litho1 0 an updated crust and lithospheric model of the earth we present the litho1 0 model which is a 1 tessellated model of the crust and uppermost mantle of the earth extending into the upper mantle to include the lithospheric lid and underlying asthenosphere the model is parameterized laterally by tessellated nodes and vertically as a series of geophysically identified layers such as water ice sediments crystalline crust lithospheric lid and asthenosphere litho1 0 is created by constructing an appropriate starting model and perturbing it to fit high resolution surface wave dispersion maps love and rayleigh group and phase over a wide frequency band 5 40 mhz we examine and discuss the model with respect to key lithospheric parameters such as average crustal velocity crustal thickness upper mantle velocity and lithospheric thickness we then compare the constructed model to those from a number of select studies at regional and global scales and find general consistency it appears that litho1 0 represents a reasonable starting model of the earth s shallow structure crust and uppermost mantle for the purposes in which these models are used such as traveltime tomography or in efforts to create a 3 d reference earth model the model matches surface wave dispersion over a frequency band wider than the band used in the inversion there are several avenues for improving the model in the future by including attenuation and anisotropy as well as making use of surface waves at higher frequency

earthquakes faulting and stress in the los angeles basin since 1920 fourteen moderate sized m l 4 9 6 4 earthquakes have been reported in the los angeles basin these events are associated with both mappable surficial faults and concealed faults beneath the basin sediments to determine the style of faulting and state of stress in the basin single event focal mechanisms for 244 earthquakes of m 2 5 that have occurred during 1977 1989 have been calculated fifty nine percent of the events are strike slip and are mostly located near two of the major northwest striking right lateral strike slip faults in the basin the newport inglewood fault and the palos verdes fault the 1988 pasadena and the 1988 upland earthquakes showed left lateral strike slip on northeast striking faults numerous small earthquakes in the eastern part of the basin show left lateral strike slip faulting and form a northeast trend near yorba linda thirty two percent of the events have reverse mechanisms and are distributed along two broad zones the first the elysian park fold and thrust belt coincides with anticlines along the eastern and northern flank of the los angeles basin extending into santa monica bay the second the torrance wilmington fold and thrust belt coincides with anticlines mapped on the southwest flank of the basin and extends from offshore newport beach to the northwest into santa monica bay oblique faulting that could be inferred by the merging of strike slip and compressional tectonics does not occur in the basin instead the coexistence of zones of thrusting and large strike slip faults in the basin suggests that the thrust and strike slip movements are mostly decoupled a few normal faulting mechanisms appear to be related to faulting orthogonal to the axes of plunging anticlines the trend of the maximum horizontal stress varies from n1 w to n31 e across the basin and consistently forms high angles with the fold axes the stress field that exists along the flanks of the basin has a vertical minimum stress axis this stress field and ongoing folding and thrusting suggest that tectonic deformation is concentrated along the flanks of the deep central basin today the deformation of the basin consists of uplift and crustal thickening and lateral block movement to accommodate the north south compression across the basin

slab horizontal subduction and slab tearing beneath east asia the present day architecture of subducted slabs in the mantle as inferred from seismic tomography is a record of plate tectonics through geological time the unusually large slab that lies nearly horizontally above the 660 km mantle discontinuity beneath east asia is presumably from subduction of the pacific plate numerical models have been used to explore the mechanical and geophysical factors that contribute to slab stagnation but the evolution of this horizontal structure is not fully understood because of uncertainties in the plate tectonic history and mantle heterogeneity here we show that forward mantle flow models constrained by updated tectonic reconstructions can essentially fit major features in the seismic tomography beneath east asia specifically significant tearing propagated through the subducted western pacific slab as the philippine sea plate rotated clockwise during the miocene leading to internal slab segmentation we believe this tearing associated with philippine sea plate rotation also affects the horizontal configuration of slabs

formation of the japan sea basin reassessment from ar ar ages and nd sr isotopic data of basement basalts of the japan sea and adjacent regions abstract many studies have examined the japan sea basalts recovered during ocean drilling program odp leg127 128 of these the 40ar 39ar dating undertaken is important in constraining the timing of the formation of the japan sea however the implications of their results do not appear to be fully appreciated by the geological community in this paper i reassess the 40ar 39ar age data of the basalts with reference to nd sr isotopic data the 40ar 39ar dating was performed on basalts somewhat enriched in large ion lithophile elements and recovered from odp sites 794 795 and the lower part of 797 yielding the plateau ages of 21 2 17 7 ma these basalts show the nd sr isotopic signature of a moderately depleted mantle source end 0 6 6 9 in contrast the basalts from the upper part of site 797 have yet to be dated due to their low k content although their nd isotopic compositions are similar to that of morb end 8 4 10 4 by analogy to the secular nd sr isotopic trends reported for sikhote alin and northeast japan the age of the upper basalts at site 797 may be inferred to be younger than the lower basalts probably around 16 ma the nd sr isotopic compositions of the japan sea basalts have been interpreted in terms of eastward asthenospheric flow as have the lavas of the sikhote alin and northeastern japan the timing of volcanic activity in the japan sea region i e from 21 2 to 14 86 ma is consistent with the timing of rotational crustal movements inferred from paleomagnetic studies of the japanese islands i e 14 8 4 2 ma for southwest japan and 16 5 14 4 ma for northeast japan

space geodetic determination of spatial variability in relative sea level change los angeles basin 1 we combine synthetic aperture radar interferometry insar tide gauge and continuous gps measurements to determine the spatial variation in vertical land motion vlm along the coast of the los angeles basin over the past decade and to examine the impact of spatially variable vlm on relative sea level trends by identifying radar scattering targets with long term coherence we make height corrections which allow interferogram creation for nearly the entire ers 1 catalog and permit estimation of average deformation rates with minimal temporal aliasing between los angeles harbor and newport beach mean vlm trends range from 3 4 to 4 3 mm yr reflecting the high level of ground water and oil extraction activity in the region west of los angeles harbor vlm rates and spatial variability are roughly half as large the 8 year vlm trends exceed the long term sea level trend 0 8 mm yr determined from the 80 year los angeles harbor tide gauge the high degree of observed vlm variability emphasizes the need for the spatially continuous measurements provided by insar a single tide gauge assessment of regional rsl would otherwise have limited applicability

monitoring landslides and tectonic motions with the permanent scatterers technique spaceborne differential synthetic aperture radar interferometry dinsar has already proven its potential for mapping ground deformation phenomena e g volcano dynamics however atmospheric disturbances as well as phase decorrelation have prevented hitherto this technique from achieving full operational capability these drawbacks are overcome by carrying out measurements on a subset of image pixels corresponding to pointwise stable reflectors permanent scatterers ps and exploiting long temporal series of interferometric data results obtained by processing 55 images acquired by the european space agency esa ers sar sensors over southern california show that the ps approach pushes measurement accuracy very close to its theoretical limit about 1 mm allowing the description of millimetric deformation phenomena occurring in a complex fault system a comparison with corresponding displacement time series relative to permanent gps stations of the southern california integrated gps network scign is carried out moreover the pixel by pixel character of the ps analysis allows the exploitation of individual phase stable radar targets in low coherence areas this makes spaceborne interferometric measurements possible in vegetated areas as long as a sufficient spatial density of individual isolated man made structures or exposed rocks is available the evolution of the ancona landslide central italy was analysed by processing 61 ers images acquired in the time span between june 1992 and december 2000 the results have been compared with deformation values detected during optical levelling campaigns ordered by the municipality of ancona the characteristics of ps gps and optical levelling surveying are to some extent complementary a synergistic use of the three techniques could strongly enhance quality and reliability of ground deformation monitoring d 2002 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

the postseismic response to the 2002 m 7 9 denali fault earthquake constraints from insar 2003 2005 summary insar is particularly sensitive to vertical displacements which can be important in distinguishing between mechanisms responsible for the postseismic response to large earthquakes afterslip viscoelastic relaxation we produce maps of the surface displacements resulting from the postseismic response to the 2002 denali fault earthquake using data from the canadian radarsat 1 satellite from the periods summer 2003 summer 2004 and summer 2005 a peak to trough signal of amplitude 4 cm in the satellite line of sight was observed between summer 2003 and summer 2004 by the period between summer 2004 and summer 2005 the displacement rate had dropped below the threshold required for observation with insar over a single year the insar observations show that the principal postseismic relaxation process acted at a depth of 50 km equivalent to the top of the mantle however the observations are still incapable of distinguishing between distributed viscoelastic relaxation and localized afterslip deformation the imposed coseismic stresses are highest in the lower crust and assuming a maxwell rheology a viscosity ratio of at least 5 between lower crust and upper mantle is required to explain the contrast in behaviour the lowest misfits are produced by mixed models of viscoelastic relaxation in the mantle and shallow afterslip in the upper crust profiles perpendicular to the fault show significant asymmetry which is consistent with differences in rheological structure across the fault

review of eruptive activity at tianchi volcano changbaishan northeast china implications for possible future eruptions one of the largest explosive eruptions in the past several thousand years occurred at tianchi volcano also known as changbaishan on the china north korea border this historically active polygenetic central volcano consists of three parts a lower basaltic shield an upper trachytic composite cone and young comendite ash flows the millennium eruption occurred between 938 and 946 ad and was preceded by two smaller and chemically different rhyolitic pumice deposits there has been at least one additional small eruption in the last three centuries from 2002 to 2005 seismicity deformation and the helium and hydrogen gas contents of spring waters all increased markedly causing regional concern we attribute this event to magma recharge or volatile exhalation or both at depth followed by two episodes of addition of magmatic fluids into the overlying aquifer without a phreatic eruption the estimated present magma accumulation rate is too low by itself to account for the 2002 2005 unrest the most serious volcanic hazards are ash eruption and flows and lahars the available geological information and volcano monitoring data provide a baseline for comprehensive assessment of future episodes of unrest and possible eruptive activity

sizing up a slumbering giant western researchers and north korean colleagues teamed up last month on an extraordinary expedition to install seismometers and collect geological samples at mount paektu a volcano on the north korea china border about 1000 years ago the volcano unleashed one of the biggest eruptions in recent history the millennium eruption studies aim to unravel the mystery of why the volcano was capable of such a titanic blast and gauge the hazards of a future millennium scale eruption

a small baseline approach for investigating deformations on full resolution differential sar interferograms this paper presents a differential synthetic aperture radar sar interferometry difsar approach for investigating deformation phenomena on full resolution difsar interferograms in particular our algorithm extends the capability of the small baseline subset sbas technique that relies on small baseline difsar interferograms only and is mainly focused on investigating large scale deformations with spatial resolutions of about 100 spl times 100 m the proposed technique is implemented by using two different sets of data generated at low multilook data and full single look data spatial resolution respectively the former is used to identify and estimate via the conventional sbas technique large spatial scale deformation patterns topographic errors in the available digital elevation model and possible atmospheric phase artifacts the latter allows us to detect on the full resolution residual phase components structures highly coherent over time buildings rocks lava structures etc as well as their height and displacements in particular the estimation of the temporal evolution of these local deformations is easily implemented by applying the singular value decomposition technique the proposed algorithm has been tested with data acquired by the european remote sensing satellites relative to the campania area italy and validated by using geodetic measurements

multi proxy dating the millennium eruption of changbaishan to late 946 ce ranking among the largest volcanic eruptions of the common era ce the millennium eruption of changbaishan produced a widely dispersed tephra layer known as the b tm ash which represents an important tie point for palaeoenvironmental studies in east asia hitherto there has been no consensus on its age with estimates spanning at least the tenth century ce here we identify the cosmogenic radiocarbon signal of 775 ce in a subfossil larch engulfed and killed by pyroclastic currents emplaced during the initial rhyolitic phase of the explosive eruption combined with glaciochemical evidence from greenland this enables us to date the eruption to late 946 ce this secure date rules out the possibility that the millennium eruption contributed to the collapse of the bohai kingdom manchuria korea in 926 ce as has previously been hypothesised further despite the magnitude of the eruption we do not see a consequent cooling signal in tree ring based reconstructions of northern hemisphere summer temperatures a tightly constrained date for the millennium eruption improves the prospect for further investigations of historical sources that may shed light on the eruption s impacts and enhances the value of the b tm ash as a chronostratigraphic marker

simulation of the supersar multi azimuth synthetic aperture radar imaging system for precise measurement of three dimensional earth surface displacement the supersar imaging system a novel multi azimuth synthetic aperture radar sar system capable of detecting earth surface deformation in three dimensions from a single satellite platform has recently been proposed in this paper we investigate the feasibility of detecting precise 3 d surface displacement measurements with the supersar imaging system using a point target simulation from this simulation we establish both a relationship between the interferometric sar phase and the across track displacement and a relationship between the multiple aperture interferometry phase and the along track displacement based on the supersar imaging geometry the theoretical uncertainties of the supersar measurement are analyzed in the across and along track directions and the theoretical accuracy of the 3 d displacement measurement from the supersar system is also investigated according to both the decorrelation and the squint and look angles in the case that the interferometric coherence is about 0 8 and that five effective looks are employed the theoretical 2 d measurement precision values are about 3 67 and 6 35 mm in the across and along track directions respectively and the theoretical 3 d measurement precision values for 3 d displacement are about 4 05 4 56 and 3 45 mm in the east north and up directions respectively the result of this study demonstrates that the supersar imaging system is capable of measuring the 3 d surface displacement in all directions with subcentimeter precision

mapping ground surface deformation using temporarily coherent point sar interferometry application to los angeles basin abstract multi temporal interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar is an effective tool to detect long term seismotectonic motions by reducing the atmospheric artifacts thereby providing more precise deformation signal the commonly used approaches such as persistent scatterer insar psinsar and small baseline subset sbas algorithms need to resolve the phase ambiguities in interferogram stacks either by searching a predefined solution space or by sparse phase unwrapping methods however the efficiency and the success of phase unwrapping cannot be guaranteed we present here an alternative approach temporarily coherent point tcp insar tcpinsar to estimate the long term deformation rate without the need of phase unwrapping the proposed approach has a series of innovations including tcp identification tcp network and tcp least squares estimator we apply the proposed method to the los angeles basin in southern california where structurally active faults are believed capable of generating damaging earthquakes the analysis is based on 55 interferograms from 32 ers 1 2 images acquired during oct 1995 and dec 2000 to evaluate the performance of tcpinsar on a small set of observations a test with half of interferometric pairs is also performed the retrieved tcpinsar measurements have been validated by a comparison with gps observations from southern california integrated gps network our result presents a similar deformation pattern as shown in past insar studies but with a smaller average standard deviation 4 6 mm compared with gps observations indicating that tcpinsar is a promising alternative for efficiently mapping ground deformation even from a relatively smaller set of interferograms

the 1994 northridge earthquake sequence in california seismological and tectonic aspects the m w 6 7 northridge earthquake occurred on january 17 1994 beneath the san fernando valley two seismicity clusters located 25 km to the south and 35 km to the north northwest preceded the mainshock by 7 days and 16 hours respectively the mainshock hypocenter was relatively deep at 19 km depth in the lower crust it had a thrust faulting focal mechanism with a rake of 100 on a fault plane dipping 35 to the south southwest and striking n75 w because the mainshock did not rupture the surface its association with surficial geological features remains difficult to resolve nonetheless its occurrence reemphasized the seismic hazard of concealed faults associated with the contractional deformation of the transverse ranges the northridge earthquake is part of the temporal increase in earthquake activity in the los angeles area since 1970 the mainshock was followed by an energetic aftershock sequence eight aftershocks of m 5 0 and 48 aftershocks of 4 m 5 occurred between january 17 and september 30 1994 the aftershocks extend over most of the western san fernando valley and santa susana mountains they form a diffuse spatial distribution around the mainshock rupture plane illuminating a previously unmapped thrust ramp extending from 7 10 km depth into the lower crust to a depth of 23 km no flattening of the aftershock distribution is observed near its bottom at shallow depths above 7 10 km the thrust ramp is topped by a dense distribution of aftershock hypocenters bounded by some of the surficial faults the dip of the ramp increases from east to west the west side of the aftershock zoae is characterized by a dense steeply dipping and north northeast striking planar cluster of aftershocks that exhibited mostly thrust faulting these events coincided with the gillibrand canyon lateral ramp along the east side of the aftershock zone the aftershocks also exhibited primarily thrust faulting focal mechanisms the focal mechanisms of the aftershocks were dominated by thrust faulting in the large aftershocks with some strike slip and normal faulting in the smaller aftershocks the 1971 san fernando and the 1994 northridge earthquakes ruptured partially abutting fault surfaces on opposite sides of a ridge both earthquakes accommodated north south contractional deformation of the transverse ranges the two earthquakes differ primarily in the dip direction of the faults and the depth of faulting the 1971 north northeast trend of left lateral faulting chatsworth trend was not activated in 1994

a new model for the dynamic evolution of chinese lithosphere continental roots plume tectonics abstract chinese continental lithosphere comprises three tectonic domains 1 eastern china a region characterized by rifting extensional basins and voluminous basaltic volcanism 2 central china a plexus of cratonic terrains with low heat flow 40 50 mw m2 including the tarim erdos and yangtze blocks welded by pre cenozoic orogenic belts and 3 western china a region comprising the qinghai tibet himalaya orogen the relatively thin crust 35 km and lithosphere 70 km of eastern china is believed to reflect mantle upwelling while near normal crust 45 km and thickened lithosphere 200 km in central china suggest a mantle lithosphere root resembling those inferred for the kaapvaal and siberian cratons thickened crust 70 km and lithosphere 150 km in western china reflect the advanced development of an orogen root the lower density and relative buoyancy of central cratonic mantle roots appear to have contributed to the long term tectonic stability of the central chinese lithospheric blocks in contrast gravitational instability produced by thickening of the denser western chinese lithosphere and the resulting subsidence and eventual delamination of orogenic roots are believed to have led to postorogenic extensional collapse although the geological relationships suggest compressional forces caused both mountain building and orogen root development extensional stress resulting from gravitational collapse is believed to have induced lithospheric and crustal thinning with concomitant reduction of topography the term continental roots plume tectonics has been adopted to describe the configuration and dynamic condition of subcontinental lithosphere and upper mantle beneath china accordingly it is proposed that supracrustal tectonic forms represent the surface expressions of and responses to deep continental roots plume tectonics while the prevailing view is that the western orogenic belt is not genetically related to eastern continental rifting such a relationship is inherent to the continental roots plume tectonics model it is further proposed that the formation of orogenic lithosphere roots triggered eastward extrusion of the asthenosphere along the 400 km depth mantle interface and in response to subduction at the eastern margin produces plume like upwelling beneath eastern china we suggest that processes involved in continental roots plume tectonics are directly responsible for the formation and evolution of the eurasian supercontinent

integration of insar time series analysis and water vapor correction for mapping postseismic motion after the 2003 bam iran earthquake atmospheric water vapor effects represent a major limitation of interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar techniques including insar time series ts approaches e g persistent or permanent scatterers and small baseline subset for the first time this paper demonstrates the use of insar ts with precipitable water vapor insar ts pwv correction model for deformation mapping we use medium resolution imaging spectrometer meris near infrafred nir water vapor data for insar atmospheric correction when they are available for the dates when the nir data are blocked by clouds an atmospheric phase screen aps model has been developed to estimate atmospheric effects using partially water vapor corrected interferograms cross validation reveals that the estimated aps agreed with meris derived line of sight path delays with a small standard deviation 0 3 0 5 cm and a high correlation coefficient 0 84 0 98 this paper shows that a better ts of postseismic motion after the 2003 bam iran earthquake is achievable after reduction of water vapor effects using the insar ts pwv technique with coincident meris nir water vapor data

comparison of four moderate size earthquakes in southern california using seismology and insar source parameters determined from interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar measurements and from seismic data are compared from four moderate size less than m 6 earthquakes in southern california the goal is to verify approximate detection capabilities of insar assess differences in the results and test how the two results can be reconciled first we calculated the expected surface deformation from all earthquakes greater than magnitude 4 in areas with available insar data 347 events a search for deformation from the events in the interferograms yielded four possible events with magnitudes less than 6 the search for deformation was based on a visual inspection as well as cross correlation in two dimensions between the measured signal and the expected signal a grid search algorithm was then used to estimate focal mechanism and depth from the insar data the results were compared with locations and focal mechanisms from published catalogs an independent relocation using seismic data was also performed the seismic locations fell within the area of the expected rupture zone for the three events that show clear surface deformation therefore the technique shows the capability to resolve locations with high accuracy and is applicable worldwide the depths determined by insar agree with well constrained seismic locations determined in a 3d velocity model depth control for well imaged shallow events using insar data is good and better than the seismic constraints in some cases a major difficulty for insar analysis is the poor temporal coverage of insar data which may make it impossible to distinguish deformation due to different earthquakes at the same location

an elusive blind thrust fault beneath metropolitan los angeles seismic reflection profiles petroleum wells and relocated earthquakes reveal the presence of an active blind thrust fault beneath metropolitan los angeles a segment of this fault likely caused the 1987 whittier narrows magnitude 6 0 earthquake mapped sizes of other fault segments suggest that the system is capable of much larger magnitude 6 5 to 7 and more destructive earthquakes

tectonic contraction across los angeles after removal of groundwater pumping effects after the 1987 whittier narrows and 1994 northridge earthquakes revealed that blind thrust faults represent a significant threat to metropolitan los angeles a network of 250 continuously recording global positioning system gps stations was deployed to monitor displacements associated with deep slip on both blind and surface faults here we augment this gps data with interferometric synthetic aperture radar imagery to take into account the deformation associated with groundwater pumping and strike slip faulting after removing these non tectonic signals we are left with 4 4 mm yr 1 of uniaxial contraction across the los angeles basin oriented n 36 degrees e perpendicular to the major strike slip faults in the area this indicates that the contraction is primarily accommodated on thrust faults rather than on the northeast trending strike slip faults we have found that widespread groundwater and oil pumping obscures and in some cases mimics the tectonic signals expected from the blind thrust faults in the 40 km long santa ana basin groundwater withdrawal and re injection produces 12 mm yr 1 of long term subsidence accompanied by an unprecedented seasonal oscillation of 55 mm in the vertical direction and 7 mm horizontally

east asia mantle tomography new insight into plate subduction and intraplate volcanism abstract we present a new p wave tomographic model beneath east asia by inverting 1 401 797 arrival time data recorded by the regional seismic networks in east asia and temporary seismic arrays deployed on the tibetan plateau our high resolution tomography shows that the subducted pacific slab is revealed clearly as a high velocity high v zone and it becomes stagnant in the mantle transition zone beneath eastern china prominent high v anomalies atop the 410 km discontinuity are detected beneath the eastern north china craton and northeast china suggesting that lithospheric delamination may have occurred and greatly affected the thermal state intraplate magmatism and surface topography of this region the indian lithosphere is characterized by a high v anomaly and it is subducting nearly horizontally beneath the entire or most parts of western tibet and with a small dipping angle to the southernmost part of eastern tibet the intraplate magmatism in different parts of east asia has different origins the active tengchong volcano is underlain by a prominent low velocity low v anomaly in the shallow mantle which may be caused by the subduction and dehydration of the burma microplate plate or indian plate the hainan volcano is underlain by a plume like low v anomaly that extends down to at least 1000 km depth and seems to be related to the deep subductions of the burma microplate or indian plate in the west and the philippine sea plate in the east prominent low v anomalies are detected beneath the changbai longgang and xianjindao volcanoes in northeast asia which may be related to the rollback of the subducting pacific slab as well as the convective circulation process in the big mantle wedge above the stagnant slab the origin of the wudalianchi volcano in northeast china seems associated with the upwelling of asthenospheric materials caused by the subduction induced lithospheric delamination

seismotectonics of the newport inglewood fault zone in the los angeles basin southern california the newport inglewood fault zone nif strikes northwest along the western margin of the los angeles basin in southern california the seismicity 1973 to 1985 of m l 2 5 that occurred within a 20 km wide rectangle centered on the nif extending from the santa monica fault in the north to newport beach in the south is analyzed a simultaneous full inversion scheme velest is used to invert for hypocentral parameters two velocity models and a set of station delays arrival time data from three quarry blasts are included to stabilize the inversion the first velocity model applies to stations located along the rim and outside the los angeles basin and is well resolved it is almost identical to the starting model which is the model routinely used by the cit usgs southern california seismic network for locating local earthquakes the second velocity model applies to stations located within the los angeles basin it shows significantly lower velocities down to depths of 12 to 16 km which is consistent with basement of catalina schist below the sediments in the western los angeles basin the distribution of relocated hypocenters shows an improved correspondence to mapped surface traces of late quaternary fault segments of the nif a diffuse trend of seismicity is observed along the inglewood fault from the dominguez hills across the baldwin hills to the santa monica fault in the north the seismicity adjacent to long beach however is offset 4 to 5 km to the east near the trace of the subsurface los alamitos fault the depth distribution of earthquakes along the nif shows clustering from 6 to 11 km depth which is similar to average seismogenic depths in southern california thirty nine single event focal mechanisms of small earthquakes 1977 to 1985 show mostly strike slip faulting with some reverse faulting along the north segment north of dominguez hills and some normal faulting along the south segment south of dominguez hills to newport beach the results of an inversion of the focal mechanism data for orientations of the principal stress axes and their relative magnitudes indicate that the minimum principal stress is vertical along the north segment while the intermediate stress is vertical along the south segment the maximum principal stress axis is oriented 10 to 25 east of north reverse faulting along the north segment indicates that a transition zone of mostly compressive deformation exists between the los angeles block and the central transverse ranges

interseismic strain accumulation and anthropogenic motion in metropolitan los angeles 1 we use global positioning system gps geodesy and synthetic aperture radar sar interferometry to distinguish between interseismic strain accumulation and anthropogenic motion in metropolitan los angeles we establish a relationship between horizontal and vertical seasonal oscillations of the santa ana aquifer use this relationship to infer cumulative horizontal anthropogenic motions from cumulative vertical motions caused by water and oil resource management and estimate horizontal interseismic velocities corrected for anthropogenic effects vertical anthropogenic rates from 1992 to 1999 are slower than 3 mm yr 1 in the santa ana and san gabriel aquifers and faster than 5 mm yr 1 in the chino aquifer and in many oil fields inferred horizontal anthropogenic velocities are faster than 1 mm yr 1 at 18 of 46 gps sites northern metropolitan los angeles is contracting with the 25 km south of the san gabriel mountains shortening at 4 5 1 mm yr 1 95 confidence limits the thrust fault in an elastic edge dislocation model of the observed strain is creeping at 9 2 mm yr 1 beneath and north of a position 6 2 km deep and 8 8 km north of downtown los angeles the model fault is near the los angeles segment of the puente hills thrust but south of the sante fe springs segment of the thrust disagreement between the 6 km locking depth in the model and the 15 km seismogenic depth inferred from earthquakes suggests that the elastic continuum model may be unsatisfactory models with different stiffnesses of sedimentary basin and crystalline basement must be investigated

complicated 3d mantle flow beneath northeast china from shear wave splitting and its implication for the cenozoic intraplate volcanism abstract we obtained shear wave splitting measurements from xks sks and skks phases recorded by the necessarray project consisting of 127 seismic stations in northeast china nec the most salient feature of the anisotropy in ne china is the alignment of subduction parallel fast direction which can be explained by the background upper mantle flow in the big mantle wedge bmw however the geographical variations of fast direction and delay time which closely follow the geometry of subducting pacific slab suggests that the slab morphology controls the geometry of 3 d mantle flow in the bmw the most significant finding of this study is the complex anisotropic pattern with most nulls observed in the changbaishan mountain region cbm and southern songliao basin at the southern songliao basin the small delay times as well as null measurements of shear wave splitting are coincident with the high velocity in the upper mantle down to 300 km from previous studies the observed anisotropy likely arises from the combination of bmw convection and more localized upper mantle convection that is a plume like mantle upwelling from the mantle transition zone beneath the changbaishan region triggers the down welling beneath the southern songliao basin

nonlinear subsidence rate estimation using permanent scatterers in differential sar interferometry discrete and temporarily stable natural reflectors or permanent scatterers ps can be identified from long temporal series of interferometric sar images even with baselines larger than the so called critical baseline this subset of image pixels can be exploited successfully for high accuracy differential measurements the authors discuss the use of ps in urban areas like pomona ca showing subsidence and absidence effects a new approach to the estimation of the atmospheric phase contributions and the local displacement field is proposed based on simple statistical assumptions new solutions are presented in order to cope with nonlinear motion of the targets

slope deformation prior to zhouqu china landslide from insar time series analysis abstract a major landslide in zhouqu china occurred on august 8 2010 and caused widespread damage and over 1700 casualties we study the deformation of the slopes over a time period of about three years prior to the landslide by an enhanced stamps sb technique with 16 ascending alos palsar images in particular the orbit error and stratified troposphere that were not well dealt with in the original stamps sb method have been satisfactorily corrected by a novel phase ramp correction method the deformation in four regions of the study area has been retrieved with a maximum of up to 70 mm yr in the luojiayu sanyanyu valley the slopes where the 2010 giant landslide occurred have been found to be quite unstable before the event deformation exceeding 30 mm yr has been detected in the suoertou slope which is a well known place for an ancient fault zone landslide fast movement larger than 40 mm yr is observed in the xieliupo slope which poses threats of landslide dam and dammed lake to the pai lung river together with another slope deformation detected in the opposite slope in the nanshanqiaotou slope the detected 30 mm yr deformation can be viewed as the prelude of the large landslide occurred in october 2010 more important it is found that the slope deformation time series has strong correlation with the precipitation in the area as well as with the devastating wenchuan earthquake that occurred in may 2008 whose epicenter is about 300 km away from zhouqu

intraplate volcanism controlled by back arc and continental structures in ne asia inferred from transdimensional bayesian ambient noise tomography intraplate volcanism adjacent to active continental margins is not simply explained by plate tectonics or plume interaction recent volcanoes in northeast ne asia including ne china and the korean peninsula are characterized by heterogeneous tectonic structures and geochemical compositions here we apply a transdimensional bayesian tomography to estimate high resolution images of group and phase velocity variations with periods between 8 and 70 s the method provides robust estimations of velocity maps and the reliability of results is tested through carefully designed synthetic recovery experiments our maps reveal two sublithospheric low velocity anomalies that connect back arc regions in japan and ryukyu trench with current margins of continental lithosphere where the volcanoes are distributed combined with evidences from previous geochemical and geophysical studies we argue that the volcanoes are related to the low velocity structures associated with back arc processes and preexisting continental lithosphere

multi interferogram method for measuring interseismic deformation denali fault alaska summary studies of interseismic strain accumulation are crucial to our understanding of continental deformation the earthquake cycle and seismic hazard by mapping small amounts of ground deformation over large spatial areas insar has the potential to produce continental scale maps of strain accumulation on active faults however most insar studies to date have focused on areas where the coherence is relatively good e g california tibet and turkey and most analysis techniques stacking small baseline subset algorithm permanent scatterers etc only include information from pixels which are coherent throughout the time span of the study in some areas such as alaska where the deformation rate is small and coherence very variable it is necessary to include information from pixels which are coherent in some but not all interferograms we use a three stage iterative algorithm based on distributed scatterer interferometry we validate our method using synthetic data created using realistic parameters from a test site on the denali fault alaska and present a preliminary result of 10 5 5 0 mm yr 1 for the slip rate on the denali fault based on a single track of radar data from ers1 2

layered anisotropy within the crust and lithospheric mantle beneath the sea of japan abstract continental rifting during the oligocene to mid miocene caused the opening of the sea of japan and the separation between the japanese islands and the eurasian plate the tectonic evolution in the sea of japan is important for understanding the evolution of back arc regions in active convergent margins here we use data from the seismic stations surrounding the sea of japan to map the rayleigh wave azimuthal anisotropy in the crust and lithospheric mantle beneath the sea of japan we explore the variations of rayleigh wave phase velocity beneath the sea of japan in a broad period range 30 80 s rayleigh wave dispersion curves are measured by the two station technique for a total of 231 interstation paths using vertical component broad band waveforms at 22 seismic stations around the sea of japan from 1411 global earthquakes the resulting maps of rayleigh wave phase velocity and azimuthal anisotropy allow the examination of azimuthal anisotropy at specific periods they exhibit several regions with different isotropic and anisotropic patterns the japan basin displays fast velocities at shorter periods 30 and 40 s with nne ssw anisotropy whereas at 60 s and longer the velocities become slow even if the anisotropy remains ne sw the east china sea shows fast velocities at all periods 30 80 s with constant nw se anisotropy trench normal anisotropy beneath the japanese islands is found at short periods 30 40 s and become trench parallel at periods of 60 s and longer overall our model resolves two layers of anisotropy the shallowest and deepest layers being potentially related to frozen deformation due to recent geodynamic events and asthenospheric flow respectively

recent unrest of changbaishan volcano northeast china a precursor of a future eruption 1 over 12 years of continuous monitoring of changbaishan volcano in the border region of china and north korea by means of volcanic seismicity ground deformation and volcanic gas geochemistry yields new evidence for magmatic unrest of the volcano between 2002 and 2006 in this so called active period the frequency of volcanic earthquakes increased by about 2 orders of magnitude compared to that of the background inactive periods the active period was also accompanied by ground inflation high values of co2 he h2 and high ratios of n2 o2 and 3he 4he in volcanic gases released from three hot springs near the caldera rim the monitoring evidence implies pressurization of the magma chamber possibly caused by incremental magma recharge the ground deformation data from both gps and precise leveling are modeled to suggest the corresponding deformation source is at 2 60 km depth beneath the volcano s summit where earthquake swarms were detected in 2002 and 2003 our findings suggest that the magma chamber beneath changbaishan volcano has awakened and resumed activity after remaining dormant since ad 1903 there is an urgent need to keep close watch on this active and very hazardous volcano in northeast china

ground surface deformation patterns magma supply and magma storage at okmok volcano alaska from insar analysis 1 intereruption deformation 1997 2008 eruption magma storage had increased by 3 7 5 2 1 0 7 m 3 or 85 100 of the 1997 eruption volume we propose that the supply rate decreased in response to the diminishing pressure gradient between the shallow storage zone and a deeper magma source region eventuallytheeffectsofcontinuingmagmasupplyandvesiculationofstoredmagmacaused acriticalpressurethresholdtobeexceeded triggeringthe2008eruption asimilarpatternof initially rapid inflation followed by oscillatory but generally slowing inflation was observed prior to the 1997 eruption in both cases withdrawal of magma during the eruptions depressurized the shallow storage zone causing significant volcano wide subsidence and initiating a new intereruption deformation cycle

seismic anisotropy in the shallow crust of the loma prieta segment of the san andreas fault system we study seismic anisotropy beneath the santa cruz mountains using digital recordings of s waves from 60 aftershocks of the 1989 loma prieta earthquake m 7 0 recorded at 18 local stations three component particle motion covariance matrix decomposition combined with a cross correlation method is used to estimate the polarization direction of the fast shear wave arrival and the delay time between the split shear waves results from this procedure are compared with those obtained through visual inspection of horizontal particle motions inclusion of the vertical component in the particle motion analysis allows the recognition and elimination of s to p converted phases from our study uncertainties in the polarization of the fast shear wave and in the delay time between arrival of the fast and slow waves are estimated to be about 20 and 10 ms respectively about half of the s wave records examined show clear evidence of shear wave splitting two persistent polarization directions of fast shear wave arrivals are observed regardless of the focal mechanism and hypocenter location of the individual events 52 of the polarizations are parallel to the strike of the san andreas fault nw se and 24 are parallel to the probable direction of local maximum horizontal compressive stress ne sw the fault parallel fast polarization direction dominates at 10 stations and may result from mineral or fracture alignment caused by shearing along the plate boundary the fast polarization direction perpendicular to the local axes of minimum horizontal compressive stress dominates at one station farthest from the san andreas fault and is consistent with the hypothesis of extensive dilatancy anisotropy eda where parallel alignment of fluid filled fractures produces the anisotropy the predominance of fault parallel fast shear wave polarizations indicates that the use of shear wave splitting results to deduce the orientation of local axes of principal stress may not always yield accurate results the splitting time between fast and slow shear waves varies from 10 to 125 ms and shows no systematic relationship with either hypocentral distance or focal depth this suggests that the seismic anisotropy is no deeper than 2 km the depth of the shallowest earthquakes analyzed for an anisotropic zone 2 km thick the average velocity anisotropy is about 5 in our study region

satellite interferometric observations of displacements associated with seasonal groundwater in the los angeles basin 1 the newport inglewood fault zone nifz displays interferometric synthetic aperture radar sar phase features along most of its length having amplitudes of up to 60 mm however interpretation in terms of right lateral shallow slip along the fault fails to match the range of geologic estimates of slip recently bawden et al 2001 proposed that these phase features as well as a broader deformation pattern in the los angeles basin are due to vertical motion related to annual variations in the elevation of the water table we confirm this hypothesis through the analysis of a longer span of data consisting of 26 sar images collected by the ers 1 and ers 2 spacecraft between june 1992 and june 2000 moreover we use continuous gps measurements from 1995 to the present to establish the amplitude and phase of the vertical deformation the los angeles basin becomes most inflated one quarter of the way through the year which is consistent with water table measurements as well as with the end of the rainy season when the aquifer should be at a maximum the spatial pattern of the amplitude of the annual signal derived from continuous gps measurements is consistent with the shape of the interferometric fringes gps sites both near the nifz and in a 20 by 40 km zone within the basin also show significant n s annual variations that may be related to the differential expansion across the fault since these horizontal signals have peak to trough amplitudes of 6 mm they mask the smaller tectonic signals and need to be taken into account when interpreting gps time series of site position moreover since the groundwater signal appears to have a long term vertical trend which varies in sign depending on location it will be difficult to distinguish interseismic tectonic slip along the nifz and within the affected areas in the basin

satellite radar interferometry time series analysis of surface deformation for los angeles california 1 the los angeles california metropolitan area is a tectonically active region with surface deformation that is a combination of fault related tectonics plus a variety of natural and anthropogenic signals we apply the small baseline subset sbas algorithm to produce an interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar time series analysis for the los angeles area using data acquired by the ers satellites from late 1995 into 2002 the result is a space time deformation product that can be exploited to view not only the smoothly varying long term surface motion but also its time varying patterns large seasonal oscillations of the santa ana aquifer observed in southern california integrated gps network scign data are accurately matched in the insar time series moreover correlations of the insar time series with an annual sinusoid allows us to investigate the dynamics of the hydrologic system index terms 1243 geodesy and gravity space geodetic surveys 1294 geodesy and gravity instruments and techniques 1803 hydrology anthropogenic effects citation lanari r p lundgren m manzo and f casu 2004 satellite radar interferometry time series analysis of surface deformation for los angeles california geophys res lett 31 l23613 doi 10 1029 2004gl021294

measurement of interseismic strain accumulation across the north anatolian fault by satellite radar interferometry in recent years interseismic crustal velocities and strains have been determined for a number of tectonically active areas through repeated measurements using the global positioning system the terrain in such areas is often remote and difficult and the density of gps measurements relatively sparse in principle satellite radar interferometry can be used to make millimetric precision measurements of surface displacement over large surface areas in practice the small crustal deformation signal is dominated over short time intervals by errors due to atmospheric topographic and orbital effects here we show that these effects can be overcome by stacking multiple interferograms after screening for atmospheric anomalies effectively creating a new interferogram that covers a longer time interval in this way we have isolated a 70 km wide region of crustal deformation across the eastern end of the north anatolian fault turkey the distribution of deformation is consistent with slip of 17 32 mm yr below 5 33 km on the extension of the surface fault at depth if the gps determined slip rate of 24 1 mm yr is accepted the locking depth is constrained to 18 6 km

atmospheric effect correction for insar with wavelet decomposition based correlation analysis between multipolarization interferograms this paper presents a wavelet decomposition based correlation analysis wdca method to correct atmospheric effects for interferometric synthetic aperture radar interferometry the main idea is based on the a priori knowledge that the atmospheric effects are independent of the polarizations this provides the possibility to find the identical atmospheric phases atps from the two different polarimetric interferograms to achieve this goal differential interferometry is performed with different topographic data so that the obtained differential interferograms d infs have different topographic errors a polynomial incorporating topographic information is then used to remove the orbit error phase thus the atps are the only identical components in the obtained d infs a forward wavelet transform is then utilized to perform multiresolution analysis for the two obtained d infs after this we apply correlation analysis to identify the wavelet coefficients attributed to the atmospheric effects the corrected d infs are then obtained by down weighting the wavelet coefficients during inverse wavelet transform the performance of the wdca method was tested with l band alos 1 palsar dual polarization sar images acquired over southern california and qilian mountain test sites characterized by different topographic conditions for the southern california test site two interferometric pairs with long and short baselines 750 and 50 m were formulated the results show that the wdca method can work well for both of the interferometric pairs and the root mean square errors rmses of the obtained dems with respect to the shuttle radar topography mission digital elevation model dem are 7 86 and 13 78 m and show a decrease of 34 7 and 80 4 for the long and short baseline cases respectively for the qilian mountain test site the corrected interferogram can provide a dem with an rmse of 19 73 m which is an improvement of 22 3 with respect to the dem containing the atmospheric signals in addition the above two experiments show that compared with the existing topographic information based wavelet method this approach can remove not only the topography dependent atp but also the turbulent atp

lithospheric structure beneath the east china sea revealed by rayleigh wave phase velocities abstract we explore the variations of rayleigh wave phase velocity beneath the east china sea in a broad period range 5 200 s rayleigh wave dispersion curves are measured by the two station technique for a total of 373 interstation paths using vertical component broad band waveforms at 32 seismic stations around the east china sea from 6891 global earthquakes the resulting maps of rayleigh wave phase velocity and azimuthal anisotropy provide a high resolution model of the lithospheric mantle beneath the east china sea the model exhibits four regions with different isotropic and anisotropic patterns the bohai sea belonging to the north china craton displays a continental signature with fast velocities at short periods the yellow sea very stable unit associated with low deformation exhibits fast velocities and limited anisotropy the southern part of the east china sea with high deformation and many fractures and faults is related to slow velocities and high anisotropic signature and the ryukyu trench shows high velocity perturbations and slab parallel anisotropy

changbaishan volcanism in northeast china linked to subduction induced mantle upwelling the changbaishan volcanic complex in china cannot be easily explained as the consequence of a mantle plume seismic images from the region identify buoyant mantle material that may have been entrained and dragged downwards by the subducting pacific plate but is now escaping upwards through a gap in the plate and producing the intraplate volcanism

one dimensional models of shear wave velocity for the eastern mediterranean obtained from the inversion of rayleigh wave phase velocities and tectonic implications summary on a sw ne profile from the libyan coast towards central turkey phase velocity curves of the fundamental rayleigh mode were measured using a two station method the inversion of phase velocity curves yields 1 d models of shear wave velocity down to approximately 200 km depths that may be interpreted as estimates of average models between neighbouring stations on the profile strong lateral variations in the shear wave velocity structure are imaged along the profile the subducted oceanic african mantle lithosphere is indicated in 1 d models for the region around crete by significantly enlarged shear wave velocities it is also imaged by an average model of the structure between stations on crete and santorini on a path crossing the libyan sea south of crete the resulting model is slower than a model expected for 110 myr old oceanic lithosphere the passive african margin is thus assumed to extend northwards beneath the libyan sea anomalous low shear wave velocities are found for the uppermost mantle beneath central turkey down to a depth of approximately 130 km using two stations on crete the average depth of the oceanic moho within the subducting slab is estimated to be at approximately 50 km beneath crete for this arc parallel path an enlarged standard deviation of the measured phase velocities of approximately 0 2 km s 1 between 10 and 30 mhz is observed that is probably caused by strong lateral heterogeneity related to the subducting slab in addition in this frequency range an anomalous propagation of the fundamental rayleigh mode is detected that is indicated by measured phase velocities that are approximately one standard deviation faster than phase velocities expected from a great circle approximation an average shear wave velocity of approximately 3 5 km s 1 is observed above the oceanic moho in order to explain the recent lithospheric structure of the hellenic subduction zone a tectonic model is assumed for the ne sw striking profile considered it is based on the calculated 1 d models tectonic reconstructions and on a model derived from the metamorphic history of rocks exposed on crete the suggested model summarizes the tectonic development at a lithospheric scale starting in the late cretaceous accretion of crustal material of two microcontinents to eurasia is assumed while continuous subduction of the oceanic lithosphere of different ocean basins and possibly of the mantle lithosphere of the microcontinents resulted in a single slab the length of the oceanic lithosphere that was subducted south of crete is estimated to be not greater than approximately 550 km

the seismic response of the los angeles basin california using strong motion data recorded in the los angeles region from the 1992 mw 7 3 landers earthquake we have tested the accuracy of existing three dimensional 3d velocity models on the simulation of long period 2 sec ground motions in the los angeles basin and surrounding san fernando and san gabriel valleys first the overall pattern and degree of long period excitation of the basins were identified in the observations within the los angeles basin the recorded amplitudes are about three to four times larger than at sites outside the basins amplitudes within the san fernando and san gabriel valleys are nearly a factor of 3 greater than surrounding bedrock sites then using a 3d finite difference numerical modeling approach we analyzed how variations in 3d earth structure affect simulated waveforms amplitudes and the fit to the observed patterns of amplification significant differences exist in the 3d velocity models of southern california that we tested magistrale et al 1996 graves 1996a hauksson and haase 1997 major differences in the models include the velocity of the assumed background models the depth of the los angeles basin and the depth location and geometry of smaller basins the largest disparities in the response of the models are seen for the san fernando valley and the deepest portion of the los angeles basin these arise in large part from variations in the structure of the basins particularly the effective depth extent which is mainly due to alternative assumptions about the nature of the basin sediment fill the general ground motion characteristics are matched by the 3d model simulations validating the use of 3d modeling with geologically based velocity structure models however significant shortcomings exist in the overall patterns of amplification and the duration of the long period response the successes and limitations of the models for reproducing the recorded ground motions as discussed provide the basis and direction for necessary improvements to earth structure models whether geologically or tomographically derived the differences in the response of the earth models tested also translate to variable success in the ability to successfully model the data and add uncertainty to estimates of the basin response given input scenario earthquake source models

mapping surface deformation and thermal dilation of arch bridges by structure driven multi temporal dinsar analysis abstract arch bridges are important transportation infrastructures widely distributed in china but they are prone to structural defects due to aging without routine inspection and maintenance therefore structural health monitoring shm of these bridges is urgently needed by civil engineers to effectively reduce the risk of bridge damage or collapse on public safety an essential method for shm the modern differential synthetic aperture radar interferometry dinsar technique can detect subtle deformation of bridges at relatively low costs nevertheless identifying dense point like targets pts on such partially coherent arch bridges in sar image is more difficult than that for other man made objects owing to their complex structures and backscattering behaviors furthermore the complex mechanical properties of arch bridges due to the varying arch beam interactions make it hard to separate the surface deformation and thermal dilation accurately and the lack of specific structural knowledge that can help to understand the deformation evolution process limits the global structural risk assessment aiming at these problems we developed a structure driven multi temporal dinsar approach for arch bridge specific shm by introducing three structure driven steps i e backscattering geometrical interpretation linear thermal dilation estimation and validation and deformation feature points dfps based risk assessment into the traditional dinsar method the reliability of pts identification thermal dilation separation and structural risk assessment for arch bridges are significantly improved the effectiveness of our approach was fairly presented by two case studies of the rainbow and lupu bridges and the experimental results were verified by leveling benchmark validation cross sensor comparison as well as structural reliability assessment our results revealed that arch bridges exhibit a similar pattern of pts distribution that is dense around piers and sparse on the spans as well as a symmetrical progressive pattern of surface deformation with the subsidence increasing from piers and reaching a peak at the central spans in contrast magnitudes and mechanisms of thermal dilation are different and highly dependent on the materials and structural characteristics of specific bridges

on the dynamics of the kofels sturzstrom geomorphologic data from the kofels landslide in the otz valley are compared with the results of computer modelling the study discusses the dynamic information that can be extracted from the data and argues that a standard coulomb friction model cannot adequately explain the observed features

crust and uppermost mantle beneath the north china craton northeastern china and the sea of japan from ambient noise tomography 1 a 3 d shear velocity model of the crust and uppermost mantle to a depth of 100 km is presented beneath the north china craton ncc northeastern china the korean peninsula and the sea of japan ambient noise rayleigh wave tomography is applied to data from more than 300 broadband seismic stations from chinese provincial networks cearray the japanese f net and the iris global seismic network continuous data from 2007 to 2009 are used to produce group and phase velocity maps from 8 s to 45 s periods the model is motivated to constrain the distributed intraplate volcanism crustal extension cratonic rejuvenation and lithospheric thinning that are hypothesized for the study region numerous robust features are observed that impose new constraints on the geometry of these processes but discussion concentrates only on four 1 the north south gravity lineament follows the 40 km contour in crustal thickness and crustal thickness is anticorrelated with water depth beneath the sea of japan consistent with crustal isostasy for a crust with laterally variable composition 2 the lithosphere is thin 70 km beneath the songliao bohai graben but seismically fast 3 even thinner more attenuated lithosphere bounds three sides of the eastern ncc in a horseshoe shape identifying a region of particularly intense tectonothermal modification where lithospheric rejuvenation may have reached nearly to the base of the crust 4 low velocity anomalies reach upward in a y shape in the mantle beneath the eastern and western borders of the sea of japan extending well into continental east asia in the west and are separated by a 60 km thick lithosphere beneath the central sea of japan this anomaly may reflect relatively shallow slab dehydration in the east and in the west may reflect deeper dehydration and convective circulation in the mantle wedge overlying the stagnant slab

the 1987 whittier narrows earthquake sequence in los angeles southern california seismological and tectonic analysis the october 1 1987 whittier narrows earthquake m l 5 9 was located at 34 2 96 n 118 4 86 w at a depth of 14 6 0 5 km in the northeastern los angeles basin the focal mechanism of the mainshock derived from first motion polarities shows pure thrust motion on west striking nodal planes with dips of 25 5 and 65 5 respectively the aftershocks define an approximately circular surface that dips gently to the north centered at the hypocenter of the mainshock with a diameter of 4 6 km hence the spatial distribution of the mainshock and aftershocks as well as the focal mechanisms of the mainshock indicate that the causative fault was a 25 north dipping thrust fault striking west and is confined to depths from 10 to 16 km although most of the 59 aftershock focal mechanisms presented here document a complex sequence of faulting they are consistent with deformation of the hanging wall caused by the thrust faulting observed in the mainshock a cluster of reverse faulting events on north striking planes occurred within hours after the mainshock 2 km to the west of the mainshock the largest aftershock m l 5 3 occurred on october 4 and showed mostly right lateral faulting on the same north northwest striking plane within the hanging wall similarly several left lateral focal mechanisms are observed near the eastern edge of the mainshock rupture the earthquake and calibration blast arrival time data were inverted to obtain two refined crustal velocity models and a set of station delays when relocating the blast using the new models and delays the absolute hypocentral location bias is less than 0 5 km the mainshock was followed by nearly 500 locatable aftershocks which is a small number of aftershocks for this magnitude mainshock the decay rate of aftershock occurrences with time was fast while the b value was low 0 67 0 05 for a los angeles basin sequence

a cross section of the los angeles area seismically active fold and thrust belt the 1987 whittier narrows earthquake and earthquake hazard retrodeformable cross sections across the los angeles area interpret the pliocene to quaternary deformation to be a developing basement involved fold and thrust belt the fold and thrust belt is seismically active as evidenced by the 1987 whittier narrows earthquake ml 5 9 and the 1971 san fernando earthquake mw 6 6 the structural geology of the los angeles area is dominated by three major compressional uplift trends 1 the palos verdes anticlinorium and western shelf 2 the santa monica mountains anticlinorium and 3 the verdugo mountains san rafael hills and the san gabriel mountains these trends result from major thrust ramps off a detachment s at 10 15 km depth thrusts of the verdugo mountains san rafael hills and the san gabriel mountains reach the surface the other two uplifts are associated with blind thrusts compressional seismicity is concentrated along these thrust ramps the 1987 whittier narrows earthquake probably occurred on the elysian park thrust which underlies the santa monica mountains anticlinorium the thrust interpretation accounts for the geometry of the anticlinorium the seismological characteristics of the earthquake and the geometry of coseismic uplift the earthquake and aftershocks occurred within a structurally complex narrow zone of miocene and pliocene northwest trending faults that cross the anticlinorium at a high angle these northwest trending faults are interpreted to be reactivated faults now behaving as tears in the elysian park thrust and not the result of active right lateral deformation extending into the whittier narrows area our analysis suggests the whittier narrows earthquake sequence occurred within a structurally weakened zone along the elysian park thrust we also suggest that the whittier fault is not an important quaternary structure and may not be seismogenic the regional cross section is a nonunique solution and other possible solutions are considered multiple solutions arise from the presence of two intersecting compressional belts in the los angeles area the transverse ranges and the northern peninsular ranges the belts may be due to one or more regional detachments and the northern peninsular ranges may be northeast or southwest vergent the deformed top of the crystalline basement along the regional cross section requires a minimum of 15 0 km of north south convergence between the palos verdes hills and the san andreas fault regardless of the structural solution restoration of our cross section solution requires 21 4 km of north south convergence on top of the crystalline basement including 6 4 km of slip continuing offshore to make structures of the continental borderland and 29 7 km of convergence on the basal detachment geologic relationships suggest major shortening started between early and late pliocene time 2 2 4 0 ma which yields a minimum convergence rate of 3 8 6 8 mm yr between the palos verdes hills and the san andreas fault convergence rates for our solution range from 5 4 to 13 5 mm yr between the edge of the continental borderland and the san andreas fault slip rate estimates for the elysian park thrust along the eastern portion of the santa monica mountains anticlinorium are 2 5 5 2 mm yr if the 1987 whittier narrows earthquake is the characteristic earthquake along the 170 km long anticlinorium then recurrence intervals are estimated to be 5 6 12 1 years this recurrence is higher than the historic seismic record along the santa monica mountains anticlinorium and suggests that 1 our slip rates are too high 2 some crustal shortening is taken up aseismically and or 3 earthquakes larger than the 1987 whittier narrows earthquake will occur along the anticlinorium but less frequently

earthquake hazards of active blind thrust faults under the central los angeles basin california we document several blind thrust faults under the los angeles basin that if active and seismogenic are capable of generating large earthquakes m 6 3 to 7 3 pliocene to quaternary growth folds imaged in seismic reflection profiles record the existence size and slip rates of these blind faults the growth structures have shapes characteristic of fault bend folds above blind thrusts as demonstrated by balanced kinematic models geologic cross sections and axial surface maps we interpret the compton los alamitos trend as a growth fold above the compton ramp which extends along strike from west los angeles to at least the santa ana river the compton thrust is part of a larger fault system including a decollement and ramps beneath the elysian park and palos verdes trends the cienegas and coyote hills growth folds overlie additional blind thrusts in the elysian park trend that are not closely linked to the compton ramp analysis of folded pliocene to quaternary strata yields slip rates of 1 4 0 4 mm yr on the compton thrust and 1 7 0 4 mm yr on a ramp beneath the elysian park trend assuming that slip is released in large earthquakes we estimate magnitudes of 6 3 to 6 8 for earthquakes on individual ramp segments based on geometric segment sizes derived from axial surface maps multiple segment ruptures could yield larger earthquakes m 6 9 to 7 3 relations among magnitude coseismic displacement and slip rate yield an average recurrence interval of 380 years for single segment earthquakes and a range of 400 to 1300 years for multiple segment events if these newly documented blind thrust faults are active they will contribute substantially to the seismic hazards in los angeles because of their locations directly beneath the metropolitan area

seismic anisotropy of the pacific slab and mantle wedge beneath the japanese islands 1 the mantle beneath the japanese islands is complex because of subduction of the pacific and philippine sea plates and the deformation associated with it detection of seismic anisotropy should be useful for understanding the processes occurring in such mantle here we resolve seismic anisotropy of the mantle wedge from that of the underlying subducted pacific slab using a large number of measurements of shear wave splitting for a family of core reflected shear phases scs sscs scs2 and sscs2 the anisotropy of the mantle wedge changes sharply across the volcanic front on the pacific side of the volcanic front a vertically propagating shear wave is polarized with the fast direction approximately parallel to the trench whereas on the back arc side it is polarized with the fast direction approximately parallel to the plate convergence direction the pacific slab is uniformly anisotropic with the nnw fast direction consistent with the paleospreading direction of the northwestern pacific seafloor the preferential alignment of anisotropic crystals frozen in the plate at the time of its formation appears to be preserved down to depths beyond 400 km within the slab

the role of the east asian active margin in widespread extensional and strike slip deformation in east asia east asia is a region of widespread deformation dominated by normal and strike slip faults deformation has been interpreted to result from extrusion tectonics related to the india eurasia collision which started in the early eocene in east and se china however deformation started earlier than the collision latest cretaceous to palaeocene suggesting that extrusion tectonics is not the only driving mechanism for east asia deformation it is suggested that the east asian active margin has influenced deformation in east asia significantly along the margin cenozoic back arc extension took place behind several adjoining arcs implying eastward rollback of the subducting slab and collapse of the overriding plate towards the retreating hinge line we show that extension took place along a c 7400 km long stretch of the east asian margin during most of the cenozoic physical models are presented simulating overriding plate collapse and back arc extension the models reproduce important aspects of the strain field in east asia for geometrical and rheological conditions scaled to represent east asia modelling shows that the active margin can be held responsible for deformation in east asia as far west as the baikal rift zone located c 3300 km from the margin

global upper mantle tomography with the automated multimode inversion of surface and s wave forms summary we apply the automated multimode inversion of surface and s wave forms to a large global data set verify the accuracy of the method and assumptions behind it and compute an s vvelocity model of the upper mantle crust 660 km the model is constrained with 51 000 seismograms recorded at 368 permanent and temporary broadband seismic stations structure of the mantle and crust is constrained by waveform information both from the fundamentalmode rayleigh waves periods from 20 to 400 s and from s and multiple s waves higher modes in order to enhance the validity of the path average approximation we implement the automated inversion of surface and s wave forms with a three dimensional 3 d reference model linear equations obtained from the processing of all the seismograms of the data set are inverted for seismic velocity variations also relative to a 3 d reference in this study composed of a 3 d model of the crust and a one dimensional 1 d global average depth profile in the mantle below waveform information is related to shear and compressional velocity structure within approximate waveform sensitivity areas we use two global triangular grids of knots with approximately equal interknot spacing within each a finely spaced grid for integration over sensitivity areas and a rougher spaced one for the model parametrization for the tomographic inversion we use lsqr with horizontal and vertical smoothing and norm damping we invert for isotropic variations in s and p wave velocities but also allow for s wave azimuthal anisotropy in order to minimize errors due to possible mapping of anisotropy into isotropic heterogeneity the lateral resolution of the resulting isotropic upper mantle images is a few hundred kilometres varying with data sampling we validate the imaging technique with a spectral element resolution test inverting a published global synthetic data set computed with the spectral element method using a laterally heterogeneous mantle model we are able to reconstruct the synthetic model accurately this test confirms both the accuracy of the implementation of the method and the validity of the jwkb and path average approximations as applied in it reviewing the tomographic model we observe that low s v velocity anomalies beneath mid ocean ridges and backarc basins extend down to 100 km depth only shallower than according to some previous tomographic models this presents a close match to published estimates of primary melt production depth ranges there in the seismic lithosphere beneath cratons unambiguous high velocity anomalies extend to 200 km pronounced low velocity zones beneath cratonic lithosphere are rare where present south america tanzania they are neighboured by volcanic areas near cratonic boundaries the images of these low velocity zones may indicate hot material possibly of mantle plume origin trapped or spreading beneath the thick cratonic lithosphere

p wave tomography and origin of the changbai intraplate volcano in northeast asia abstract we present the first seismic image of the upper mantle beneath the active intraplate changbai volcano in northeast asia determined by teleseismic travel time tomography the data are measured at a new seismic network consisting of 19 portable stations and 3 permanent stations our results show a columnar low velocity anomaly extending to 400 km depth with a p wave velocity reduction of up to 3 high velocity anomalies are visible in the mantle transition zone and deep focus earthquakes occur at depths of 500 600 km under the region suggesting that the subducting pacific slab is stagnant in the transition zone as imaged clearly by global tomography these results suggest that the intraplate changbai volcano is not a hotspot like hawaii but a kind of back arc volcano related to the deep subduction and stagnancy of the pacific slab under northeast asia

slab2 a comprehensive subduction zone geometry model subduction zones are home to the most seismically active faults on the planet the shallow megathrust interfaces of subduction zones host earth s largest earthquakes and are likely the only faults capable of magnitude 9 ruptures despite these facts our knowledge of subduction zone geometry which likely plays a key role in determining the spatial extent and ultimately the size of subduction zone earthquakes is incomplete we calculated the three dimensional geometries of all seismically active global subduction zones the resulting model called slab2 provides a uniform geometrical analysis of all currently subducting slabs