decadal evolution of a very small heavily debris covered glacier in an alpine permafrost environment glacier response to climate forcing can be heterogeneous and complex depending on glacier system characteristics this article presents the decadal evolution of the tsarmine glacier swiss alps a very small and heavily debris covered cirque glacier located in the alpine periglacial belt archival aerial photogrammetry and autocorrelation of orthophotos were used to compute surface elevation volume and geodetic mass changes as well as horizontal displacement rates for several periods between 1967 and 2012 a gpr survey allowed us to investigate glacier thickness 15 m mean and volume 4 10 6 m 3 in 2015 and to anticipate its future evolution different dynamics occurred in recent decades because of the heterogeneous surface characteristics the climate sensitive upper debris free zone contrasts with the progressively stagnant heavily debris covered glacier tongue between 1967 and 2012 the glacier lost 1 3 of its initial volume 2 10 6 m 3 the average mass balance stabilised at 0 3 m w e a 1 since 1999 compared with other local glaciers the tsarmine glacier shows a particular decadal behaviour both in time divergence of mass balance since the 2000s and space inverted ablation pattern this might be explained by the combined influence of debris cover shadow snow redistribution and permafrost conditions on this very small glacier

diurnal variations in vertical strain observed in a temperate valley glacier 1 during a period of diurnal fluctuations in glacial flow speed vertical strain was measured with sub daily temporal resolution on unteraargletscher switzerland mean vertical strain in boreholes up to 300 m deep in 400 m thick ice was found to fluctuate diurnally vertical strain rates were tensile in the daytime and compressive at night with a magnitude of up to 10 3 day 1 horizontal surface strain was observed to fluctuate in a manner consistent with the vertical deformation diurnal surface flow speed variations correlated well with basal water pressure suggesting a basal control on temporal flow variations nevertheless the strain rate measurements indicated that changes in surface flow speed are affected by internal ice deformation and not a direct measure of local basal motion basal conditions in the surrounding neighborhood and their temporal variations take an important role in short term glacial flow fluctuations

evaluating a kinematic method for generating broadband ground motions for great subduction zone earthquakes application to the 2003 mw 8 3 tokachi oki earthquake abstract we compare broadband synthetic seismograms with recordings of the 2003 m w 8 3 tokachi oki earthquake to evaluate a compound rupture model in which slip on the fault consists of multiple high stress drop asperities superimposed on a background slip distribution with longer rise times low frequency synthetics 1 hz stochastic synthetics using a matched filter at 1 hz we show that this compound rupture model and overall approach accurately reproduces waveform envelopes and observed response spectral accelerations sas from the tokachi oki event we find that sufficiently short subfault rise times i e electronic supplement additional waveforms and subevent slip distributions

diurnal variability of subglacial drainage conditions as revealed by tracer experiments 1 the morphology of the drainage system of unteraargletscher switzerland and the diurnal variability of drainage conditions were investigated by conducting a series of tracer tests over a number of discharge cycles during the ablation season 2000 dye injections into a moulin were repeated at intervals of a few hours and were accompanied by simultaneous measurements of discharge of supraglacial meltwater draining into the moulin and bulk runoff in the proglacial stream fast transit velocities in conjunction with low dispersion values suggest that the tracer was routed through a hydraulically efficient channelized drainage system however detailed analyses reveal a large diurnal variability in terms of transit velocity and dispersion coefficient this finding underlines the difficulty of detecting a possible drainage system evolution based on single tracer tests conducted at coarse temporal intervals furthermore the obtained velocity discharge relationships display pronounced hysteresis we suggest that the evolution of the cross sectional area of an ice walled conduit and the modulation of inflow at the junction of a tributary moulin to a main subglacial channel are responsible for the observed behavior

improving local earthquake locations using the l1 norm and waveform cross correlation application to the whittier narrows california aftershock sequence experiments with different earthquake location methods applied to aftershocks of the october 1 1987 whittier narrows earthquake in california ml 5 9 suggest that local event locations can be greatly improved through the use of the l1 norm station corrections and waveform cross correlation the whittier narrows sequence is a compact cluster of over 500 events at 12 to 18 km depth located within the dense station coverage of the southern california seismic network scsn a telemetered network of several hundred short period seismographs scsn travel time picks and waveforms obtained through the southern california earthquake center are examined for 589 earthquakes between 1981 and 1994 in the vicinity of the mainshock using a smoothed version of the standard southern california velocity model and the existing travel time picks improved location accuracy is obtained through use of the l1 norm rather than the conventional least squares l2 norm approach presumably due to the more robust response of the former to outliers in the data a large additional improvement results from the use of station terms to account for three dimensional velocity structure outside of the event cluster to achieve greater location accuracy waveforms for these events are resampled and low pass filtered and the p and s wave cross correlation functions are computed at each station for every event pair for those events with similar waveforms differential times may be obtained from the cross correlation functions these times are then combined with the travel time picks to invert for an adjusted set of picks that are more consistent than the original picks and include seismograms that were originally unpicked locations obtained from the adjusted picks show a further improvement in accuracy location uncertainties are estimated using a bootstrap technique in which events are relocated many times for sets of picks in which the travel time residuals at the best fitting location are used to randomly perturb each pick improvements in location accuracy are indicated by the reduced scatter in the residuals smaller estimated location errors and the increased tendency of the locations to cluster along well defined fault planes median standard errors for the final inversion are 150 m in horizontal location and 230 m in vertical location although the relative locations within localized clusters of similar events are better constrained seismicity cross sections resolve the shallow dipping fault plane associated with the mainshock and a steeply dipping fault plane associated with a ml 5 3 aftershock these fault planes appear to cross and activity began on the secondary fault plane prior to the large aftershock

initiation of the great mw 9 0 tohoku oki earthquake abstract we determined the location size mechanism and the frequency content of the first 4 0 s of the 2011 tohoku oki earthquake since the beginning of this earthquake is very small we develop a comparative approach against a near by reference earthquake the master event we first determined the water depth near the master event using the differential timing between the water phase pwp reflected from the air water interface and the depth phase pp reflected from the water crust interface then we located the master event using the well known ocean bathymetry in the area after calibrating teleseismic arrays 30 to 90 at short periods for timing and amplitude with respect to the master event we were able to determine the initiation of the main event it began as a small m w 4 9 thrust event located at 38 19 n 142 68 e at a depth of 21 km and a few seconds later evolved into a slower extremely large slip event up dip

time reversal imaging of seismic sources and application to the great sumatra earthquake the increasing power of computers and numerical methods like spectral element methods allows continuously improving modelization of the propagation of seismic waves in heterogeneous media and the development of new applications in particular time reversal in the three dimensional earth the concept of time reversal hereafter referred to as tr was previously successfully applied for acoustic waves in many fields like medical imaging underwater acoustics and non destructive testing we present here the first application at the global scale of tr with associated reverse movies of seismic waves propagation by sending back long period time reversed seismograms we show that seismic wave energy is refocused at the right location and the right time of the earthquake when tr is applied to the sumatra andaman earthquake 26 dec 2004 the migration of the rupture from the south towards the north is retrieved therefore tr is potentially interesting for constraining the spatio temporal history of complex earthquakes

imaging the rupture of the mw 6 3 april 6 2009 l aquila italy earthquake using back projection of teleseismic p waves 1 we present rupture details of the mw 6 3 april 6 2009 l aquila earthquake derived by back projecting teleseismic p waves this technique has previously been applied to large magnitude earthquakes but this is the first application to a moderate size event we processed vertical component seismograms for 60 broadband stations obtained from the incorporated research institutions for seismology iris data center the traces were aligned and normalized using a multi channel cross correlation algorithm and 4th root stacking was used to image the rupture we found that the l aquila earthquake ruptured towards the south and that a second discrete pulse of energy occurred 20 25 km east of the epicenter about 17 18 s after the nominal origin time the spatial extent of the rupture image correlates well with a post seismic survey of damage in the region because the technique is potentially very fast images can be produced within 20 30 minutes of the origin time it may be useful to governmental agencies tasked with emergency response and rescue

water pressure and basal sliding on storglaciaren northern sweden the subglacial hydrology of the ablation area of storglaciaren a small valley glacier in northern sweden is dramatically affected by a subglacial ridge or riegel water pressures above this riegel are relatively constant while down glacier from it they vary significantly the lower part of the glacier accelerates in response to peaks in basal water pressure the upper part may be weakly coupled to the lower part during these peaks a power law fit of observed basal water pressures and measured surface velocities yields where u s is the surface velocity and p e is the effective water pressure ice overburden pressure minus subglacial water pressure data from findelengletscher reported by iken and bindschadler 1986 yield an identical exponent and a coefficient one order of magnitude larger the similar exponent implies that the process producing the velocity variations on both glaciers is similar the variations in velocity are inferred to be due to hydraulic jacking on both glaciers

shallow dynamic overshoot and energetic deep rupture in the 2011 mw 9 0 tohoku oki earthquake strong spatial variation of rupture characteristics in the moment magnitude mw 9 0 tohoku oki megathrust earthquake controlled both the strength of shaking and the size of the tsunami that followed finite source imaging reveals that the rupture consisted of a small initial phase deep rupture for up to 40 seconds extensive shallow rupture at 60 to 70 seconds and continuing deep rupture lasting more than 100 seconds a combination of a shallow dipping fault and a compliant hanging wall may have enabled large shallow slip near the trench normal faulting aftershocks in the area of high slip suggest dynamic overshoot on the fault despite prodigious total slip shallower parts of the rupture weakly radiated at high frequencies whereas deeper parts of the rupture radiated strongly at high frequencies

strong feedbacks between hydrology and sliding of a small alpine glacier 1 we report the spatial and temporal pattern of sliding on the 7 km long bench glacier alaska using five continuously recording gps antennas following motion of the surface ice distributed at 1 km spacing along the glacier center line we documented surface ice motion over 50 days during summer 2002 surface speeds in two previous winters constrain the motion component associated with ice deformation allowing isolation of the sliding speed history we observed two speedup events bracketing 2 weeks of steady slow sliding the first event was not associated with a meteorological trigger was more subtle than the second and propagated up glacier at a rate of several hundred meters per day the second event coincided with a warm up valley wind which triggered considerable melt of the glacier surface sliding speeds in this event reached 0 3 m d 1 and began almost simultaneously at all sites in the ablation area both the horizontal and vertical displacement time series can be explained by growth and collapse of cavities in the lee of bumps in the bedrock bed cavities grow during rapid sliding and decay by viscous creep we posit that effective pressure averaged over some large area of the bed is inversely proportional to the sliding speed this effective pressure then controls the collapse rate of cavities whose dimensions are estimated from a plausible stepped bed geometry this model explains well the horizontal and vertical surface displacement history through the first event and beginning of the second event the vertical record demands a substantial and abrupt drop in water pressure that departs from the posited sliding effective pressure relationship we argue that this pressure drop reflects establishment of efficient subglacial drainage also manifested in a nearly simultaneous step increase in water discharge in the exit stream the establishment of an efficient conduit system terminates sliding its maintenance inhibits further sliding over the remainder of the summer

multiple cmt source analysis of the 2004 sumatra earthquake while it is agreed that the great sumatra earthquake of december 26 2004 was among the largest earthquakes of the past century there has been disagreement on how large it was which part of the fault ruptured and how the rupture took place we present a centroid moment tensor cmt analysis of the earthquake in which multiple point sources are used in the inversion to mimic a propagating slip pulse the final model consists of five point sources with the southernmost sources accounting for the majority of the moment release the presumed fault planes of the southern sources strike northwest while those in the north strike northeast consistent with the geometry of the subduction trench slip on the fault is found to be more oblique in the north than in the south the inversion with five sources leads to a moment magnitude for the sumatra earthquake of m w 9 3 consistent with estimates from long period normal mode amplitudes

the 2010 mw 8 8 chile earthquake triggering on multiple segments and frequency dependent rupture behavior 1 multi frequency back projection results of the february 27 2010 mw 8 8 chile earthquake reveal that this earthquake consists of distinct subevents with different slip characteristics the subevent south of the epicenter releases its energy at low frequencies 0 05 0 1 hz implying slow slip and has a rupture speed around 0 8 km s two subevents north of the epicenter are characterized by high frequency energy 1 5 hz release the first of these subevents appears to trigger slip on the second segment to the north which has higher amplitude energy release and a fast propagation speed of about 2 9 km s in addition to these rupture details high frequency energy release is observed at the rupture front followed by lower frequency energy release this observation suggests that the rupture of large earthquakes involves dynamic weakening of faults and hence their rupture properties may not be related easily to those of small earthquakes these distinct slip behaviors point out the need to consider data from a wide range of frequencies to fully assess the rupture process and associated hazards of giant earthquakes

tracking the rupture of the 2008 wenchuan earthquake by using the relative back projection method on 12 may 2008 the m w 7 9 wenchuan earthquake occurred along the longmen shan fault in the northwestern sichuan province of china resulting in huge damage as well as loss of human lives rapid estimation of the rupture process is essential for emergency response in this paper the relative back projection method based on nonplane wave array technology was applied to reconstruct the rupture process of this earthquake first the principle of the relative back projection method was briefly introduced then the method was used to obtain the rupture process using the broadband data of 16 stations from the australian national seismic network from the incorporated research institutions for seismology iris data management center the results showed that this earthquake ruptured mostly unilaterally along the longmen shan fault its rupture time was about 98 s rupture length was about 290 km and mean rupture velocity was about 3 0 km s starting from the initial rupture point epicenter 31 00 n 103 32 e the great earthquake ruptured northeastward along the longmen shan fault with two major energy releasing peaks one was located about 50 km northeast of the epicenter at about 20 s after the earthquake began and the other about 140 km northeast at about 50 s which coincided with macrodamage at those two places

changes in geometry and subglacial drainage derived from digital elevation models unteraargletscher switzerland 1927 97 digital elevation models of the bed and surface of unteraargletscher switzerland are used to reconstruct the theoretical pattern of basal water drainage for the years 1927 1947 1961 and 1997 during which period the glacier was thinning and receding the theoretical drainage pattern for 1997 compares well in a broad sense with the locations of active moulins and the hydraulic connection status of boreholes drilled to the glacier bed changes in the basal water flow pattern over the period 1927 97 that are revealed by the theoretical reconstructions of the subglacial drainage system structure are likely to have resulted from changes in glacier geometry concurrent with the retreat and thinning of the glacier the height of medial moraines increased probably due to the insulating effect of the debris cover reducing the melt of the underlying ice this increase of moraine heights has led to the formation of hydraulic barriers at the glacier bed such that water flow has become channelized beneath the ice along drainage axes that parallel the course of the medial moraines on the glacier surface

short term surface ice motion variations measured with a ground based portable real aperture radar interferometer we report measurements using a portable real aperture radar gamma portable radar interferometer gpri for interferometric imaging of the surface ice motion on gornergletscher switzerland during the drainage of the adjacent ice marginal lake gornersee the gpri tracked the surface ice motion in line of sight over an area of 3k m 2 down glacier of gornersee almost continuously during the drainage event the displacement maps derived from the acquired interferograms capture the spatial distribution of the surface ice motion due to fast acquisition times of the microwave images the gpri was able to record sub daily variations of the ice displacements most likely caused by the impact of the gornersee drainage on the ice motion of gornergletscher in situ point measurements of the ice displacement agree reasonably well with the results obtained by the gpri and highlight the use of the gpri for high resolution measurements of glacier surface ice motion motion of gornergletscher these variations in surface ice motion were triggered by the subglacial drainage of the adjacent marginal ice dammed lake gornersee we present ice displacement maps derived from the gpri interfero grams and analyze the performance of the radar device for remote sensing of surface ice motions of a glacier on spatial and temporal scales lower than in conventional d insar applications we compare the radar displacements against local in situ ice displacement measurements to complete the study a brief discussion of the observed displacements in relation to the drainage phenomena is given

short term variations in glacier flow controlled by subglacial water pressure at lauteraargletscher bernese alps switzerland short term variations in horizontal and vertical surface motion were studied with high temporal resolution during the ablation season in lauteraargletscher bernese alps switzerland horizontal surface flow speed oscillated diurnally showing a correlation with the water level in a borehole flow speed increased as a function of the water level with an asymptote at the ice overburden level this observation implied that the flow variations were principally controlled by the local water pressure which enhanced basal motions detailed examination of the diurnal variations however showed that the speed was larger when the pressure was increasing than when it was decreasing greater speed with increasing pressure was interpreted by subglacial watercavity opening and or longitudinal stress coupling with the upper reaches of the glacier upward surface movements were observed when the glacier flow speed increased simultaneous measurement of internal vertical strain in a borehole showed that the uplift had two different sources vertical straining of ice and volume increase of subglacial water cavities the vertical surface movement was largely affected by the vertical strain and the uplift events could not be simply attributed to cavity opening

evidence for excess pore water pressure generated in subglacial sediment implications for clast ploughing 1 pore water pressure in front of an object pulled through subglacial sediment and water pressure at the base of a borehole were simultaneously recorded at unteraargletscher switzerland to investigate the generation of excess pore pressures downglacier from ploughing clasts analysis of the strongly correlated pressure records revealed that the amplitude of the pore pressure fluctuations was larger than that of the corresponding borehole pressure fluctuations guided by high temporal resolution measurements of glacier surface motion from a different year this finding suggests that temporal changes in glacier speed lead to changes in the degree of excess pore pressure in front of the ploughing object the generation of excess pore water pressure has the potential to weaken the sediment downglacier from ploughing clasts instead of these clasts providing the roughness at the ice bed interface to resist glacier motion the ploughing process may in fact help to decouple the ice from the bed reducing basal resistance

supershear rupture on multiple faults for the mw 8 6 off northern sumatra indonesia earthquake of april 11 2012 1 we perform a back projection method to image the rupture propagation and short period energy release of the 2012 off northern sumatra earthquake mw8 6 using hi net data recorded in japan the results show a complex pattern of four conjugate faults over about 180 sec there is a striking correspondence between the lengths and orientations of our rupture pattern with the distribution of aftershocks each of the first three stages of the rupture corresponds to a clear lineation in the aftershocks with lengths of 200 to 400 km rupture speeds for several of the fault segments were very high about 5 km s and exceed the local s wave velocity this is the first example of an oceanic earthquake with supershear rupture speed

waves of accelerated motion in a glacier approaching surge the mini surges of variegated glacier alaska u s a periods of dramatically accelerated motion in which the flow velocity increases suddenly from about 55 cm d to a peak of 100 300 cm d and then decreases gradually over the course of a day occurred repeatedly during june and july 1978 81 in variegated glacier alaska a surging type glacier that surged in 1982 83 these mini surges appear to be related mechanistically to the main surge the flow velocity peak propagates down glacier as a wave at a speed of about 0 3 km h over a reach of about 6 km in length it is accompanied by a propagating pressure wave in the basal water system of the glacier in which after a preliminary drop the pressure rises rapidly to a level greater than the ice overburden pressure at the glacier bed and then drops gradually over a period of 1 2 d usually reaching a new low for the summer the peak velocity is accompanied by a peak of high seismic activity due to widespread fresh crevassing it is also accompanied by a rapid uplift of the glacier surface amounting to 6 11 cm which then relaxes over a period of 1 2 d maximum uplift rate coincides with the peak in flow velocity the peak in accumulated uplift lags behind the velocity peak by 2 h the uplift is mainly due to basal cavitation driven by the high basal water pressure although the strain wave associated with the mini surge motion can also contribute basal cavitation is probably responsible for the pulse of high turbidity that appears in the terminal outflow stream in association with each mini surge in the down glacier reach where the mini surge waves are attenuating the observed strain wave corresponds to what is expected for the propagating pulse in flow velocity but in the reach of maximum mini surge motion the strain wave has a form quite different possibly related to special features in the mini surge initiation process from that point up stream the flow acceleration in the mini surges is due to enhanced basal sliding caused by the high basal water pressure and the consequent reduction of bed friction a preliminary velocity increase shortly before the pressure wave arrives is caused by the forward shove that the main accelerated mass exerts on the ice ahead of it and the resulting preliminary basal cavitation causes the drop in water pressure shortly before the pressure wave arrives the mini surge wave propagation is controlled by the propagation of the water pressure wave in the basal water conduit system the propagation characteristics result from a longitudinal gradient up glacier increase in hydraulic conductivity of the basal water system in response to the up glacier increase of the basal water pressure in the mini surge wave the mini surge waves are initiated in a succession of areas situated generally progressively up glacier during the course of the summer season in these areas presumably melt water that has accumulated in subglacial reservoirs is released suddenly into the basal water system immediately below generating a pressure rise that propagates down stream from there relationships of the mini surges to the main surge are seen in the role of high basal water pressure in causing the rapid glacier motion in both phenomena in the pulse propagation features of both and in the high outflow turbidity associated with both the mini surges of variegated glacier have a strong resemblance to movement and uplift events observed in unteraargletscher and findelengletscher switzerland this bears on the question whether the mini surges are a particular characteristic of surge type glaciers prior to surge

propagating strain anomalies during mini surges of variegated glacier alaska u s a analyse des deplacements acceleres observes a l aide de jauges de deformation et de geophones 1979 1980 1981 evolution des mini surges deformations glissement basal

hydrological discharges and motion of fels and black rapids glaciers alaska u s a implications for the structure of their drainage systems characteristics of the hydrology and motion of black rapids and fels glaciers alaska were observed from 1986 to 1989 hydrological measurements included stage electrical conductivity and suspended sediment concentration in the discharge stream of each glacier and were made at 0 5 1 h intervals continuously through most of the melt seasons variations in the glacier speed were monitored through the full year at a number of locations along the length of each glacier using time lapse photography 1 d time resolution strain meters 0 5 1 h resolution and seismometers set up to count acoustic emissions both glaciers show similar seasonal diurnal and short term event changes in hydrological discharges and ice speed the hydrological behavior is analyzed in terms of a fast sub system composed of surface streams moulins and large tunnels with discharge that responds rapidly and a slow sub system composed of heterogeneous small passageways through the ice and distributed over the bed that maintain approximately uniform discharge over a day the timing and amplitude of water discharge in the diurnal cycle indicate that roughly 10 40 of the water is routed directly into the fast system the remaining 90 60 of the water enters the slow system dilution of the solute discharged from the slow system by the variable discharge in the fast system results in changes in water discharge and solute concentration that are approximately equal in relative amplitude and inversely related a small time lag from discharge maximum minimum to solute minimum maximum suggests that the fast system is confined to roughly the lowermost 30 40 of the full glacier length the residence time of water in the fast system is short compared to 1 d the slow system contains both short and long residence time passages characteristics of the diurnal cycles are somewhat variable through the melt season but no systematic evolutionary patterns were discerned even though large changes in the mean discharges of water and solutes occur which suggests parallel evolution of the variables that control the response of the fast system events were characterized by contemporaneous increases in suspended sediment concentration in the discharge water and distinct changes in straining on the glaciers events caused by increases in melt or precipitation related to weather and events related to release from reservoirs internal to the glaciers could be distinguished based on the changes in electrical conductivity of the discharge water the correlated changes in sediment discharge and motion of the glaciers indicate that the events were associated with temporary modifications of the slow passages distributed over the bed that allowed enhanced sliding and access of basal water flow to erosion products hydrological differences between black rapids and fels glaciers can be explained by differences in the size of the glaciers if there is a difference in bed structure that explains the difference in dynamics surge black rapids glacier versus non surge fels glacier it does not affect the hydrological parameters that were observed

spatial correlation of interseismic coupling and coseismic rupture extent of the 2011 mw 9 0 tohoku oki earthquake 1 imaging the extent to which the rupture areas of great earthquakes coincide with regions of pre seismic interplate coupling is central to understanding patterns of strain accumulation and release through the earthquake cycle both geodetic and seismic estimates of the coseismic rupture extent for the march 11 2011 mw 8 9 9 0 earthquake tohoku oki earthquake may be spatially correlated 0 26 0 05 to 0 82 0 05 with a region estimated to be partially to fully coupled in the interseismic period preceding the earthquake though there is substantial variation in the estimated distribution and magnitude of coseismic slip the 400 km long region estimated to have slipped 4 m corresponds to an area of the subduction zone interface that was coupled at 30 of long term plate convergence rate with peak slip near a region coupled 80 the northern termination of rupture is collocated with a region of relatively low 20 interseismic coupling near the epicenter of the 1994 mw 7 6 sanriku oki earthquake and near a region of potential long term low coupling or ongoing slow slip slip on the subduction interface beneath the coastline 40 50 km depth is best constrained by the land based gps data and least constrained on the shallowest portion of the plate interface due to the 230 km distance between geodetic observations and the japan trench

surface strain anomaly induced by the storage and drainage of englacial water in koryto glacier kamchatka russia to investigate short term flow pattern variations of a temperate glacier longitudinal surface strain was measured with a wire strainmeter in the ablation area of koryto glacier kamchatka russia strain rate anomalies were observed in late summer 2000 that were triggered by a water overflow from a moulin near the measurement site followed by the drainage of accumulated water the strain event started with compressive strain rates of 10 3 d 1 lasting for 6 hours which then became tensile similar strain rate variations were observed again on the next day during the event basal sliding speed measured at the margin in the lower reach of the glacier fluctuated by about 50 of the daily mean smaller and larger sliding speeds corresponded to the compressive and tensile surface strains respectively these measurements suggest that the storage and sudden drainage of water caused spatially non uniform water pressure fluctuations along the glacier changing the sliding regime over short time periods

surface melt induced acceleration of greenland ice sheet flow ice flow at a location in the equilibrium zone of the west central greenland ice sheet accelerates above the midwinter average rate during periods of summer melting the near coincidence of the ice acceleration with the duration of surface melting followed by deceleration after the melting ceases indicates that glacial sliding is enhanced by rapid migration of surface meltwater to the ice bedrock interface interannual variations in the ice acceleration are correlated with variations in the intensity of the surface melting with larger increases accompanying higher amounts of summer melting the indicated coupling between surface melting and ice sheet flow provides a mechanism for rapid large scale dynamic responses of ice sheets to climate warming

short term variations in flow velocity of glaciar soler patagonia chile short term variations in ice flow velocity were obtained at intervals of a few hours and a few days in the ablation area of glaciar soler patagonia chile in november 1985 a maximum flow rate was measured at about four times the minimum value a good correlation with a time lag of 7 5 h was found between the ice flow velocity in the lower reaches and the amount of water discharge from the glacier terminus it was concluded therefore that the velocity variations should have resulted from the variations in basal sliding velocity which is strongly controlled by the subglacial water pressure

compressive sensing of the tohoku oki mw 9 0 earthquake frequency dependent rupture modes 1 compressive sensing cs is a technique for finding sparse signal representations to underdetermined linear measurement equations we use cs to locate seismic sources during the rupture of the 2011 tohoku oki mw9 0 earthquake in japan from teleseismic p waves recorded by an array of stations in the united states the seismic sources are located by minimizing the l2 norm of the difference between the observed and modeled waveforms penalized by the l1 norm of the seismic source vector the resulting minimization problem is convex and can be solved efficiently our results show clear frequency dependent rupture modes with high frequency energy radiation dominant in the down dip region and low frequency radiation in the updip region which may be caused by differences in rupture behavior more intermittent or continuous at the slab interface due to heterogeneous frictional properties

observations of a reversal in vertical and horizontal strain rate regime during a motion event on unteraargletscher bernese alps switzerland during a motion event on unteraargletscher bernese alps switzerland in spring 1996 surface velocities were measured up to eight times a day at four different locations along the central flowline using global positioning system equipment in addition accumulated vertical strains over the uppermost 50 and 100 m were measured at a location where the total ice thickness is 260 m the motion event was accompanied by high horizontal and vertical strain rates as compared to annual mean values a reversal in strain regime was observed with horizontal strain rates changing to extension while vertical strain rates became compressive this strain rate reversal coincided within the temporal resolution of the data with a maximum in vertical ice displacement at the surface within a day variations in vertical strain from 0 04 a 1 to 0 06 a 1 were observed over the uppermost 100 m vertical stretching is estimated to have contributed to at least 20 of the anomalous vertical ice movement at the surface there were significant differences between measured longitudinal strain averaged over a distance corresponding to a few ice thicknesses and measured vertical strain in spring 1997 a similar but more detailed set of measurements was collected at the same measuring site and vertical strain rates were found to vary non uniformly with depth with the largest values closest to the surface

the 2011 magnitude 9 0 tohoku oki earthquake mosaicking the megathrust from seconds to centuries geophysical observations from the 2011 moment magnitude m w 9 0 tohoku oki japan earthquake allow exploration of a rare large event along a subduction megathrust models for this event indicate that the distribution of coseismic fault slip exceeded 50 meters in places sources of high frequency seismic waves delineate the edges of the deepest portions of coseismic slip and do not simply correlate with the locations of peak slip relative to the m w 8 8 2010 maule chile earthquake the tohoku oki earthquake was deficient in high frequency seismic radiation a difference that we attribute to its relatively shallow depth estimates of total fault slip and surface secular strain accumulation on millennial time scales suggest the need to consider the potential for a future large earthquake just south of this event

quiescent phase dynamics and surge history of a polythermal glacier hessbreen svalbard hessbreen is a 5 km 2 polythermal glacier in southern spitsbergen it is believed to have surged at the end of the 19th century and another surge started in 1969 not in 1972 as earlier studies suggested the surge was probably triggered in the middle section of the glacier and affected the upper part approximately 4 years before including the whole glacier present velocities are low increasing from 0 3 m a 1 at the snout to 4 8 m a 1 above the equilibrium line a distinct velocity reduction occurs where the glacier narrows this suggests the velocities here are affected by the cold marginal and frontal ice large seasonal variations with summer velocities of more than twice the winter velocities in the middle part of the glacier indicate a seasonal change in the drainage system in this area in the lower part there is no apparent sliding the balance flux estimate indicates that the actual ice flux is only about 50 of that required for steady state so hessbreen appears to be building up in the accumulation area the surge duration is now estimated to be 8 years

reversal of ice motion during the outburst of a glacier dammed lake on gornergletscher switzerland during the outburst flood of a glacier dammed lake on gornergletscher switzerland in july 2004 the drained lake water triggered anomalous glacier motion at the onset of the outburst the ice flow direction in the vicinity of the lake became closer to the central flowline when the lake discharge magnitude decreased the flow direction altered such that the ice moved back to the azimuth of the initial motion at one of the survey points where the ice flows parallel to the central flowline the ice accelerated along the pre event flow direction followed by a 1808 backward motion that lasted over 2 days these observations indicate the impact of the lake outburst on the subglacial and englacial stress conditions however the reversal in the flow direction is difficult to explain by drawing on our current understanding of glacier mechanics the timing and the timescale of the flow direction changes suggest that the elastic glacier motion and its rebound played a role under the rapidly changing stress conditions but the young s modulus of ice is too large to cause the observed ice motion other processes including basal separation and subglacial sediment deformation are discussed as possible mechanisms for the reversal of the ice motion

rupture details of the 28 march 2005 sumatra mw 8 6 earthquake imaged with teleseismic p waves 1 we image the rupture of the 28 march 2005 sumatra mw 8 6 earthquake by back projecting teleseismic p waves recorded by the global seismic network and the japanese hi net to their source the back projected energy suggests that the rupture started slowly had a total duration of about 120 s and propagated at 2 9 to 3 3 km s from the hypocenter in two different directions first toward the north for 100 km and then after a 40 s delay toward the southeast for 200 km our images are consistent with a rupture area of 40 000 km2 the locations of the first day of aftershocks and the harvard cmt mw of 8 6 which implies an average slip of 6 m the earthquake is similar in its location size and geometry to a mw 8 5 event in 1861 our estimated average slip is consistent with a partially coupled subduction interface gps forearc velocities and the 59 mm yr convergence rate if the 2005 earthquake released elastic strain that accumulated over many hundreds of years rather than just since the last 1861 event

short term velocity variations on hansbreen a tidewater glacier in spitsbergen spatial and temporal variations of the flow of hansbreen a tidewater glacier in southern spitsbergen svalbard are investigated during summer 1999 surface flow velocities were measured in the ablation zone of hansbreen with a temporal reso lution of 3 4 hours short events with strongly increased surface velocities and a typical duration of 1 2 days were observed these speed up events are related to periods of strongly increased water input to the glacier due to rainfall or enhanced surface melt a close relation is found between the surface velocities and water pressure recorded in a moulin however there are indications from a short time lag between velocity and water pressure peak as well as from observed vertical surface uplifts that basal motion is related to basal water storage rather than directly to basal water pressure the observed short term velocity variations and associated processes on hansbreen are very similar to those observed on land based valley glaciers and suggest that the relevant mechanisms and physical processes that control the flow and its temporal variations are similar in contrast to the flow of land based glaciers sliding velocities on hansbreen are observed to be high all year round and velocities increase towards the calving front

teleseismic p wave imaging of the 26 december 2004 sumatra andaman and 28 march 2005 sumatra earthquake ruptures using the hi net array 1 seismograms from a dense high quality seismic network in japan are used to investigate the characteristics of the 26 december 2004 sumatra andaman and the 28 march 2005 sumatran earthquakes the onset of the p waveforms are aligned through cross correlation and a simple concept of back projecting seismic energy to a grid of potential source locations is applied the waveform alignment removes the effects due to lateral variations in wave speed between the hypocenter and each station to better approximate the effects of three dimensional heterogeneity for paths originating from grid points away from the hypocenter cross correlation results of the p waveforms from aftershocks are introduced this additional information leads to improved resolution of smaller scale features near many of the aftershocks by reducing wavefront distortion the back projection analysis provides a quick assessment of the spatiotemporal extent and variability of relative high frequency energy release which can be translated into an estimate of the moment magnitude as well as an unparalleled view of high frequency rupture propagation the results are in general consistent with those obtained from more involved source inversion methods the 2004 sumatra andaman earthquake released most energy in a region northwest of the sumatra island and the rupture extended to the northern andaman islands about 1300 km from the epicenter this northern portion of the rupture radiated a considerable amount of energy but there is little evidence of slow slip the 2005 event is imaged to have bilateral rupture with northwestern slip occurring for about 50 s before it moved to the southeast of the epicenter

high resolution measurements of spatial and temporal variations in surface velocities of unteraargletscher bernese alps switzerland data from automated in situ measurements of surface displacements on unteraargletscher bernese alps switzerland made a few times a day from late june until late october 1998 are presented two short term speed up events were observed and partial evidence for a third motion event was seen short term motion events are thus not limited to the start of the melting season strong correlation between the timing of the motion events and periods of heavy rainfall in conjunction with the large size of the area of the glacier which becomes activated during the events both point towards an external triggering mechanism in the time periods between two motion events surface velocities do not vary significantly with time after a motion event surface velocities do not return to previous values suggesting that the events have a lasting effect on the structure of the subglacial drainage system

insights into the mechanism of intermediate depth earthquakes from source properties as imaged by back projection of multiple seismic phases 1 this study investigates the spatial and temporal distribution of energy release of large intermediate depth earthquakes using a modified back projection technique first used to study the 2004 sumatra andaman megathrust event multiple seismic phases are included in the back projection analysis which provides the capability to determine the energy distribution with respect to depth and time a total of 22 intermediate depth earthquakes with moment magnitudes greater than or equal to 6 5 are investigated with hypocentral depths between 100 and 300 km for most of these events the vertical extent of energy release is either below the resolution of this study 5 km or slightly above 15 km this observation agrees with previous studies that find large intermediate depth earthquakes have subhorizontal rupture planes the results also show a significant portion of the events have multiple rupture planes that are well separated in depth the closeness in time of the ruptures on separate planes and the distance between the planes suggest dynamic triggering where the p waves from the first rupture initiate rupture on the second plane we propose that a dehydration embrittlement mechanism combined with preferentially hydrated subhorizontal faults can explain the observations of dominant subhorizontal rupture planes and the frequent occurrence of rupture complexity involving multiple subevents

characteristics of subevents and three stage rupture processes of the 2015 mw 7 8 gorkha nepal earthquake from multiple array back projection abstract on 25 april 2015 an mw 7 8 earthquake occurred in nepal and caused about 9000 casualties this earthquake ruptured part of the main himalaya thrust fault which is due to the convergence of the subducting indian plate to the overriding eurasian plate and showed thrust mechanism with a very small fault dip angle about 7 10 we apply teleseismic multiple array back projection analysis to study the rupture process of this earthquake and find 6 clear high frequency radiation sources subevents our results illustrate a simple unilateral eastward rupture of 160 km with relative stable rupture speed of 2 8 km s and a duration of 56 s the entire rupture processes can be divided into 3 stages the high frequency radiation appears to be mainly located at the edge of the large slip area but the subevents have different characteristics in the western and eastern rupture areas for this 2015 nepal earthquake the scales of asperities appear to be mainly controlled by depth which dominates the overall patterns of slip and high frequency radiation we finally propose a multiple scale asperity model with stress and structural heterogeneities along the rupture direction to explain the distribution of high frequency subevents co seismic slip and aftershocks

estimating high frequency energy radiation of large earthquakes by image deconvolution back projection abstract high frequency energy radiation of large earthquakes is a key to evaluating shaking damage and is an important source characteristic for understanding rupture dynamics we developed a new inversion method image deconvolution back projection idbp to retrieve high frequency energy radiation of seismic sources by linear inversion of observed images from a back projection approach the observed back projection image for multiple sources is considered as a convolution of the image of the true radiated energy and the array response for a point source the array response that spreads energy both in space and time is evaluated by using data of a smaller reference earthquake that can be assumed to be a point source the synthetic test of the method shows that the spatial and temporal resolution of the source is much better than that for the conventional back projection method we applied this new method to the 2001 m w 7 8 kunlun earthquake using data recorded by hi net in japan the new method resolves a sharp image of the high frequency energy radiation with a significant portion of supershear rupture

styles of aqueous alteration on mars water and or hydroxyl oh bearing minerals are valuable petrologic indicators of past conditions on mars in addition to indicating the presence of some form of water on mars in the past many of them form only under restricted conditions similarly several of them are unstable or metastable under current mars surface conditions thus identifying specific types of water bearing minerals that are present on mars can provide insights into past conditions while phyllosilicates were the first water bearing minerals inferred to be present on mars from analysis of earth based telescopic spectra mccord et al 1982 it took recent spacecraft missions to enable mapping the global distribution and determining the types of specific species that are present on the surface and their geological context even at coarse spatial scales of a few kilometers several regions on mars whose surfaces were spectrally dominated by water bearing minerals were identified by their spectral reflectance signatures observatoire pour la mineralogie l eau les glaces et l activite omega aboard the european space agency mars express

short term velocity and water pressure variations down glacier from a riegel storglaciaren sweden during the 1991 94 summer field seasons time correlated measurements of water pressure and surface speed were made over and down glacier from a major riegel on storglaciaren sweden measurements were made at sub hourly time scales in order to discern details in the diurnal cycle large water input events typically associated with rain storms produced coherent lagged surface velocity responses that could be understood in terms of till deformation or decoupling and these have been discussed elsewhere the consequences of smaller diurnal water pressure events were more enigmatic in that acceleration of ice flow generally preceded the onset of the local water pressure rise from consideration of these data and other work done on the hydrology of storglaciaren we infer that the ice in this area is generally pushed from behind via a relaxation in extensional strain across the riegel hence accelerations occur in response to increases in water pressure that occur up glacier and that precede local water pressure rises in addition following a period of large storm events surface speeds became more spatially coherent and were in phase with the diurnal ater pressure cycle this suggests that the large water pressure events lead to a spatially more homogeneous subglacial drainage system sliding laws need to take into accoun such temporal changes in spatial coherence of the subglacial drainage system

amplified melt and flow of the greenland ice sheet driven by late summer cyclonic rainfall intense rainfall events significantly affect alpine and alaskan glaciers through enhanced melting ice flow acceleration and subglacial sediment erosion yet their impact on the greenland ice sheet has not been assessed here we present measurements of ice velocity subglacial water pressure and meteorological variables from the western margin of the greenland ice sheet during a week of warm wet cyclonic weather in late august and early september 2011 we find that extreme surface runoff from melt and rainfall led to a widespread acceleration in ice flow that extended 140 km into the ice sheet interior we suggest that the late season timing was critical in promoting rapid runoff across an extensive bare ice surface that overwhelmed a subglacial hydrological system in transition to a less efficient winter mode reanalysis data reveal that similar cyclonic weather conditions prevailed across southern and western greenland during this time and we observe a corresponding ice flow response at all land and marine terminating glaciers in these regions for which data are available given that the advection of warm moist air masses and rainfall over greenland is expected to become more frequent in the coming decades our findings portend a previously unforeseen vulnerability of the greenland ice sheet to climate change

surface ice motion deviating toward the margins during speed up events at gornergletscher switzerland 1 high frequency ice flow measurements during speed up events in gornergletscher switzerland revealed intriguing ice motion which has never been reported in detail before during the summer 2005 more than a 100 flow speed increase was observed three times at four gps stations installed across gornergletscher the speed ups were accompanied by a decimeter scale surface uplift two of the events were triggered by intensive surface melt and rainfall while the third one was due to the outburst of gornersee a glacier dammed lake located 2 km upglacier an interesting observation was ice motion deviating toward the side margins during the events as the glacier accelerated a transverse cross glacier velocity component was generated turning the flow direction away from the central flow line toward the margins when the glacier decelerated the transverse velocity component reversed so that the ice flowed back to the azimuth of the initial flow direction in the most significant case the trajectory of the survey stake deviated from the original track by 0 2 m in the transverse direction we hypothesize that the observed lateral ice motion was caused by locally elevated subglacial water pressure when the ice sole decoupled from the bed at a part of the glacier a point source of vertical displacement was transmitted to the surface through viscous ice this caused the transverse as well as vertical surface motion as observed in ground motion during magma intrusion the hypothesis was tested with a two dimensional ice flow model applied to the transverse glacier cross section the model confirmed that the surface ice would move toward the margins as observed in gornergletscher if subglacial water pressure exceeded the ice overburden pressure over a limited part of the bed

illuminating the near sonic rupture velocities of the intracontinental kokoxili mw 7 8 and denali fault mw 7 9 strike slip earthquakes with global p wave back projection imaging 1 the denali and kokoxili strike slip earthquakes are two of the longest recent intracontinental ruptures previous studies report a range of rupture velocities here we image these earthquakes by reverse time migration of the intermediate frequency p wave train recorded by global broadband seismometers this technique permits a relatively direct measure of rupture velocity speed and direction as constrained by the radiated seismic energy free from restrictive assumptions or rupture speed bounds placed on the solution we compare our results with published seismic gps displacement and surface slip inversion results both ruptures were initially subshear and transitioned over a distance no longer than 40 km to supershear speeds close to the p wave speed of 5 6 km s we investigate the accuracy of our results with synthetic data and experiment with using different imaging parameters and seismic subnetworks these tests allow us to rule out the possibility of subshear speeds along the supershear segments although we cannot exclude supershear speeds of 4 5 6 5 km s our most reliable rupture velocities of 5 6 km s are close to the local p wave speeds we hypothesize that these intracontinental faults have weak shear strengths or high breakdown slips or crustal rigidities and experience at least moderate slip or slip rate weakening our observations and previous published results lead us to speculate that very long surface extending faults with general homogeneity in prestress and fault strength together with smaller adjacent fault segments to provide triggering may be necessary ingredients for the sub rayleigh to supershear rupture speed transition in strike slip earthquakes

glacier surface velocities in alpine terrain from optical satellite imagery accuracy improvement and quality assessment the worldwide retreat of mountain glaciers has important consequences for the water food and power supply of large and densely populated areas in south and central asia successful mitigation of the hydrological impacts on societies as well as assessing glacier related hazards require large scale monitoring of glacier dynamics however detailed glaciological data from the asian highlands are lacking due to its size and difficult accessibility we have applied a novel technique for precise orthorectification co registration and sub pixel correlation of advanced spaceborne thermal emission and reflection radiometer aster satellite imagery to derive surface velocities of himalayan glaciers our approach allows for the correction of offsets due to attitude effects and sensor distortions as well as elevation errors if a digital elevation model dem from the shuttle radar topography mission srtm was used for orthorectification after post processing the error on the displacements is on the order of 2 4 m per correlation translated into annual velocities this error is reduced increased when the correlated images are more less than a year apart through application of a filtering procedure and several quality tests the consistency of the results is validated to provide confidence in the remotely sensed velocity measurements despite the lack of ground control this novel approach allows fast easy and economically viable acquisition of detailed glaciological data in areas of difficult access and provides a means for large scale monitoring of glaciers in high mountainous terrain

a window into the complexity of the dynamic rupture of the 2011 mw 9 tohoku oki earthquake the 2011 mw 9 tohoku oki earthquake recorded by over 1000 near field stations and multiple large aperture arrays is by far the best recorded earthquake in the history of seismology and provides unique opportunities to address fundamental issues in earthquake source dynamics here we conduct a high resolution array analysis based on recordings from the usarray and the european network the mutually consistent results from both arrays reveal rupture complexity with unprecedented resolution involving phases of diverse rupture speed and intermittent high frequency bursts within slow speed phases which suggests spatially heterogeneous material properties the earthquake initially propagates down dip with a slow initiation phase followed by sustained propagation at speeds of 3 km s the rupture then slows down to 1 5 km s for 60 seconds a rich sequence of bursts is generated along the down dip rim of this slow and roughly circular rupture front before the end of the slow phase an extremely fast rupture front detaches at about 5 km s towards the north finally a rupture front propagates towards the south running at about 2 5 km s for over 100 km key features of the rupture process are confirmed by the strong motion data recorded by k net and kik net the energetic high frequency radiation episodes within a slow rupture phase suggests a patchy image of the brittle ductile transition zone composed of discrete brittle asperities within a ductile matrix the high frequency is generated mainly at the down dip edge of the principal slip regions constrained by geodesy suggesting a variation along dip of the mechanical properties of the mega thrust fault or their spatial heterogeneity that affects rise time

rupture imaging of the mw 7 9 12 may 2008 wenchuan earthquake from back projection of teleseismic p waves 1 the mw 7 9 wenchuan earthquake of 12 may 2008 was the most destructive chinese earthquake since the 1976 tangshan event tens of thousands of people were killed hundreds of thousands were injured and millions were left homeless here we infer the detailed rupture process of the wenchuan earthquake by back projecting teleseismic p energy from several arrays of seismometers this technique has only recently become feasible and is potentially faster than traditional finite fault inversion of teleseismic body waves therefore it may reduce the notification time to emergency response agencies using the iris dmc we collected 255 vertical component broadband p waves at 30 95 from the epicenter we found that at periods of 5 s and greater nearly all of these p waves were coherent enough to be used in a global array we applied a simple down sampling heuristic to define a global subarray of 70 stations that reduced the asymmetry and sidelobes of the array response function arf we also considered three regional subarrays of seismometers in alaska australia and europe that had apertures less than 30 and p waves that were coherent to periods as short as 1 s individual arfs for these subarrays were skewed toward the subarrays however the linear sum of the regional subarray beams at 1 s produced a symmetric arf similar to that of the groomed global subarray at 5 s for both configurations we obtained the same rupture direction rupture length and rupture time we found that the wenchuan earthquake had three distinct pulses of high beam power at 0 23 and 57 s after the origin time with the pulse at 23 s being highest and that it ruptured unilaterally to the northeast for about 300 km and 110 s with an average speed of 2 8 km s it is possible that similar results can be determined for future large dip slip earthquakes within 20 30 min of the origin time using relatively sparse global networks of seismometers such as those the usgs uses to locate earthquakes in near real time

evidence of large scale repeating slip during the 2011 tohoku oki earthquake 1 the repetition of slip during rupture process of earthquake is a debate issue which had never been confirmed clearly in the past big events due to the lack of dense near field observations and limited resolution in time of source model the 2011 m9 0 tohoku oki earthquake generated a wealth seismic records which provided us an unprecedented opportunity to study the rupture evolution of giant earthquake at a high spatio temporal resolution here we use teleseismic local strong motion and near field coseismic geodetic data to investigate the source rupture process of this event based on the parallel inversion technique the results reveal a broad slip zone with remarkable large scale repeating slip during the earthquake the inverted source model shows several time periods of energy release with three main peaks these energy bursts and temporal rupture snapshots suggest repetition of a large scale slip on the biggest asperity this rupture behavior resulted in 50 m slips on the slip zone and prolonged the entire rupture process for a long duration of 160 seconds the proposed source model is in a good agreement with the aftershock distribution and can interpret the characteristics of local strong motions further investigations of repeating slip during this event are crucial which will deeply transform earthquake science from dynamic point of view

variations in the surface velocity of an alpine cirque glacier following pioneering work in norway cirque glaciers have widely been viewed as rigidly rotating bodies this model is incorrect for basin filling cirque glaciers as we have demonstrated at west washmawapta glacier a small glacier in the canadian rocky mountains here we report observations at the same glacier that assess whether complex temporal variations of flow also occur for parts of three summers we measured daily displacements of the glacier surface in one year four short duration speed up events were recorded three of the events occurred during the intervals of warmest weather when melt was most rapid the fourth event occurred immediately following heavy rain we interpret the speed up events as manifestations of enhanced water inputs to the glacier bed and associated slip lubrication by increased water volumes and pressures no further speed ups occurred in the final month of the melt season despite warm temperatures and several rainstorms the dominant subglacial water system likely transformed from one of poorly connected cavities to one with an efficient channel network the seasonal evolution of hydrology and flow resembles behaviors documented at other larger temperate glaciers and indicates that analyses of cirque erosion cannot rely on simple assumptions about ice dynamics

development of multiscale slip inversion method and its application to the 2004 mid niigata prefecture earthquake 1 we present a multiscale slip inversion method for earthquakes as a first attempt to analyze an initial rupture process on a small scale and a whole one on a large scale a multiscale source model is constructed by renormalizing slip rate distributions on different scales a multiscale observation equation includes a renormalized kernel matrix using the new method and employing theoretical and empirical green s functions with two small events mw 2 3 and 3 3 we analyze the 2004 mid niigata prefecture earthquake mw 6 6 following a preliminary deconvolution analysis suggesting a complexity of the initial phase the multiscale analysis reveals details of the initial stage of the rupture process the first 1 s successfully in the multiscale model the estimated source process is consistent for all scales while independent slip inversion analyses on three scales monoscale analysis result in inconsistent slip distributions with large errors the maximum slip rate is about 1 0 m s and the rupture velocity is 2 5 3 0 km s in the initial rupture process four stages of rupture growth with different rupture directivities are found the first 0 4 s with northeastward directivity from 0 6 s to 1 0 s with southward directivity until 2 0 s with northeastward directivity again and after 2 0 s with southwestward directivity these stages may represent cascading ruptures evolving into a large earthquake the image of the whole rupture process implies self similarity of the dynamic rupture process and is a breakthrough in the complete realization of earthquake source scaling

hydraulic and mechanical properties of glacial sediments beneath unteraargletscher switzerland implications for glacier basal motion the force on a ploughmeter and subglacial water pressure have been measured in the same borehole at unteraargletscher switzerland in order to investigate ice sediment coupling and the motion at the base of a soft bedded glacier a strong inverse correlation of the recorded pressure and force fluctuations in conjunction with a significant time lag between the two signals suggests that pore water pressures directly affect the strength of the subglacial sediment the lag is interpreted to reflect the time required for the water pressure wave to propagate through the pores of the sediment to the depth of the ploughmeter analysis of the propagation velocity of this pressure wave yielded an estimate of the hydraulic diffusivity a key parameter necessary to characterize transient pore water flow furthermore the inferred inverse relationship between pore water pressure and sediment strength implies that coulomb plastic deformation is an appropriate rheological model for the sediment underlying unteraargletscher however the sediment strength as derived from the ploughmeter data was found to be one order of magnitude smaller than that calculated for a coulomb frictional material using the water pressure measurements this significant discrepancy might result from pore water pressures in excess of hydrostatic down glacier from the ploughmeter as the ploughmeter is dragged through the sediment sediment is compressed if the rate of this compression is large relative to the rate at which pore water can drain away excess pore water pressures will develop that have the potential to weaken the sediment the same process could lead to highly fluid sediment down glacier from clasts that protrude into the glacier sole and thus would otherwise provide the roughness to couple the glacier to its bed iverson 1999 rapidly sliding glaciers overlying sediments might therefore move predominantly by ploughing which tends to focus basal motion near the glacier sole rather than at depth in the bed

coherent seismic arrivals in the p wave coda of the 2012 m w 7 2 sumatra earthquake water reverberations or an early aftershock

glacier dammed lake outburst events of gornersee switzerland gornersee switzerland is an ice marginal lake which drains almost every year subglacially within a few days we present an analysis of the lake outburst events between 1950 and 2005 as well as results of detailed field investigations related to the lake drainage in 2004 and 2005 the latter include measurements of lake geometry water pressure in nearby boreholes and glacier surface motion a distributed temperature index melt model coupled to a linear reservoir runoff model is used to calculate hourly discharge from the catchment of gornergletscher in order to distinguish between the melt precipitation component and the outburst component of the discharge hydrograph in this way drainage volume and timing are determined from 1950 there is a clear trend for the outburst flood to occur earlier in the melt season but there is no trend in lake discharge volumes peak discharges from the lake lie significantly below the values obtained using the empirical relation proposed by clague and mathews 1973 the shapes of the 2004 and 2005 lake outflow hydrographs differ substantially suggesting different drainage mechanisms from water balance considerations we infer a leakage of the glacier dammed lake in 2005 starting 1 week prior to the lake outburst during the drainage events up to half of the lake water is temporarily stored in the glacial system causing substantial uplift of the glacier surface

subevent location and rupture imaging using iterative backprojection for the 2011 tohoku mw 9 0 earthquake summary knowledge of the rupture speed and spatial temporal distribution of energy radiation of earthquakes is important for earthquake physics backprojection of teleseismic waves is commonly used to image the rupture process of large events the conventional backprojection method typically performs temporal and spatial averaging to obtain reliable rupture features we present an iterative backprojection method with subevent signal stripping to determine the distribution of subevents large energy bursts during the earthquake rupture we also relocate the subevents initially determined by iterative backprojection using the traveltime shifts from subevent waveform cross correlation which provides more accurate subevent locations and source times a bootstrap approach is used to assess the reliability of the identified subevents we apply this method to the mw 9 0 tohoku earthquake in japan using array data in the united states we identify 16 reliable subevents in the frequency band 0 2 1 hz which mostly occurred around or west of the hypocentre in the downdip region analysis of tohoku aftershocks shows that depth phases can often produce artefacts in the backprojection image but the position and timing of our main shock subevents are inconsistent with depth phase artefacts our results suggest a complicated rupture with a component of bilateral rupture along strike the dominant energy radiation between 0 2 and 1 hz is confined to a region close to the hypocentre during the first 90 s a number of subevents occurred around the hypocentre in the first 90 s suggesting a low initial rupture speed and repeated rupture or slip near thehypocentre therupturereachedthecoastalregionabout106kmnorthwestofthehypocentreat43sandtheregionabout110kmnorthofthehypocentreat105swithanorthwardrupture speed 2 0 kms 1 at 60 110 s after 110 s a series of subevents occurred about 120 220 km southwest of the hypocentre consistent wit ha3k ms 1 along strike rupture speed the abundant high frequency radiation in the downdip region close to the coast suggests intermittent rupture probably in the brittle ductile transition zone the lack of high frequency radiation in the updip region suggests the rupture near the trench was more continuous probably due to more homogeneous frictional properties of the shallow slab interface the lack of early aftershocks in the updip region indicates that most of the accumulated slip in the updip region during the interseismic period was probably released during the main shock