observing earthquakes triggered in the near field by dynamic deformations we examine the hypothesis that dynamic deformations associated with seismic waves trigger earthquakes in many tectonic environments our analysis focuses on seismicity at close range within the aftershock zone complementing published studies of long range triggering our results suggest that dynamic triggering is not confined to remote distances or to geothermal and volcanic regions long unilaterally propagating ruptures may focus radiated dynamic deformations in the propagation direction therefore we expect seismicity triggered dynamically by a directive rupture to occur asymmetrically with a majority of triggered earthquakes in the direction of rupture propagation bilaterally propagating ruptures also may be directive and we propose simple criteria for assessing their directivity we compare the inferred rupture direction and observed seismicity rate change following 15 earthquakes m 5 7 to m 8 1 that occurred in california and idaho in the united states the gulf of aqaba syria guatemala china new guinea turkey japan mexico and antarctica nine of these mainshocks had clearly directive unilateral ruptures of these nine seven apparently induced an asymmetric increase in seismicity rate that correlates with the rupture direction the two exceptions include an earthquake preceded by a comparable magnitude event on a conjugate fault and another for which data limitations prohibited conclusive results similar but weaker correlations were found for the bilaterally rupturing earthquakes we studied although the static stress change also may trigger seismicity it and the seismicity it triggers are expected to be similarly asymmetric only if the final slip is skewed toward the rupture terminus for several of the directive earthquakes we suggest that the seismicity rate change correlates better with the dynamic stress field than the static stress change manuscript received 1 march 2002

applying the coulomb failure function with an optimally oriented plane to the 2008 mw 7 9 wenchuan earthquake triggering the coulomb failure function cff quantitatively describes static stress changes in secondary faults near the source fault of an earthquake cff can be employed to monitor how static stress transfers and then shed some light on the probability of successive events occurring around a source fault in this paper we focus on the cff and particularly on optimally oriented planes we present a unified model to determine an optimally oriented plane and its corresponding coulomb stress then apply the model to the 2003 mw 6 6 bam iran earthquake and the 2008 mw 7 9 wenchuan china earthquake thereby checking its effectiveness our results show that spatial correlation between positive coulomb stress changes and aftershocks are for the 2003 bam earthquake 47 06 when elastic coulomb stress changes are resolved on uniform planes and 87 53 when these are resolved on optimally oriented planes at depth for the 2008 wenchuan earthquake the correlations are 45 68 and 58 20 respectively it is recommended that account be taken of optimally oriented planes when drawing a coulomb stress map for analyzing earthquake triggering effects

present day crustal motion along the longitudinal valley fault eastern taiwan abstract the nne striking longitudinal valley fault lvf in eastern taiwan is an extremely active high angle thrust fault it bounds the coastal range and the longitudinal valley which is considered a collision boundary between the philippine sea and the eurasian plates repeated gps data in the longitudinal valley area from 1992 to 1999 are utilized to study the spatial variation of crustal motion along the lvf with respect to penghu in the chinese continental margin velocities for stations on the western side of the lvf longitudinal valley and eastern central range are 18 35 mm yr in directions 283 311 whereas those on the eastern side of the lvf the coastal range are 28 68 mm yr in directions 303 324 a major discontinuity of about 30 mm yr on the rate of crustal motion across the longitudinal valley is attributed to the aseismic slip along the lvf as revealed by trilateration data previously to the south of fengping the block motions of the coastal range are 31 40 mm yr in 317 330 relative to the central range while the near fault motions are 13 33 mm yr in 309 336 various partitions on the left lateral strike slip and convergent components along the lvf are found in the southern longitudinal valley crustal motion is mainly accommodated on the lvf and the luyeh fault in contrast those in the central and northern longitudinal valley are partly taken up on the faults to the east of the lvf or result in the elastic deformation of the coastal range the crustal motion in the northern longitudinal valley area is likely to be distributed in the several ne striking thrusts in a horsetail pattern and obliquely cut the northern coastal range with a small portion of fault slips along the lvf data from dense deployed gps networks across the lvf can be employed to give better estimates of near fault motions and delineate the surface traces of the lvf repeated gps and leveling data from two stations on both ends of the yuli bridge that are 575 m apart clearly indicate that the surface trace of the lvf passes beneath the bridge with oblique horizontal motion of 23 mm yr in 306 and uplift rate of 24 mm yr

study of the snow melt freeze cycle using multi sensor data and snow modelling the melt cycle of snow is investigated by combining ground based microwave radiometric measurements with conventional and meteorological data and by using a hydrological snow model measurements at 2000 m a s l in the basin of the cor devole river in the eastern italian alps confirm the high sensitivity of microwave emission at 19 and 37 ghz to the snow melt freeze cycle while the brightness at 6 8 ghz is mostly related to underlying soil simulations of snowpack changes performed by means of hydrological and electromagnetic models driven with meteorological and snow data provide additional insight into these processes and contribute to the interpretation of the experimental data

subantarctic mode water formation destruction and export in the eddy permitting southern ocean state estimate subantarctic mode water samw is examined using the data assimilating eddy permitting southern ocean state estimate for 2005 and 2006 surface formation due to air sea buoyancy flux is estimated using walin analysis and diapycnal mixing is diagnosed as the difference between surface formation and transport across 30 s accounting for volume change with time water in the density range 26 5 27 1 kg m 3 that includes samw is exported northward in all three ocean sectors with a net transport of 18 2 17 1 sv 1 sv 106 m3 s 1 for years 2005 2006 air sea buoyancy fluxes form 13 2 6 8 sv diapycnal mixing removes 14 5 12 6 sv and there is a volume loss of 19 3 22 9 sv mostly occurring in the strongest samw formation locations the most vigorous samw formation is in the indian ocean by air sea buoyancy flux 9 4 10 9 sv where it is partially destroyed by diapycnal mixing 6 6 3 1 sv there is strong export to the pacific where samw is destroyed both by air sea buoyancy flux 1 1 4 6 sv and diapycnal mixing 5 6 8 4 sv in the south atlantic samw is formed by air sea buoyancy flux 5 0 0 5 sv and is destroyed by diapycnal mixing 2 3 1 1 sv peaks in air sea flux formation occur at the southeast indian and southeast pacific samws seisamws sepsamws densities formation over the broad samw circumpolar outcrop windows is largely from denser water driven by differential freshwater gain augmented or decreased by heating or cooling in the seisamw and sepsamw source regions however formation is from lighter water driven by differential heat loss

implications of fault constitutive properties for earthquake prediction the rate and state dependent constitutive formulation for fault slip characterizes an exceptional variety of materials over a wide range of sliding conditions this formulation provides a unified representation of diverse sliding phenomena including slip weakening over a characteristic sliding distance dc apparent fracture energy at a rupture front time dependent healing after rapid slip and various other transient and slip rate effects laboratory observations and theoretical models both indicate that earthquake nucleation is accompanied by long intervals of accelerating slip strains from the nucleation process on buried faults generally could not be detected if laboratory values of dc apply to faults in nature however scaling of dc is presently an open question and the possibility exists that measurable premonitory creep may precede some earthquakes earthquake activity is modeled as a sequence of earthquake nucleation events in this model earthquake clustering arises from sensitivity of nucleation times to the stress changes induced by prior earthquakes the model gives the characteristic omori aftershock decay law and assigns physical interpretation to aftershock parameters the seismicity formulation predicts large changes of earthquake probabilities result from stress changes two mechanisms for foreshocks are proposed that describe observed frequency of occurrence of foreshock mainshock pairs by time and magnitude with the first mechanism foreshocks represent a manifestation of earthquake clustering in which the stress change at the time of the foreshock increases the probability of earthquakes at all magnitudes including the eventual mainshock with the second model accelerating fault slip on the mainshock nucleation zone triggers foreshocks

re evaluation of the surface ruptures of the november 1951 earthquake series in eastern taiwan and its neotectonic implications the earthquakes of november 1951 constitute the most destructive seismic episode in the recorded history of the longitudinal valley eastern taiwan however information about their source parameters is sparse to understand the relationship between the 1951 ruptures and new interpretations of the regional neotectonic architecture of the longitudinal valley we re evaluated the november 1951 ruptures by analyzing old documents reports and photographs and by interviewing local residents who experienced the earthquake as a result we have revised significantly the rupture map previously published we divide the surface ruptures from south to north into the chihshang yuli and rueisuei sections the first shock of the 1951 series probably resulted from the chihshang rupture and the second shock probably resulted from the yuli and rueisuei ruptures the lengths of these ruptures indicate that the two shocks had similar magnitudes the chihshang and rueisuei ruptures are along segments of the longitudinal valley fault a left lateral oblique fault along which the coastal range thrusts westward over the longitudinal valley the yuli rupture on the other hand appears to be part of a separate left lateral strike slip yuli fault which traverses the middle of the longitudinal valley the complex behavior of these structures and interaction between them are important in understanding the future seismic hazard of the area

static stress transfer and earthquake triggering no lower threshold in sight the main objective of this study is to see if a lower threshold for earthquake triggering exists resolving this issue is important for the understanding of earthquake mechanics and for the purpose of hazard analysis we compute the cumulative static stress changes imposed on 63 m 4 5 earthquakes in central california between 1969 and 1998 by adding the stress changes imposed by all previous m 4 5 earthquakes as a function of time prior to the events we find that 85 of the cumulative stress changes at the time of rupture are positive for stress change magnitudes of 10 kpa 0 1 bar and 70 are positive for stress changes of 10 kpa 0 1 bar as well as 1 kpa 0 01 bar a comparison between these results and those obtained for synthetic catalogs in which the timing or focal mechanisms of the earthquakes were randomized shows that this degree of triggering is very unlikely to be found in a random catalog thus we conclude that no lower threshold for earthquake triggering in central california has been found we show that the temporal distribution of stress changes that discourage failure is consistent with the theoretical prediction that the time delay increases with the magnitude of the stress change

continuous monitoring of an active fault in a plate suture zone a creepmeter study of the chihshang fault eastern taiwan abstract data from continuously monitored creepmeters across the active chihshang fault in eastern taiwan are presented the chihshang fault is an active segment of the longitudinal valley fault the main suture between the converging philippine and eurasian plates in taiwan since the 1951 earthquake mw 7 0 no earthquake larger than magnitude 6 0 occurred in the chihshang area at least during the last 20 years the chihshang fault underwent a steady creep movement resulting in numerous fractures at the surface five creepmeters were installed in 1998 at two sites tapo and chinyuan within the chihshang active fault zone one year results from august 1998 to july 1999 show a horizontal shortening of 19 4 0 3 mm and 17 3 0 7 mm at tapo and chinyuan respectively these annual shortening rates are in a good agreement with other estimates of strain rate independently obtained from geodetic measurements and geological site investigation the creepmeter measurements were made on a daily basis providing accurate information on the previously unknown evolution of creep during the year the records of fault creep at the tapo site thus revealed close seasonal correlation with average rainfall the period of high creep rate coincides with the wet season whereas that of low creep rate coincides with the dry season also in comparison with the tapo site the creep behaviour as a function of time is complex at the chinyuan site possible factors of irregularity are under investigation thermal effect acting on the concrete basement of the creepmeters earth tide effect water table variations in a nearby rice field and rainfall the comparison between gps measurements across the longitudinal valley 31 mm year of horizontal displacement and the creepmeter measurement across the chihshang fault zone 17 19 mm year of horizontal displacement suggests that there exists other shortening deformation across the active fault zone in addition to those we have measured from the creepmeters

new empirical relationships among magnitude rupture length rupture width rupture area and surface displacement source parameters for historical earthquakes worldwide are compiled to develop a series of empirical relationships among moment magnitude m surface rupture length subsurface rupture length downdip rupture width rupture area and maximum and average displacement per event the resulting data base is a significant update of previous compilations and includes the additional source parameters of seismic moment moment magnitude subsurface rupture length downdip rupture width and average surface displacement each source parameter is classified as reliable or unreliable based on our evaluation of the accuracy of individual values only the reliable source parameters are used in the final analyses in comparing source parameters we note the following trends 1 generally the length of rupture at the surface is equal to 75 of the subsurface rupture length however the ratio of surface rupture length to subsurface rupture length increases with magnitude 2 the average surface displacement per event is about one half the maximum surface displacement per event and 3 the average subsurface displacement on the fault plane is less than the maximum surface displacement but more than the average surface displacement thus for most earthquakes in this data base slip on the fault plane at seismogenic depths is manifested by similar displacements at the surface log linear regressions between earthquake magnitude and surface rupture length subsurface rupture length and rupture area are especially well correlated showing standard deviations of 0 25 to 0 35 magnitude units most relationships are not statistically different at a 95 significance level as a function of the style of faulting thus we consider the regressions for all slip types to be appropriate for most applications regressions between magnitude and displacement magnitude and rupture width and between displacement and rupture length are less well correlated and have larger standard deviation than regressions between magnitude and length or area the large number of data points in most of these regressions and their statistical stability suggest that they are unlikely to change significantly in response to additional data separating the data according to extensional and compressional tectonic environments neither provides statistically different results nor improves the statistical significance of the regressions regressions for cases in which earthquake magnitude is either the independent or the dependent parameter can be used to estimate maximum earthquake magnitudes both for surface faults and for subsurface seismic sources such as blind faults and to estimate the expected surface displacement along a fault for a given size earthquake

a strong correlation between induced peak dynamic coulomb stress change from the 1992 m7 3 landers california earthquake and the hypocenter of the 1999 m7 1 hector mine california earthquake the 1992 m7 3 landers earthquake may have played a role in triggering the 1999 m7 1 1 hector mine earthquake as suggested by their close spatial 20 km proximity current investigations of triggering by static stress changes produce differing conclusions when small variations in parameter values are employed here i test the hypothesis that large amplitude dynamic stress changes induced by the landers rupture acted to promote the hector mine earthquake i use a flat layer reflectivity method to model the landers earthquake displacement seismograms by requiring agreement between the model seismograms and data i can constrain the landers main shock parameters and velocity model a similar reflectivity method is used to compute the evolution of stress changes i find a strong positive correlation between the hector mine hypocenter and regions of large 4 mpa dynamic coulomb stress changes peak f t induced by the landers main shock a positive correlation is also found with large dynamic normal and shear stress changes uncertainties in peak f t 1 3 mpa are only 28 of the median value 4 6 mpa determined from an extensive set 160 of model parameters therefore the correlation with dynamic stresses is robust to a range of hector mine main shock parameters as well as to variations in the friction and skempton s coefficients used in the calculations these results imply dynamic stress changes may be an important part of earthquake trigging such that large amplitude stress changes alter the properties of an existing fault in a way that promotes fault failure

a leaping triggered sequence along a segmented fault the 1951 ml 7 3 hualien taitung earthquake sequence in eastern taiwan 1 as the most destructive seismic episode ever known in eastern taiwan the 1951 m l 7 3 hualien taitung earthquake series consisted of sequential ruptures along four distinct fault segments it provides a good opportunity to study earthquake triggering processes along an active fault at an oblique arc continent collision boundary this sequence initiated on 21 october 1951 with the m l 7 3 hualien main shock and a group of m6 aftershocks nearby the m l 6 0 chihshang earthquake occurred 34 days later and 100 km away from the main shock the m l 7 3 yuli earthquake followed 3 m later and 5 km away from the chihshang event two days later the m l 6 0 taitung earthquake shocked a region 40 km away from the preceding m6 event and completed the sequence the first triggered rupture outside the main shock area did not occur on the nearby yuli fault segment but occurred 100 km away at the chihshang fault calculations of static coulomb stress change show that most of the major aftershocks were located in areas of enhanced static stress change however the stress transfer alone cannot explain triggering across 100 km with the rate state stress transfer model we computed the temporal order of encouraged ruptures on different segments along the collision boundary the results show that 34 days following the major shocks in hualien the chihshang segment had a higher m6 m 6 earthquake probability due to its significantly higher at least an order of magnitude background seismicity rate than the other two segments after the chihshang event the rate state model predicted a higher m6 earthquake probability in the yuli segment also matching the observation in this case the yuli segment was triggered ahead of the taitung segment because of its larger increase in coulomb stress change

fault plane solutions for the 1984 morgan hill california earthquake sequence evidence for the state of stress on the calaveras fault fault plane solutions for 946 aftershocks of the april 24 1984 morgan hill california m6 2 earthquake reveal a pattern of complex faulting within a 10 km wide zone surrounding the calaveras fault the fault plane solutions fall into three groups strike slip mechanisms located along the calaveras fault with north northwest striking dextral slip planes nearly parallel to the fault strike slip mechanisms located northeast of the calaveras fault with north striking dextral slip planes and reverse mechanisms located southwest of the calaveras fault with northeast or southwest dipping slip planes the average azimuth of p axes for aftershocks located on the calaveras fault is n10 1 e in contrast the average azimuths of p axes for aftershocks northeast and southwest of the calaveras fault are n49 7 e and n37 3 e respectively by assuming that the earthquakes occur on preexisting cracks in response to a uniformly oriented regional stress field we are able to infer from the observed average slip directions an orientation for 1 the axis of maximum horizontal compression 63 80 from the local strike of the calaveras fault such a high angle orientation of 1 is incompatible with the classical andersonian model of strike slip faulting but is consistent with an alternate model in which a weak calaveras fault is driven by plate motion slightly convergent with respect to the san andreas fault system in central california if this inferred high angle uniform stress field is combined with the changes in the static stress field calculated with elastic dislocation theory for the 1984 morgan hill main shock the resulting stress field predicts most of the observed spatial pattern of the aftershocks and their fault plane solutions the orientations of the inferred aftershock slip planes are generally consstent with the fracture orientations predicted by the coulomb failure criterion areas with predicted increases in the coulomb failure function of only a few tenths of a megapascal correspond to areas of intense aftershock activity the invariance of focal mechanisms in the vicinity of the south end of the main shock rupture before and after the main shock suggests that the magnitude of compressive stress in this area is at least 10 mpa in addition to explaining a preponderance of the seismic observations of the aftershock sequence the presence of a predominantly fault normal compressive regional stress field accounts for the contemporary development of folds reverse faults and topographic relief observed throughout the central california coast ranges

kinematics of convergence deformation and stress distribution in the taiwan collision area 2 d finite element numerical modelling abstract using a 2 d plane stress finite element model with elastic and elasto plastic rheologies appropriate for deformation within the brittle upper crust we analyse the relationship between kinematics of convergence deformation and stress distribution in the present taiwan collision occurring between the ryukyu and luzon subduction zones the distribution of stress trends calculated in our models is compared with a synthetic map of actual stress trajectories based on the most recent data available in the collision zone these data combine present day sources from borehole breakouts and earthquake focal mechanism with the reconstruction of quaternary palaeostress from fault slip data analyses resulting in a complete map of compressional stress trajectories which is used to constrain our models we show that the distribution of stress trajectories in the active taiwan collision is principally controlled by 1 the geometric configuration of the boundary between eurasia and the philippine sea plate 2 the shape and rheological properties of major structural units 3 the direction of convergence of the philippine sea plate relative to eurasia and 4 the influence of the opening of the okinawa trough the study of a two dimensional elastic and elasto plastic finite element modelling of the subduction collision in and around taiwan allows us to estimate the influences of these different parameters in the stress pattern taking into account both the simplifying assumptions of the numerical modelling and the angular uncertainties of field determinations the fit between the calculated stress pattern of the finite element model and that determined based on the geometrical synthesis of field analyses is rather good in general indicating that our model is valid to first approximation misfits remain minor and can be explained by data uncertainties and simplifying modelling assumptions for instance the shape of the corner of the collision zone is critical but is not accurately known also limited decoupling in the longitudinal valley collision zone was not considered in our models although it certainly plays a role some interesting features of our model are 1 the greater influence of the shape of the collision zone in comparison with that of the direction of convergence 2 the requirement for a trench retreat related to suction force in the ryukyu arc and 3 the crucial role of the interaction between okinawa trough opening and collision at the sharp northwestern corner of the philippine sea plate including its influence on the geological evolution of northeastern taiwan

response of the san andreas fault to the 1983 coalinga nunez earthquakes an application of interaction based probabilities for parkfield 1 the parkfield cholame section of the san andreas fault site of an unfulfilled earthquake forecast in 1985 is the best monitored section of the world s most closely watched fault in 1983 the m 6 5 coalinga and m 6 0 nunez events struck 25 km northeast of parkfield seismicity rates climbed for 18 months along the creeping section of the san andreas north of parkfield and dropped for 6 years along the locked section to the south right lateral creep also slowed or reversed from parkfield south here we calculate that the coalinga sequence increased the shear and coulomb stress on the creeping section causing the rate of small shocks to rise until the added stress was shed by additional slip however the 1983 events decreased the shear and coulomb stress on the parkfield segment causing surface creep and seismicity rates to drop we use these observations to cast the likelihood of a parkfield earthquake into an interaction based probability which includes both the renewal of stress following the 1966 parkfield earthquake and the stress transfer from the 1983 coalinga events we calculate that the 1983 shocks dropped the 10 year probability of a m 6 parkfield earthquake by 22 from 54 22 to 42 23 and that the probability did not recover until about 1991 when seismicity and creep resumed our analysis may thus explain why the parkfield earthquake did not strike in the 1980s but not why it was absent in the 1990s we calculate a 58 17 probability of a m 6 parkfield earthquake during 2001 2011 index terms 7223 seismology seismic hazard assessment and prediction 7230 seismology seismicity and seismotectonics 7260 seismology theory and modeling keywords coalinga earthquake parkfield stress change earthquake probability seismicity rate

delayed triggering of the 1999 hector mine earthquake by viscoelastic stress transfer stress changes in the crust due to an earthquake can hasten the failure of neighbouring faults and induce earthquake sequences in some cases1 2 3 4 5 the 1999 hector mine earthquake in southern california magnitude 7 1 occurred only 20 km from and 7 years after the 1992 landers earthquake magnitude 7 3 this suggests that the hector mine earthquake was triggered in some fashion by the earlier event but uncertainties in the slip distribution and rock friction properties associated with the landers earthquake have led to widely varying estimates of both the magnitude and sign of the resulting stress change that would be induced at the location of the hector mine hypocentre with estimates varying from 1 4 bar ref 6 to 0 5 bar ref 7 more importantly coseismic stress changes alone cannot satisfactorily explain the delay of 7 years between the two events here we present the results of a three dimensional viscoelastic model that simulates stress transfer from the ductile lower crust and upper mantle to the brittle upper crust in the 7 years following the landers earthquake using viscoelastic parameters that can reproduce the observed horizontal surface deformation following the landers earthquake our calculations suggest that lower crustal or upper mantle flow can lead to postseismic stress increases of up to 1 2 bar at the location of the hector mine hypocentre during this time period contributing to the eventual occurrence of the 1999 hector mine earthquake these results attest to the importance of considering viscoelastic processes in the assessment of seismic hazard8 9 10 11

dislocation model for crustal deformation in the longitudinal valley area eastern taiwan abstract three trilateration and leveling networks traversing the longitudinal valley eastern taiwan have been surveyed frequently during 1983 1988 average rates of length change on each line and height difference on each leveling section are used to study the crustal deformation of this area we model the aseismic deformation near the fault as the sum of a steady rigid block motion and the effect of an upper locked crust due to frictional resistance the effect of the locked part is equivalent to that of a negative dislocation on the fault for the northernmost hualien and central yuli networks we simply assume two blocks and one fault patch while the southernmost taitung network is modeled by three blocks and three fault patches the fault aforementioned is presumed to be the main trace of the longitudinal valley fault lvf we invert the geodetic data to determine the block motion and dislocation model parameters by utilizing a bayesian nonlinear inversion method parameters to be estimated include the three components of velocity for each block and the vertical and horizontal dislocation rates dip angle and width of each rectangular fault patch the estimated block motion parameters and fault widths are mostly well resolved by the observed data the fault widths are all very shallow tectonophysics vol 42 is concentrated on a quite narrow zone several kilometers wide centered at the lvf however due to the limited aperture of our geodetic networks the total width of the deformation zone and the velocity of relative plate motion at this active collision boundary are not resolved the new gps satellite survey technique can be used to solve this ambiguity

taiwan orogeny thin skinned or lithospheric collision abstract the taiwan orogeny is young and presently very active it provides an excellent environment for studying ongoing orogenic processes especially since the region is monitored intensively with dense seismological and geodetic networks and new studies aiming at deciphering shallow and deep structures in and around taiwan have been recently conducted or are being planned the available data can be used continually to test critically hypotheses of the taiwan orogeny hypotheses dealing with the mechanics of mountain building are basic to the understanding of taiwan orogeny and are particularly amenable to testing the widely cited thin skinned tectonics hypothesis was formulated to explain mainly the geologic and relatively shallow

magnitudes of large shallow earthquakes from 1904 to 1980 abstract in order to obtain a uniform magnitude catalogue surface wave magnitudes ms and broad band body wave magnitudes mb have been determined for large shallow earthquakes from 1904 to 1980 in making the catalogue homogeneous the author consistently adheres to the original definitions of ms and mb given by gutenberg 1945 and gutenberg and richter 1956 the determinations of ms and mb are all based on the amplitude and period data listed in gutenberg and richter s unpublished notes bulletins from stations worldwide and other basic information mb is measured on broad band instruments in periods of 8 s consistency of the magnitude determinations from these different sources is carefully checked in detail more than 900 shallow shocks of magnitude 7 and over are catalogued the meaning of the magnitude scales in various catalogues is examined in terms of ms and mb most of the magnitudes listed by gutenberg and richter 1954 in their seismicity of the earth are basically ms for large shocks shallower than 40 km but are basically mb for large shocks at depths of 40 60 km the surface wave magnitudes given by earthquake data reports are higher than ms by 0 2 unit whether the combined horizontal amplitude or the vertical amplitude is used mb and the currently used 1 s body wave magnitude are measured at different periods and should not be directly compared

earthquakes as self organized critical phenomena a cellular automation model with threshold elements previously proposed by bak et al 1988 which generates 1 f noise and self organizes into a critical state is studied as a model for earthquake occurrence the model explains some of fractal features of earthquakes such as the power law distribution of the size of the earthquake the model is modified so that every earthquake may trigger aftershocks the modified trigger model explains other fractal features of earthquakes such as the power law decay of aftershock frequency and the power law decay of aftershock frequency and the power law correlation of the hypocenter distribution

earth science microseismicity data forecast rupture area on 28 september 2004 there was an earthquake of magnitude 6 0 at parkfield california here we show that the size distribution of the micro earthquakes recorded in the decades before the main shock occurred allowed an accurate forecast of its eventual rupture area applying this approach to other well monitored faults should improve earthquake hazard assessment in future

inferring rate and state friction parameters from a rupture model of the 1995 hyogo ken nanbu kobe japan earthquake we consider the applicability of laboratory derived rate and state variable friction laws to the dynamic rupture of the 1995 kobe earthquake we analyze the shear stress and slip evolution of ide and takeo s 1997 dislocation model fitting the inferred stress change time histories by calculating the dynamic load and the instantaneous friction at a series of points within the rupture area for points exhibiting a fast weakening behavior the dieterich ruina friction law with values of dc 0 01 0 05 m for critical slip fits the stress change time series well this range of dc is 10 20 times smaller than the slip distance over which the stress is released dc which previous studies have equated with the slip weakening distance the limited resolution and low pass character of the strong motion inversion degrades the resolution of the frictional parameters and suggests that the actual dc is less than this value stress time series at points characterized by a slow weakening behavior are well fitted by the dieterich ruina friction law with values of dc 0 01 0 05 m the apparent fracture energy gc can be estimated from waveform inversions more stably than the other friction parameters we obtain a gc 1 5 l06 j m 2 for the 1995 kobe earthquake in agreement with estimates for previous earthquakes from this estimate and a plausible upper bound for the local rock strength we infer a lower bound for dc of about 0 008 m

viscoelastic stress triggering of the 1999 hector mine earthquake by the 1992 landers earthquake the 1999 mw 7 1 hector mine earthquake occurred only 20 km from the 1992 mw 7 3 landers earthquake fault the close spacing between the two earthquakes suggests that the landers earthquake trigger the hector mine event based on an elastic half space model scientists from the usgs scec and cdmg 2000 have found a negative coulomb stress change at the hector mine hypocenter due to landers this negative stress change is inconsistent with the hypothesis of static stress triggering in this paper i show evidence of stress triggering of the hector mine earthquake by landers due to a process governed by viscoelastic flow in the lower crust this visoelastic flow has produced broad scale postseismic rebound observed by gps and insar measurements the result of this study is that viscoelastic flow has significantly modified the regional stress field in the mojave desert after the landers earthquake the evolving stress field including viscoelastic flow has gradually moved the coulomb stress change at the hector mine hypocenter to a positive level the increase in coulomb stress exceeded 1 bar right before the hector mine earthquake bringing the hector mine ruptures to the proximity of catastrophic failure

toggling of seismicity by the 1997 kagoshima earthquake couplet a demonstration of time dependent stress transfer 1 two m 6 well recorded strike slip earthquakes struck just 4 km and 48 days apart in kagoshima prefecture japan in 1997 providing an opportunity to study earthquake interaction aftershocks are abundant where the coulomb stress is calculated to have been increased by the first event and they abruptly stop where the stress is dropped by the second event this ability of the main shocks to toggle seismicity on and off argues that static stress changes play a major role in exciting aftershocks whereas the dynamic coulomb stresses which should only promote seismicity appear to play a secondary role if true the net stress changes from a sequence of earthquakes might be expected to govern the subsequent seismicity distribution however adding the stress changes from the two kagoshima events does not fully capture the ensuing seismicity such as its rate change temporal decay or migration away from the ends of the ruptures we therefore implement a stress transfer model that incorporates rate state friction in which seismicity is treated as a sequence of independent nucleation events that are dependent on the fault slip slip rate and elapsed time since the last event the model reproduces the temporal response of seismicity to successive stress changes including toggling decay and aftershock migration nevertheless the match of observed to predicted seismicity is quite imperfect due perhaps to inadequate knowledge of several model parameters however to demonstrate the potential of this approach we build a probabilistic forecast of larger earthquakes on the expected rate of small aftershocks taking advantage of the large statistical sample the small shocks afford not surprisingly such probabilities are highly time and location dependent during the first decade after the main shocks the seismicity rate and the chance of successive large shocks are about an order of magnitude higher than the background rate and are concentrated exclusively in the stress triggering zones

earthquake triggering by static and dynamic stress changes 1 in this study we aim to understand the effect of static and dynamic stress changes in promoting earthquake failures on secondary faults toward this goal we solve the equation of motion of a spring slider dynamic system including inertia and using rate and state dependent constitutive laws we separately investigate the dynamic response of this fault analog system to a sudden stress change represented either as a stress step or as a stress pulse which are used to model permanent static and transient dynamic stress perturbations the induced earthquake failure does not occur immediately at the application of the coseismic stress change but it is delayed in time we define this time interval as the triggering delay for a given stress perturbation we analyze the dependence of triggering delays on different system conditions and constitutive parameters our results clearly show that the effects of static and dynamic stress changes are quite different while a static stress change is able to advance as well as to delay an induced instability depending on its sign a dynamic stress pulse is only able to promote a nearly instantaneous failure provided its amplitude is positive and large enough with respect to the direct effect of friction in other words dynamic stress changes can only cause nearly instantaneous failures without any relevant triggering delay these results should be considered in interpreting the seismicity rate changes caused by large earthquakes at least as long as seismic events are interpreted as sliding instabilities obeying rate and state dependent friction laws

spatial variability of seismicity parameters in aftershock zones the spatial variability of the b value of the frequency magnitude relationship and the decay rate of aftershocks as described by the p value of the modified omori law is investigated by using dense spatial grids we map out the distribution of b and p values within the landers northridge morgan hill and kobe aftershock sequences considerable spatial variability is found with b values of independent subvolumes ranging from 0 6 to 1 4 and p values ranging from 0 6 to 1 8 these systematic and statistically highly significant differences argue that it is an oversimplification to assign one single p and b value to an aftershock sequence that extends up to 100 km the spatial distribution of these two parameters is compared with the slip distribution during the mainshock suggesting that the areas of largest slip release correlate with high b value regions we hypothesize that the frictional heat created during the event may influence the p value distribution within an aftershock zone while applied shear stress crack density and pore pressure govern the frequency magnitude distribution by investigating the frequency magnitude distribution separately for preseismic and postseismic periods for the morgan hill mainshock we find that only the volume in the vicinity of the highest slip release shows a significant increase in the b value which decays to premainshock values within a year surrounding areas of the aftershock zone show an approximately constant b value with time because the aftershock hazard after a mainshock depends strongly on both the b and p value we propose that aftershock hazard assessment can be improved by taking into account the spatial distribution of the parameters

stress triggering in thrust and subduction earthquakes and stress interaction between the southern san andreas and nearby thrust and strike slip faults 1 we argue that key features of thrust earthquake triggering inhibition and clustering can be explained by coulomb stress changes which we illustrate by a suite of representative models and by detailed examples whereas slip on surface cutting thrust faults drops the stress in most of the adjacent crust slip on blind thrust faults increases the stress on some nearby zones particularly above the source fault blind thrusts can thus trigger slip on secondary faults at shallow depth and typically produce broadly distributed aftershocks short thrust ruptures are particularly efficient at triggering earthquakes of similar size on adjacent thrust faults we calculate that during a progressive thrust sequence in central california the 1983 mw 6 7 coalinga earthquake brought the subsequent 1983 mw 6 0 nunez and 1985 mw 6 0 kettleman hills ruptures 10 bars and 1 bar closer to coulomb failure the idealized stress change calculations also reconcile the distribution of seismicity accompanying large subduction events in agreement with findings of prior investigations subduction zone ruptures are calculated to promote normal faulting events in the outer rise and to promote thrust faulting events on the periphery of the seismic rupture and its downdip extension these features are evident in aftershocks of the 1957 mw 9 1 aleutian and other large subduction earthquakes we further examine stress changes on the rupture surface imparted by the 1960 mw 9 5 and 1995 mw 8 1 chile earthquakes for which detailed slip models are available calculated coulomb stress increases of 2 20 bars correspond closely to sites of aftershocks and postseismic slip whereas aftershocks are absent where the stress drops by more than 10 bars we also argue that slip on major strike slip systems modulates the stress acting on nearby thrust and strike slip faults we calculate that the 1857 mw 7 9 fort tejon earthquake on the san andreas fault and subsequent interseismic slip brought the coalinga fault 1 bar closer to failure but inhibited failure elsewhere on the coast ranges thrust faults the 1857 earthquake also promoted failure on the white wolf reverse fault by 8 bars which ruptured in the 1952 mw 7 3 kern county shock but inhibited slip on the left lateral garlock fault which has not ruptured since 1857 we thus contend that stress transfer exerts a control on the seismicity of thrust faults across a broad spectrum of spatial and temporal scales

viscosity of oceanic asthenosphere inferred from remote triggering of earthquakes a sequence of large interplate earthquakes from 1952 to 1965 along the aleutian arc and kurile kamchatka trench released accumulated stresses along nearly the entire northern portion of the pacific plate boundary the postseismic stress evolution across the northern pacific and arctic basins calculated from a viscoelastic coupling model with an asthenospheric viscosity of 5 x 10 17 pascal seconds is consistent with triggering of oceanic intraplate earthquakes temporal patterns in seismicity at remote plate boundaries and space based geodetic measurements of anomalous velocity over an area 7000 by 7000 kilometers square during the 30 year period after the sequence

modelling of pulse like velocity ground motion during the 2018 mw 6 3 hualien earthquake taiwan the 2018 february 6 m w 6 3 hualien earthquake caused severe localized damage in hualien city located 20 km away from the epicentre the damage was due to strong 70 cm s and sharp duration 2 5 s velocity pulses the observed peak ground motion velocity in hualien city symmetrically decays with distance from the nearby milun fault waveforms observed on the opposite sides of the fault show reversed polarity on the vertical and n s components while the e w component is almost identical none of the published finite fault slip models can explain the spatially highly localized large velocity pulses in this study we show that an m w 5 9 strike slip subevent on the milun fault at 2 5 km depth rupturing from north to south at 0 9vs speed combined with site effects caused by surficial layers with low s wave speed can explain the velocity pulses observed at the dense strong motion network stations this subevent contributes only 25 per cent of the total moment of the 2018 hualien earthquake suggesting that a small local slip patch near a metropolis can dominate the local hazard our result strongly suggests that seismic hazard assessments should consider large ground motion variabilities caused by directivity and site effects as observed in the 2018 hualien earthquake

the 2018 mw6 4 hualien earthquake dynamic slip partitioning reveals the spatial transition from mountain building to subduction abstract the hualien earthquake of 6 february 2018 occurred on the east coast of taiwan in the collision zone between the eurasia and philippine sea plates even though an event with a moderate magnitude of mw6 4 it caused widespread surface rupture in and around the city of hualien leading to significant loss of life and property damages in this study we investigate the rupture process of this earthquake using teleseismic strong motion gps and sar observations we first employ the geodetic data to search for the geometry of multiple fault planes followed by a multi point source inversion using teleseismic and strong motion waveforms to determine the possible change in mechanism during the rupture process we parameterize the fault model with three curved segments to represent the complicated fault system involved in the rupture process an offshore fault was ruptured by the hualien earthquake showing a curved geometry with the dip angle changing from shallow 45 in the north to sub vertical 80 in the south evidence from tomographic velocity model indicates that the offshore fault is the boundary between the subducted coastal range and meilun tableland which is also a plate interface finally a joint inversion is carried out to constrain the complete rupture process the inversion result reveals that the rupture initiated on the offshore fault interface and propagated unilaterally towards south southwest the rupture then jumped on to the sub vertical meilun fault and reached the ground surface significant dynamic slip partitioning occurred during the rupture process near the meilun fault with the majority of thrust and strike slip motions occurring on the off shore fault and the meilun fault respectively the afterslip model is inverted with sar timeseries spanning 6 months after the mainshock the afterslip model shows a strong complementary pattern with co seismic slips the comparison between the 1951 and 2018 hualien earthquake shows that the rupture behavior of the meilun fault does not follow a repeating earthquake pattern thrust motion may occur on the two side walls of the meilun tableland with a teeterboard uplift pattern in different earthquake cycles the change in geometry and slip on the inter plate fault appears to be related to the transition of the coastal range from mountain building to subduction

monitoring of active tectonic deformations in the longitudinal valley eastern taiwan using persistent scatterer insar method with alos palsar data abstract this paper presents new observation of the interseismic deformation along the longitudinal valley eastern taiwan that represents a major tectonic boundary of the taiwan collision zone we investigate the southern part of the valley from rueisuei to taitung latitude 23 5 n 22 7 n which is the part of the valley where interseismic surface creep has already been observed at some points of the longitudinal valley fault lvf a persistent scatterer sar interferometry approach stamps is applied using ten l band sar images from alos satellite acquired over the period 2007 2010 interferograms from l band data show a dramatic improvement of coherence in comparison to previous studies using c band ers data the density of measurement resulting from stamps processing is the highest achieved so far in the area about 40 55 points per km2 for a total of 77 000 points allowing a continuous view of the deformation along the valley and also giving information on its borders central range and coastal range the most striking feature of the resulting mean velocity map is a clear velocity discontinuity localized in a narrow band 0 1 1 km along the lvf and responsible for up to 3 cm yr velocity offset along the radar line of sight which is attributed to shallow interseismic creep insar results are in good agreement with continuous gps measurements over the same period 0 3 cm yr rms the density of measurement allows us to improve fault trace map along the creeping section of the lvf with accuracy of about 100 m and to find new field evidences of the fault activity in some places our trace differs significantly hundreds of meters from previous published traces the creep rate shows significant variations along the fault at the southern end of the valley the deformation is distributed on several structures including the luyeh strand and drops significantly south of the peinanshan however there are discrepancies with previous studies made from ers data over the period 1993 1999 that remain to be investigated the mean velocity for each point of measure and the improved faults trace are provided as supplementary data

kinematics of the tectonic blocks and active faults at the post orogenic stage northern taiwan abstract northern taiwan offers a rare opportunity to quantify the rate and style of deformation in the transition zone from the collision in the southeast subduction rifting to orogenic collapsing in the northwest the updated gps velocity field collected from 2002 to 2014 and leveling vertical velocity field from 2004 to 2010 were inverted by a 3 d block model in this study to infer the tectonic block rotations and fault slip rates in reference to the eurasian plate our optimized modeling results show that the clockwise rotation rate of 20 8 2 8 myr in the hualien block is caused by the coupling of the waning arc continent collision between the luzon volcanic arc and the eurasian plate and the northeastward migration of the block toward the ryukyu trench in ilan domain the rapid clockwise motion was derived at a rate of 34 9 65 9 myr in southern part of the plain we proposed that the rapid clockwise rotation results from the asymmetry rifting at the southwestward extension of the okinawa trough an another new key finding is highlighted in the capability of maximum magnitude 6 2 is indicated on the suao and the choshui faults in the ilan plain

time dependent changes in failure stress following thrust earthquakes two dimensional 2 d viscoelastic finite element models were used to calculate the time dependent changes in coulomb failure stresses following thrust earthquakes due to respective effects of relaxation of viscous lower crust or upper mantle and postseismic creep on the main fault or its downdip extension results suggest that thrust earthquakes cause a coseismic increase in coulomb stress along antithetic lobes normal to the slip plane following a quake creep processes that reduce stresses in a ductile lower crust or upper mantle are calculated to cause a transfer of stress to the upper crust under certain conditions transfer of stress may lead to a further buildup of high coulomb stress along the base of the upper crust potentially shortening the time to failure of other faults in the region the conditions under which an antithetic lobe of high coulomb stress are favored to expand at the base of the upper crust postseismically within a few decades include the following the lower crust or upper mantle has an effective viscosity not greater than 1019 pa s the thrust fault has a moderate dip angle 40 50 the brittle ductile transition is deep enough to provide a corridor at the base of the upper crust for expansion and the crust has a low apparent coefficient of friction 0 2 postseismic increases in coulomb stress within the upper crust may also be caused by aseismic creep on the fault stress changes due to this mechanism are maximized with a high apparent coefficient of friction analysis of experimentally determined non newtonian flow laws suggests that wet granitic quartz and feldspar aggregates may have a viscosity of the order of 1019 pa s the calculated rate of stress transfer from a viscous lower crust or upper mantle to the upper crust becomes faster with increasing values of the power law exponent and the presence of a regional compressive strain rate results of this 2 d analysis suggest a potentially important role of viscous flow in controlling time dependent postseismic stress changes that warrant further investigation using 3 d viscoelastic analysis

source characteristics of the northern longitudinal valley taiwan derived from broadband strong motion simulation the 2014 m l 5 9 fanglin earthquake occurred at the northern end of the aftershock distribution of the 2013 m l 6 4 ruisui event and caused strong ground shaking and some damage in the northern part of the longitudinal valley we carried out the strong motion simulation of the 2014 fanglin event in the broadband frequency range 0 4 10 hz using the empirical green s function method and then integrated the source models to investigate the source characteristics of the 2013 ruisui and 2014 fanglin events the results show that the dimension of strong motion generation area of the 2013 ruisui event is smaller whereas that of the 2014 fanglin event is comparable with the empirical estimation of inland crustal earthquakes which indicates the different faulting behaviors furthermore the localized high pgv patch might be caused by the radiation energy amplified by the local low velocity structure in the northern longitudinal valley additional study issues are required for building up the knowledge of the potential seismic hazard related to moderate large events for various seismogenic areas in taiwan

static stress transferred by the 1999 chi chi taiwan earthquake effects on the stability of the surrounding fault systems and aftershock triggering with a 3d fault slip model we investigated the effect of changes in static stress caused by the 1999 m l 7 3 chi chi earthquake on the surrounding fault systems in taiwan we examined this problem from two perspectives first we applied a statistical test for the hypothesis of static stress triggering by comparing the distributions of the coulomb failure stress changes on the focal mechanism nodal planes both before and after the mainshock since preshocks could obviously not have been affected by the mainshock the deviation of these distributions determined the significance of static stress triggering second we calculated the coulomb failure stress changes on the chukou and meishan faults in specified slip directions to evaluate the stability of these two active faults after the chi chi earthquake the static stress changes were obtained by applying the theory of dislocation in an elastic half space to a 3d rupture model derived from the surface displacements associated with the chi chi earthquake our results showed that the distributions of the coulomb failure stress changes for events preceding and following the chi chi earthquake were significantly different yet consistent with the hypothesis of static stress triggering we also found that both the chukou and the meishan faults were in stress shadows at depths shallower than 10 km however because a number of aftershocks fell in these stress shadows it is possible that other mechanisms such as dynamic stress were responsible for triggering these events manuscript received 6 november 2000

stress triggering of the 1999 hector mine earthquake by transient deformation following the 1992 landers earthquake the m 7 3 june 28 1992 landers and m 7 1 october 16 1999 hector mine earthquakes california both right lateral strike slip events on nnw trending subvertical faults occurred in close proximity in space and time in a region where recurrence times for surface rupturing earthquakes are thousands of years this sug gests a causal role for the landers earthquake in triggering the hector mine earth quake previous modeling of the static stress change associated with the landers earthquake shows that the area of peak hector mine slip lies where the coulomb failure stress promoting right lateral strike slip failure was high but the nucleation point of the hector mine rupture was neutrally to weakly promoted depending on the assumed coefficient of friction possible explanations that could account for the 7 year delay between the two ruptures include background tectonic stressing dissi pation of fluid pressure gradients rate and state dependent friction effects and post landers viscoelastic relaxation of the lower crust and upper mantle by employing a viscoelastic model calibrated by geodetic data collected during the time period between the landers and hector mine events we calculate that postseismic relaxa tion produced a transient increase in coulomb failure stress of about 0 7 bars on the impending hector mine rupture surface the increase is greatest over the broad surface that includes the 1999 nucleation point and the site of peak slip further north since stress changes of magnitude greater than or equal to 0 1 bar are associated with documented causal fault interactions elsewhere viscoelastic relaxation likely con tributed to the triggering of the hector mine earthquake this interpretation relies on the assumption that the faults occupying the central mojave desert i e both the landers and hector mine rupturing faults were critically stressed just prior to the landers earthquake

moment tensor inversion for offshore earthquakes east of taiwan and their implications to regional collision reliable determination of source parameters for offshore earthquakes east of taiwan with mb 5 5 was a difficult task because of the poor azimuthal coverage by local network and the lack of signals at teleseismic distances we take advantage of the recently established broadband array in taiwan for seismology bats to invert seismic moment tensors for 7 such events occurred in 1996 to cope with different patterns of background noise and unknown structural details we utilize variable frequency bands in the inversion and adapt a two step procedure to select best velocity models for individual epicenter station paths our results are consistent with the overall patterns of regional collision and indicate that the resulting compressive stress has caused significant intraplate deformation within the philippine sea plate simulation of the region s geological evolution and orogenic processes should take this factor into account and allow the philippine sea plate to deform internally

poroelastic rebound along the landers 1992 earthquake surface rupture maps of surface displacement following the 1992 landers california earthquake generated by interferometric processing of ers 1 synthetic aperture radar sar images reveal effects of various postseismic deformation processes along the 1992 surface rupture the large scale pattern of the postseismic displacement field includes large lobes mostly visible on the west side of the fault comparable in shape with the lobes observed in the coseismic displacement field this pattern and the steep displacement gradient observed near the emerson camp rock fault cannot be simply explained by afterslip on deep sections of the 1992 rupture models show that horizontal slip occurring on a buried dislocation in a poisson s material produces a characteristic quadripole pattern in the surface displacement field with several centimeters of vertical motion at distances of 10 20 km from the fault yet this pattern is not observed in the postseismic interferograms as previously proposed to explain local strain in the fault step overs peltzer et al 1996b we argue that poroelastic rebound caused by pore fluid flow may also occur over greater distances from the fault compensating the vertical ground shift produced by fault afterslip such a rebound is explained by the gradual change of the crustal rocks poisson s ratio value from undrained coseismic to drained postseismic conditions as pore pressure gradients produced by the earthquake dissipate using the poisson s ratio values of 0 27 and 0 31 for the drained and undrained crustal rocks respectively elastic dislocation models show that the combined contributions of afterslip on deep sections of the fault and poroelastic rebound can account for the range change observed in the sar data and the horizontal displacement measured at global positioning system gps sites along a 60 km long transect across the emerson fault savage and svarc 1997 using a detailed surface slip distribution on the homestead valley kickapoo and johnson valley faults we modeled the poroelastic rebound in the homestead valley pull apart a poisson s ratio value of 0 35 for the undrained gouge rocks in the fault zone is required to account for the observed surface uplift in the 3 5 years following the earthquake this large value implies a seismic velocity ratio vp vs of 2 1 consistent with the observed low vs values of fault zone guided waves at shallow depth li et al 1997 the sar data also reveal postseismic creep along shallow patches of the eureka peak and burnt mountain faults with a characteristic decay time of 0 8 years coseismic dilatant hardening locking process followed by post seismic pore pressure controlled fault creep provide a plausible mechanism to account for the decay time of the observed slip rate along this section of the fault

aftershocks resulting from creeping sections in a heterogeneous fault 1 we show that realistic aftershock sequences with space time characteristics compatible with observations are generated by a model consisting of brittle fault segments separated by creeping zones the dynamics of the brittle regions is governed by static kinetic friction 3d elastic stress transfer and small creep deformation the creeping parts are characterized by high ongoing creep velocities these regions store stress during earthquake failures and then release it in the interseismic periods the resulting postseismic deformation leads to aftershock sequences following the modified omori law the ratio of creep coefficients in the brittle and creeping sections determines the duration of the postseismic transients and the exponent p of the modified omori law

suppression of large earthquakes by stress shadows a comparison of coulomb and rate and state failure stress shadows generated by california s two most recent great earthquakes 1857 fort tejon and 1906 san francisco substantially modified 19th and 20th century earthquake history in the los angeles basin and in the san francisco bay area simple coulomb failure calculations which assume that earthquakes can be modeled as static dislocations in an elastic half space have done quite well at approximating how long the stress shadows or relaxing effects should last and at predicting where subsequent large earthquakes will not occur there has however been at least one apparent exception to the predictions of such simple models the 1911 m 6 0 earthquake near morgan hill california occurred at a relaxed site on the calaveras fault we examine how the more complex rate and state friction formalism based on laboratory experiments might have allowed the 1911 earthquake rate and state time to failure calculations are consistent with the occurrence of the 1911 event just 5 years after 1906 if the calaveras fault was already close to failure before the effects of 1906 we also examine the likelihood that the entire 78 years of relative quiet only four m 6 earthquakes in the bay area after 1906 is consistent with rate and state assumptions given that the previous 7 decades produced 18 m 6 earthquakes combinations of rate and state variables can be found that are consistent with this pattern of large bay area earthquakes assuming that the rate of earthquakes in the 7 decades before 1906 would have continued had 1906 not occurred these results demonstrate that rate and state offers a consistent explanation for the 78 year quiescence and the 1911 anomaly although they do not rule out several alternate explanations

vertical crustal movements in eastern taiwan and their tectonic implications abstract leveling surveys along several routes and tidal observations at various points in eastern taiwan demonstrate rapid vertical crustal movements and they provide an effective means for monitoring the effects of collision between the philippine sea plate and the eurasian plate rapid elevation changes were detected in the southern section of the longitudinal valley repeated releveling along three routes since 1984 reveals that the coastal range was uplifted with respect to the longitudinal valley floor at a rate of about 3 0 cm yr this deformation is found to be confined within a very narrow zone along the east coast of taiwan two surveys 1984 and 1987 revealed that the coast is also undergoing uplift but at different rates from 0 cm yr to 3 5 cm yr the point of the most rapid uplift is located near 23 n and the rate generally diminishes towards the north the changes in rates may be controlled by the movements across faults tidal observations while providing a local datum show that uplift of the tidal station has occurred significant horizontal creep has been observed across many faults but rapid vertical creep as observed in the longitudinal valley is not very common

mobility of continental mantle evidence from postseismic geodetic observations following the 1992 landers earthquake the crust around the rupture zone of the 1992 landers earthquake has continued to deform in the years following the earthquake at rates 3 times greater than pre earthquake rates we use a combination of global positioning system gps and synthetic aperture radar insar data collected during a 3 year epoch following the earthquake in order to investigate postseismic mechanisms responsible for the high transient velocities in order to maximize the potential signal from viscoelastic relaxation we evaluate and model postseismic relaxation following the first few months of documented accelerated deformation the combination of gps and insar data allows us to establish viscoelastic relaxation of the lower crust and upper mantle as the dominant postseismic process and to discriminate among possible viscoelastic models the data particularly require the presence of a highly ductile uppermost mantle beneath the central mojave domain with temperature between the wet and dry basalt solidus this is consistent with independent seismic and geochemical inferences of a regionally warm uppermost mantle further consideration of seismic velocity variations in conjunction with faulting patterns within the mojave desert suggests that the primary faulting characteristics of the mojave desert namely the pervasive late cenozoic deformation within the eastern california shear zone versus the near absence of faults in the western mojave domain are controlled by the rheology of the uppermost mantle

forecasting the evolution of seismicity in southern california animations built on earthquake stress transfer 1 we develop a forecast model to reproduce the distribution of main shocks aftershocks and surrounding seismicity observed during 1986 2003 in a 300 310 km area centered on the 1992 m 7 3 landers earthquake to parse the catalog into frames with equal numbers of aftershocks we animate seismicity in log time increments that lengthen after each main shock this reveals aftershock zone migration expansion and densification we implement a rate state algorithm that incorporates the static stress transferred by each m 6 shock and then evolves coulomb stress changes amplify the background seismicity so small stress changes produce large changes in seismicity rate in areas of high background seismicity similarly seismicity rate declines in the stress shadows are evident only in areas with previously high seismicity rates thus a key constituent of the model is the background seismicity rate which we smooth from 1981 to 1986 seismicity the mean correlation coefficient between observed and predicted m 1 4 shocks the minimum magnitude of completeness is 0 52 for 1986 2003 and 0 63 for 1992 2003 a control standard aftershock model yields 0 54 and 0 52 for the same periods four m 6 0 shocks struck during the test period three are located at sites where the expected seismicity rate falls above the 92 percentile and one is located above the 75 percentile the model thus reproduces much but certainly not all of the observed spatial and temporal seismicity from which we infer that the decaying effect of stress transferred by successive main shocks influences seismicity for decades finally we offer a m 5 earthquake forecast for 2005 2015 assigning probabilities to 324 10 10 km cells

space time clustering of large thrust earthquakes along the mexican subduction zone an evidence of source stress interaction the spatiotemporal plot of epicenters of large m s 6 9 subduction earthquakes in mexico 1900 to present day suggests that these earthquakes cluster in space and time in this work we test the hypothesis that the coseismic stress transfer may lead to this clustering for the analysis we estimate the spatial extent of the coseismic coulomb stress change for these large events and then perform a statistical analysis using the 2 goodness of fit test for the interevent time intervals we find that there are at least two groups of time intervals where the observed frequencies are much higher than that expected from a poisson model indicating a bimodal pattern for the first mode the observed frequencies for the 0 to 5 year interval becomes about 2 1 times the expectation with a probability of occurrence of about 30 these results show that large thrust mexican earthquakes between 1900 and 2003 are clustered in space and time probably due to stress interactions among them the second mode includes the time interval of 30 50 years in the interval of 30 40 years the observed frequencies become about 1 7 times the expectation and about 1 2 times the expectation for the 40 to 50 year interval this second mode could be associated with a reloading interval of tectonic stress due to the plate convergence and appears consistent with the long term recurrence periods of large thrust earthquakes in the mexican subduction zone

active fault creep variations at chihshang taiwan revealed by creep meter monitoring 1998 2001 1 the daily creep meter data recorded at chihshang in 1998 2001 are presented the chihshang creep meter experiment was set up across the chihshang thrust fault the most active segment of the longitudinal valley fault which is the present day plate suture between the eurasian and the philippine sea plates in eastern taiwan near continuous data recording at two sites revealed different surface fault motions yet similar annual shortening rates 16 2 mm at the tapo site comprising two connected creep meters and 15 0 mm at the chinyuan site three creep meters straddling parallel fault branches four of the five creep meters showed a seasonal variation with the fault moving steadily during the rainy season from april to october and remaining quiescent during the rest of the year the only exception was recorded by the creep meter located on a melange composed hillslope where local gravitational landsliding played an additional role other than tectonic faulting through comparison with daily precipitation data we inferred that moderate rainfall suffices to trigger or facilitate slippage on the surface fault during the transition period of the dry wet season during the observation period from 1998 to 2001 the subsurface seismicity exhibited clusters of microearthquakes on the chihshang fault at depths of 10 25 km recurrent earthquakes occurred regardless of whether the season was wet or dry indicating that the stress relaxation associated with seismicity in the seismogenic zone did not transfer immediately up to the surface the accumulated strain on the chihshang fault at shallow surface levels was released through creep during the wet season in addition to these short term seasonal variations an apparent decrease in the annual slipping rate on the chihshang fault during the last few years deserves further investigation in order to mitigate against seismic hazard

implications of rate and state friction for properties of aftershock sequence quasi static inherently discrete simulations 1 dieterich 1994 modeled the response to a stress step of a population of faults governed by rate and state dependent friction this model assumes that aftershocks nucleate over areas on the fault that at the time of the main shock are already accelerating toward failure and disregards the effect of interactions among aftershocks the main objective of this study is to examine consequences of relaxing these underlying assumptions aftershock activity is simulated using an inherently discrete earthquake fault model with a fault surface governed by an approximate constitutive friction law similar to the one used by dieterich we find that the governing equations in nondimensional form are a function of three main parameters and explore the effect of these parameters on the simulated catalogs we derive a simple expression for the time dependent seismicity response to a stress step that approximates the effect of multiple interactions among aftershocks as a time dependent stressing rate close match is found between the simulated seismicity response to a stress step and that predicted analytically however the numerical simulations show that the effect of the main shock is not only to raise the local seismicity rate but also to systematically modify the earthquake size distribution as a result the actual seismicity rate change early during the aftershock sequence may be higher than that predicted whereas seismicity rate late in the sequence may be lower than that predicted such a modification of the earthquake size distribution can explain observations of lower b values immediately following a stress step

the 1999 mw 7 1 hector mine california earthquake a test of the stress shadow hypothesis we test the stress shadow hypothesis for large earthquake interactions by examining the relationship between two large earthquakes that occurred in the mojave desert of southern california the 1992 m w 7 3 landers and 1999 m w 7 1 hector mine earthquakes we want to determine if the 1999 hector mine earthquake occurred at a location where the coulomb stress was increased earthquake advance stress trigger or decreased earthquake delay stress shadow by the previous large earthquake using four models of the landers rupture and a range of possible hypocentral planes for the hector mine earthquake we discover that most scenarios yield a landers induced relaxation stress shadow on the hector mine hypocentral plane although this result would seem to weigh against the stress shadow hypothesis the results become considerably more uncertain when the effects of a nearby landers aftershock the 1992 m l 5 4 pisgah earthquake are taken into account we calculate the combined static coulomb stress changes due to the landers and pisgah earthquakes to range from 0 3 to 0 3 mpa 3 to 3 bars at the possible hector mine hypocenters depending on choice of rupture model and hypocenter these varied results imply that the hector mine earthquake does not provide a good test of the stress shadow hypothesis for large earthquake interactions we use a simple approach that of static dislocations in an elastic half space yet we still obtain a wide range of both negative and positive coulomb stress changes our findings serve as a caution that more complex models purporting to explain the triggering or shadowing relationship between the 1992 landers and 1999 hector mine earthquakes need to also consider the parametric and geometric uncertainties raised here

a constitutive law for rate of earthquake production and its application to earthquake clustering seismicity is modeled as a sequence of earthquake nucleation events in which the distribution of initial conditions over the population of nucleation sources and stress ing history control the timing of earthquakes the model is implemented using solutions for nucleation of unstable fault slip on faults with experimentally derived rate and state dependent fault properties this yields a general state variable constitutive formulation for rate of earthquake production resulting from an applied stressing history to illustrate and test the model some characteristics of seismicity following a stress step have been explored it is proposed that various features of earthquake clustering arise from sensi tivity of nucleation times to the stress changes induced by prior earthquakes the model gives the characteristic omori aftershock decay law and interprets aftershock parameters in terms of stress change and stressing rate earthquake data appear to support a model prediction that aftershock duration defined as the time for rates to return to the back ground seismicity rate is proportional to mainshock recurrence time observed spatial and temporal clustering of earthquake pairs arises as a consequence of the spatial depen dence of stress changes of the first event of the pair and stress sensitive time dependent nucleation applications of the constitutive formulation are not restricted to the simple stress step models investigated here it may be applied to stressing histories of arbitrary complexity the apparent success at modeling clustering phenomena suggests the possibil ity of using the formulation to estimate short to intermediate term earthquake probabil ities following occurrence of other earthquakes and for inversion of temporal variations of earthquake rates for changes in driving stress

late holocene coseismic uplift on the hua tung coast eastern taiwan evidence from mass mortality of intertidal organisms abstract the evidence of coseismic uplift on the dynamic wave dominated hua tung coast fringing the active coastal range eastern taiwan has been equivocal due to complex controls by wave and terrestrial sediment over morphological and ecological systems of the coast this study by applying radiocarbon dating methods demonstrates coseismic uplift nature of the coast by finding synchronously killed intertidal organisms mostly boring shell jouannetia sp stranded at different sites of the coast with distinct physiographic characters based on these data together with evidence from wave cut notch sequences two coseismic uplift systems are recognized one centers around the northern middle part of the coast and yields events with uplift amounts of maximal 3 6 m and an average recurrence interval of at least several hundred years the most recent activity of this system influencing at least 70 km of coast occurred at 0 9 ka the earthquake generating this event also triggered extensive landslides debris flows in the region another system exemplified by the uplift associated with the 2003 cheng kung earthquake centers on the southern part of the coast and yields uplift of likely

stress transferred by the 1995 mw 6 9 kobe japan shock effect on aftershocks and future earthquake probabilities the kobe earthquake struck at the edge of the densely populated osaka kyoto corridor in southwest japan we investigate how the earthquake transferred stress to nearby faults altering their proximity to failure and thus changing earthquake probabilities we find that relative to the pre kobe seismicity kobe aftershocks were concentrated in regions of calculated coulomb stress increase and less common in regions of stress decrease we quantify this relationship by forming the spatial correlation between the seismicity rate change and the coulomb stress change the correlation is significant for stress changes greater than 0 2 1 0 bars 0 02 0 1 mpa and the nonlinear dependence of seismicity rate change on stress change is compatible with a state and rate dependent formulation for earthquake occurrence we extend this analysis to future mainshocks by resolving the stress changes on major faults within 100 km of kobe and calculating the change in probability caused by these stress changes transient effects of the stress changes are incorporated by the state dependent constitutive relation which amplifies the permanent stress changes during the aftershock period earthquake probability framed in this manner is highly time dependent much more so than is assumed in current practice because the probabilities depend on several poorly known parameters of the major faults we estimate uncertainties of the probabilities by monte carlo simulation this enables us to include uncertainties on the elapsed time since the last earthquake the repeat time and its variability and the period of aftershock decay we estimate that a calculated 3 bar 0 3 mpa stress increase on the eastern section of the arima takatsuki tectonic line attl near kyoto causes fivefold increase in the 30 year probability of a subsequent large earthquake near kyoto a 2 bar 0 2 mpa stress decrease on the western section of the attl results in a reduction in probability by a factor of 140 to 2000 the probability of a mw 6 9 earthquake within 50 km of osaka during 1997 2007 is estimated to have risen from 5 6 before the kobe earthquake to 7 11 afterward during 1997 2027 it is estimated to have risen from 14 16 before kobe to 16 22

theory of time dependent rupture in the earth at a velocity x which is a well defined function of k this propagation is stable and quasi static and is referred to as subcritical crack growth we shall use the terms stable quasistatic and subcritical to mean propagation at velocities much less than the sonic velocities of the medium this behavior results from stress induced corrosion at the crack tip the principal corrodent for the present application being h20 this behavior has been firmly established in the laboratory for mode i tensile cracks in a wide variety of materials ineluding silicates and silicate glasses see cholz 1968a 1972a martin 1972 wiederhorn and bolz 1970 atkinson 1979 lawn and wilshaw 1975 knott 1973 the form of the relationship between k and x does not vary significantly with the material only the parameters in the law vary as an example we show in figure 1 data on subcritical crack growth in quartz after atkinson 1979 the empirical relationship is found to take the form

seismotectonics of taiwan abstract high quality seismicity data and focal mechanism solutions obtained during 1973 1983 by the permanent taiwan telemetered seismographic network and several temporary local seismographic networks are used for a detailed study of the seismotectonics of the taiwan area seismicity distribution in southern taiwan clearly reveals an east dipping benioff zone which has a thickness of about 30 km and begins to deepen along 121 e at a dip angle of 55 60 the leading edge of this benioff zone reaches a depth of about 180 km between 21 n and 22 n but tapers off to a shallower depth of about 100 km from 22 n to 23 n the presence of this seismic zone implies that subduction of the south china sea plate under the philippine sea plate extends from luzon northward to about 23 n the position of the northern boundary of the south china sea plate as tentatively defined according to the seismicity distribution passes through southern taiwan from the offshore area in the taiwan strait west of kaohsiung in an east northeast direction to the taitung area where a triple junction probably lies seismicity is found to disappear abruptly below a certain depth in many parts of taiwan this phenomenon may be attributed to the frictional to quasiplastic transition in the crust or upper mantle comparison of shallow seismicity with surface faults and fractures shows that all areas of active shallow seismicity are marked by densely developed faults and fractures however the converse is not necessarily true this may be partly due to the relatively short duration of seismicity data and partly due to excessive weakening of some of the severely faulted and fractured areas finally focal mechanism solutions for west central taiwan and the kuangfu fuli area in eastern taiwan predominantly show a maximum horizontal compression in the se nw direction which can be related to collision between the eurasian and philippine sea plates however focal mechanism solutions for both the hualien area in eastern taiwan and the tainan area in southwestern taiwan show remarkable irregularities which may result from local tectonic complexities

global survey of aftershock area expansion patterns we developed an objective method to define the aftershock areas of large earthquakes as a function of time after the main shock the definition is based upon the amount of energy released by aftershocks the spatial distribution of the energy release is first determined and is contoured the 1 day aftershock area is defined by a contour line corresponding to the energy release level of 10 15 6 ergs 100 km 2 day the 10 day 100 day and 1 y aftershock areas are similarly defined by contour lines corresponding to 10 14 8 10 14 0 and 10 13 5 ergs 100 km 2 day respectively we also define the expansion ratios at time t by the ratio of the aftershock area at t to that at 1 day using this method we study the aftershock area expansion patterns of 44 large m s 7 5 and five moderate shallow earthquakes which occurred from 1963 to 1980 each aftershock sequence is examined at four different times i e 1 day 10 days 100 days and 1 y after the main event we define the aftershock area expansion ratios and e by s 100 s 1 and l 100 l 1 respectively here s t and l t are the area and the length of the aftershock area respectively at time t our study suggests that a distinct regional variation of aftershock area expansion patterns is present it is strongly correlated with the tectonic environment in general the subduction zones of the mariana type have large expansion ratios and those of the chilean type have small expansion ratios some earthquakes that occurred in the areas of complex bathymetry such as aseismic ridges tend to have large expansion ratios these results can be explained in terms of an asperity model of fault zones in which a fault plane is represented by a distribution of strong spots called the asperities and weak zones surrounding the asperities the rupture immediately after the main shock mostly involves asperities after the main rupture is completed the stress change caused by the main shock gradually propagates outward into the surrounding weak zones this stress propagation manifests itself as expansion of aftershock activity in this simple picture if the fault zone is represented by relatively large asperities separated by small weak zones chilean type then little expansion of aftershock activity would be expected on the other hand if relatively small asperities are sparsely distributed mariana type significant expansion occurs the actual distribution of asperities is likely to be more complex than the two cases described above however we would expect that the expansion ratio is in general proportional to the spatial ratio of the total asperity area to the fault area