detection of lower mantle scatterers northeast of the marianna subduction zone using short period array data short period university of washington northern california and southern california seismic array records of a sequence of deep mariana subduction zone earthquakes show unexpected clear arrivals nearly 90 and 105 s following p we measure slowness arrival time and arrival azimuth of these phases relative to p using array techniques to find where they emanate in the mantle by combining slowness and back azimuth deviations and the move out with depth of the arrivals from different earthquakes we find their most probable origin is through s to p conversion at point scatterers in the mid to lower mantle at 25 7 n 148 2 e 1590 km and 25 5 n 151 0 e 1850 km respectively separated by 300 km these features indicate elastically distinct material in the middle of the lower mantle which if fragments of subducted slabs are not related to contemporary subduction they may represent upwelling convective material from the deep mantle or d but they are not purely thermal in nature as chemically distinct bodies they may represent potential reservoirs of the isotopic and trace element components recognized geochemically

seismic detection of folded subducted lithosphere at the core mantle boundary seismic tomography of the d region beneath the caribbean reveals a 100 km vertical step in an otherwise flat d shear velocity discontinuity and localized low velocities at the edge of the slab material which may involve upwellings caused by the slab laterally displacing a thin hot thermal boundary layer seismic tomography has been used to infer that some descending slabs of oceanic lithosphere plunge deep into the earth s lower mantle1 2 the fate of these slabs has remained unresolved but it has been postulated that their ultimate destination is the lowermost few hundred kilometres of the mantle known as the d region relatively cold slab material may account for high seismic velocities imaged in d beneath areas of long lived plate subduction and for reflections from a seismic velocity discontinuity just above the anomalously high wave speed regions3 4 the d discontinuity itself is probably the result of a phase change in relatively low temperature magnesium silicate perovskite5 6 here we present images of the d region beneath the cocos plate using kirchhoff migration of horizontally polarized shear waves and find a 100 km vertical step occurring over less than 100 km laterally in an otherwise flat d shear velocity discontinuity folding and piling of a cold slab that has reached the core mantle boundary as observed in numerical and experimental models can account for the step by a 100 km elevation of the post perovskite phase boundary due to a 700 c lateral temperature reduction in the folded slab we detect localized low velocities at the edge of the slab material which may result from upwellings caused by the slab laterally displacing a thin hot thermal boundary layer

u pb dating of monazite and its application to geological problems monazite is an underutilized mineral in u pb geochronological studies of crustal rocks it occurs as an accessory mineral in a wide variety of rocks including granite pegmatite felsic volcanic a

crustal concealing of small scale core field secular variation summary the earth s magnetic field is mainly produced within the earth s liquid and electrically conducting core as a result of a process known as the geodynamo many other sources also contribute to the magnetic signal accessible to observation at the earth s surface partly obscuring the main core magnetic field signal thanks to a series of very successful satellites and to advances in magnetic field modelling techniques considerable progress has however been made in the recent years toward better identifying the signal of each of these sources in particular temporal changes in the field of internal origin happen to be detectable now in spherical harmonic degrees up to perhaps 16 all of these changes are usually attributed to changes in the core field itself the secular variation on the ground that the lithospheric magnetization cannot produce such signals it has however been pointed out on empirical grounds that temporal changes in the field of internal origin produced by the induced part of the lithospheric magnetization could dominate the core field signal beyond degree 22 this short note revisits this issue by taking advantage of our improved knowledge of the small scale field changes and of the likely sources of the lithospheric field we rely on a simple extrapolation of the observed spatial spectrum of the field changes beyond degree 16 and use a forward approach based on a recent geological model of lithospheric magnetization this leads us to confirm that the main cause of the observed changes in the field of internal origin up to some critical degree n c is indeed likely to be the secular variation of the core field but that the signal produced by the time varying lithospheric field is bound to dominate and conceal the time varying core signal beyond that critical degree in very much the same way the permanent component of the lithospheric field dominates and conceals the permanent component of the core field beyond degree 14 all uncertainties taken into account we estimate n c to lie between 22 and 24 we however also note that in practice the main limitation to the observation of the core field small scale secular variation is not so much its concealing by the field of lithospheric origin but its fast changing nature and small magnitude this leads us to conclude that whereas cumulative small scale lithospheric field changes might be detected some day detection of core field secular variation beyond degree 18 is likely to remain a severe challenge for some time

the 2006 2007 kuril islands great earthquake sequence the southwestern half of a 500 km long seismic gap in the central kuril island arc subduction zone experienced two great earthquakes with extensive preshock and aftershock sequences in late 2006 to early 2007 the nature of seismic coupling in the gap had been uncertain due to the limited historical record of prior large events and the presence of distinctive upper plate trench and outer rise structures relative to adjacent regions along the arc that have experienced repeated great interplate earthquakes in the last few centuries the intraplate region seaward of the seismic gap had several shallow compressional events during the preceding decades notably an m s 7 2 event on 16 march 1963 leading to speculation that the interplate fault was seismically coupled this issue was partly resolved by failure of the shallow portion of the interplate megathrust in an m w 8 3 thrust event on 15 november 2006 this event ruptured 250 km along the seismic gap just northeast of the great 1963 kuril island m w 8 5 earthquake rupture zone within minutes of the thrust event intense earthquake activity commenced beneath the outer wall of the trench seaward of the interplate rupture with the larger events having normal faulting mechanisms an unusual double band of interplate and intraplate aftershocks developed on 13 january 2007 an m w 8 1 extensional earthquake ruptured within the pacific plate beneath the seaward edge of the kuril trench this event is the third largest normal faulting earthquake seaward of a subduction zone on record and its rupture zone extended to at least 33 km depth and paralleled most of the length of the 2006 rupture the 13 january 2007 event produced stronger shaking in japan than the larger thrust event as a consequence of higher short period energy radiation from the source the great event aftershock sequences were dominated by the expected faulting geometries thrust faulting for the 2006 rupture zone and normal faulting for the 2007 rupture zone a large intraplate compressional event occurred on 15 january 2009 m w 7 4 near 45 km depth below the rupture zone of the 2007 event and in the vicinity of the 16 march 1963 compressional event the fault geometry rupture process and slip distributions of the two great events are estimated using very broadband teleseismic body and surface wave observations the occurrence of the thrust event in the shallowest portion of the interplate fault in a region with a paucity of large thrust events at greater depths suggests that the event removed most of the slip deficit on this portion of the interplate fault this great earthquake doublet demonstrates the heightened seismic hazard posed by induced intraplate faulting following large interplate thrust events future seismic failure of the remainder of the seismic gap appears viable with the northeastern region that has also experienced compressional activity seaward of the megathrust warranting particular attention

early and persistent supershear rupture of the 2018 magnitude 7 5 palu earthquake the speed at which an earthquake rupture propagates affects its energy balance and ground shaking impact dynamic models of supershear earthquakes which are faster than the speed of shear waves often start at subshear speed and later run faster than eshelby s speed here we present robust evidence of an early and persistent supershear rupture at the sub eshelby speed of the 2018 magnitude 7 5 palu indonesia earthquake slowness enhanced back projection of teleseismic data provides a sharp image of the rupture process along a path consistent with the surface rupture trace inferred by subpixel correlation of synthetic aperture radar and satellite optical images the rupture propagated at a sustained velocity of 4 1 km s 1 from its initiation to its end despite large fault bends the persistent supershear speed is further validated by seismological evidence of far field rayleigh mach waves the unusual features of this earthquake probe the connections between the rupture dynamics and fault structure an early supershear transition could be promoted by fault roughness near the hypocentre steady rupture propagation at a speed unexpected in homogeneous media could result from the presence of a low velocity damaged fault zone

detailed rupture imaging of the 25 april 2015 nepal earthquake using teleseismic p waves we analyze the rupture process of the 25 april 2015 nepal earthquake with globally recorded teleseismic p waves the rupture propagated east southeast from the hypocenter for about 160 km with a duration of 55 s backprojection of both high frequency hf 0 2 to 3 hz and low frequency lf 0 05 to 0 2 hz p waves suggest a multistage rupture process from the low frequency images we resolve an initial slow downdip northward rupture near the nucleation area for the first 20 s stage 1 followed by two faster updip ruptures 20 to 40 s for stage 2 and 40 to 55 s for stage 3 which released most of the radiated energy northeast of kathmandu the centroid rupture power from lf backprojection agrees well with the global centroid moment tensor solution the spatial resolution of the backprojection images is validated by applying similar analysis to nearby aftershocks the overall rupture pattern agrees well with the aftershock distribution a multiple asperity model could explain the observed multistage rupture and aftershock distribution

mw 8 6 sumatran earthquake of 11 april 2012 rare seaward expression of oblique subduction the magnitude 8 6 and 8 2 earthquakes off northwestern sumatra on 11 april 2012 generated small tsunami waves that were recorded by stations around the indian ocean combining differential travel time modeling of tsunami waves with results from back projection of seismic data reveals a complex source with a significant trench parallel component the oblique plate convergence indicates that 20 50 m of trench parallel displacement could have accumulated since the last megathrust earthquake only part of which has been taken up by the great sumatran fault this suggests that the remaining trench parallel motion was released during the magnitude 8 6 earthquake on 11 april 2012 within the subducting plate the magnitude 8 6 earthquake is interpreted to be a result of oblique subduction as well as a reduction in normal stress due to the occurrence of the sumatra andaman earthquake in 2004

electron microprobe and la icp ms study of monazite hydrothermal alteration implications for u th pb geochronology and nuclear ceramics this paper presents new data that quantify the response of magmatic monazite to three main types of hydrothermal alteration namely sericitization chloritization and greisenization the samples were taken from three paleozoic granites the st nectaire granite massif central france the carnmenellis granite cornwall england and the skiddaw granite lake district england fluid inclusion thermometry and hydrothermal parageneses indicate that alteration took place at temperatures ranging from 260 to 340 c and salinities from 3 to 18 wt nacl equivalent possible monazite alteration mechanisms found in the course of this study using backscattered scanning electron microscopy bse sem electron microprobe laser raman spectroscopy and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry la icp ms include cationic substitutions monoclinic to hexagonal structure transition accompanied by chemical exchanges selective th removal dissolution reprecipitation and dissolution with replacement by a different mineral these results show that despite the compositional and crystallographic simplicity of monazite it exhibits varied chemical responses to different mineral fluid interactions elemental and isotopic measurements by la icp ms for the unaltered monazites yield statistically significant 232th 208pb and 238u 206pb magmatic crystallization ages in some cases it was possible to give a reasonable estimate of the age of mineral fluid interaction using the altered parts of the monazites or newly precipitated crystals for other minerals 232th 208pb and 238u 206pb systematics were strongly disturbed by variable inputs and or depletions of u th and pb the data suggest that monazite like nuclear waste forms would be good hosts for tetravalent actinides but may release the lanthanides and actinides with lower and higher valencies especially if the fluids are oxidizing or tend to dissolve monazite

smooth and rapid slip near the japan trench during the 2011 tohoku oki earthquake revealed by a hybrid back projection method abstract we developed a new back projection method that uses teleseismic p waveforms to integrate the direct p phase with reflected phases from structural discontinuities near the source and used it to estimate the spatiotemporal distribution of the seismic energy release of the 2011 tohoku oki earthquake we projected a normalized cross correlation of observed waveforms with corresponding green s functions onto the seismic source region to obtain a high resolution image of the seismic energy release applying this method to teleseismic p waveform data of the 2011 tohoku oki earthquake we obtained spatiotemporal distributions of seismic energy release for two frequency bands a low frequency dataset and a high frequency dataset we showed that the energy radiated in the dip direction was strongly frequency dependent the area of major high frequency seismic radiation extended only downdip from the hypocenter whereas the area of major low frequency seismic radiation propagated both downdip and updip from the hypocenter we detected a large release of seismic energy near the japan trench in the area of maximum slip which was also the source area of the gigantic tsunami when we used only the low frequency dataset the timing of this large seismic energy release corresponded to an episode of smooth and rapid slip near the japan trench and reflects the strong dependence of the seismic energy distribution obtained on the frequency band of the input waveform dataset the episode of smooth and rapid slip may have been the trigger for a release of roughly all of the accumulated elastic strain in the seismic source region of the 2011 tohoku oki earthquake

combining seismic arrays to image the high frequency characteristics of large earthquakes summary this study investigates the source properties of the 2007 8 0 pisco peru 2007 8 4 and 7 9 mentawai islands indonesia 2009 8 1 samoa islands and 2010 8 8 maule chile earthquakes using a backprojection technique that utilizes data from multiple seismic arrays combining seismic arrays increases azimuth and distance coverage and improves lateral resolution the four subduction interface events show rupture propagation towards the bottom of the seismogenic zone in addition all of the earthquakes show evidence of multiple rupture segments with varying rupture speeds and directions relating these segments to the specific features of the subduction zones e g interseismic coupling suggests that asperity sizes may be controlled by subtle features of the subducted slab

double pincer movement encircling rupture splitting during the 2015 mw 8 3 illapel earthquake abstract the 2015 moment magnitude mw 8 3 illapel earthquake that ruptured the central section of the chilean subduction zone is among the largest megathrust events in recent years the coseismic rupture processes of the illapel earthquake are imaged by the back projection bp method in previous studies but these models differ significantly in the extent of high frequency radiations in the along dip direction here we conduct a refined high resolution music bp imaging analysis of the illapel earthquake based on teleseismic recordings in continental us in contrast to conventional bp imaging we add a slowness ray parameter error term calculated based on aftershock locations to effectively mitigate the spatial biases of bp this correction accounts for the p wave travel time errors at each receiver as a result of approximating the 3d earth structure with 1d models the calibrated bp images of aftershocks indicate that the root mean square location error was reduced from 24 17 km to 8 11 km our refined bp of the mainshock reveals geometrical rupture complexity with unprecedented details involving stages of diverse rupture speeds and simultaneous up dip and down dip high frequency bursts the earthquake starts with a slow initiation phase propagating northward at a speed of 1 km s in the first 13 s between 14 s to 34 s the rupture diverges into two simultaneous fronts seemingly unzipping the rim of a circular patch of large slip at a speed of 3 5 km s the two fronts reemerge as a single front between 35 s and 45 s the rupture splitting repeats in a second episode from 46 s to 60 s the two episodes of encircling rupture involve intermittent high frequency radiations both up dip and down dip which reconcile the discrepancy of the extent of along dip ruptures reported in previous bp studies key features of the rupture process correlate with the prominent pulses recorded by local strong motion network in one possible scenario the rupture initially encounters and splits around a barrier of higher strength or an asperity of higher prestress but eventually breaks into the asperity barrier and produces large slip in the center another scenario is the cascade up growth model in which the nucleation process initiates inside a small weak patch and tends to grow into large scale rupture surrounding the rim of a larger and stronger patch such degree of complexity is previously only reproduced in dynamic simulations but is directly observed with sufficient level of details for the first time this case study demonstrates the capability of the bp method enhanced by aftershock calibrations to observe and probe the geometrical complexity of dynamic ruptures

geochemistry of ttg and ttg like gneisses from lushan taihua complex in the southern north china craton implications for late archean crustal accretion the late archean taihua complex mainly composed of amphibolite and ttg and ttg like gneisses is volumetrically most important metamorphic rock suites scattered along the southern margin of the north china craton ncc zircon shrimp u pb dating shows two episodes 2765 13 and 2723 9 ma of archean magmatism in the lushan area with distinct geochemical features the early 2765 13 ma suite ttg like gneisses has low sio2 52 5 66 1 wt high mg 0 47 0 68 low hree ybn 3 0 5 4 and y 8 07 13 9 ppm with low to moderate la yb n 6 7 37 1 and sr y 25 9 119 3 the younger 2723 9 ma suite ttg gneisses has high sio2 63 5 74 3 wt low mg 0 13 0 52 very low ree ybn 1 1 20 2 43 both suites show pronounced negative nb ta and ti anomalies on the primitive mantle normalized spidergram the ttg like gneiss suite has similar bulk rock nd and zircon hf model ages 3 0 ga with end t 0 0 26 1 46 and is interpreted as resulting from melt of mantle interactions with the melts derived from partial melting of subducted ocean crust with a residual assemblage of garnet clinopyroxene rutile amphibole which favors subducted slab model for the late archean ttg the ttg gneiss suite has abundant relic zircons 2 95 2 80 ga with end t 0 1 31 to 0 23 which is best interpreted as derived from partial melting of thickened lower continental crust with a garnet amphibolite residue garnet amphibole rutile significant high pressure fractional crystallization garnet amphibole and accumulation plagioclase are also required in the petrogenesis the lushan amphibolite with nearly flat primitive mantle normalized trace element pattern is interpreted to represent early ocean crust metamorphism these observations suggest a possible model of late archean crustal accretion from ocean crust to continental terrain in the southern north china craton

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

back projection imaging of earthquakes back projection analysis of earthquakes is a type of array processing that images the source of seismic waves coherently recorded at stations throughout the seismic network the method was developed following the magnitude 9 2 sumatra andaman earthquake in 2004 although properties of earthquakes have been investigated using array data prior to the introduction of the back projection method this technique differs from other approaches because it makes limited assumptions and allows detailed and complex rupture propagation to be examined these advantages have led several researchers to apply the method to many of the largest earthquakes to occur this century the method has also been effective for the detection of smaller events a critical component of the success of back projection has been the development of large scale dense seismic arrays further improvements and future applications of the method will depend greatly on the continued maintenance and development of these networks

en echelon and orthogonal fault ruptures of the 11 april 2012 great intraplate earthquakes the magnitude 8 7 earthquake that occurred off the coast of the sumatra subduction zone on 11 april 2012 is shown to have had an extraordinarily complex four fault rupture these great ruptures represent large lithospheric deformation that may eventually lead to a localized boundary between the indian and australian plates on 11 april 2012 two of the largest strike slip earthquakes ever recorded at magnitudes of 8 7 and 8 2 occurred in the northeastern indian ocean a few hundred kilometres off the coast of sumatra three groups now report the analysis of seismic data from the days and months before and after these events as well as the events themselves matthias delescluse and co authors show that these earthquakes are part of the ongoing boost of intraplate deformation between india and australia that followed the aceh 2004 and nias 2005 megathrust earthquakes they conclude that the australian plate driven by slab pull forces at the sunda trench is gradually detaching from the indian plate han yue and colleagues show that the 11 april event involved a complex four fault rupture lasting several minutes followed two hours later by a magnitude 8 2 aftershock these great ruptures on a lattice of strike slip faults that extends through the crust and into the upper mantle represent large lithospheric deformation that may eventually create a localized boundary between the indian and australian plates fred pollitz and colleagues show that in the six days following 11 april the global rate of remote earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 5 5 increased nearly fivefold and events up to magnitude 7 seem to have been triggered the unprecedented delayed triggering power of this earthquake may arise from its strike slip source geometry or because it struck at a time of an unusually low global earthquake rate and increased the number of nucleation sites that were very close to failure the indo australian plate is undergoing distributed internal deformation caused by the lateral transition along its northern boundary from an environment of continental collision to an island arc subduction zone1 2 on 11 april 2012 one of the largest strike slip earthquakes ever recorded seismic moment magnitude mw 8 7 occurred about 100 200 kilometres southwest of the sumatra subduction zone occurrence of great intraplate strike slip faulting located seaward of a subduction zone is unusual it results from northwest southeast compression within the plate caused by the india eurasia continental collision to the northwest together with northeast southwest extension associated with slab pull stresses as the plate underthrusts sumatra to the northeast here we use seismic wave analyses to reveal that the 11 april 2012 event had an extraordinarily complex four fault rupture lasting about 160 seconds and was followed approximately two hours later by a great mw 8 2 aftershock the mainshock rupture initially expanded bilaterally with large slip 20 30 metres on a right lateral strike slip fault trending west northwest to east southeast wnw ese and then bilateral rupture was triggered on an orthogonal left lateral strike slip fault trending north northeast to south southwest nne ssw that crosses the first fault this was followed by westward rupture on a second wnw ese strike slip fault offset about 150 kilometres towards the southwest from the first fault finally rupture was triggered on another en echelon wnw ese fault about 330 kilometres west of the epicentre crossing the ninetyeast ridge the great aftershock with an epicentre located 185 kilometres to the ssw of the mainshock epicentre ruptured bilaterally on a nne ssw fault the complex faulting limits our resolution of the slip distribution these great ruptures on a lattice of strike slip faults that extend through the crust and a further 30 40 kilometres into the upper mantle represent large lithospheric deformation that may eventually lead to a localized boundary between the indian and australian plates

effects of kinematic constraints on teleseismic finite source rupture inversions great peruvian earthquakes of 23 june 2001 and 15 august 2007 two great underthrusting earthquakes that occurred along the coast of peru in 2001 and 2007 involve spatiotemporal slip distributions that differ from the predominantly unilateral or bilateral rupture expansion of many great events commonly used finite source rupture model parameterizations with specified rupture velocity and or short duration of slip at each grid point applied to the seismic data for these two events lead to incorrect slip distributions or inaccurate estimation of rupture velocities as a result of intrinsic kinematic constraints imposed on the model slip distributions guided by large aperture array back projections of teleseismic broadband p wave signals that image slip locations without imposing a priori kinematic constraints on the rupture process we exploit the availability of large global broadband body and surface wave data sets to consider the effects of varying the kinematic constraints in teleseismic finite source waveform inversions by allowing longer than usual rupture durations at each point on the fault using a flexible subfault source time function parameterization we find that the anomalous attributes of the 2001 and 2007 peru earthquake ruptures are readily recognized and accounted for by compound rupture models the great 23 june 2001 m w 8 4 8 4 earthquake involved an initial modest size event that appears to have triggered a much larger secondary event about 120 km away that developed an overall slip distribution with significant slip located back along the megathrust in the vicinity of the initial rupture the great 15 august 2007 m w 8 0 8 0 earthquake was also a composite event with a modest size initial rupture followed by a 60 sec delayed larger rupture that initiated 50 60 km away and spread up dip and bilaterally when back projections indicate greater rupture complexity than captured in a simple slip pulse type rupture model one should allow for possible long subfault slip duration or composite triggered sequences and not overly constrain the earthquake slip distribution

neoproterozoic tectonic evolution of south qinling china evidence from zircon ages and geochemistry of the yaolinghe volcanic rocks abstract the south qinling terrain is located at the northern margin of the yangtze block neoproterozoic volcanic sedimentary sequences of the yaolinghe group play the most significant role in studying the tectono magmatic evolution of the south qinling based on temporal and spatial geochemical variations the yaolinghe group can be divided into three volcanic cycles basaltic lavas of cycle 1 crystallized at 847 8 ma and exhibit typical island arc basalt characteristics with enrichment of liles th u and lrees depletion of hfses nb ta zr hf ti and homogeneous initial 143nd 144nd ratios ranging from 0 51162 to 0 51172 corresponding to initial nd values of 1 6 to 3 5 these features suggest that they were derived from a depleted mantle source during a subduction period volcanic rocks of cycle 2 show a complete lithological evolution from basalt through andesite to rhyolite without a significant gap of sio2 content they formed between 731 11 ma and 768 7 ma and display trace element signatures similar to arc volcanics with positive lile and negative hfse anomalies these basalts have lower initial 87sr 86sr ratios from 0 7030 to 0 7052 and higher initial 143nd 144nd ratios from 0 51172 to 0 51194 with positive initial nd values ranging from 0 9 to 5 3 whereas intercalated felsic rocks show lower initial 143nd 144nd ratios from 0 51150 to 0 51177 with initial nd values varying from 4 5 to 1 9 suggestive of metasomatic alteration of lithospheric mantle by slab derived fluids melts cycle 3 lavas show undepleted hfses nb ta zr hf and slightly enriched liles th u and ti concentrations they were generated in a rift related setting between 680 ma and 650 ma geochronological and geochemical evidence from lavas of the yaolinghe group suggest that the panxi hannan arc system extended to northern south qinling and the magmatism in the northern margin of the yangtze block evolved from arc to rift magmatism during the neoproterozoic

seismology energy radiation from the sumatra earthquake we determined the duration of high frequency energy radiation from indonesia s great sumatra andaman earthquake 26 december 2004 to be about 500 seconds this duration can be translated into a rupture length of about 1 200 km which is more than twice as long as that inferred from body wave analyses performed soon after the event our analysis was able rapidly to define the extent of rupture thereby aiding the assessment of seismic hazard in the immediate future

the source scanning algorithm mapping the distribution of seismic sources in time and space summary we introduce a new method which we call the source scanning algorithm ssa for imaging the distribution of seismic sources in both time and space using trial locations and origin times the method calculates the brightness function by summing the absolute amplitudes observed at all stations at their respective predicted arrival times the spatial and temporal distribution of sources is then identified by a systematic search throughout the model space and time for the maximum brightness the greatest advantages of this method are that 1 it exploits waveform information both arrival times and relative amplitudes without the need to calculate highfrequency synthetic seismograms and 2 it requires neither pre assembled phase picking data nor any a priori assumptions about the source geometry a series of tests using synthetic data have shown that this method is robust and can faithfully recover the input source configuration to within 1 grid interval finally we demonstrate the value of the algorithm by locating a typical tremor event with emergent waveforms that occurred during the recent episodic tremor and slip ets sequence in the northern cascadia subduction zone

direct observation of rupture propagation during the 1979 imperial valley earthquake using a short baseline accelerometer array abstract the 1979 imperial valley california earthquake m s 6 9 was recorded on the el centro differential array a 213 m long linear array of 5 three component digital accelerometers 5 6 km from the nearest tectonic surface rupture although absolute time was not recorded on the array elements a relative time base was established using the main shock hypocentral p wave and the p and s waves from a later aftershock a cross correlation technique was used to measure the difference in arrival times of individual seismic waves in a moving 0 6 to 1 2 sec window at each array element which would then be converted into the wave9s slowness 1 velocity along the array when applied to the main shock vertical and horizontal accelerograms results from both components of motion indicated that the early arriving energy came from a source to the south of the array and the source of the energy moved rapidly to the north of the array during the strong shaking the ground motions at the array elements were well correlated for about the first 11 sec of motion these observations suggest that we have observed the initiation of rupture south of the array and its subsequent propagation along the fault to a position north of the array in about 10 sec and that the energy was radiated from a fairly compact region around the rupture front if the observed vertical and horizontal ground motions are assumed to be caused by p and s waves respectively then the observed slownesses show irregularities which can be interpreted as implying that the observed high frequency ground motions originated at irregularly distributed regions on the fault surface or that the rupture velocity was variable or both one possible interpretation of the data suggests that the rupture proceeded at near p wave velocity over a 7 km long section of fault average rupture velocities of about 2 7 to 3 2 km sec at 8 km depth are consistent with the data and 2 8 km sec is weakly preferred under the assumption that rupture propagates at a fixed fraction of the shear velocity the large vertical pulse which had a peak acceleration of 1 7 g at e06 was emitted from the portion of the fault extending 25 to 30 km northwest of the hypocenter near meloland overpass and not from the point on the fault closest to the differential array nothing can be said about fault behavior southeast of the hypocenter

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

integrated seismic source model of the 2015 gorkha nepal earthquake we compared spatiotemporal slip rate and high frequency around 1 hz radiation distributions from teleseismic p wave data to infer the seismic rupture process of the 2015 gorkha nepal earthquake for these estimates we applied a novel waveform inversion formulation that mitigates the effect of green s functions uncertainty and a hybrid backprojection method that mitigates contamination by depth phases our model showed that the dynamic rupture front propagated eastward from the hypocenter at 3 0 km s and triggered a large slip event centered about 50 km to the east it also showed that the large slip event included a rapid rupture acceleration event and an irregular deceleration of rupture propagation before the rupture termination heterogeneity of the stress drop or fracture energy in the eastern part of the rupture area where aftershock activity was high inhibited rupture growth high frequency radiation sources tended to be in the deeper part of the large slip area which suggests that heterogeneity of the stress drop or fracture energy there may have contributed to the damage in and around kathmandu

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

seismic evidence for a sharp lithospheric base persisting to the lowermost mantle beneath the caribbean summary broad band data from south american earthquakes recorded by californian seismic networks are analysed using a newly developed seismic wave migration method the slowness backazimuth weighted migration sbwm using the sbwm out of plane seismic p wave reflections have been observed the reflection locations extend throughout the earth s lower mantle down to the core mantle boundary cmb and coincide with the edges of tomographically mapped high seismic velocities modelling using synthetic seismograms suggests that a narrow 10 15 km low or high velocity lamella with about 2 per cent velocity contrast can reproduce the observed reflected waveforms but other explanations may exist considering the reflection locations and synthetic modelling the observed out of plane energy is well explained by underside reflections off a sharp reflector at the base of the subducted lithosphere we also detect weaker reflections corresponding to the tomographically mapped top of the slab which may arise from the boundary between the nazca plate and the overlying former basaltic oceanic crust the joint interpretation of the waveform modelling and geodynamic considerations indicate mass flux of the former oceanic lithosphere and basaltic crust across the 660 km discontinuity linking processes and structure at the top and bottom of the earth s mantle supporting the idea of whole mantle convection

transpressional rupture cascade of the 2016 mw 7 8 kaikoura earthquake new zealand large earthquakes often do not occur on a simple planar fault but involve rupture of multiple geometrically complex faults the 2016 m w 7 8 kaikoura earthquake new zealand involved the rupture of at least 21 faults propagating from southwest to northeast for about 180 km here we combine space geodesy and seismology techniques to study subsurface fault geometry slip distribution and the kinematics of the rupture our finite fault slip model indicates that the fault motion changes from predominantly right lateral slip near the epicenter to transpressional slip in the northeast with a maximum coseismic surface displacement of about 10 m near the intersection between the kekerengu and papatea faults teleseismic back projection imaging shows that rupture speed was overall slow 1 4 km s but faster on individual fault segments approximately 2 km s and that the conjugate oblique reverse north striking faults released the largest high frequency energy we show that the linking conway charwell faults aided in propagation of rupture across the step over from the humps fault zone to the hope fault fault slip cascaded along the jordan thrust kekerengu and needles faults causing stress perturbations that activated two major conjugate faults the hundalee and papatea faults our results shed important light on the study of earthquakes and seismic hazard evaluation in geometrically complex fault systems

timing of collision of the north and south china blocks controversy and reconciliation the qinling orogen was formed by the joining of the north and south china blocks but the timing of their integration has been debated for more than a decade the controversies obviously stem from different approaches to reconstruction of the integration history two contrasting lines of evidence yield two different ages for collision of the north and south china blocks middle paleozoic and late triassic the shangdan suture within the qinling was regarded in previous studies as the trace along which the north and south china blocks collided our studies however demonstrate that there are two sutures within the qinling the well documented shangdan suture and the newly discovered mianlue suture we show in this paper that the late proterozoic to early mesozoic evolution of the qinling involved interactions between the north china block the north and south qinling orogens and the south china block the middle paleozoic collision along the shangdan suture as constrained by some evidence accreted only the south qinling orogen to the southern part i e the north qinling of the north china block contemporaneous rifting of the south china block and subsequent drifting separated the south qinling from the south china block during the middle to late paleozoic the separation of the south from the north china blocks is supported by other evidence in particular geomagnetic data evidently it was the late triassic collision of the south china block with the south qinling orogen along the mianlue suture that led to final integration of the north and south china blocks

a high frequency secondary event during the 2004 parkfield earthquake by using seismic records of the 2004 magnitude 6 0 parkfield earthquake we identified a burst of high frequency seismic radiation that occurred about 13 kilometers northwest of the hypocenter and 5 seconds after rupture initiation we imaged this event in three dimensions by using a waveform back projection method as well as by timing distinct arrivals visible on many of the seismograms the high frequency event is located near the south edge of a large slip patch seen in most seismic and geodetic inversions indicating that slip may have grown abruptly at this point the time history obtained from full waveform back projection suggests a rupture velocity of 2 5 kilometers per second energy estimates for the subevent together with long period slip inversions indicate a lower average stress drop for the northern part of the parkfield earthquake compared with that for the region near its hypocenter which is in agreement with stress drop estimates obtained from small magnitude aftershocks

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

the 2013 okhotsk deep focus earthquake rupture beyond the metastable olivine wedge and thermally controlled rise time near the edge of a slab the 2013 m8 3 okhotsk earthquake involves two primary mechanisms of deep focus earthquake rupture mineral phase transformation of olivine to spinel and thermal shear instability backprojection imaging of broadband seismograms recorded by the north american and european networks indicates bilateral rupture toward ne and sse the rupture paths of the ne segment and other regional m7 earthquakes are confined in narrow regions along the slab contours consistent with the phase transformation mechanism however the sse rupture propagates a long distance across the slab and aftershocks are distributed across a 60 km wide zone beyond the plausible thickness of the metastable olivine wedge favoring thermal shear weakening while the ne rupture is only visible at high frequencies the sse rupture is consistently observed across a broad frequency range this frequency dependent rupture mode can be explained by lateral variations of rise time controlled by thermal thinning of the slab near its northern end

redshift of earthquakes via focused blind deconvolution of teleseisms we thank the editor prof huajian yao and reviewers jiuxun yin and anonymous for providing their valuable feedback we thank our colleagues nafi toks oz matt li aurelien mordret tom herring hongjian fang and michael floyd for providing insight and expertise that greatly assisted this research we thank martin mai from king abdullah university of science and technology for his informative commentary of a draft version the material is based upon work assisted by a grant from equinor any opinions findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of equinor ld is also supported by afosr grant fa9550 17 1 0316

teleseismic inversion for rupture process of the 27 february 2010 chile mw 8 8 earthquake the 27 february 2010 chile m w 8 8 earthquake is the fifth largest earthquake to strike during the age of seismological instrumentation the faulting geometry slip distribution seismic moment and moment rate function are estimated from broadband teleseismic p sh and rayleigh wave signals we explore some of the trade offs in the rupture process estimation due to model parameterizations limited teleseismic sampling of seismic phase velocities and uncertainty in fault geometry the average slip over the 81 500 km 2 rupture area is about 5 m with slip concentrations down dip up dip and southwest and up dip and north of the hypocenter relatively little slip occurred up dip offshore of the hypocenter the average rupture velocity is 2 0 2 5 km s

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

earth s free oscillations excited by the 26 december 2004 sumatra andaman earthquake at periods greater than 1000 seconds earth s seismic free oscillations have anomalously large amplitude when referenced to the harvard centroid moment tensor fault mechanism which is estimated from 300 to 500 second surface waves by using more realistic rupture models on a steeper fault derived from seismic body and surface waves we approximated free oscillation amplitudes with a seismic moment 6 5 10 22 newton meters that corresponds to a moment magnitude of 9 15 with a rupture duration of 600 seconds the fault rupture models represent seismic observations adequately but underpredict geodetic displacements that argue for slow fault motion beneath the nicobar and andaman islands

two episodes of ree mineralization in the qinling orogenic belt central china in situ u th pb dating of bastnasite and monazite recent exploration revealed a number of rare earth element ree deposits that are distributed along the qinling orogenic belt central china these deposits have an estimated total reserve of about 2 mt ree2o3 thus making this belt a world class ree metallogenic province understanding the metallogenesis of the belt requires direct dating of ree minerals in this study la icp ms u th pb dating on bastnasite and monazite from the huangshuian taipingzhen and miaoya deposits in different units of the belt was used to precisely determine the timing of the ree mineralization the huangshuian deposit in the north is a carbonatite related mo ree deposit in which the ree minerals are closely associated with molybdenite after correction for common pb and excessed 206pb decayed from 230th a weighted average 206pb 238u age of 207 4 ma n 17 mswd 1 9 is obtained for bastnasite grains from this deposit such an age is slightly younger than that of the final collision peak at 230 220 ma of the qinling orogenic belt thus indicating that the mo ree mineralization is likely related to a post collisional extension setting the taipingzhen ree deposit in the middle contains sheet like ore bodies composed of veins where bastnasite the dominant ree mineral is closely associated with quartz fluorite and barite in situ bastnasite u th pb dating shows that the ree mineralization in this deposit has formed at 421 7 ma n 17 mswd 1 5 synchronous with extension related magmatism in the region the miaoya deposit in the south is the largest one in the belt and it is essentially a ree mineralized syenite carbonatite complex in this deposit the monazite grains are closely associated with major minerals of the syenites or carbonatites e g k feldspar or calcite but commonly exhibit complex internal textures different domains of monazite yield two groups of u pb ages at 414 11 ma n 5 mswd 0 91 and 231 2 ma n 21 mswd 3 1 whereas the bastnasite has an age of 206 4 ma n 14 mswd 1 5 the early age of 414 ma is obtained from homogenous monazite grains and in good agreement with zircon u pb ages of the miaoya syenite carbonatite complex and thus is considered to represent the timing of the major ree mineralization in the deposit the younger ages of 231 206 ma are obtained from monazite grains with complex internal textures and bastnasite in late veinlets thus recording secondary consecutive ree remobilization events likely related to the compression process during formation of the qinling orogenic belt our new u th pb ages in combination with previously geochronological data demonstrate that there are two episodes of ree mineralization at 440 410 ma and 220 200 ma in the qinling orogenic belt

observations of high frequency scattered energy associated with the core phasepkkp stacks of global seismic network data reveal emergent high frequency 1 hz energy extending back from the pkkpc caustic at 72 to a distance of about 60 the arrival s emergent onset long duration 150 s apparent slowness and proximity to the core phase pkkp indicate a deep scattering origin however the amplitude and timing of the observations are difficult to explain with simple models of pkkp scattering

a rayleigh wave back projection method applied to the 2011 tohoku earthquake 1 we study the rupture process of the 2011 tohoku megathrust by analyzing 384 regional strong motion records using a novel back projection method for rayleigh waves with periods between 13 and 100 s the proposed approach is based on isolating the signal at the selected period with a continuous wavelet transform and generating the stack using arrival times predicted from detailed fundamental mode rayleigh wave group velocity maps we verify the method by back projecting synthetic time series representing a point source off the coast of tohoku which we generate with a 3d finite difference method and a mesh based on the japan integrated velocity structure model application of the method to k net kik net records of themw9 1 tohoku earthquake reveals several rayleigh wave emitters which we attribute to different stages of rupture stage 1 is characterized by slow rupture down dip from the hypocenter the onset of stage 2 is marked by energetic rayleigh waves emitted from the region between the jma hypocenter and the trench within 60 s after hypocentral time during stage 3 the rupture propagates bilaterally towards the north and south at rupture velocities between 3 and 3 5 km s 1 reaching iwate oki 65 s and ibaraki oki 105 s after nucleation in contrast to short period back projections from teleseismic p waves which place radiation sources below the honshu coastline rayleigh wave emitters identified from our long period back projection are located 50 100 km west of the trench this result supports the interpretation of frequency dependent seismic wave radiation as suggested in previous studies

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

estimated seismic source parameters for 2019 magnitude 7 6 papua new guinea earthquake on 14 may 2019 a major mw 7 6 earthquake struck eastern papua new guinea causing a tsunami warning that was later canceled the last major rupture in the region was a 2000 mw 8 0 event which resulted in massive horizontal land movements of up to several meters and a series of aftershocks with primarily thrust mechanisms and caused a damaging tsunami seismic methods for characterizing the source process were applied vertical components of the long period p waves from 35 stations of the global seismic network with even azimuthal coverage were adopted in the inversions first the focal mechanism solution was retrieved after the earthquake from the inverted results as well as aftershock distribution the causative fault of the great png earthquake was confirmed to be a fault of strike 316 dip 84 and rake 0 indicating that the earthquake was a left lateral strike slip event then to clearly understand the spatiotemporal evolutionary process of the source rupture of the earthquake far field body wave data were collected and the source rupture process of this earthquake was studied using the finite fault inversion method a finite fault model was estabished with length and width of 152 and 32 km respectively and we set the initial seismic source parameters referring to the center of the focal mechanism solution this was estimated by the focal mechanism solutions of defferent studies referring to different focal mechanism solutions we found that the focal mechanism solution determined by global centroid moment tensor catalog was not appropriate inversion results indicated that the seismic moment was 3 63 1020 nm mw 7 6 and the source duration was 40 s the rupture propagated mainly toward the northwest in an asymmetrical bilateral mode with a maximum slip of 13 2 m and a large scale slip patch strongly ruptured to the surface the study of coulomb stress changes suggested that the png earthquake may trigger a thrust type rupture in the new britain trench which has the potential to trigger a tsunami

collision leading to multiple stage large scale extrusion in the qinling orogen insights from the mianlue suture abstract the geologic framework of the phanerozoic qinling dabie orogen was built up through two major suturing events of three blocks from north to south these include the north china craton including the north qinling block the qinling dabie microblock and the south china craton including the bikou block separated by the shangdan and mianlue sutures the mianlue suture zone contains evidence for mesozoic extrusion tectonics in the form of major strike slip border faults surrounding basement blocks a late paleozoic ophiolite and a ca 240 200 ma thrust belt that reformed by 200 150 ma thrusts during a type intracontinental subduction the regional map pattern shows that the blocks are surrounded by complexly deformed devonian to early triassic metasandstones and metapelites forming a regional scale block in matrix melange fabric five distinct tectonic units have been recognized in the belt 1 basement blocks including two types of precambrian basement crystalline and transitional 2 continental margin slices including early paleozoic strata and late paleozoic fluviodeltaic sedimentary rocks proximal and distal fan clastics reflecting the development of a north facing rift margin on the edge of the south china plate 3 out of sequence oceanic crustal slices including strongly deformed postrift deep water sedimentary rocks sheeted dikes basalts and mafic ultramafic cumulates of a late paleozoic ophiolite suite developing independent of the rift margin in a separate basin 4 out of sequence island arc slices 5 accretionary wedge slices all the tectonic units were deformed during three geometrically distinct deformation episodes d 1 d 2 and d 3 during 240 200 ma units 2 4 involved southward thrusting and vertical then southward extrusion of about 20 km of horizontal displacement above the autochthonous basement during the d 1 episode thrust slices 20 km south of the mianlue suture are related to this vertical extrusion due to the same rock assemblages ages and kinematics the d 2 and d 3 episodes folded all the units in a thick skinned style about east west d 2 and west northwest d 3 axes in the mianlue suture zone an early foreland propagating sequence of accretion of late paleozoic rocks deposited above the yangtze craton is not involved in d 1 deformation but is temporally equivalent to the d 2 and d 3 deformation in the mianlue suture two stages of strike slip faulting mainly occurred at the end of d 2 and d 3 respectively during d 2 deformation the bikou block was obliquely indented to the ese into the mianlue suture rather than being thrust over the mianlue suture from the north as a part of the qinling dabie microblock during d 3 deformation however the bikou block was bounded by the south boundary fault of the mianlue suture and the yangpingguan fault on the south these faults are coeval strike slip faults but of opposite senses and accommodated minor southwestward extrusion of the bikou block into songpan ganze orogen the other basement blocks north of the mianlue suture were extruded eastward by about 20 km of lateral displacement based on the offset of the wudang dome during the d 3 episode due to the northeastward indentation of the hannan complex of the south china craton post d 3 emplacement of granite cutting across the strike slip faults such as the mianlue suture provides a minimum age of 200 ma for d 3 deformation therefore based on insights from the evolution of the mianlue suture the d 2 and d 3 episodes in the mianlue suture and its neighbors are not responsible for and associated with the two stage extrusion of the dabie uhp hp terranes from the foping dome to the present erosional surface more than 350 km

high resolution 5 μm u th pb isotope dating of monazite with excimer laser ablation ela icpms abstract monazite lree po 4 a common accessory mineral in magmatic and metamorphic rocks is complementary to zircon in u th pb geochronology because the mineral can record successive growth phases it is useful for unravelling complex geological histories a high spatial resolution is required to identify contrasted age domains that may occur at the crystal scale bulk mineral techniques such as id tims applied to single monazite grains recording multiple overgrowths or isotope resetting can result in partly scattered discordant analytical points that produce inaccurate intercept ages laser ablation la icpms has been demonstrated to be a useful technique for u th pb dating of zircons and this study tests its analytical capabilities for dating monazite a sector field high resolution icpms coupled with a 193 nm arf excimer laser ablation microprobe is capable of achieving a high spatial resolution and producing stable and reliable isotope measurements the u th pb systematic was applied to monazite grains from several samples a lower palaeozoic lens from high grade terrains in southern madagascar neogene hydrothermal crystals from the western alps a palaeoproterozoic very high temperature granulite from central madagascar and a variscan leucogranite from spain directly on a polished thin section the major aim was to compare and or reproduce tims and emp ages of monazite from a variety of settings and ages the three independent 206 pb 238 u 207 pb 235 u and 208 pb 232 th ratios and ages were calculated isotope fractionation effects mass bias laser induced fractionation were corrected using a chemically homogeneous and u pb concordant monazite as external standard this study demonstrates that excimer laser ablation ela icpms allows u th pb dating of monazite with a high level of repeatability accuracy and precision as well as rapidity of analysis a spatial resolution almost comparable to that of emp in terms of crater width 5 m produced precise 208 pb 232 th 206 pb 238 u and 207 pb 235 u ratios for dating palaeozoic to precambrian monazites the advantages of ela icpms isotope dating are precision accuracy and the ability to detect discordance in the case of late miocene hydrothermal monazites from the alps a larger spot size of 25 m diameter is required and precise and accurate ages were obtained only for 208 pb 232 th systematics results from the variscan granite show that in situ u th pb dating of monazites with ela icpms is possible using a 5 m spot directly on thin sections so that age data can be placed in a textural context

hidden aftershocks of the 2011 mw 9 0 tohoku japan earthquake imaged with the backprojection method 1 the first 25 h of the aftershock sequence following the 11 march 2011 mw 9 0 tohoku japan earthquake is investigated using a backprojection method in total 600 aftershocks are imaged during this time period these aftershocks are distributed over a 500 by 300 km area and include many events in the outer rise the backprojection events are compared with the japan meteorological agency jma catalogue which is composed of earthquakes recorded by local seismic networks in japan surprisingly half of the backprojection events are not found in the jma catalogue these events cluster near the japan trench and in the outer rise and fill in gaps in the spatial distribution of the early aftershock sequence where large main shock slip is thought to have occurred these results show that the jma magnitude of completeness is very high near the trench following the 2011 tohoku main shock and earthquakes as large as magnitude 6 8 went undetected by local seismic networks

acoustic imaging of earthquake sources from the chalfant valley 1986 aftershock series summary following the chalfant valley earthquake of 1986 july 21 ml 6 4 the usgs deployed 120 vertical component seismometers to obtain dense array recordings of aftershocks from this data set we selected three events with the best station coverage to obtain acoustic images of the earthquake sources the events were relocated using a layered velocity model and models with a constant velocity and a constant gradient to obtain minimum traveltime residuals all models performed similarly well preprocessing of the data prior to the extrapolation consisted of applying static corrections lowpass filtering and spatial interpolation as well as spatial tapering at the edges of the recording line for the back projection of the recorded wavefield we used a second order finite difference reverse time extrapolation technique similar to mcmechan 1982 while for two events no focusing of the energy could be obtained an acoustic image of one earthquake source was retrieved in order to obtain a better understanding of the physical meaning of acoustic imaging we applied the same processing and extrapolation scheme to synthetic seismograms calculated using the reflectivity method for the present data set these tests indicate that the influence of the 1 d velocity model on the focusing quality is very low the most severe limitations however are due to the finite aperture and gaps of the recording line the spatial sampling of the wavefield limits the frequency range used for extrapolation so that the resolution is beyond the scale of the source processes the finite aperture leads to polarity reversals in the final source image which makes an interpretation of the radiation pattern at the time of focusing from the reconstructed image impossible

tectonics of the qinling central china tectonostratigraphy geochronology and deformation history abstract the qinling orogen preserves a record of late mid proterozoic to cenozoic tectonism in central china high pressure metamorphism and ophiolite emplacement songshugou ophiolite assembled the yangtze craton including the lower qinling unit into rodinia during the 1 0 ga grenvillian orogeny the lower qinling unit then rifted from the yangtze craton at 0 7 ga subsequent intra oceanic arc formation at 470 490 ma was followed by accretion of the lower qinling unit first to the intra oceanic arc and then to the sino korea craton subduction then imprinted a 400 ma andean type magmatic arc onto all units north of the northern liuling unit oblique subduction created silurian devonian wnw trending sinistral transpressive wrench zones e g lo nan shang dan and late permian early triassic subduction reactivated them in dextral transpression lo nan shang xiang shang dan and subducted the northern edge of the yangtze craton exhumation of the cratonal edge formed the wudang metamorphic core complex during dominantly pure shear crustal extension at 230 235 ma post collisional south directed shortening continued through the early jurassic cretaceous reactivation of the qinling orogen started with nw se sinistral transtension coeval with large scale early cretaceous crustal extension and sinistral transtension in the northern dabie shan it presumably resulted from the combined effects of the siberia mongolia sino korean and lhasa west burma qiangtang indochina collisions and pacific subduction regional dextral wrenching was active within a ne sw extensional regime between 60 and 100 ma an early cretaceous andean type continental magmatic arc with widespread early cretaceous magmatism and back arc extension was overprinted by shortening related to the collision of yangtze indochina block with the west philippines block strike slip and normal faults associated with eocene half graben basins record paleogene nne ssw contraction and wnw ese extension the neogene is characterized by normal faults and nne trending sub horizontal extension pleistocene quaternary nw se extension and ne sw contraction comprises sinistral strike slip faults and is part of the nw se extension imposed across eastern asia by the india asia collision

the xiong er volcanic belt at the southern margin of the north china craton petrographic and geochemical evidence for its outboard position in the paleo mesoproterozoic columbia supercontinent abstract the xiong er volcanic belt covering an area of more than 60 000 km 2 along the southern margin of the north china craton has long been considered an intra continental rift zone and recently interpreted as part of a large igneous province formed by a mantle plume that led to the breakup of the paleo mesoproterozoic supercontinent columbia however such interpretations cannot be accommodated by lithology mineralogy geochemistry and geochronology of the volcanic rocks in the belt lithologically the xiong er volcanic belt is dominated by basaltic andesite and andesite with minor dacite and rhyolite different from rock associations related to continental rifts or mantle plumes which are generally bimodal and dominated by mafic components however they are remarkably similar to those rock associations in modern continental margin arcs in some of the basaltic andesites and andesites amphibole is a common phenocryst phase suggesting the involvement of h 2 o rich fluids in the petrogenesis of the xiong er volcanic rocks geochemically the xiong er volcanic rocks fall in the calc alkaline series and in most tectono magmatic discrimination diagrams the majority of the xiong er volcanic rocks show affinities to magmatic arcs in the primitive mantle normalized trace element diagrams the xiong er volcanic rocks show enrichments in the lile and lree and negative nb ta ti anomalies similar to arc related volcanic rocks produced by the hydrous melting of metasomatized mantle wedge nd isotope compositions of the xiong er volcanic rocks suggest that 5 15 older crust has been transferred into the upper lithospheric mantle by subduction related recycling during archean to paleoproterozoic time available shrimp and la icp ms u pb zircon age data indicate that the xiong er volcanic rocks erupted intermittently over a protracted interval from 1 78 ga through 1 76 1 75 ga and 1 65 ga to 1 45 ga though the major phase of the volcanism occurred at 1 78 1 75 ga such multiple and intermittent volcanism is inconsistent with a mantle plume driven rifting event but is not uncommon in ancient and existing continental margin arcs taken together the xiong er volcanic belt was most likely a paleo mesoproterozoic continental magmatic arc that formed at the southern margin of the north china craton similar paleo mesoproterozoic continental magmatic arcs were also present at the southern and southeastern margins of laurentia the southern margin of baltica the northwestern margin of amonzonia and the southern and eastern margins of the north australia craton which are considered to represent subduction related episodic outbuilding on the continental margins of the paleo mesoproterozoic supercontinent columbia therefore in any configuration of the supercontinent columbia the southern margin of the north china craton could not have been connected to any other continental block as proposed in a recent configuration but must have faced an open ocean whose lithosphere was subducted beneath the southern margin of the north china craton

geologic framework and tectonic evolution of the qinling orogen central china abstract the geologic framework of the qinling orogen was built up through interplay of three blocks the north china block including the north qinling the south qinling and the south china block separated by the shangdan and mianlue sutures the shangdan suture resulted from middle paleozoic collision of the north china block and the south qinling the mianlue suture resulted from late triassic collision of the south qinling and the south china block present upper crust of the qinling is structured dominantly by thrust fold systems the north qinling displays thick skinned deformation with crystalline basement involved whilst the south qinling is characterized by thin skinned thrusts and folds detached above the lower sinian two types of precambrian basement crystalline and transitional are defined according to lithology and metamorphic grade and different in age stratigraphic and sedimentary architecture is characterized by distinct zonation the qinling orogen experienced a prolonged continental divergence and convergence between blocks during the period from late neoproterozoic to early paleozoic times the south qinling was the northern margin of the south china block and the north qinling was the southern margin of the north china block separated by a proto tethyan qinling ocean the north qinling evolved into an active margin when the proto tethyan qinling ocean subducted northward during ordovician time collision of the south and north qinling took place in middle paleozoic along the shangdan suture synchronous with the collision rifting occurred at the southern rim of the south qinling and was followed by the opening of the paleo tethyan qinling ocean during the late paleozoic resulting in the splitting of the south china block from the south qinling collision of the south qinling and the south china block came about in the late triassic along the mianlue suture the late triassic collisional orogeny caused extensive fold and thrust deformation and granitoid intrusions throughout the qinling and led to final amalgamation of the north and south china blocks

age and tectonic setting of late archean greenstone gneiss terrain in henan province china as revealed by single grain zircon dating the authors report precise u pb zircon ages for single grains of a metarhyodacite from the late archean dengfeng greenstone belt in henan province china near the southern margin of the north china craton most grains belong to an igneous population whose u pb isotopic systematics define a straight line intersecting concordia at 2512 12 ma and this is interpreted as the time of crystallization of the original greenstone volcanics several grains are distinctly older between 2576 9 and 2945 44 ma and the authors interpret the older grains as xenocrysts of pre greenstone continental crust that provide evidence for crustal derivation or crustal contamination of the original rhyodacitic lava the xenocrysts suggest evolution of the dengfeng greenstone belt in a continental environment that may be represented by the taihua high grade gneisses bordering the dengfeng greenstones and for which the authors obtained ages of 2806 7 and 2841 6 ma the data add evidence to the now widely held concept that most archean greenstones developed on or near older continental crust and were therefore prone to crustal contamination in such cases conventional zircon dating may not always record the precise age of rock formation

fluid mediated partial alteration in monazite the role of coupled dissolution reprecipitation in element redistribution and mass transfer monazite ce lree th u ca p si o4 with complex zoning in th and other elements is commonly observed in metamorphic and igneous rocks the hypothesis that this alteration is a product of fluid mediated element mass transfer has been tested in the piston cylinder press caf2 assembly cylindrical graphite oven at 1 000 mpa and 900 c and in cold seal autoclaves on a hydrothermal line at 500 mpa and 600 c experiments included a relatively homogeneous monazite ce 7 8 wt tho2 from a heavy mineral sand plus a series of alkali bearing fluids including 2n naoh 2n koh and na2si2o5 h2o experiments were conducted using bse imaging emp analysis and both tem and hrtem a subset of monazite grains from each experiment show evidence of partial alteration in the form of areas enriched in th si with sharp curvilinear compositional boundaries extending from the grain rim into the monazite interior these thsio4 enriched textures are similar to those commonly seen in natural examples of metasomatised monazite in both magmatic and metamorphic rocks in the na2si2o5 h2o experiments scarce inclusions of britholite formed in the altered monazite the altered monazite is also characterised by strong depletion in pb ca and y thorium and si mobility coupled with the formation of britholite inclusions during partial alteration in the monazite grain is considered to be the product of fluid aided coupled dissolution reprecipitation as opposed to solid state diffusion since other fluids including nacl and kcl brines do not result in the formation of these textures the experimental replication of thsio4 enriched areas in the monazite strongly suggests that similar textures in monazite observed in nature are fluid induced specifically by alkali bearing fluids if true complex metasomatically induced textures in monazite could yield information concerning the nature of the fluid responsible for their formation as well as allow for the dating of the metasomatic event presuming that all the original radiogenic pb has been removed

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

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

along dip variation in seismic radiation of the 2011 ibaraki oki japan earthquake m w 7 9 inferred using a multiple period band source inversion approach

the global reach of the 26 december 2004 sumatra tsunami numerical model simulations combined with tide gauge and satellite altimetry data reveal that wave amplitudes directionality and global propagation patterns of the 26 december 2004 sumatra tsunami were primarily determined by the orientation and intensity of the offshore seismic line source and subsequently by the trapping effect of mid ocean ridge topographic waveguides

mesozoic molybdenum deposits in the east qinling dabie orogenic belt characteristics and tectonic settings abstract the east qinling dabie orogenic belt accommodates the largest mo ore district in the world it contains 8 43 mt of proven mo metal reserves which accounts for 66 of the total proven chinese mo reserves the mo ore district includes 24 deposits and 12 occurrences with four major types of mo mineral systems i e porphyry porphyry skarn skarn and hydrothermal veins the latter can be further subdivided into quartz vein and carbonatite vein types although mo mineralization in the belt began in the paleoproterozoic 1680 24 to 2044 14 ma all economically significant deposits were formed during the mesozoic re os dating of molybdenite has shown that there are three episodes of mo mineralization i e late triassic 233 221 ma late jurassic to early cretaceous 148 138 ma and early to middle cretaceous 131 112 ma late triassic mo deposits developed as molybdenite quartz veins and carbonatite vein types stable isotope systematics c o s and high contents of re and sr indicate that the carbonatite mo veins are mantle derived porphyry and porphyry skarn mo mineral deposits were formed in the late jurassic to early cretaceous and early to middle cretaceous the late jurassic to early cretaceous granite porphyries that are associated with the mo deposits usually occupy less than 1 5 km2 at the surface and are situated in the east qinling area far west of china s continental margin on the other hand the early to middle cretaceous batholiths and granite porphyries with associated mo deposits are located in the dabieshan area and eastern part of the east qinling area the late jurassic to early creataceous granitoids and related mo deposits possibly formed in a back arc extensional setting of the eurasian continental margin which was probably triggered by the oblique subduction of the izanagi plate the early to middle cretaceous batholiths and granite porphyries are linked to the tectonic regime of lithospheric thinning asthenospheric upwelling and partial melting of the crust induced by a change in izanagi plate motion parallel to the continent margin in the east qinling dabie belt there are vein type pb zn ag deposits surrounding porphyry and or porphyry skarn mo w deposits forming well defined ore clusters the same spatial arrangement i e porphyry mo stockworks and outlying pb zn ag ore veins is also observed at the deposit scale thus mo porphyry stockworks and distal polymetallic veins belong to the same ore system and may reflect an outward temperature decrease from the highly fractionated granite plutons both porphyry stockworks and polymetallic veins can be used as vectors for further prospecting

lower edge of locked main himalayan thrust unzipped by the 2015 gorkha earthquake faults are unlocked by earthquakes analysis of seismic data from the 2015 nepal earthquake shows that only part of the main himalayan thrust fault was unzipped by the quake leaving much of the fault locked and ready to slip in a future event

time lapse imaging of coseismic ruptures for the 2019 ridgecrest earthquakes using multiazimuth backprojection with regional seismic data and a 3 d crustal velocity model

the march 11 2011 tohoku oki earthquake and cascading failure of the plate interface 1 a continuous back projection analysis using data recorded in north america between march 9 2011 and april 7 2011 is applied to the mw 9 0 2011 tohoku oki earthquake and the foreshocks and aftershocks of this event as with the mw 8 8 2010 maule chile earthquake back projection results of the mainshock show variations in rupture behavior when data filtered to different frequency ranges are used in particular there is a relationship between the frequency of data used and the position along the dip direction of the energy release with the highest frequency result imaging energy at the down dip edge of the rupture and progressively lower frequencies showing a continuous shift updip in addition these results show that late in the rupture 200 seconds after the hypocentral time energy at all frequencies is imaged very close to the trench at about 37 n which with the energy imaged near and updip of the epicenter may have acted as a tsunami source comparing the mainshock rupture area to the area that ruptured during m 6 foreshocks and aftershocks between march 9th and april 7th shows that total failure of the plate interface nearly doubled compared to the mainshock alone building upon the idea that the mainshock occurred through interactions between multiple segments the results imply that the total failure area of the interface may represent the area that can rupture during a single event as a series of in phase interface segments

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

frequency dependent energy radiation and fault coupling for the 2010 mw8 8 maule chile and 2011 mw9 0 tohoku japan earthquakes 1 we carried out back projections of teleseismic data filtered in different frequency bands for the 2010 maule chile and the 2011 tohoku japan earthquakes for the maule earthquake there were differences along strike of the fault with the high frequency energy mainly originating from an area 200 km northeast of the epicenter whereas low frequency energy came from a location closer to the epicenter the tohoku earthquake shows strong frequency dependence in the dip direction high frequency sources were located about 100 km west of the epicenter while low frequency sources were around epicenter near the japan trench we compare the spatial distributions of energy with estimates of seismic coupling before the earthquakes areas of high frequency radiation seem correlated with regions that were strongly coupled before the earthquakes areas of high coupling may be associated with fault properties that are more heterogeneous and or have overall higher stress producing higher frequency seismic waves

earthquake in a maze compressional rupture branching during the 2012 mw 8 6 sumatra earthquake seismological observations of the 2012 moment magnitude 8 6 sumatra earthquake reveal unprecedented complexity of dynamic rupture the surprisingly large magnitude results from the combination of deep extent high stress drop and rupture of multiple faults back projection source imaging indicates that the rupture occurred on distinct planes in an orthogonal conjugate fault system with relatively slow rupture speed the east southeast west northwest ruptures add a new dimension to the seismotectonics of the wharton basin which was previously thought to be controlled by north south strike slip faulting the rupture turned twice into the compressive quadrant against the preferred branching direction predicted by dynamic coulomb stress calculations orthogonal faulting and compressional branching indicate that rupture was controlled by a pressure insensitive strength of the deep oceanic lithosphere

imaging short period seismic radiation from the 27 february 2010 chile mw 8 8 earthquake by back projection of p pp and pkikp waves 1 teleseismic short period 0 5 5 s p waves from the 27 february 2010 chile earthquake mw 8 8 are back projected to the source region to image locations of coherent short period seismic wave radiation several receiver array configurations are analyzed using different p wave arrivals including networks of stations in north america p japan pkikp and europe pp as well as a global configuration of stations with a broad azimuthal distribution and longer period p waves 5 20 s coherent bursts of short period radiation from the source are concentrated below the chilean coastline along the downdip portion of the megathrust the short period source region expands bilaterally with significant irregularity in the radiation comparison with finite fault slip models inverted from longer period seismic waves indicates that the regions of large slip on the megathrust are located updip of the regions of short period radiation a manifestation of frequency dependent seismic radiation similar to observations for the great 2011 tohoku earthquake mw 9 0 back projection of synthetic p waves generated from the finite fault models demonstrates that if the short period energy had radiated with the same space time distribution as the long period energy back projection analysis would image it in the correct location updip we conclude that back projection imaging of short period signals provides a distinct view of the seismic source that is missed by studies based only on long period seismic waves geodetic data and or tsunami observations

seismic stereometry reveals preparatory behavior and source kinematics of intermediate size earthquakes although moderate size earthquakes are poorly studied by lack of near fault observations they can provide key information about larger damaging earthquakes here we propose a new approach inspired by double difference relocation that uses high coherency waveforms recorded at neighboring sensors to study the preparation phase and dynamics of moderate size earthquakes we validate this technique by analyzing the 2016 m w 5 2 borrego springs earthquake in southern california and find consistent rupture velocities of 2 km s highlighting two main rupture asperities the analysis of the 2019 ml5 2 le teil earthquake in france reveals slow nucleation at depth that migrates to the surface and propagates northward with a velocity of 2 8 km s highlighting two main rupture events also imaged by insar by providing unprecedented resolution in our observation of the rupture dynamics this approach will be useful in better understanding the preparation phase and rupture of both tectonic and induced earthquakes plain language summary small and moderate size earthquakes are much more numerous yet studied in much less detail than large and damaging earthquakes this is because to study small earthquakes precisely one needs seismometers very close to the rupture which is rarely the case it is still unclear if small and large earthquakes start the same way thus studying more systematically small earthquakes could help to answer this question here we show that we can use two close by seismometers as we would do with 3 d glasses to observe with a stereoscopic effect the evolution of intermediate size earthquakes when they rupture along a fault we can retrieve the direction of rupture the speed at which the fault breaks and the length of the rupture important parameters that help to characterize the earthquakes using this new method we can sometimes also observe the behavior of the fault before the main rupture which will be useful to better understand how earthquakes start

rupture process of the mw 7 9 2015 gorkha earthquake nepal insights into himalayan megathrust segmentation we investigate the rupture process of the 25 april 2015 gorkha earthquake mw 7 9 using a kinematic joint inversion of teleseismic waves strong motion data high rate gps static gps and synthetic aperture radar sar data the rupture is found to be simple in terms of coseismic slip and even more in terms of rupture velocity as both inversion results and a complementing back projection analysis show that the main slip patch broke unilaterally at a steady velocity of 3 1 3 3 km s this feature likely contributes to the moderate peak ground acceleration 0 2 g observed in kathmandu the 15 km deep rupture occurs along the base of the coupled portion of the main himalayan thrust and does not break the area ranging from kathmandu to the front the limitation in length and width of the rupture cannot be identified in the preearthquake interseismic coupling distribution and is therefore discussed in light of the structural architecture of the megathrust

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

further evidence for 1 85 ga metamorphism in the central zone of the north china craton shrimp u pb dating of zircon from metamorphic rocks in the lushan area henan province abstract this paper reports shrimp zircon u pb dating of precambrian supracrustal and granitic rocks from the lushan area henan province in the southern portion of the central zone also referred to as the trans north china orogen of the north china craton a graphite garnet sillimanite gneiss sample tw0006 1 of the shangtaihua group gives a range of inherited zircon ages from 2 73 to 2 26 ga and a metamorphic zircon age of 1 84 0 07 ga a garnet bearing gneissic granitoid sample twj358 1 which is considered to intrude the shangtaihua group gives a magmatic zircon age of 2 14 0 02 ga and a metamorphic zircon age of 1 87 ga the metamorphic zircon ages of 1 87 1 84 ga obtained in this study indicate that an important tectonothermal event occurred at the end of the paleoproterozoic in the lushan area this supports the southern continuation of a central zone in the north china craton that workers have recently considered to result from continent continent collision it is also evident that the shangtaihua group was formed during the paleoproterozoic between 2 26 and 2 14 ga and not during the archean as previously considered

timing and genesis of the adakitic and shoshonitic intrusions in the laoniushan complex southern margin of the north china craton implications for post collisional magmatism associated with the qinling orogen abstract the nww striking qinling orogen formed in the triassic by collision between the north china and yangtze cratons triassic granitoid intrusions mostly middle to high k calc alkaline are widespread in this orogen but contemporaneous intrusions are rare in the southern margin of the north china craton an area commonly considered as the hinterland belt of the orogen in this paper we report zircon u pb ages elemental geochemistry and sr nd hf isotope data for the laoniushan granitoid complex that was emplaced in the southern margin of the north china craton zircon u pb dating shows that the complex was emplaced in the late triassic 228 1 to 215 4 ma indicating that it is part of the post collisional magmatism in the qinling orogen the complex consists of from early to late biotite monzogranite quartz diorite quartz monzonite and hornblende monzonite which span a wide compositional range e g sio2 55 9 70 6 wt k2o na2o 6 6 10 2 wt and mg of 24 to 54 the biotite monzogranite has high al2o3 15 5 17 4 wt sr 396 1398 ppm and ba 1284 3993 ppm contents and relatively high la yb mostly 14 30 and sr y mostly 40 97 ratios but low yb mostly 1 3 1 6 ppm and y mostly14 19 ppm contents features typical of adakitic rocks the quartz monzonite hornblende monzonite and quartz diorite have a shoshonitic affinity with k2o up to 5 58 wt and k2o na2o ratios averaging 1 4 the rocks are characterized by strong lree hree fractionation in chondrite normalized ree pattern without obvious eu anomalies and show enrichment in large ion lithophile elements but depletion in high field strength elements nb ta ti the biotite monzogranite 228 ma has initial 87sr 86sr ratios of 0 7061 to 0 7067 end t values of 9 2 to 12 6 and ehf t values of 9 0 to 15 1 whereas the shoshonitic granitoids mainly 217 215 ma have similar initial 87sr 86sr ratios 0 7065 to 0 7075 but more radiogenic end t 12 4 to 17 0 and ehf t 14 1 to 17 0 the sr nd hf isotope data indicate that the rocks were likely generated by partial melting of an ancient lower continental crust with heterogeneous compositions as partly confirmed by the widespread presence of early paleoproterozoic inherited zircons mafic microgranular enclaves mmes characterized by fine grained igneous textures and an abundance of acicular apatites are common in the laoniushan complex compared with the host rocks they have lower sio2 48 6 53 7 wt and higher mg 51 56 cr 122 393 ppm and ni 24 79 ppm but equivalent sr nd isotope compositions indicating that the mmes likely originated from an ancient enriched lithospheric mantle the abundance of mmes in the granitoid intrusions suggest that magma mixing plays an important role in the generation of the laoniushan complex collectively it is suggested that the laoniushan complex was a product of post collisional magmatism related to lithospheric extension following slab break off formation of the adakitic and shoshonitic intrusions in the laoniushan complex indicates that the qinling orogen had evolved into a post collisional setting by about 230 210 ma