continuous gps data 1 global positioning system gps measurements registered up to 5m of coseismic displacements during the 28 march 2005 mw 8 7 nias earthquake indonesia the vertical offsets put tight constraints on the northern and southern limit of the rupture the inferred coseismic slip distribution indicates high slip patches near the epicenter and near the southern extent of the 26 december 2004 aceh andaman rupture where aftershocks have been abundant six months of postseismic time series are better fit with a logarithmic instead of exponential function suggesting that the postseismic deformation is likely controlled by afterslip our inversion model predicts afterslip to be concentrated both up and down dip from patches of maximum coseismic slip where aftershocks are sparse the shallow afterslip adds further evidence that the earthquake probably did not break the surface with implications for tsunami generation and instead caused aseismic deformation in shallow parts of the subduction zone after the event

coseismic and post seismic signatures of the sumatra 2004 december and 2005 march earthquakes in grace satellite gravity s u m m a r y the grace satellite mission has been measuring the earth s gravity field and its temporal variations since 2002 april although these variations are mainly due to mass transfer within the geofluid envelops they also result from mass displacements associated with phenomena including glacial isostatic adjustment and earthquakes however these last contributions are difficult to isolate because of the presence of noise and of geofluid signals and because of grace s coarse spatial resolution 400 km half wavelength in this paper we show that a wavelet analysis on the sphere helps to retrieve earthquake signatures from grace geoid products using a wavelet analysis of grace geoids products we show that the geoid variations caused by the 2004 december m w 9 2 and 2005 march m w 8 7 sumatra earthquakes can be detected at grace resolution the 2004 december earthquake produced a strong coseismic decrease of the gravity field in the andaman sea followed by relaxation in the area affected by both the andaman 2004 and the nias 2005 earthquakes we find two characteristic timescales for the relaxation with a fast variation occurring in the vicinity of the central andaman ridge we discuss our coseismic observations in terms of density changes of crustal and upper mantle rocks and of the vertical displacements in the andaman sea we interpret the post seismic signal in terms of the viscoelastic response of the earth s mantle the transient component of the relaxation may indicate the presence of hot viscous material beneath the active central andaman basin

time variability of the earth s gravity field hydrological and oceanic effects and their possible detection using grace the grace satellite mission scheduled for launch in 2001 is designed to map out the earth s gravity field to high accuracy every 2 4 weeks over a nominal lifetime of 5 years changes in the gravity field are caused by the redistribution of mass within the earth and on or above its surface grace will thus be able to constrain processes that involve mass redistribution in this paper we use output from hydrological oceanographic and atmospheric models to estimate the variability in the gravity field i e in the geoid due to those sources we develop a method for constructing surface mass estimates from the grace gravity coefficients we show the results of simulations where we use synthetic grace gravity data constructed by combining estimated geophysical signals and simulated grace measurement errors to attempt to recover hydrological and oceanographic signals we show that grace may be able to recover changes in continental water storage and in seafloor pressure at scales of a few hundred kilometers and larger and at timescales of a few weeks and longer with accuracies approaching 2 mm in water thickness over land and 0 1 mbar or better in seafloor pressure

earthquake source parameters and stress distribution in the adak island region of the central aleutian islands alaska source parameters have been systematically determined for all earthquakes with mw 5 that occurred between 172 w and 179 w longitude in the adak island region of the central aleutian islands during 1977 march 1987 we relocate the events using a plate velocity model developed for the region and use two alternative methods of depth determination the first method uses arrival times of direct and prominent reflected phases primarily pwp the second method uses broadband p wave displacement seismograms in an inversion for source depth the analysis of these events provides a well constrained data set for the study of stress release along an active subduction zone three earthquakes which occurred seaward of the trench axis are located just below the crust mantle interface and show extension nearly perpendicular to the trench axis seven events occurred in the wadati benioff zone sixty four events are located in the main thrust zone and except for five unusual events are characterized by thrust mechanisms with one nodal plane dipping north at a shallow angle in cross section the thrust zone appears as a thin 10 15 km thickness interplate region which extends from 15 to 50 km depth a 10 15 average discrepancy between observed slip vector azimuths and the predicted relative motion direction between the pacific and north american plates exists for these events the observed slip vectors are oriented more normal to the trench than is predicted by plate motions five earthquakes which occurred as aftershocks to the may 7 1986 earthquake mw 8 0 in the crust of the overriding plate have strike slip mechanisms consistent with right lateral motion on arc parallel fault planes observations of slip vectors along the whole aleutian arc show a similar trend to that observed in the adak island region the largest differences 30 between observed and predicted slip azimuths occur around 175 e we propose a model of plate interaction in which a portion of the along arc motion occurs along a weak strike slip shear zone in the upper plate near the volcanic line the slip azimuths in the main thrust zone fit this model well if the amount of transcurrent slip occurring in the upper plate is 60 of the arc parallel relative plate motion a consequence of the model is along arc extension of the overriding plate between the accretionary wedge and the volcanic line especially in the western part of the aleutian arc calculations based on a tectonic model by geist et al 1988 for the formation of arc summit basins through block rotation and translation suggest that along arc extension has been significant since late miocene or early pliocene

coseismic slip and afterslip of the great mw 9 15 sumatra andaman earthquake of 2004 we determine coseismic and the first month postseismic deformation associated with the sumatra andaman earthquake of 26 december 2004 from near field global positioning system gps surveys in northwestern sumatra and along the nicobar andaman islands continuous and campaign gps measurements from thailand and malaysia and in situ and remotely sensed observations of the vertical motion of coral reefs the coseismic model shows that the sunda subduction mega thrust ruptured over a distance of about 1500 km and a width of less than 150 km releasing a total moment of 6 7 7 0 10 22 n m equivalent to a magnitude m w 9 15 the latitudinal distribution of released moment in our model has three distinct peaks at about 4 n 7 n and 9 n which compares well to the latitudinal variations seen in the seismic inversion and of the analysis of radiated t waves our coseismic model is also consistent with interpretation of normal modes and with the amplitude of very long period surface waves the tsunami predicted from this model fits rela tively well the altimetric measurements made by the jason and topex satellites neither slow nor delayed slip is needed to explain the normal modes and the tsunami wave the near field geodetic data that encompass both coseismic deformation and up to 40 days of postseismic deformation require that slip must have continued on the plate interface after the 500 sec long seismic rupture the postseismic geodetic moment of about 2 4 10 22 nm mw 8 8 is equal to about 30 5 of the coseismic moment release evolution of postseismic deformation is consistent with rate strengthening frictional afterslip online material summary of geodetic data used in this study

rupture process of the 2004 sumatra andaman earthquake the 26 december 2004 sumatra andaman earthquake initiated slowly with small slip and a slow rupture speed for the first 40 to 60 seconds then the rupture expanded at a speed of about 2 5 kilometers per second toward the north northwest extending 1200 to 1300 kilometers along the andaman trough peak displacements reached 15 meters along a 600 kilometer segment of the plate boundary offshore of northwestern sumatra and the southern nicobar islands slip was less in the northern 400 to 500 kilometers of the aftershock zone and at least some slip in that region may have occurred on a time scale beyond the seismic band

shrimp monazite and zircon geochronology of high grade metamorphism in new zealand ion microprobe dating of zircon and monazite from high grade gneisses has been used to 1 determine the timing of metamorphism in the western province of new zealand and 2 constrain the age of the protoliths from which the metamorphic rocks were derived the western province comprises westland where mainly upper crustal rocks are exposed and fiordland where middle to lower crustal levels crop out in westland the oldest recognisable metamorphic event occurred at 360 370 ma penecontemporane ously with intrusion of the mid palaeozoic karamea batholith c 375 ma metamorphism took place under low pressure high temperature conditions resulting in upper amphibolite sillimanite grade meta morphism of lower palaeozoic pelites greenland group orthogneisses of younger cretaceous age formed during emplacement of the rahu suite granite intrusives c 110 ma and were derived from protoliths including cretaceous separation point suite and devonian karamea suite granites in fiordland high grade paragneisses with greenland group zircon age patterns were metamorphosed m1 to sillimanite grade at 360 ma concomitant with crustal thickening and further granite emplace ment m1 mineral assemblages were overprinted by higher pressure kyanite grade metamorphism m2 at 330 ma it remains unclear whether the m2 event in fiordland was primarily due to tectonic burial as suggested by regional recumbent isoclinal folding or whether it was due to magmatic loading in keeping with the significant volumes of granite magma intruded at higher structural levels in the formerly contiguous westland region metamorphism in fiordland accompanied and outlasted emplacement of the western fiordland orthogneiss wfo at 110 125 ma the wfo equilibrated under granulite facies conditions whereas cover rocks underwent more limited recrystallization except for high strain shear zones where conditions of lower to middle amphibolite facies were met the juxtaposition of palaeozoic kyanite grade rocks against cretaceous wfo granulites resulted from late mesozoic extensional defor mation and development of metamorphic core complexes in the western province

the great sumatra andaman earthquake of 26 december 2004 the two largest earthquakes of the past 40 years ruptured a 1600 kilometer long portion of the fault boundary between the indo australian and southeastern eurasian plates on 26 december 2004 seismic moment magnitude mw 9 1 to 9 3 and 28 march 2005 mw 8 6 the first event generated a tsunami that caused more than 283 000 deaths fault slip of up to 15 meters occurred near banda aceh sumatra but to the north along the nicobar and andaman islands rapid slip was much smaller tsunami and geodetic observations indicate that additional slow slip occurred in the north over a time scale of 50 minutes or longer

gravitational gradient changes following the 2004 december 26 sumatra andaman earthquake inferred from grace summary it has been demonstrated that the gravity recovery and climate experiment grace spaceborne gravimetry data are capable of observing coseismic gravity changes resulting from great earthquakes such as the 2004 december 26 sumatra andaman event mw 9 1 9 3 here we show for the first time that refined deformation signals from the 2004 december 26 sumatra andaman earthquake mw 9 1 9 3 together with the 2005 march 28 nias earthquake mw 8 6 can be revealed by deriving the full gravitational gradient tensor from grace monthly gravitational field the grace inferred coseismic gravitational gradient changes agree well with coseismic slip model predictions since the high frequency contents in gravitational field variation can be amplified by deriving the gravitational gradients the grace derived coseismic gravitational gradient changes clearly delineate the fault lines locate significant slips and better define the extent of the coseismic deformation

a very broad band analysis of the michoacan mexico earthquake of september 19 1985 long period seismograms from the gdsn rstn and ida network are used in a centroid moment tensor analysis of the september 19 1985 michoacan mexico earthquake ms 8 1 the long period data are also used together with broad band displacement p waveforms in a joint very broad band inversion for the moment tensor and the moment rate distribution in time and space results are that the earthquake had a total scalar moment of 1 1 1028 dyne cm and that the moment release occurred mainly in two subevents the second of which was located approximately 70 km southeast of the first observations of earth s normal modes at ultra long periods 600 to 2000 sec are shown to be consistent with the obtained scalar moment and source mechanism

interpretation of earthquake epicenter and cmt centroid locations in terms of rupture length and direction abstract a comparison is made between hypocenter and centroid estimates of shallow earthquakes to investigate whether the difference between these two quantities contains useful information on fault rupture length and direction an initial comparison of international seismological centre isc and harvard centroid moment tensor cmt catalog locations suggests that for earthquakes below mw 6 5 the difference in location is dominated by location errors whilst larger earthquakes appear to show the effect of increasing spatial rupture however for this data set combined location errors greater than 25 km are observed for a majority of earthquakes imposing a limit on interpretation we use these constraints to investigate this approach using a consistent earth model in the re analysis of eight previously well studied events new hypocenter estimates based on teleseismic p wave arrivals from the isc bulletin and a 3 d velocity model of the mantle s p12 wm13 are compared with new centroid locations obtained using the same 3 d model and waveform data from international deployment of accelerometers ida global digital seismic network gdsn and re calibrated high gain long period hglp stations the distance between our new hypocenter and centroid locations is shown to provide reliable information on both the rupture length and direction the rupture lengths and azimuths generally agree with the most recent previous results from other methods and provide an absolute estimate of the location of the rupture

post seismic relaxation following the great 2004 sumatra andaman earthquake on a compressible self gravitating earth summary the mw 9 0 2004 december 26 sumatra andaman and mw 8 7 2005 march 28 nias earthquakes which collectively ruptured approximately 1800 km of the andaman and sunda subduction zones are expected to be followed by vigorous viscoelastic relaxation involving both the upper and lower mantle because of these large spatial dimensions it is desirable to fully account for gravitational coupling effects in the relaxation process we present a stable method of computing relaxation of a spherically stratified compressible and self gravitating viscoelastic earth following an impulsive moment release event the solution is cast in terms of a spherical harmonic expansion of viscoelastic normal modes for simple layered viscoelastic models which include a low viscosity oceanic asthenosphere we predict substantial post seismic effects over a region several 100s of km wide surrounding the eastern indian ocean we compare observed gps time series from ten regional sites mostly in thailand and indonesia beginning in 2004 december with synthetic time series that include the coseismic and post seismic effects of the 2004 december 26 and 2005 march 28 earthquakes a viscosity structure involving a biviscous burgers body rheology in the asthenosphere explains the pattern and amplitude of post seismic offsets remarkably well

mapping the upper mantle three dimensional modeling of earth structure by inversion of seismic waveforms a method is presented for the inversion of waveform data for the three dimensional distribution of seismic wave velocities the method is applied to data from the global digital networks international deployment of accelerometers global digital seismograph network the selected data set consists of some 2000 seismograms corresponding to 53 events and 870 paths the moment tensors of the earthquakes are determined through an iterative procedure which minimizes the corrupting influence of lateral heterogeneity a global model is constructed for shear wave velocity expanded up to degree and order 8 in spherical harmonics and described by a cubic polynomial in depth for the upper 670 km of the earth s mantle although no a priori information is incorporated the model predictions reproduce much of what is known about the dispersion of mantle waves for example high phase velocities for shields low velocities at ridges and a strong degree 2 pattern for rayleigh waves since the method makes use of complete waveforms overtone data are also included it is shown that the model is reproducible in that substantially the same model can be constructed from each half of the total data set considered independently the model shows that shields and ridges are major features in the depth interval 25 250 km the ridges of the southern pacific and the larger shields persist to 350 km but the southeast indian rise is underlain by a high velocity anomaly at this depth as is much of the mid atlantic ridge at 450 650 km the major features are a broad region of high velocities incorporating south america much of the south atlantic and parts of west africa a broad region of low velocities in the central and eastern pacific high velocities in the western pacific and a low velocity anomaly beneath the red sea and the gulf of aden in the absence of a crustal correction degrees 2 and 3 show a high positive correlation with the geoid paradoxically this is largely destroyed when the distribution in crustal thickness is taken into account spherical harmonic degrees 4 7 show a significant negative correlation

rupture process of large earthquakes in the northern mexico subduction zone the cocos plate subducts beneath north america at the mexico trench the northernmost segment of this trench between the orozco and rivera fracture zones has ruptured in a sequence of five large earthquakes from 1973 to 1985 the jan 30 1973 colima event m s 7 5 at the northern end of the segment near rivera fracture zone the mar 14 1979 petatlan event m s 7 6 at the southern end of the segment on the orozco fracture zone the oct 25 1981 playa azul event m s 7 3 in the middle of the michoacan gap the sept 19 1985 michoacan mainshock m s 8 1 and the sept 21 1985 michoacan aftershock m s 7 6 that reruptured part of the petatlan zone body wave inversion for the rupture process of these earthquakes finds the best earthquake depth focal mechanism overall source time function and seismic moment for each earthquake in addition we have determined spatial concentrations of seismic moment release for the colima earthquake and the michoacan mainshock and aftershock these spatial concentrations of slip are interpreted as asperities and the resultant asperity distribution for mexico is compared to other subduction zones the body wave inversion technique also determines the moment tensor rate functions but there is no evidence for statistically significant changes in the moment tensor during rupture for any of the five earthquakes an appendix describes the moment tensor rate functions methodology in detail

evidence for anomalous body wave radiation between 0 3 and 0 7 hz from the 1985 september 19 michoacan mexico earthquake summary in order to better understand the causes of unprecedented damage to mexico city during the 1985 september 19 michoacan earthquake mw 8 0 spectral ratios of teleseismic p waves of this earthquake are studied with respect to those from five recent large mexican subduction zone earthquakes 7 0 mw 7 7 the data are from vertical component digital seismographs it is found that the spectral ratios at stations in the ne quadrant are anomalously more energetic than those predicted by the 2 source model in the critical frequency range for mexico city 0 3 0 7 hz the evidence is especially convincing for the spectral ratios with respect to the earthquakes of 1985 september 21 mw 7 6 and 1986 mw 7 0 since the data are available from several stations in the ne quadrant the teleseismic p wave spectral ratio in this quadrant with respect to the 1985 september 21 earthquake in the critical frequency range is close to the acceleration spectral ratio found in and near mexico city also in the ne quadrant velocity traces in the epicentral region of the michoacan earthquake obtained by integrating the accelerograms also show oscillations with a frequency of about 0 4 hz furthermore a regression study of fourier acceleration spectra at a hill zone site in mexico city demonstrates that the michoacan earthquake was anomalously energetic in the city at the critical frequencies for an event of that magnitude and at that distance if the data from 7 0 mw 7 7 events can be extrapolated to estimate the ground motions from mw 8 0 earthquakes then the evidence supports an anomalously large body wave radiation towards mexico city between 0 3 and 0 7 hz during the michoacan earthquake this anomalous radiation and the dramatic local amplification of seismic waves in the lake bed zone of the city 10 50 times at frequencies between 0 3 and 0 7 hz appear to be the principal natural causes of the disaster the anomalous teleseismic p wave spectral ratios with respect to the earthquakes of 1985 september 21 and 1986 found in the ne quadrant are not observed in the data available from a small number of stations in the other quadrants if this observation is true then it suggests a directional property to the anomalous radiation

medium high pressure metamorphic rocks of the tuhua orogen western new zealand as lower crustal analogues of the lachlan fold belt se australia abstract lower palaeozoic rocks are widely distributed in the western province of new zealand they include 1 ordovician greywackes slates and minor paragneiss in the buller terrane 2 weakly metamorphosed subgreenschist to greenschistfacies cambrian mafic volcanics ordovician limestones and silurian siliciclastic rocks in the takaka terrane and 3 higher grade rocks mainly in fiordland which include 350 380 ma amphibolite facies metasediments held to be more highly metamorphosed equivalents of the buller and takaka terranes metamorphic rocks derived from late precambrian protoliths may also be present together with the buller and takaka terranes these fiordland rocks were regionally metamorphosed and deformed during the mid palaeozoic tuhua orogeny before late mesozoic continental rifting and breakup of the pacific margin of gondwana they were part of a much more extensive palaeozoic orogen which included the lachlan fold belt and extended from southern new south wales through victoria and tasmania into new zealand and antarctica victoria land in common with the lachlan fold belt regional metamorphism in the western province occurred largely under low pressure high temperature conditions andalusite sillimanite facies series such that in fiordland and the higher grade parts of the western province low pressure 0 3 0 5 gpa sillimanite and sillimanite potash feldspar cordierite assemblages developed in rocks of appropriate bulk chemical composition higher pressure 0 7 0 9 gpa rocks in which kyanite is the dominant aluminosilicate polymorph are almost entirely confined to fiordland and represent the deepest exposed crustal levels within the western province at these levels migmatized pelitic schists containing kyanite and garnet are interstratified with calc silicate and quartzofeldspathic rocks tonalitic gneisses metamorphosed anorthosites and granite orthogneisses these rocks were exhumed from depths of 25 30 km and offer useful insights into the nature and composition of the continental crust beneath what was once part of eastern gondwana exhumation itself was brought about by late mesozoic crustal extension combined with more recent transpression along the mid tertiary alpine fault assuming plate reconstructions for gondwana during the palaeozoic are valid the lower to middle crustal rocks of fiordland may give some indication as to what lies at depth beneath the lachlan fold belt

the temporal and spatial evolution of the 19 september 1985 michoacan earthquake as inferred from near source ground motion records abstract a frequency domain inversion technique is employed to image the rupture process of the 19 september 1985 michoacan mexico earthquake a linear system is derived from the elastodynamic representation theorem and is solved for the spatial slip velocity distribution in the frequency bandwidth 0 0 to 0 32 hz the temporal behavior of slip velocity on the fault plane is then recovered by fourier synthesis model complexity is penalized by seeking a solution that propagates with the most nearly constant rupture velocity and that produces the most nearly constant spatial slip distribution at 0 hz the inversion of surface static displacements as inferred from strong motion recordings of the guerrero accelerograph array gives an estimate of the static offset on the fault plane coastal uplift data inferred from the mortality of intertidal organisms bodin and klinger 1986 is also used to further constrain the spatial slip distribution a low frequency image of the rupture process of the earthquake has been obtained using full space green9s functions two areas of large slip amplitude are discernible one located downdip of the reported hypocenter and the other updip of the projection on the fault plane of station la union their separation is approximately 100 km assuming that full space green9s functions underestimate static offset values at the surface of a half space by a factor of 0 5 the inferred seismic moment is 10 6 10 27 dyne cm 90 per cent of which is released in these two areas sustaining the largest slip the total inferred rupture duration is approximately 56 sec from the hypocenter the rupture front proceeds with an average velocity estimated at 2 8 km sec there are indications of bilateral propagation both from the hypocentral area and from an area surrounding the projection on the fault plane of the strong motion station la union an upper bound on rupture duration at the two principal subevents is 8 sec

source characteristics of earthquakes in the michoacan seismic gap in mexico we investigated the source characteristics of large earthquakes which occurred in the michoacan mexico seismic gap during the period from 1981 to 1986 in relation to historical seismicity in the region the rupture pattern of the michoacan gap during this period can be characterized by a sequential failure of five distinct asperities before 1981 the michoacan gap had not experienced a large earthquake since 1911 when an m s 7 8 earthquake occurred the recent sequence started in october 1981 with the playa azul earthquake which broke the central part of the gap body wave modeling indicates that the playa azul earthquake is 27 km deep with a seismic moment of 7 2 10 27 dyne cm it is slightly deeper than the recent michoacan earthquakes and its stress drop is higher suggesting a higher stress level at depths in the michoacan gap the seismic moment of the 19 september 1985 m w 8 1 earthquake was released in two distinct events with the rupture starting in the northern portion of the seismic gap and propagating to the southeast with low moment release through the area already broken by the 1981 playa azul earthquake the rupture propagated further southeast with an m w 7 5 event on 21 september 1985 another aftershock occurred on 30 april 1986 to the northwest of the 19 september main shock body wave modeling indicates that this event has a simple source 10 sec long at 21 km depth and fault parameters consistent with subduction of the cocos plate 280 12 and 70 and m 0 2 0 to 3 1 10 26 dyne cm m w 6 8 to 6 9 although this distribution of asperities is considered characteristic of the michoacan gap whether the temporal sequence exhibited by the 1981 to 1986 sequence is also characteristic of this gap or not is unclear it is probable that depending on the state of stress in each asperity the entire gap may fail in either a single large event with a complex time history or a sequence of moderate to large events spread over a few years the seismic moment and the time since the last earthquake in michoacan in 1911 fit an empirical relation between moment and recurrence time found for the guerrero oaxaca region of the mexico subduction zone

contribution of satellite gravimetry to understanding seismic source processes of the 2011 tohoku oki earthquake 1 the 2011 great tohoku oki earthquake apart from shaking the ground perturbed the motions of satellites orbiting some hundreds km away above the ground such as grace due to coseismic change in the gravity field significant changes in inter satellite distance were observed after the earthquake these unconventional satellite measurements were inverted to examine the earthquake source processes from a radically different perspective that complements the analyses of seismic and geodetic ground recordings we found the average slip located up dip of the hypocenter but within the lower crust as characterized by a limited range of bulk and shear moduli the grace data constrained a group of earthquake source parameters that yield increasing dip 7 16 2 and simultaneously decreasing moment magnitude 9 17 9 02 0 04 with increasing source depth 15 24 km the grace solution includes the cumulative moment released over a month and demonstrates a unique view of the long wavelength gravimetric response to all mass redistribution processes associated with the dynamic rupture and short term postseismic mechanisms to improve our understanding of the physics of megathrusts

estimation of strong ground motions in mexico city expected for large earthquakes in the guerrero seismic gap we performed simulations of ground motions in mexico city expected for large earthquakes in the guerrero seismic gap in mexico the simulation method uses as empirical green s functions the accelerograms recorded in mexico city during four small to moderate earthquakes 8 feb 1988 m s 5 8 25 april 1989 m w 6 9 11 may 1990 m w 5 5 and 31 may 1990 mw 6 0 in the guerrero gap because these events occurred in the guerrero gap and have typical thrust mechanisms the propagation path and site effects can be accurately included in our simulation fault rupture patterns derived from the 1985 michoacan earthquake and source scaling relations appropriate for mexican subduction zone earthquakes are used if the guerrero event is similar to the 1985 michoacan event the resulting response spectrum in mexico city will be approximately twice as large as that of the 1985 michoacan earthquake at periods longer than 2 sec at periods shorter than 2 sec the amplitude will be 2 to 3 times larger than that for the michoacan earthquake if the events in the guerrero seismic gap occur as a sequence of magnitude 7 5 to 7 8 events as they did in the previous sequence around the turn of the century the strong motion in mexico city is estimated to be about half that experienced during the 1985 michoacan earthquake at periods longer than 2 sec however several factors affect this estimate the magnitude of the possible events has a significant range and if a rupture sequence is such that it enhances ground motion amplitude with constructive interference as occurred during the second half of the michoacan sequence some components of the ground motion could be amplified by a factor of 2 to 3 to aid in the interpretation of the simulated motion for purposes of design or hazard assessment design spectra for the cdao site in mexico city are derived from the response spectra of the simulated ground motions

single station cmt application to the michoacan mexico earthquake of september 19 1985 observations of three dimensional ground motion at a single point on the surface of the earth following an earthquake can be sufficient to determine the zeroth order moment tensor of the event we adapt the centroid moment tensor cmt method dziewonski et al 1981 of analysis to single station data and apply it to the september 19 1985 michoacan earthquake the obtained mechanism indicates faulting on a shallow plane consistent with the ongoing subduction of the cocos plate the scalar moment is 1 3 1028 dyne cm a direct deconvolution of the observed p wave train indicates that the moment release occurred in two subevents each of 20 seconds duration with a peak to peak separation in time of 25 seconds

provenance analysis using conglomerate clast lithologies a case study from the pahau terrane of new zealand abstract the field of provenance analysis has undergone a revolution with the development of single crystal isotope dating techniques using mainly silt to sand sized single minerals this study focuses on coarser grained rocks notably conglomerates which involve much shorter transport distances and therefore may be used to trace proximal sources the torlesse terranes part of the new zealand eastern province are accretionary complexes that comprise an enormous volume of quartzofeldspathic sandstones and mudstones with subsidiary conglomerates plus minor oceanic assemblages two terranes are recognised in the south island the permian to late triassic rakaia terrane and the late jurassic to early cretaceous pahau terrane geochronology geochemistry and sr nd isotopes of igneous clasts from pahau terrane conglomerates identify the median tectonic zone s l as a major contributor of detritus to the pahau depositional basin shrimp u pb zircon ages of igneous clasts range from 128 to 123 ma and from 147 to 135 ma calc alkaline clasts of the latter range are indistinguishable in age chemical composition and petrogenesis from the calc alkaline granitoids of the darran suite whereas alkaline clasts correlate with the electric granite both parts of the median tectonic zone an early jurassic calc alkaline rhyolite clast from kekerengu 188 3 ma correlates with the bounty island granite campbell plateau the petrography and geochemistry of pahau terrane sandstone clasts indicate the recycling of permian to early late triassic older rakaia terrane rocks this is further supported by the detrital zircon age data igneous conglomerate clasts are capable of placing exceptionally tight constraints on pahau provenance and on its mesozoic tectonic setting within the southwest pacific margin of gondwana they provide the best evidence yet that the pahau terrane is locally derived

seismic strain release in the mexican subduction thrust abstract in this paper the seismic strain release in the mexican subduction zone is discussed the paper is based on a revised catalog of large earthquakes in mexico new in this catalog are estimates of the seismic moment for many of the larger pre 1962 earthquakes of this century based on instrumental recordings from uppsala sweden a regression between moment and magnitude is established and used to estimate moments for the remaining events of this and the previous century the envelopes of the cumulative seismic moment curves can thus be developed consistent with the nineteenth century seismicity these indicate that the guerrero region is currently the most likely within the mexican subduction zone to experience one great event or several large events with a moment deficit approaching 20 10 27 dyn cm this is comparable with the moment released between 1899 and 1912 in the region in guerrero and also perhaps in michoacan the seismic strain release is consistent with plate tectonic expectations for a seismogenic zone 50 km in width in oaxaca either the seismogenic zone is much narrower and there is considerable aseismic slip or events to rupture the downdip extremes of the subduction zone have not occurred so far this century this last alternative arises because in guerrero the 1907 and 1957 earthquakes have relatively strong 40 s surface waves recorded at uppsala compared with all the other events such events which we infer are deeper present new problems for seismic hazard estimation in mexico since they are not represented in the available strong motion records

insight into the 2004 sumatra andaman earthquake from gps measurements in southeast asia data collected at 60 global positioning system gps sites in southeast asia show the crustal deformation caused by the 26 december 2004 sumatra andaman earthquake at an unprecedented large scale small but significant co seismic jumps are clearly detected more than 3 000 km from the earthquake epicentre the nearest sites still more than 400 km away show displacements of 10 cm or more here we show that the rupture plane for this earthquake must have been at least 1 000 km long and that non homogeneous slip is required to fit the large displacement gradients revealed by the gps measurements our kinematic analysis of the gps recordings indicates that the centroid of released deformation is located at least 200 km north of the seismological epicentre it also provides evidence that the rupture propagated northward sufficiently fast for stations in northern thailand to have reached their final positions less than 10 min after the earthquake hence ruling out the hypothesis of a silent slow aseismic rupture data culled from gps stations in indonesia malaysia singapore thailand india and china have answered more questions relating to the 26 december sumatra andaman megathrust earthquake permanent displacements were seen 3 000 km away final displacements occurred within 10 minutes of the earthquake ruling out slow aseismic slip on the fault

velocity field for crustal deformation in china derived from seismic moment tensor summation of earthquakes the intraplate motion is studied in the territory of china where about 150 polygonal seismic sources are considered and grouped on the basis of the available fault plane solutions large known faults and level of seismic activity every polygon is divided into several triangles and velocities at the triangle vertices are determined from the available moment rate tensors by assuming a linear continuity of the velocity field within each triangle the estimation of the moment rate tensor is partitioned in the unit scaled moment tensor obtained by the available fault plane solutions of large event mz5 0 after 1900 which define the type of deformation and the scalar annual moment rate obtained by the complete seismicity catalogue which defines the rate of seismic deformation the results show that the convergence between india and eurasia is about 50 mm year with eurasia fixed while the eastern part of china moves eastwards at about 8 10 mm year the motion direction changes gradually from northeastward around the himalayan region to southeastward around the red river fault and to southwestward around eastern himalayan syntaxis which partially compensates the penetration of the indian plate a sharp change of the velocity gradient was found near the southeastern part of tibet plateau the qilianshan region and fuyun fault where large strain rates are released due to strong earthquakes there the results are supported by recent horizontal gps motion model and other independent evidence the motion pattern between the altun qilianshan longmenshan faults and the himalayan fault in qinghai tibet region strongly suggests that this area exhibits a more or less continuous deformation pattern rather than a rigid block behavior d 2002 published by elsevier science b v

slip distribution of the 19 september 1985 michoacan mexico earthquake near source and teleseismic constraints we simultaneously invert the strong motion velocity records and the long and intermediate period teleseismic p waveforms of the 19 september 1985 michoacan mexico earthquake to recover the distribution of slip on the fault using a point by point constrained and stabilized least squares inversion method a fault plane with strike fixed at 300 and dip fixed at 14 is placed in the region of the earthquake hypocenter and divided into 120 subfaults rupture is assumed to propagate at a velocity of 2 6 km sec away from the hypocenter synthetic near source ground motions and teleseismic p waveforms for pure strike slip and dipslip dislocations are calculated for each subfault the observed data are then inverted to obtain the amount of strike slip and dip slip displacement required of each subfault we also invert the data sets using a time window procedure where the subfaults are allowed to slip up to three times this approach relaxes the constraint of fixed subfault rupture time imposed by a constant rupture velocity inversion of the strong motion data alone yields a slip model similar to the solution previously obtained using only teleseismic waveforms this result supports the use of teleseismic waveform data for the derivation of fault dislocation models in the absence of strong motion recordings our simultaneous inversion of both data sets suggests that rupture during the michoacan earthquake was controlled largely by the failure of three major asperities located along the length and down the dip of a 150 km segment of the cocos north america plate boundary the solution contains three major source regions including an 80 km by 55 km source near the hypocenter with a peak slip of 6 5 meters two additional sources are present on the southeast portion of the fault about 70 km away from the hypocenter one of these sources with a peak slip of 5 meters covers a 45 km by 60 km area and extends downdip from a depth of about 10 km to 24 km the third source region is somewhat smaller 30 km by 60 km area 3 1 meters peak slip and extends further downdip at depths between 27 km and 39 km aftershock activity following the earthquake was associated mainly with the two shallow sources these two sources are separated by the aftershock zone of the 1981 playa azul earthquake

a new method for determining the long period component of the source time function of large earthquakes inversions of seismic body waves indicate that most large earthquakes involve spatial and temporal heterogeneity of the moment release but seismic body waves usually lack sufficient bandwidth to constrain the long period component of the radiation analysis of long period surface waves and free oscillations can constrain the overall source duration and moment however most procedures assume simple trapezoidal or boxcar source time histories inconsistent with the body wave complexity the authors find that source time function complexity can affect long period surface waves sufficiently to impact estimates of the source moment tensor rupture duration and centroid depth they present a procedure to objectively determine the long period component of complex source time functions in which they directly utilize results from body wave analysis the method is applied to two great normal fault events of june 22 1977 tonga m sub w 8 2 and august 19 1977 indonesia m sub w 8 5 standard long period analysis procedures underestimate the total slip duration in both cases the overall source process times of both earthquakes are longer than 120 s

an experiment in systematic study of global seismicity centroid moment tensor solutions for 201 moderate and large earthquakes of 1981 data from the global digital seismograph network were used to obtain centroid moment tensor solutions using the method of dziewonski et al 1981 results were obtained for 201 earthquakes ranging in seismic moment from 7 1023 to 3 1027 dyne cm the wide dynamic range of the sro asro stations allows us to investigate using the same algorithm series of events among which the smallest and the largest may differ in moment by a factor as large as 1000 among the events studied is a particularly interesting series in january 1981 off the island of honshu the main shock was preceded by three foreshocks and followed by four aftershocks all falling within the range of our analysis there is an indication that the source mechanism changes with the size of the event statistical analysis of the results for all earthquakes reveals that the half duration of shallow and intermediate events is approximated by 1 6 10 8 m01 3 the shifts in origin time for deep focus earthquakes are indicative of the general complexity of these events which depends only weakly on the seismic moment the extreme departures from a double couple mechanism seem to depend both on the moment and on the focal depth while for shallow earthquakes these departures decrease from a maximum at about 1025 dyne cm with increasing moment the reverse appears to be true with respect to deep focus earthquakes shallow earthquakes north of new guinea and along the solomon islands show systematic and substantial departures from the double couple mechanism

time dependent seismicity in china precise zonation of the territory of china has been performed based on the active known faults type of faulting and seismicity level one hundred and forty seven seismogenic regions were defined forming 10 larger seismic areas and the seismotectonic characteristics in each one of them were investigated in detail after checking for data accuracy and completeness of the shallow earthquakes h 60 km the regional time and magnitude predictable model was applied and the model parameters were estimated based on the model applicability in the studied area probabilities for the occurrence of strong m 6 0 earthquakes during the next 10 years were calculated for each seismogenic region statistical tests have been used proving the superiority of the model in comparison with the time independent one as well as in comparison with the actual earthquake occurrence q 2001 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

strong motion seismology strong motion seismology is concerned with earthquake ground motion in the amplitude range that poses the threat of human injury or property damage because the occurrence of strong motion cannot be predicted in advance and because the time between significant events at any one place may range from tens to thousands of years strong motion data is recorded on triggered instruments that typically must be maintained in readiness for years between periods of significant recording as a consequence the strong motion data set is sparse because of the engineering need for estimates of future ground motion the scope of the field of strong motion seismology encompasses seismic source theory and any other aspect of seismology that can provide insights helpful in making the best possible estimates given the limited data this relationship with the rest of seismology is a reciprocal one in that strong motion data gives perhaps the best information available on earthquake source processes

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

transformation of two pyroxene hornblende granulite to garnet granulite involving simultaneous melting and fracturing of the lower crust fiordland new zealand granulite facies gabbroic and dioritic gneisses in the pembroke valley milford sound new zealand are cut by vertical and planar garnet reaction zones in rectilinear patterns in gabbroic gneiss narrow dykes of anorthositic leucosome are surrounded by fine grained garnet granulite that replaced the host two pyroxene hornblende granulite at conditions of 750 uc and 14 kbar major and trace element whole rock geochemical data indicate that recrystallization was mostly isochemical the anorthositic veins cut contacts between gabbroic gneiss and dioritic gneiss but change in morphology at the contacts from the anorthositic vein surrounded by a garnet granulite reaction zone in the gabbroic gneiss to zones with a septum of coarse grained garnet surrounded by anorthositic leucosome in the dioritic gneiss the dioritic gneiss also contains isolated garnet grains enclosed by leucosome and short planar trains of garnet grains linked by leucosome partial melting of the dioritic gneiss mostly controlled by hornblende breakdown at water undersaturated conditions is inferred to have generated the leucosomes the form of the leucosomes is consistent with melt segregation and transport aided by fracture propagation limited retrogression suggests considerable melt escape dyking and melt escape from the dioritic gneiss are inferred to have propagated fractures into the gabbroic gneiss the migrating melt scavenged water from the surrounding gabbroic gneiss and induced the limited replacement by garnet granulite

granulite facies thermal aureoles and metastable amphibolite facies assemblages adjacent to the western fiordland orthogneiss in southwest fiordland new zealand in southwest new zealand a suite of felsic diorite intrusions known as the western fiordland orthogneiss wfo were emplaced into the mid to deep crust and partially recrystallized to high p 12 kbar granulite facies assemblages this study focuses on the southern most pluton within the wfo suite malaspina pluton between doubtful and dusky sounds new mapping shows intrusive contacts between the malaspina pluton and adjacent palaeozoic metasedimentary country rocks with a thermal aureole 200 1000 m wide adjacent to the malaspina pluton in the surrounding rocks thermobarometry on assemblages in the aureole indicates that the malaspina pluton intruded the adjacent amphibolite facies rocks while they were at depths of 10 14 kbar similar p t conditions are recorded in high p granulite facies assemblages developed locally throughout the malaspina pluton palaeozoic rocks more than 200 1000 m from the malaspina pluton retain medium p mid amphibolite facies assemblages despite having been subjected to pressures of 10 14 kbar for 5 myr these observations contradict previous interpretations of the wfo malaspina pluton as the lower plate of a metamorphic core complex everywhere separated from the metasedimentary rocks by a regional scale extensional shear zone doubtful sound shear zone slow reaction kinetics lack of available h2o lack of widespread penetrative deformation and cooling of the malaspina pluton thermal anomaly within c 3 4 myr likely prevented recrystallization of mid amphibolite facies assemblages outside the thermal aureole if not for the evidence within the thermal aureole there would be little to suggest that gneissic rocks which underlie several 100 km2 of southwest new zealand had experienced metamorphic pressures of 10 14 kbar similar high p metamorphic events may therefore be more common than presently recognized

regional gravity decrease after the 2010 maule chile earthquake indicates large scale mass redistribution 1 we report small but detectable changes in the grace satellites relative trajectory after the m8 8 maule chile earthquake on 27 february 2010 that can be used to delineate the shift in the gravity field a gravity anomaly of 5 gal with a spatial scale of 500 km was found east of the epicenter after the earthquake based on coseismic models the long wavelength negative gravity change is primarily the result of crustal dilatation as well as surface subsidence in the onland region the offshore positive gravity anomaly predicted from finite fault coseismic models is considerably smaller because the gravity changes due to surface uplift and interior deformation are opposite in polarity our study suggests a role for large scale gravity observations in deciphering changes of the earth s interior during great earthquakes by filling in the seldom observed long wavelength spectrum of earthquake deformations as a complement to surface geodetic measurements and seismic data

grace gravity data help constraining seismic models of the 2004 sumatran earthquake 1 the analysis of gravity recovery and climate experiment grace level 2 data time series from the center for space research csr and geoforschungszentrum gfz allows us to extract a new estimate of the co seismic gravity signal due to the 2004 sumatran earthquake owing to compressible self gravitating earth models including sea level feedback in a new self consistent way and designed to compute gravitational perturbations due to volume changes separately we are able to prove that the asymmetry in the co seismic gravity pattern in which the north eastern negative anomaly is twice as large as the south western positive anomaly is not due to the previously overestimated dilatation in the crust the overestimate was due to a large dilatation localized at the fault discontinuity the gravitational effect of which is compensated by an opposite contribution from topography due to the uplifted crust after this localized dilatation is removed we instead predict compression in the footwall and dilatation in the hanging wall the overall anomaly is then mainly due to the additional gravitational effects of the ocean after water is displaced away from the uplifted crust as first indicated by de linage et al 2009 we also detail the differences between compressible and incompressible material properties by focusing on the most robust estimates from grace data consisting of the peak to peak gravity anomaly and an asymmetry coefficient that is given by the ratio of the negative gravity anomaly over the positive anomaly we show that they are quite sensitive to seismic source depths and dip angles this allows us to exploit space gravity data for the first time to help constraining centroid momentum tensor cmt source analyses of the 2004 sumatran earthquake and to conclude that the seismic moment has been released mainly in the lower crust rather than the lithospheric mantle thus grace data and cmt source analyses as well as geodetic slip distributions aided by gps complement each other for a robust inference of the seismic source of large earthquakes particular care is devoted to the spatial filtering of the gravity anomalies estimated both from observations and models to make their comparison significant

implications of postseismic gravity change following the great 2004 sumatra andaman earthquake from the regional harmonic analysis of grace intersatellite tracking data 1 we report gravity recovery and climate experiment grace satellite observations of coseismic displacements and postseismic transients from the great sumatra andaman islands thrust event mw 9 2 earthquake in december 2004 instead of using global spherical harmonic solutions of monthly gravity fields we estimated the gravity changes directly using intersatellite range rate data with regionally concentrated spherical slepian basis functions every 15 day interval we found significant step like coseismic and exponential like postseismic behavior in the time series of estimated coefficients from may 2003 to april 2007 for the spherical slepian functions after deriving coseismic slip estimates from seismic and geodetic data that spanned different time intervals we estimated and evaluated postseismic relaxation mechanisms with alternate asthenosphere viscosity models the large spatial coverage and uniform accuracy of our grace solution enabled us to clearly delineate a postseismic transient signal in the first 2 years of postearthquake grace data our preferred interpretation of the long wavelength components of the postseismic gravity change is biviscous viscoelastic flow we estimated a transient viscosity of 5 1017 pa s and a steady state viscosity of 5 1018 1019 pa s additional years of the grace observations should provide improved steady state viscosity estimates in contrast to our interpretation of coseismic gravity change the prominent postearthquake positive gravity change around the nicobar islands is accounted for by seafloor uplift with less postseismic perturbation in intrinsic density in the region surrounding the earthquake

gravity anomaly from faulting on a layered spherical earth with application to central japan abstract the gravity anomaly resulting from mass redistribution from an earthquake source point dislocation is re explored in a spherical earth geometry using a previously developed method of determining the green s functions for the static displacement field on a layered earth i obtain the corresponding green s functions for the perturbed gravitational potential and gravity anomaly in a spherical harmonic expansion the synthesized gravity anomaly includes the effects of changes in the intrinsic density distribution due to divergence of the displacement field and vertical displacement along level surfaces in density stratification displacement numerical examples of the bouguer gravity anomaly produced on a layered crustal model show that the contribution of intrinsic density changes dominates over the contribution of stratification displacement application to central japan yields a new image of a buried thrust structure suspected of having ruptured in the 1891 nobi earthquake

the regional time and magnitude predictable model and its application to the alpine himalayan belt abstract the regional time and magnitude predictable model has been introduced and has been shown to be appropriate to describe the behaviour in the occurrence of mainshocks the model implies that the magnitude of the preceding mainshock in a seismogenic region that is the largest earthquake during a seismic excitation governs the time of occurrence and the magnitude of the expected mainshock in this region this model has been applied in 149 seismogenic regions of the alpine himalayan seismic belt the model probability for the occurrence of the next very strong main shock ms 6 5 during the decade 1993 2002 as well as the magnitude of this shock in each of these regions have been calculated furthermore two tests have been performed to check the validity of this model these tests have shown the reliability of the model and its superiority compared to the classical time independent model

seismic strain rates in regions of distributed continental deformation we compare the rates and configurations of seismic deformation determined from moment tensor mechanisms of earthquakes in five continental regions with the rates and configurations expected if the seismicity reflected the relative plate motions in the regions the five regions the aegean iran california western new guinea and central asia are characterized by high levels of seismicity distributed over hundreds to thousands of kilometers from the accepted plate boundaries the earthquake mechanisms are compiled primarily from the catalog of centroid moment tensor solutions which is nearly complete over the interval 1977 1987 for earthquakes greater than ms 5 the thickness of the seismogenic layer in each region is constrained by the results of modeling broadband body wave phases and of previous earthquake studies in the aegean california and western new guinea the observed configurations of deformation agree with a simple model of distributed accommodation of relative plate motion in iran and central asia the moment tensors indicate that there is appreciable strain parallel to the strikes of the belts we augment our 10 year estimates of seismic deformation with the available historical moment and magnitude estimates for the five regions and find that moderate and large earthquakes account for between 25 and 70 of the deformation of the seismogenic layer

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