axial topographic relief associated with ridge transform intersections the axial depths of mid ocean ridges are consistently observed to increase along strike from the central part of a ridge segment to its intersection with a transform fault variations in the magnitude of this axial relief probably reflect variations in the magmatic and tectonic processes that characterize plate accretion and seafloor spreading at each individual segment constrained by observations from 41 ridge transform intersections we investigate the relative effect on axial depths of transform offset segment length regional depth and spreading rate we first solve for a model of ridge segment relief as a function of the age offset of the transform and the segment length both scaled by spreading rate through a series of regression analyses covering a range of spreading rate scalings we determine a model which predicts segment relief at both fast and slow spreading centers to within 240 m standard deviation we find that half segment scale deepening is more than a direct thermal effect of the juxtaposition of a cold lithospheric edge and the end of a ridge at a transform fault a second inversion problem is solved to determine the parameters that contribute to the absolute depth of the ridge axis we can show that the absolute depth of the shallowest section of a ridge segment is strongly dependent on regional depth and that this dependence is more complex at slow spreading ridges reflecting the common but not ubiquitous existence of a median valley there these results in combination with the segment relief analysis clearly indicate that the axial depth at a ridge transform intersection is a function of both long wavelength processes such as may control hot spot distribution and local tectonic factors including but not limited to transform offset

impact of mesh and dem resolutions in sem simulation of 3d seismic response this study shows that the resolution of a digital elevation model dem and model mesh strongly influences 3d simulations of seismic response topographic heterogeneity scatters seismic waves and causes variation in seismic response am plification and deamplification of seismic amplitudes at the earth s surface dem resolution influences the accuracy and detail with which the earth s surface can be represented and hence affects seismic simulation studies apart from the spatial resolution of a dem the mesh resolution adopted in the creation of a 3d spectral element meshing also changes the detailedness of surface topography working with high resolution data is in most cases not possible on a regional scale because of its costliness in terms of time money and computation in this study we evaluate how low the resolution of dem and mesh can become before the results are significantly affected we simulated models with different combinations of dem and mesh resolutions the peak ground displacement pgd obtained from these simulations was compared with the pgd of the model with the finest mesh and dem resolution our results show that any mesh or dem resolution of 540 m or coarser will give unrealistic results these results are valid for similar terrains as studied here and might not be directly applicable to regions with significantly different topography

dynamics of the mid ocean ridge plate boundary recent observations and theory the global mid ocean ridge system is one of the most active plate boundaries on the earth and understanding the dynamic processes at this plate boundary is one of the most important problems in geodynamics in this paper i present recent results of several aspects of mid ocean ridge studies concerning the dynamics of oceanic lithosphere at these diverging plate boundaries i show that the observed rift valley to no rift valley transition globally due to the increase of spreading rate or locally due to the crustal thickness variations and or thermal anomalies can be explained by the strong temperature dependence of the power law rheology of the oceanic lithosphere and most importantly by the difference in the rheological behavior of the oceanic crust from the underlying mantle the effect of this weaker lower crust on ridge dynamics is mainly influenced by spreading rate and crustal thickness variations the accumulated strain pattern from a recently developed lens model based on recent seismic observations was proposed as an appealing mechanism for the observed gabbro layering sequence in the oman ophiolite it is now known that the mid ocean ridges at all spreading rates are offset into individual spreading segments by both transform and nontransform discontinuities the tectonics of ridge segmentation are also spreading rate dependent the slow spreading mid atlantic ridge is characterized by distinct bulls eye shaped gravity lows suggesting large along axis variations in melt production and crustal thickness whereas the fast spreading east pacific rise is associated with much smaller along axis variations these spreading rate dependent changes have been attributed to a fundamental differences in ridge segmentation mechanisms and mantle upwelling at mid ocean ridges the mantle upwelling may be intrinsically plume like 3 d beneath a slow spreading ridge but more sheet like 2 d beneath a fast spreading ridge

effects of dem resolution on the calculation of topographical indices twi and its components summary a variety of landscape properties have been modelled successfully using topographic indices such as the topographic wetness index twi defined as ln a tan where a is the specific upslope area and is the surface slope previous studies have shown the influence of scale on twi values when converting standard resolution dems to coarser resolutions in this study a high resolution digital elevation model dem with a 5 m grid size derived from lidar light detection and ranging data was used to investigate the scale dependency of twi values when converting from high resolution elevation data to standard resolution dems first a set of dems was generated from an initial dem by thinning to resolutions of 10 25 and 50 m grid sizes to study the effects of lower grid size and decreased information content next to investigate the impact of different information content on dems with the same grid size the three lower resolution dems were all interpolated to the original 5 m grid size in addition to comparing index distribution functions a second objective was to evaluate differences in spatial patterns thus the values of twi and its components as computed for the seven different dems were compared in three different ways 1 distribution functions and their statistics 2 cell by cell comparison of four dems with the same resolution but different information content and 3 comparison of blocks of cells within different resolution dems with different information content like previous twi studies the computed specific upstream area decreased on average for higher resolution dems while computed slope values followed a narrower distribution twi variation between neighbouring cells in 50 50 m areas decreased largely with increasing grid size a cell by cell comparison of the twi values of the four 5 m dems with different information content showed a clear decrease in correlation with the twi based on the original dem with decreasing information content the results showed considerable differences between topographic indices computed for dems of different grid resolution interpolating the dems to a higher resolution i e a smaller grid size provided more similar twi distributions but the pixel by pixel comparison showed that different information contents caused clearly different twi maps

oceanic transverse ridges a flexural response to fracture zone normal extension one of the most puzzling characteristics of sea floor morphology is the occurrence of anomalously shallow fracture zone parallel oceanic transverse ridges a model is proposed for the formation of transverse ridges near lat 21 and 24 n on the mid atlantic ridge in which the differential responses of large offset and small offset fracture zones to recent changes in spreading direction result in the generation of normal faults that coincide with the off axis traces of fracture zones numerical models of the flexural response of the lithosphere to normal faulting suggest that modest amounts of extension 5 km along low angle faults 45 are responsible for the transverse ridges

contribution of gravitational potential energy differences to the global stress field summary modelling the lithospheric stress field has proved to be an efficient means of determining the role of lithospheric versus sublithospheric buoyancies and also of constraining the driving forces behind plate tectonics both these sources of buoyancies are important in generating the lithospheric stress field however these sources and the contribution that they make are dependent on a number of variables such as the role of lateral strength variation in the lithosphere the reference level for computing the gravitational potential energy per unit area gpe of the lithosphere and even the definition of deviatoric stress for the mantle contribution much depends on the mantle convection model including the role of lateral and radial viscosity variations the spatial distribution of density buoyancies and the resolution of the convection model gpe differences are influenced by both lithosphere density buoyancies and by radial basal tractions that produce dynamic topography the global lithospheric stress field can thus be divided into 1 stresses associated with gpe differences including the contribution from radial basal tractions and 2 stresses associated with the contribution of horizontal basal tractions in this paper we investigate only the contribution of gpe differences both with and without the inferred contribution of radial basal tractions we use the crust 2 0 model to compute gpe values and show that these gpe differences are not sufficient alone to match all the directions and relative magnitudes of principal strain rate axes as inferred from the comparison of our depth integrated deviatoric stress tensor field with the velocity gradient tensor field within the earth s plate boundary zones we argue that gpe differences calibrate the absolute magnitudes of depth integrated deviatoric stresses within the lithosphere shortcomings of this contribution in matching the stress indicators within the plate boundary zones can be corrected by considering the contribution from horizontal tractions associated with density buoyancy driven mantle convection deviatoric stress magnitudes arising from gpe differences are in the range of 1 4 tn m 1 a part of which is contributed by dynamic topography the egm96 geoid data set is also used as a rough proxy for gpe values in the lithosphere however gpe differences from the geoid fail to yield depth integrated deviatoric stresses that can provide a good match to the deformation indicators gpe values inferred from the geoid have significant shortcomings when used on a global scale due to the role of dynamically support of topography another important factor in estimating the depth integrated deviatoric stresses is the use of the correct level of reference in calculating gpe we also elucidate the importance of understanding the reference pressure for calculating deviatoric stress and show that overestimates of deviatoric stress may result from either simplified 2 d approximations of the thin sheet equations or the assumption that the mean stress is equal to the vertical stress

global marine gravity from retracked geosat and ers 1 altimetry ridge segmentation versus spreading rate 1 three approaches are used to reduce the error in the satellite derived marine gravity anomalies first we have retracked the raw waveforms from the ers 1 and geosat gm missions resulting in improvements in range precision of 40 and 27 respectively second we have used the recently published egm2008 global gravity model as a reference field to provide a seamless gravity transition from land to ocean third we have used a biharmonic spline interpolation method to construct residual vertical deflection grids comparisons between shipboard gravity and the global gravity grid show errors ranging from 2 0 mgal in the gulf of mexico to 4 0 mgal in areas with rugged seafloor topography the largest errors of up to 20 mgal occur on the crests of narrow large seamounts the global spreading ridges are well resolved and show variations in ridge axis morphology and segmentation with spreading rate for rates less than about 60 mm a the typical ridge segment is 50 80 km long while it increases dramatically at higher rates 100 1000 km this transition spreading rate of 60 mm a also marks the transition from axial valley to axial high we speculate that a single mechanism controls both transitions candidates include both lithospheric and asthenospheric processes

a comparison and test of various site response estimation techniques including three that are not reference site dependent abstract we compare various site response estimation techniques using after shock data of the 1989 loma prieta earthquake collected in oakland california because of recent interest in comparing results from weak and strong motion to infer any nonlinearity and between direct s and coda waves we pay particular attention to the uncertainties first sediment to bedrock spectral ratio estimates between pairs of sites are compared with those obtained from various generalized inversion approaches where the source and site effects of multiply recorded events are solved for simultaneously we find that the site amplification factors are very similar among these approaches but that the uncertainties can be significantly different depending on how the data are weighted we also examine and test three site response estimation techniques that do not rely on a reference site to estimate source and path effects the first involves a parameterized source and path effects inversion even when the bedrock data are excluded from consideration this approach is found to reveal the frequency dependence of site response at each of the sediment sites the second technique involves taking horizontal to vertical component spectral ratios receiver function type estimates of shear wave aftershock data these are also found to reveal the frequency dependence of site response at the sediment sites and the results for the bedrock site are relatively flat and near unity the third estimate is formed by taking horizontal to vertical component ratios of ambient seismic noise and these are shown to reveal the fundamental resonant frequency of the sediment sites unfortunately discrepancies exist among all of the site response estimates and with one dimensional predictions with respect to a frequency independent scaling factor nevertheless the highly frequency dependent character of site response is well constrained and the fact that non reference site dependent methods are capable of revealing this is promising for site specific hazard assessments in regions that lack adequate reference sites

seismic structure of the longmenshan area in sw china inferred from receiver function analysis implications for future large earthquakes abstract following the 2008 mw 7 9 wenchuan and 2013 ms 7 0 lushan earthquakes the longmenshan thrust fault belt and the songpan ganzi terrane have been the focus of several investigations here we use the h k stacking technique and neighborhood algorithm to investigate the seismic structure of this area based on the presence of felsic lower crust and the mesozoic crustal architecture of the songpan ganzi and longmenshan area we exclude the model on the eastward flow of the middle and lower crust assigned as the cause for the crustal thickening in previous studies in contrast the e w trending cumulative compression induced by the continued northward motion of the indian plate and india asian collision are identified as the dominant factors leading to the crustal thickening in the longmenshan thrust fault region as well as the songpan ganzi terrane particularly the 2008 mw 7 9 wenchuan and 2013 ms 7 0 lushan earthquakes likely indicate the cumulative offsets and the e w continuing compression

eocene north south trending dikes in central tibet new constraints on the timing of east west extension with implications for early plateau uplift east west extension has been a prominent feature of cenozoic tectonics in central southern tibet and the onset of this extension has been interpreted as indicating the surface uplift of the tibetan plateau to a critical level previous studies suggested that extension started in the neogene between 18 13 ma and 8 ma based on dating results from north south trending normal faults grabens or rifts and dikes we report here the discovery of widespread north south trending diabase and andesitic porphyry dikes in and around the shuang hu graben central tibet where crustal extension has previously been argued to start from 13 5 ma based on mineral ages from graben bounding faults our results show that dikes in this area were mainly formed in the eocene 47 38 ma geochemical and nd sr isotopic data suggest that the diabase dikes originated from partial melting of an enriched lithospheric mantle source metasomatized by melts from subducted continental crust and the andesitic porphyry dikes were probably derived from interactions between the subducted continental crust derived melts and the mantle given that north south trending eocene dikes are found widely dispersed in central tibet we argue that the onset of east west extension and likely regional uplift of the tibetan plateau began much earlier than previously thought our study implies that a large part of the tibetan plateau had already attained near maximum elevation in the eocene and is consistent with recent investigations regarding the middle late eocene 47 34 ma initiation of aridification in asia evidence from contemporary global oceanic o sr isotope curves and temperatures and the carbon cycle 2010 elsevier b v

propagation of the deformation and growth of the tibetan himalayan orogen a review abstract long standing problems in the geological evolution of the tibetan himalayan orogen include where the india asia convergence was accommodated and how the plateau grew to clarify these problems we review the deformations and their role in the plateau s growth our results show that 1630 km of shortening occurred across the tibetan himalayan orogen since 55 ma with more than 1400 km accommodated by large scale thrust belts these thrust belts display an outward expansion from central tibet and couple with the surficial uplift the development of the tibetan plateau involved three significant steps primitive plateau 90 55 ma proto plateau 55 40 ma and neoteric plateau 40 0 ma several processes have collaborated to produce the proto plateau including the pre existing primitive plateau the india asia collision and subductions of greater india and songpan ganzi beneath the lhasa qiangtang terrane since 40 ma the proto plateau which was dominated by a topographic gradient lower crustal flow and continuous india asia convergence experienced three periods of rapid outward growth 40 23 23 10 and 10 0 ma in general the n s trending rifts were caused by the eastward growth of the plateau dominated by thrusting and crust flow in central tibet while they were the results of intense n s shortening in himalaya

strength of fracture zones from their bathymetric and gravitational evolution fracture zone evolution is investigated using dynamic models that allow the fault zones to freely slip this is an improvement over past formulations where bathymetric offsets were imposed kinematically the models use a viscoelastoplastic rheology that incorporates the influence of fault friction on fracture zone slip history using viscoelastic plates we assess the role of small scale convection on removal of the lowermost thermal lithosphere beneath fracture zones through a comparison of synthetic gravity to free air gravity across fracture zones we find that the amplitude of the gravity jump across fracture zones is best fit by models with weak faults that have depth averaged yield strengths 10 mpa fracture zones with such low strengths can convert to subduction zones with 100 km of convergence many fracture zones do not fit plate subsidence models with locked or slipping faults but are better fit by systems that are tectonically deformed by modest amounts of extension

mid ocean ridges fine scale tectonic volcanic and hydrothermal processes within the plate boundary zone a first order model of spreading centers as idealized linear boundaries of crustal and lithospheric generation provides only a gross understanding of global scale plate kinematics as we attempt to understand the complexity of crustal and lithospheric structure of two thirds of the earth s surface it is becoming increasingly necessary to study the tectonic volcanic and hydro thermal processes within the spreading center plate boundary zone all ocean ic crust bears the imprint of these processes this review focuses on a few selected topics concernining the fine scale tectonics and geophysics of the active axial zone of mid ocean ridges with reference to associated volcanic and hydrothermal processes it draws heavily on recent studies that use deeply towed instrument packages multi beam bathymetric mapping ocean bottom instruments and alvin e g the famous amar rise and galapagos expeditions we begin with a review of the large scale structure of spreading centers we then take a close look at the axial neovolcanic zone and progress away from the axis through the active tectonic zones next we consider the characteristics of the axial magma chamber and associated hydrothermal actvity as well as the generation of magnetic anomaly stripes and their implications for crustal generation one of our findings is that the initial two dimensional model of volcanic and tectonic zones must be expanded upon to allow for variations

fine structure of the landers fault zone segmentation and the rupture process observations and modeling of 3 to 6 hertz seismic shear waves trapped within the fault zone of the 1992 landers earthquake series allow the fine structure and continuity of the zone to be evaluated the fault to a depth of at least 12 kilometers is marked by a zone 100 to 200 meters wide where shear velocity is reduced by 30 to 50 percent this zone forms a seismic waveguide that extends along the southern 30 kilometers of the landers rupture surface and ends at the fault bend about 18 kilometers north of the main shock epicenter another fault plane waveguide disconnected from the first exists along the northern rupture surface these observations in conjunction with surface slip detailed seismicity patterns and the progression of rupture along the fault suggest that several simple rupture planes were involved in the landers earthquake and that the inferred rupture front hesitated or slowed at the location where the rupture jumped from one to the next plane reduction in rupture velocity can tentatively be attributed to fault plane complexity and variations in moment release can be attributed to variations in available energy

timing of tibetan uplift constrained by analysis of volcanic rocks the tibetan plateau has had a central role in the development of recent models for the mechanics of mountain belts1 2 and cenozoic global climate change3 the present elevation and extensional deformation of the plateau probably result from uplift owing to convective thinning of the underlying lithospheric mantle1 2 an age for the uplift would provide a valuable constraint on these models but because recently proposed indicators of uplift are all climate dependent they are equivocal possibly reflecting global cooling rather than regional uplift4 here we present new geochemical data on post mid miocene lavas from the plateau which show that the lavas were derived from the lithospheric mantle simple thermal arguments indicate that the generation of such magmas also necessitates thinning of the lithospheric mantle thus volcanism is coincident with uplift providing a climate independent means of dating the onset of uplift dating by the laser 40ar 39ar technique places the beginning of this volcanism and therefore the time of uplift of the tibetan plateau at 13 myr ago

seismic response of a hill the example of tarzana california the northridge california earthquake that strongly shook the city of los angeles in january 1994 produced one of the highest ground accelerations ever recorded in an earthquake at a site located on top of a small hill in tarzana about 6 km south of the epicenter the subsequent study of aftershock recordings obtained by a dense seismic array deployed on the hill a few days after the earthquake showed the existence of a strong amplification at stations located at the top of the hill relative to stations near the base spudich et al 1996 resonances and polarization rotations were also observed we investigate in this study the role that the topography of the site played on the observed ground motions and accelerations to this aim we perform numerical simulations and study the response of the three dimensional topography of the site to incident shear waves polarized in different directions the method used is a boundary integral equation scheme in which the green s functions are calculated by the discrete wavenumber method the results obtained show that the topography of the site though quite gentle the hill is less than 20 m high strongly affects the ground motions in the frequency range between 2 and 15 hz many of the observed characteristics of the seismic response at tarzana are explained in part by its topography the consistent amplification of ground motion at and near the top of the hill the directional seismic response of the hill that results in a strong amplification of the ground motion transverse to the direction of elongation of the hill the existence of a fundamental transverse oscillatory resonance mode of the hill at 3 to 5 hz the rotation of the polarization of ground motion and the spatial variation of amplification over the hill at the fundamental resonance mode the seismic response of the topography however does not fully explain the amplitude of the effects observed the three dimensional geological structure of the site must in some way amplify the effect of the topography to produce the observed seismic response in spite of not being as strong as the observed effect the topographic effect of the site is considerable the ground motion is amplified by factors ranging from 30 to 100 at some locations in the frequency range from 2 to 15 hz rapid spatial variations of ground shaking intensities can take place over distance scales of a few tens of meters at high frequency finally the results of the simulation indicate that the topography of the site amplified the large east west accelerations recorded there during the northridge mainshock by 30 to 40

oceanic crustal thickness versus spreading rate a compilation of oceanic crustal thickness from seismic observations collected over the past two decades shows that the average crustal thickness away from plateaus is 6 km no systematic increase of crustal thickness with spreading rate is observed instead the data show large variations in crustal thickness at slow spreading ridges 3 8 km for half rates 30 mm yr the large variations at slow ridges and small variations at fast ridges are consistent with the results inferred from recent gravity studies of mid ocean ridges both data sets support the speculation of a transition from a 3 d structure of crustal accretion at slow ridges to a 2 d accretion pattern at fast ridges

modes of faulting at mid ocean ridges abyssal hill bounding faults that pervade the oceanic crust are the most common tectonic feature on the surface of the earth the recognition that these faults form at plate spreading centres came with the plate tectonic revolution recent observations reveal a large range of fault sizes and orientations numerical models of plate separation dyke intrusion and faulting require at least two distinct mechanisms of fault formation at ridges to explain these observations plate unbending with distance from the top of an axial high reproduces the observed dip directions and offsets of faults formed at fast spreading centres conversely plate stretching with differing amounts of constant rate magmatic dyke intrusion can explain the great variety of fault offset seen at slow spreading ridges very large offset normal faults only form when about half the plate separation at a ridge is accommodated by dyke intrusion

absolute stress fields in the source region of the 1992 landers earthquake earthquake focal mechanisms are often inverted to obtain the deviatoric stress field because shear stress is equal to the frictional strength of the fault at the time of an earthquake six components of the absolute stress tensor at the hypocenter can be obtained from a focal mechanism by combining deviatoric stress fields with the coulomb failure criterion for a data set of focal mechanisms determined for southern california earthquakes including the 1992 landers earthquake sequence we calculated the absolute stress tensors at their hypocenters using a standard intrinsic friction coefficient under three pore pressure conditions parameterized by the reference pore pressure at the optimally oriented faults to the stress field three absolute stress fields were obtained for southern california immediately before the landers main shock by applying each data set of the stress tensors to an inversion scheme based on bayesian statistical inference and akaike s bayesian information criterion the coseismic stress field was calculated to obtain the absolute stress fields immediately after the main shock the variations of the coseismic stress rotation were related to the reference pore pressure comparing this relation with that obtained through stress inversion we determined the absolute stress field and the most plausible reference pore pressure to be hydrostatic on average the maximum shear stresses immediately before the main shock were 44 15 and 79 24 mpa at depths of 5 and 10 km respectively earthquakes on the off plate boundary faults in southern california occur on faults that are loaded by anderson byerlee stress conditions

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

spreading rate dependence of gravity anomalies along oceanic transform faults gravity and bathymetry data from transform fault systems associated with mid ocean ridges that are spreading at different rates indicates that crustal thickening may occur under transform faults associated with intermediate and fast spreading ridges if confirmed this observation would require a change in our understanding of how magma accretion occurs along rapidly spreading mid ocean ridges mid ocean ridge morphology and crustal accretion are known to depend on the spreading rate of the ridge slow spreading mid ocean ridge segments exhibit significant crustal thinning towards transform and non transform offsets1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 which is thought to arise from a three dimensional process of buoyant mantle upwelling and melt migration focused beneath the centres of ridge segments1 2 4 5 6 7 9 10 12 in contrast fast spreading mid ocean ridges are characterized by smaller segment scale variations in crustal thickness which reflect more uniform mantle upwelling beneath the ridge axis13 14 15 here we present a systematic study of the residual mantle bouguer gravity anomaly of 19 oceanic transform faults that reveals a strong correlation between gravity signature and spreading rate previous studies have shown that slow slipping transform faults are marked by more positive gravity anomalies than their adjacent ridge segments1 2 4 6 but our analysis reveals that intermediate and fast slipping transform faults exhibit more negative gravity anomalies than their adjacent ridge segments this finding indicates that there is a mass deficit at intermediate and fast slipping transform faults which could reflect increased rock porosity serpentinization of mantle peridotite and or crustal thickening the most negative anomalies correspond to topographic highs flanking the transform faults rather than to transform troughs where deformation is probably focused and porosity and alteration are expected to be greatest indicating that crustal thickening could be an important contributor to the negative gravity anomalies observed this finding in turn suggests that three dimensional magma accretion may occur near intermediate and fast slipping transform faults

imaging mid ocean ridge transitions with satellite gravity gravity maps derived from satellite altimeter measurements provide unprecedented me dium resolution coverage of sparsely surveyed mid ocean ridges in the southern oceans a spectral analysis of 76 000 km of coincident shipboard and satellite gravity measurements shows that satellite altimeters can accurately resolve features with half wavelengths as short as 13 km the coverage and resolution of these gravity data allow us to determine accurately both the location of poorly charted ridge axes and the variation in axial anomaly character along the ridge axis although their detailed morphology is not resolved the results of this study support earlier studies that showed a transition from spreading rate dependent axial gravity lows to rate independent axial highs with increasing spreading rate four such transitions are imaged on the southeast indian ridge and pacific antarctic ridge we expect that these transitions are the result of a temperature sensitive threshold phenomenon and may be influenced by nearby hot spots

paleoelevation measurement on the basis of vesicular basalts the vesicles bubbles in basaltic lava flows can be used to determine paleoelevation at the time of eruption in the repertoire of paleoelevation proxies presently available to the research community it represents one of very few direct proxies of elevation the technique is based on the sizes of vesicles at the tops and bottoms of lava flows we assume that bubbles do not know a priori that they will reside in one part of the flow or another when they are erupted from a volcanic vent as such the mass of gas is evenly distributed throughout the flow the volume of the bubbles will therefore depend on pressure which at the top of the flow is just atmospheric pressure and at the bottom is atmospheric plus hydrostatic pressure from lava overburden since lava thickness can be measured in the field and bubble size distributions most notably the modal size can be measured in the lab a simple relation can be solved for atmospheric pressure and using the standard atmosphere elevation can be determined the key parameters that must be determined are lava flow thickness at the time of emplacement and cooling of the upper and lower parts of the flow and the sizes of the vesicles each of these requires some analysis measured flow thickness in the field is not necessarily the same as that during solidification of the upper and lower several cm of the flow as inflation and deflation of the flow could have occurred thus changing the thickness from that which provided lava overburden to determine vesicles sizes in the lower part of the flow lava flows must be examined in cross section in the field to ensure that the indications of inflation or deflation are absent either would alter the proper vesicularity profile as a function of stratigraphic position within the flow for a given flow thickness only flows displaying the correct vesicularity profile can be meaningfully sampled vesicle sizes can be measured in a number of ways but the most accurate is computed x ray tomography which provides 3d information regarding size shape distribution and connectivity of vesicles in a sample we have developed numerical routines for extracting quantitative size distributions from tomographic data the basalt paleoaltimeter can be applied to any tectonic region in which basalts are present we tested the method by measuring the elevation of mauna loa hawaii and then as a first application to a tectonic issue placed constraints on the timing of uplift of the colorado plateau while further testing of this tool for paleoelevation analysis would always be helpful the technique is sufficiently refined for general use by the geologic community provided appropriate samples are collected from lavas demonstrating simple emplacement history and vesicle sizes are measured with sufficient quantitative accuracy to resolve elevation to within a few hundred meters as for any proxy the best results can be obtained with multiple sampling and when possible multiple independent proxies for the most reliable determination of paleoelevation history

portable broadband seismic network in vietnam for investigating tectonic deformation the earth s interior and early warning systems for earthquakes and tsunamis as part of a collaborative project involving researchers from the vietnamese academy of science and technology hanoi vietnam national taiwan university taipei taiwan and academia sinica taipei taiwan a 25 station broadband seismic array was installed in northern vietnam during december of 2005 with the aim of acquiring a wide dynamic range of seismic data at a high spatial density the stations were designed to image and interpret crustal and mantle structures beneath northern vietnam including information that would help to reconstruct the geodynamic evolution of the red river fault zone since its deployment the array has recorded significant local regional and teleseismic events the high quality distance and azimuth coverage of available events will help us to answer questions regarding the nature of deep seismic structures beneath the array and the regional tectonic evolution as an unexpected bonus the array recorded near antipodal seismic waves from significant seismic events in south america thereby providing valuable seismic data for analysis of the earth s deep interior a similar network is planned for south vietnam in the near future with the aim of studying the deep structure of the south china sea the proposed stations are scheduled for upgrades to enable the real time transmission of data for earthquake monitoring and tsunami warnings for the south china sea

magnetostratigraphy of tertiary sediments from the hoh xil basin implications for the cenozoic tectonic history of the tibetan plateau summary we conducted an integrated palaeomagnetic and stratigraphic study on a 5452 8 m thick sedimentary sequence of the hoh xil basin in northern qinghai tibet plateau to obtain a chronostratigraphic framework for these sediments a total of 966 individual oriented palaeomagnetic samples spaced at stratigraphic intervals were collected from six measured sections in the hoh xil basin magnetic directions in these samples were obtained by progressive thermal mainly and alternating field demagnetization experiments most samples exhibit two components of magnetization the lower unblocking temperature component is an overprint resembling the present day geocentric axial dipole field direction at the sampling locality the most stable characteristic remanence chrm appears to be an early chemical remanent magnetization residing mainly in haematite the positive results of fold and reversal tests indicate that the chrm is a record of the palaeomagnetic field close to the time of formation of these sediments further evidence for the magnetization of these sediments acquired close to their time of deposition is the fact that patterns of magnetic reversals can be matched with the established polarity timescale on the basis of the distinct interval of magnetic reversal zones and biostratigraphic datums 13 magnetozones can be recognized at the hoh xil basin that range from chrons c11 to c23 30 1 51 0 ma the age of the fenghuoshan group is palaeomagnetically dated as 51 31 ma early eocene middle early oligocene and the age of the yaxicuo group is between 31 and 30 ma middle early oligocene late early oligocene the new palaeomagnetic data from the fenghuoshan group suggest that it has undergone no significant rotation since the oligocene in contrast declination data from the yaxicuo group in wudaoliang area imply a vertical axis clockwise rotation 29 1 8 5 since the late oligocene the tertiary palaeomagnetic pole position of the hoh xil basin implies a significant northward convergence of the hoh xil basin 1600 km with respect to eurasia siberia since early eocene late oligocene time our results are consistent with the pattern of disturbingly low palaeolatitudes derived from a large number of high quality palaeomagnetic studies of tertiary rocks from sites that reach all the way from eastern china to kyrgyzstan future work is needed to separate the influences of sedimentary inclination shallowing and tectonic shortening

volcanic growth faults and the origin of pacific abyssal hills the topographic features known as abyssal hills characterize 30 of the ocean floor and yet their origin has been the subject of vigorous debate for over 40 years submersible based investigations show that pacific abyssal hills are created on the flanks of the east pacific rise as horsts and grabens which lengthen with time hills are bounded on one side by ridge facing scarps produced by normal faulting and on the other by more gentle slopes produced by volcanic growth faulting

thermomechanics of mid ocean ridge segmentation the mechanics responsible for the initiation of the orthogonal pattern characterizing mid ocean ridges and transform faults are studied using numerical models the driving forces are thermal stresses arising from the cooling of young oceanic crust and extensional kinematic boundary conditions thermal stress can exert ridge parallel tension comparable in magnitude to spreading induced tension when selectively released by ridges and ridge parallel structure two modes of ridge segment growth have been identified in plan view an overlapping mode where ridge segments overlap and bend toward each other and a connecting mode where two ridge segments are connected by a transform like fault as the ratio of thermal stress to spreading induced stress increases the patterns of localized plastic strain change from the overlapping to connecting mode the orthogonal pattern marks the transition from one mode to the other besides the amount of stress from each driving force the rate of stress accumulation is crucial in determining the emergent pattern this rate dependence is characterized by the spreading rate normalized by a reference cooling rate pe when pe is paired with the ratio of thermal stress to the reference spreading induced stress they unambiguously define stability fields of the two modes the obliquely connecting the orthogonally connecting and the overlapping mode are similar to ridge transform fault intersections observed in ultra slow slow to intermediate and fast spreading centers respectively the patterns are also sensitive to the strain weakening rate fracture zones were created in part as a response to thermal stress

geophysical and remote sensing based approach to model regolith thickness in a data sparse environment abstract mapping regolith thickness to bedrock is important for environmental modeling in general and for seismic hazard assessment in particular however regolith thickness is often ignored in such studies because of its presumed difficulty of mapping in many terrains to overcome this limitation we developed a generic remote sensing and geophysics based approach to model regolith thickness for areas with limited possibility of direct field observations the approach was tested in a seismically active and depositional landscape in northern pakistan regolith thickness was sampled at exposed bedrock outcrops along the river bed and scarps at unexposed sites the regolith bedrock interface was identified through electrical resistivity survey thus providing an indirect measurement of regolith thickness a geomorphic classification of landforms and topographic attributes were derived from a remote sensing based aster digital elevation model and spot 5 satellite imagery landform was the most important predictor adjusted r2 72 1 showing the importance of geomorphic interpretation a multivariate linear model based on landform elevation and distance to stream was able to predict the regolith thickness adjusted r2 91 7 including field observed abrupt changes at landform boundaries

early uplift in tibet the tibetan plateau was raised by the collision of india and asia scientists often speak of it as if describing a piston that has risen as a single unit 20 million years ago but now there are signs that the relatively unexplored northeastern part of the plateau was uplifted 15 million years earlier perhaps contributing to global cooling at the time

timing of colorado plateau uplift initial constraints from vesicular basalt derived paleoelevations we have developed a technique for measuring paleoelevation on the basis of the vesicularity of basaltic lava flows we are currently applying this technique to determine the timing and extent of cenozoic uplift of the colorado plateau because the technique measures paleoatmospheric pressure it is not subject to uncertainties stemming from the use of proxies that depend on environmental factors other than elevation alone vesicular lavas preserve a record of paleopressure at the time and place of lava emplacement because the difference in internal pressure in bubbles at the base and top of a lava flow depends on atmospheric pressure and lava flow thickness the modal size of the vesicle bubble population is larger at the top than at the bottom this leads directly to paleoatmospheric pressure and thus elevation because the thickness of the flow can easily be measured in the field and the vesicle sizes can be measured in the laboratory on the colorado plateau volcanic fields are generally found around the margins of the plateau basaltic lavas range in age from 0 to 23 ma present elevations range from 1 7 km to 3 3 km samples were collected from lava flows in the areas of marysvale springerville grand mesa and the san juan mountains and analyzed to determine the timing and extent of uplift the analysis of the samples using x ray computed tomography imaging and our numerical techniques for determining vesicle population statistics indicate uplift of 350 2200 m depending on age there is a clear relationship between age and amount of uplift original elevation subtracted from present elevation the results indicate slow uplift of 40 m m y between 25 ma and 5 ma only 800 m of uplift during that time and rapid uplift of 220 m m y since 5 ma 1100 m during that time these results reconcile the long standing controversy between interpretations of ancient versus recent uplift by providing an uplift history curve for the colorado plateau

distribution of landslides adjacent to the northern side of the yarlu tsangpo grand canyon in tibet china this paper presents results of recent studies on distribution and category of landslides in one section of the sichuan tibet highway adjacent to the northern side of the yarlu tsangpo grand canyon tibet southwestern china in the tectonic setting predominated by compression and strike slipping active faults are dominant and result in the genesis of the great alpine relief together with fluvial incision and unloading in this section with a distance of about 290 km between ranwu and lulang 34 landslides occurred among them the 12 large and super large landslides comprise the most dangerous part of the highway system to road users over the past 50 years the landslides usually occurred in slopes comprised of moraine with a large thickness fluvio pluvial and lacustrine deposits and fractured rocks based on the examination of the physical geography structural geology quaternary geology stratigraphy and petrography this paper presents the temporal spatial distribution of landslides along the section and classification of them into three types with respect to mechanism and composites of landslides type 1 landslide initiated at high elevation and transformed into a distal debris flow damming the river with a long reoccurrence interval type 2 landslide at stream banks in different ranks of mass movements in dissecting layers of moraines type 3 landslide of fractured rock mass with quick translation movements each of the three types is presented by distinctive case examples type 1 is yigong landslide type 2 includes dongjiu landslide group 102 landslide group suotong landslide group songzong landslide and the type 3 is layue landslide a binary landslide which is seldom seen in nature and which occurred in the outlet of one creek under the integrative function of fluvial incision and road cut is also presented these are distributed in different parts of the area with characterized structural geology topography and composites gneiss and quaternary deposits with accumulative quantity between suotong and dongjiu the most occurred with frequent and rapid translation shallow shearing planes various influential factors and unique triggering factors and a variable period of reoccurrence with a tendency of increasing magnitude in this region six influential factors greatly contribute to their occurrence a intensive neotectonic movements b ongoing alpine canyon relief c earthquakes d heavy precipitation e stream erosion and f human activities to a certain extent mostly the latter four factors play major roles in triggering landslide occurrence the earthquake causes the rock and soil to fracture and deform and tends to be unstable or cause earth induced landslides the heavy rainfall in monsoon seasons which saturates the soil and lower the shearing strength is mostly responsible for the occurrence of landslides the stream erosion disturbs slope toes causing progressive failure road construction and deforestation decrease the natural slope stability comments and suggestions on the physical measures for remediation of landslides and safety of highways are also made

complex polarization analysis of particle motion knowledge of particle motion polarization aids in identifying phases on three component seismograms the scheme of montalbetti and kanasewich 1970 is extended to analytic three component seismograms where the imaginary part of the signal is the hilbert transform of the real part this scheme has only one free parameter the length of the time window over which the polarization parameters are estimated so it can be applied in a routine way to three component data the azimuth and dip of the direction of maximum polarization and the degree of elliptical polarization as a function of time for the seismograms are obtained polarization analysis of strong motion data from the 1971 san fernando earthquake aids in the discrimination between wave types which is important for the understanding of the complicated earthquake induced shaking observed in basins most arrivals are incident on the receivers in the direction of the back azimuth to the epicenter which suggests that despite the complicated motions two dimensional finite difference methods are sufficient to understand the effect on seismic waves of the los angeles and san fernando basins vidale and helmberger 1986b

effects of realistic surface topography on seismic ground motion in the yangminshan region of taiwan based upon the spectral element method and lidar dtm we combine light detection and ranging lidar digital terrain model dtm data and an improved mesh implementation to investigate the effects of high resolution surface topography on seismic ground motion based upon the spectral element method in general topography increases the amplitude of shaking at mountain tops and ridges whereas valleys usually have reduced ground motion as has been observed in both records from past earthquakes and numerical simulations however the effects of realistic topography on ground motion have not often been clearly characterized in numerical simulations especially the seismic response of the true ground surface here we use lidar dtm data which provide two meter reso lution at the free surface and a spectral element method to simulate three dimensional 3d seismic wave propagation in the yangminshan region in taiwan incorporating the effects of realistic topography a smoothed topographic map is employed beneath the model surface in order to decrease mesh distortions due to steep ground surfaces numerical simulations show that seismic shaking in mountainous areas is strongly affected by topography and source frequency content the amplification of ground motion mainly occurs at the tops of hills and ridges whilst the valleys and flat topped hills experience lower levels of ground shaking interaction between small scale to pographic features and high frequency surface waves can produce unusually strong shaking we demonstrate that topographic variations can change peak ground accel eration pga values by 50 in mountainous areas and the relative change in pga between a valley and a ridge can be as high as a factor of 2 compared to a flat surface response this suggests that high resolution realistic topographic features should be taken into account in seismic hazard analysis especially for densely populated moun tainous areas

effects of topography on seismic wave propagation an example from northern taiwan topography influences ground motion and in general increases the amplitude of shaking at mountain tops and ridges whereas valleys have reduced ground motions as is observed from data recorded during and after real earthquakes and from numerical simulations however recent publications have focused mainly on the implications for ground motion in the mountainous regions themselves whereas the impact on surrounding low lying areas has received less attention here we develop a new spectral element mesh implementation to accommodate realistic topography as well as the complex shape of the taipei sedimentary basin which is located close to the central mountain range in northern taiwan spectral element numerical simulations indicate that high resolution topography can change peak ground velocity pgv values in mountainous areas by 50 compared to a half space response we further demonstrate that large scale topography can affect the propagation of seismic waves in nearby areas for example if a shallow earthquake occurs in the i lan region of taiwan the central mountain range will significantly scatter the surface waves and will in turn reduce the amplitude of ground motion in the taipei basin however as the hypocenter moves deeper topography scatters body waves which subsequently propagate as surface waves into the basin these waves continue to interact with the basin and the surrounding mountains finally resulting in complex amplification patterns in taipei city with an overall pgv increase of more than 50 for realistic subduction zone earthquake scenarios off the northeast coast of taiwan the effects of topography on ground motion in both the mountains and the taipei basin vary and depend on the rupture process the complex interactions that can occur between mountains and surrounding areas especially sedimentary basins illustrate the fact that topography should be taken into account when assessing seismic hazard

dynamical instability produces transform faults at mid ocean ridges transform faults at mid ocean ridges one of the most striking yet enigmatic features of terrestrial plate tectonics are considered to be the inherited product of preexisting fault structures ridge offsets along these faults therefore should remain constant with time here numerical models suggest that transform faults are actively developing and result from dynamical instability of constructive plate boundaries irrespective of previous structure boundary instability from asymmetric plate growth can spontaneously start in alternate directions along successive ridge sections the resultant curved ridges become transform faults within a few million years fracture related rheological weakening stabilizes ridge parallel detachment faults offsets along the transform faults change continuously with time by asymmetric plate growth and discontinuously by ridge jumps

constraints on 3 d stress in the crust from support of mid ocean ridge topography 1 the direction of crustal stresses acting at mid ocean ridges is well characterized but the magnitude of these stresses is poorly constrained we present a method by which the absolute magnitude of these stresses may be constrained using seafloor topography and gravity the topography is divided into a short wavelength portion created by rifting magmatism and transform faulting and a long wavelength portion associated with the cooling and subsidence of the oceanic lithosphere the short wavelength surface and moho topography are used to calculate the spatially varying 3 d stress tensor in the crust by assuming that in creating this topography the deviatoric stress reached the elastic plastic limiting stress the moho topography is constrained by short wavelength gravity variations under these assumptions an incompressible elastic material gives the smallest plastic failure stress associated with this topography this short wavelength topographic stress generally predicts the wrong style of earthquake focal mechanisms at ridges and transform faults however the addition of an in plane regional stress field is able to reconcile the combined crustal stress with both the ridge and transform focal mechanisms by adjusting the magnitude of the regional stress we determine a lower bound for in situ ridge perpendicular extension of 25 40 mpa along the slow spreading mid atlantic ridge 40 50 mpa along the ultra slow spreading ridges in the western indian ocean and 10 30 mpa along the fast spreading ridges of the southeastern indian and pacific oceans furthermore we constrain the magnitude of ridge parallel extension to be between 4 and 8 mpa in the atlantic ocean between 1 and 7 mpa in the western indian ocean and between 1 and 3 mpa in the southeastern indian and pacific oceans these observations suggest that a deep transform valley is an essential feature of the ridge transform spreading center

crustal thickening and uplift of the tibetan plateau inferred from receiver function analysis the india eurasia collision crustal thickening and northward convergence leading to uplift of the tibetan plateau have been topics of multidisciplinary studies here we employ the h k stacking technique and depth domain receiver function to constrain the crustal thickness and p and s wave velocity ratio as well as the upper mantle discontinuity our results identify the signature of slab break off and lower crustal delamination in southern tibet which might have induced the mantle upwelling and crustal melting the convergence of the indian plate inducing northward crustal flow might be a major factor that contributes to the uplift and crustal thickening of tibet we also evaluate the e w trending cumulative compression as another dominant factor that contributes to the increase in crustal thickness in the northern tibet 2015 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

a tectonic model for ridge transform ridge plate boundaries implications for the structure of oceanic lithosphere abstract the first order geologic and morphologic relationships at along and proximal to ridge transform ridge plate boundaries are used to construct an empirical and speculative tectonic model the distinctive but variable morphotectonic fabric and crustal structure of the transform domain are the product of a tectonic continuum that ranges from very slow rates of strain associated with very thick edges of lithosphere slowly slipping ridge transfrom ridge plate boundaries to extremely high rates of strain associated with very thin edges of lithosphere fast slipping ridge transform ridge plate boundaries the geometry of a ridge transform intersection necessitates the juxtaposition of a relatively cold thick edge of lithosphere against the truncated end of an accreting plate boundary the cold face of lithosphere cools the adjacent wedge of asthenosphere rising beneath the axis of accretion and restricts the amount of partial melting thus attenuating the volume of basaltic melt segregated from the asthenosphere per unit time the shallow level manifestation of this cold edge effect is a thinner oceanic crust at depth the evolving lithosphere thickens rapidly as the cold edge is approached creating changes in the properties of the young lithosphere and forming a weld of upper mantle material against the cold edge of truncating lithosphere the ridge transform weld of upper mantle material creates a shear couple in the lithosphere underlying the intersection resulting in the progressive reorientation of the maximum tensile stress from normal to the ridge axis at some distance from the ridge transform intersection to an oblique angle near the boundary the brittle carapace of oceanic crust that overlies the mantle weld will deform accordingly with the development of oblique dip slip faults the model predicts that the geologic expressions of this cold boundary effect will become more dramatic with increasing thickness of the truncating edge at very slow rates of accretion 100 km juxtapose thick 30 50 km edges of lithosphere against the accreting plate boundary all but nullifying the processes that lead to the emplacement of normal oceanic lithosphere in this environment a relatively strong mantle weld will form at the ridge transform intersection and the thick edges of opposing lithosphere along the length of the transform will tend to confine the strike slip tectonism to a relatively narrow and temporally stable principal transform displacement zone in contrast at very fast rates of accretion large offset transforms 100 km place relatively thin edges of lithosphere

dense lower crust elevates long term earthquake rates in the new madrid seismic zone knowledge of the local state of stress is critical in appraising intraplate seismic hazard inverting earthquake moment tensors we demonstrate that principal stress directions in the new madrid seismic zone nmsz differ significantly from those in the surrounding region faults in the nmsz that are incompatible with slip in the regional stress field are favorably oriented relative to local stress we jointly analyze seismic velocity gravity and topography to develop a 3 d crustal and upper mantle density model revealing uniquely dense lower crust beneath the nmsz finite element simulations then estimate the stress tensor due to gravitational body forces which sums with regional stress the anomalous lower crust both elevates gravity derived stress at seismogenic depths in the nmsz and rotates it to interfere more constructively with far field stress producing a regionally maximal deviatoric stress coincident with the highest concentration of modern seismicity moreover predicted principal stress directions mirror variations observed independently in moment tensors at the nmsz and across the region

three dimensional simulations of seismic wave propagation in the taipei basin with realistic topography based upon the spectral element method we use the spectral element method to simulate strong ground motion throughout the taipei metropolitan area mesh generation for the taipei basin poses two main challenges 1 the basin is surrounded by steep mountains and 2 the city is located on top of a shallow low wave speed sedimentary basin to accommodate the steep and rapidly varying topography we introduce a thin high resolution mesh layer near the surface the mesh for the shallow sedimentary basin is adjusted to honor its complex geometry and sharp lateral wave speed contrasts variations in moho thickness beneath northern taiwan are also incorporated in the mesh spectral element simulations show that ground motion in the taipei metropolitan region is strongly affected by the geometry of the basin and the surrounding mountains the amplification of ground motion is mainly controlled by basin depth and shallow shear wave speeds although surface topography also serves to amplify and prolong seismic shaking

lithospheric stresses associated with nontransform offsets of the mid atlantic ridge implications from a finite element analysis nontransform offsets are a fundamental aspect of the offset geometry exhibited along the mid oceanic ridge system independent of spreading rate along the slow intermediate opening 40 mm y full rate mid atlantic ridge these offsets of the ridge axis range in length from less than 10 km to approximately 30 km and vary in age offset from 0 5 to 2 0 m y the variable morphotectonic geometries associated with these discontinuities indicate that horizontal shear strains are accommodated by both extensional and strike slip tectonism and that the geometries are unstable in time in many cases there appears to be an evolutionary relationship between transform fault boundaries and nontransform offsets as the result of prolonged differential asymmetric spreading between adjoining ridge segments the finite element method is used to study the complex stress field associated with these small offset discontinuities of ridges with slow 30 mm y and fast 100 mm y total opening rates a plane stress plate model examines the variation in the horizontal tectonic stress field produced by offsets with different lengths and changes in the ratio of a ridge normal tensile stress resisting plate separation to a shear stress resisting relative plate motion along the discontinuity the predicted fault patterns based on the calculated stress field are compared with seafloor observations in terms of the morphotectonic patterns and evolution of nontransform offsets for a slow spreading rate the analysis shows that all structural geometries observed can be modeled by a range of offset lengths 5 10 20 30 and 40 km and by a ridge normal stress 3 to 5 times greater than the discontinuity shear stress these findings suggest that nontransform offsets are zones of mechanical weakness relative to the surrounding lithosphere an offset length between 10 and 20 km is predicted to be the threshold length for maintaining a transform fault geometry as inferred from ridge axis morphology there seems to be a strong link between the magnitude of the stress ratio and the time varying magmatic activity along and between ridge segments while our models are consistent with a weak discontinuity shear stress relative to the ridge normal stress to explain the geometries of nontransform offsets of slow spreading centers a weaker ridge normal stress to discontinuity shear stress most closely models the development of an overlapping spreading center geometry the distinctive geometry of nontransform offsets of spreading centers opening at fast rates this difference is attributed to magma supply along axis relatively continuous for fast spreading centers and intermittent for slow spreading centers and a preexisting zone of mechanical weakness linked to the evolution of nontransform offsets from transform faults on slow spreading centers

estimating the diminution of shear wave amplitude with distance application to the los angeles california urban area the rate of decay with distance of shear wave amplitude computed from 20 sec s wave spectra is determined from terrascope records of small earthquakes in the greater los angeles area piecewise log linear interpolation functions and traditional diminution functions are used to fit spectral decay to a maximum distance of 150 km simultaneously isotropic source and receiver terms are determined separate branches of the spectral decay function are found for two categories of source depth greater than 10 km and less than 10 km in the hypocentral distance range of 20 to 150 km and in the frequency range of 0 5 to 8 0 hz an important result of the investigation is that the horizontal component decay rate associated with deeper crustal sources is generally greater than that associated with shallower sources and is greater than that which is estimated using more traditional models of spectral decay with distance the same behavior generally holds for vertical component spectra the variation in apparent attenuation rate with source depth should affect seismic hazard estimates associated with the rupture of blind thrust faults in the los angeles basin and vicinity the results of the inversions suggest that interpolation function representations of spectral decay are sensitive to perturbations of s wave amplitude due to crustal reflectors such as post critical s wave arrivals from mid crustal to deep crustal velocity interfaces

anisotropic horizontal thermal contraction of young oceanic lithosphere inferred from stress release due to oceanic intraplate earthquakes how freely the oceanic lithosphere contracts horizontally due to thermal contraction is important information because it reflects the boundary condition of the oceanic lithosphere which includes information regarding the magnitude of driving resisting forces of plate tectonics we investigated the horizontal thermal contraction of young oceanic lithosphere using an analysis of the intraplate stress release due to oceanic intraplate earthquakes oceqs and numerical simulations the stress release due to oceqs in young oceanic lithosphere 5 15 ma shows significant differences between the spreading directional component and the ridge parallel component the extensional stress release of the ridge parallel component is six times as large as that of the spreading directional component while the compressional stress release of the ridge parallel component is one seventh that of the spreading directional component we conducted a numerical simulation of the thermal stress evolution of the oceanic lithosphere to investigate how the difference in the horizontal contraction rates between the spreading direction and the ridge parallel direction can explain the observed anisotropic stress release the result indicates that young oceanic lithosphere 5 15 ma barely contracts in the ridge parallel direction only 0 30 of the spreading directional contraction rate while it contracts freely in the spreading direction due to the weakness of the oceanic ridge strength and the low viscosity asthenosphere from the results we constrained the magnitude of the basal traction working on the bottom of the oceanic lithosphere to be smaller than 0 44 mpa

directional site resonances observed from aftershocks of the 18 october 1989 loma prieta earthquake abstract two weeks after the 18 october 1989 loma prieta california earthquake 18 three component digital seismometers were deployed in the epicentral area to form three six station subarrays the subarray configuration allowed us to investigate the presence of direction and frequency dependent site resonances we measured the shear wave polarization from the recordings of 10 aftershocks from the loma prieta earthquake our observations show that the site response has a strong azimuthal dependence and that both the shear wave polarization and the spectral amplitude of the ground motions are affected by site characteristics in the frequency range from 1 to 18 hz the majority of stations examined showed preferred azimuths of ground motion for the scattered waves that did not depend either on the earthquake location or on the polarization of the shear waves expected from the known focal mechanism the measurements were made from 5 sec windows that included direct and scattered shear waves which contain the largest amplitude motions in the near source region and are therefore of most interest to earthquake engineers however in the 0 to 2 hz frequency range the first pulse of shear waves shows a polarization that is well predicted by the mechanism and location of the earthquake the rapid spatial variation of the preferred directions and their corresponding frequencies indicate that geologic structures within a distance of the order of 50 m probably control these site effects we suggest that the site amplified the motion of scattered waves in one preferred direction altering the resulting polarization and modulating the spectral amplitude

localized damage caused by topographic amplification during the 2010 m 7 0 haiti earthquake microzonation maps use local geological conditions to characterize seismic hazard but do not generally consider topography ground motions during the haiti earthquake are found to have been significantly amplified along a high topographic ridge which caused substantial structural damage indicating that topography can play an important role in seismic hazard local geological conditions including both near surface sedimentary layers1 2 3 4 and topographic features5 6 7 8 9 are known to significantly influence ground motions caused by earthquakes microzonation maps use local geological conditions to characterize seismic hazard but commonly incorporate the effect of only sedimentary layers10 11 12 microzonation does not take into account local topography because significant topographic amplification is assumed to be rare here we show that although the extent of structural damage in the 2010 haiti earthquake was primarily due to poor construction topographic amplification contributed significantly to damage in the district of petionville south of central port au prince a large number of substantial relatively well built structures situated along a foothill ridge in this district sustained serious damage or collapse using recordings of aftershocks we calculate the ground motion response at two seismic stations along the topographic ridge and at two stations in the adjacent valley ground motions on the ridge are amplified relative to both sites in the valley and a hard rock reference site and thus cannot be explained by sediment induced amplification instead the amplitude and predominant frequencies of ground motion indicate the amplification of seismic waves by a narrow steep ridge we suggest that microzonation maps can potentially be significantly improved by incorporation of topographic effects

characterization of scattered seismic wavefields simulated in heterogeneous media with topography 1 we performed numerical simulations of seismic waveforms with frequencies up to 10 hz in heterogeneous media with topography to investigate the effects of topography and structural heterogeneity on seismic scattering we used the simulated waveforms to test the source location method assuming isotropic radiation of s waves for long period events and tremor at volcanoes the assumption of isotropic radiation has been shown previously to be valid in a high frequency band because of the path effect caused by the scattering of seismic waves our simulation results showed that distortion of the wavefields increased as the correlation distance of structural heterogeneity a decreased as the frequency increased and as the travel distance increased topography alone considerably distorted the wavefields however we found that strong scattering due to topography was suppressed if the correlation distance of structural heterogeneity was longer than the s wave wavelength isotropic radiation of s waves by scattering due to topography was not achieved in our simulations our results indicated that scattering due to structural heterogeneity becomes stronger than that due to topography at ka 1 and a 50 m where k is the wave number of the s waves this suggests that strong short scale structural heterogeneity is required to achieve isotropic radiation of s waves although we could not reproduce isotropic radiation our results support the validity of the assumption of isotropic radiation in the source location method

directional site resonances and the influence of near surface geology on ground motion the authors examine the horizontal motions at close stations from earthquakes in the loma prieta and whittier narrows sequences to study the shear wave polarizations they use a dense six station array recording 10 aftershocks for the former and use two events and 11 stations across the los angeles area for the latter they compute the average azimuth of strongest shaking in the shear wave as a function of frequency from 1 to 18 hz for each record of each earthquake the direction of shaking at a given frequency often correlates much better with an empirical site resonance direction than with the direction of shaking expected from the focal mechanism of the earthquake the effect tends to be greatest at the frequencies that are the most amplified this phenomenon can complicate determination of the earthquake source at frequencies higher than 1 hz further since sites only 25 meters apart show different preferred directions very near surface geology is probably responsible estimation of directional site resonances may prove useful for seismic design

relationship between spreading rate and the seismic structure of mid ocean ridges different parts of the global mid ocean ridge system create oceanic crust at rates that differ by more than a factor of ten the rates of supply of heat to these different systems must also vary substantially and it is this heat supply in the form of hot mantle material rising beneath the ridge axis that determines the nature of the magmatic tectonic and hydrothermal processes that control the production of new oceanic crust here we present evidence suggesting that a systematic relationship exists between the depth to zones of elevated temperature and partial melt beneath mid ocean ridges and their spreading rate recent seismic measurements provide robust determinations at six different locations of the depth to the top of the axial low seismic velocity zone which suggest that as full spreading rate decreases from 150 to 20 mm yr 1 the depth below the sea floor to the top of the lvz increases from 1 to 4 km although this relationship might arise in a number of ways our preferred explanation is that the major faults that extend to greater depths on slower spreading ridges1 allow a vigorous circulation of cooling sea water to reach greater depths blocking the upward migration of large melt bodies

initial investigation of site and topographic effects at robinwood ridge california abstract following the 1989 loma prieta earthquake a dense array of seven digitally recorded three component seismograph stations was deployed on robinwood ridge 7 3 km northwest of the epicenter the purpose of this array was to investigate the cause of high levels of structural damage and ground cracking observed on the ridge crest aftershocks recorded by the array allow a comparison of ground motion up the slope of the ridge from the base to the crest the data present an extremely complicated pattern of ground motion that demonstrates the importance of the three dimensionality of the problem slowness analysis of p wave trains show initial arrivals propagating away from the source with small angles of incidence and large apparent velocities consistent with direct arrivals after 0 5 sec propagation azimuths become more random and apparent velocities drop indicating nearly horizontal wave propagation and multiply reflected and diffracted phases within the ridge slowness analysis and particle motion diagrams of horizontal components of motion show dramatic variations in ground motion with changes in azimuth of the source and a complicated interaction between body waves and rayleigh and love waves results suggest that the larger amplitude more coherent arrivals at the array stations favor a propagation direction parallel to the ridge axis an amplification factor of from 1 5 to 4 5 is seen for frequencies from 1 0 to 3 0 hz with wavelengths comparable to the base of the ridge part of which may be caused by local site effects and part by topographic amplification in addition amplifications of up to a factor of 5 are seen at higher frequencies and are attributed to local site effects these effects are most notable from 4 to 8 hz on the vertical components and from 6 to 9 hz on the horizontal components the entire robinwood ridge area may also have been situated in a region of heightened mainshock ground motion due to source directivity and radiation pattern effects

evolution of ridges by asymmetrical spreading in late cretaceous time the relatively straight crest of the east pacific rise developed a remarkably orderly crenelate pattern contrary to previous statements such a pattern can evolve by orthogonal asymmetrical spreading without ridges jumping or otherwise affecting plate rigidity such evolution has been observed in wax experiments serrate ridges may also evolve if spreading is not orthogonal to transforms

isostasy and the ambient state of stress in the oceanic lithosphere two conditions are normally considered to be characteristic of the state of stress in a system in local isostatic equilibrium the first is that the stress is hydrostatic below some depth the level of compensation and the second is that above that depth there are no vertical shear stresses in the case of a planar two dimensional mid ocean ridge these two conditions suffice to determine the stress completely except for the normal component parallel to the ridge but to determine that component an additional assumption is required it is proposed here that an appropriate additional assumption is that in unflexed regions where the stress is due only to the elevation of mid ocean ridges the deviatoric stress in the oceanic lithosphere is a minimum the unique state of deviatoric stress consistent with this assumption is horizontally compressive in a direction perpendicular to the axes of mid ocean ridges with a magnitude in old ocean basins of a few hundred bars in agreement with oceanic intraplate earthquake mechanisms at any given distance from the ridge the stress is maximum at the seafloor and it decreases with depth at about the same rate as the cooling of the lithosphere so that the entire thermal boundary layer may be regarded as acting to support the global square root of age topography of the oceans

an iterative spectral solution method for thin elastic plate flexure with variable rigidity s u m m a r y thin plate flexure theory provides an accurate model for the response of the lithosphere to vertical loads on horizontal length scales ranging from tens to hundreds of kilometres examples include flexure at seamounts fracture zones sedimentary basins and subduction zones when applying this theory to real world situations most studies assume a locally uniform plate thickness to enable simple fourier transform solutions however in cases where the amplitude of the flexure is prominent such as subduction zones or there are rapid variations in seafloor age such as fracture zones these models are inadequate here we present a computationally efficient algorithm for solving the thin plate flexure equation for non uniform plate thickness and arbitrary vertical load the iterative scheme takes advantage of the 2 d fast fourier transform to perform calculations in both the spatial and spectral domains resulting in an accurate and computationally efficient solution we illustrate the accuracy of the method through comparisons with known analytic solutions finally we present results from three simple models demonstrating the differences in trench outer rise flexure when 2 d variations in plate rigidity and applied bending moment are taken into account although we focus our analysis on ocean trench flexure the method is applicable to other 2 d flexure problems having spatial rigidity variations such as seamount loading of a thermally eroded lithosphere or flexure across the continental oceanic crust boundary

patterns of stress at midocean ridges and their offsets due to seafloor subsidence the effect of the seafloor subsidence on the horizontal stress field is investigated by combining the finite element method with a formulation that allows us to compute the two dimensional 2d horizontal stresses arising from isostatically compensated vertical loads the topographic load created by the elevation of midocean ridges relative to old ocean floor is shown to be a significant source of ridge parallel tensile stresses these may predominate over the ridge perpendicular stresses and explain observations at midocean ridge offsets such as 1 oblique normal faulting at ridge transform intersections trending up to 60 relative to the ridge axis and 2 nontransform offsets consisting of structures oriented at 45 relative to the ridge trend at midocean ridge overlaps rotation of the ridge parallel tensile stresses favours rift propagation at more than 45 relative to the ridge trend it is suggested that propagating rift tips that bend abruptly lead to partially unlocked offsets and as a result large overlaps may eventually start to rotate and evolve into a microplate

locations of mid oceanic earthquakes constrained by seafloor bathymetry 1 earthquakes associated with the creation of new oceanic crust are difficult to locate precisely because they normally occur far away from seismic stations we assume that epicenters of these events can be constrained by seafloor topography and use the harvard centroid moment tensor cmt focal mechanism of an interplate earthquake to relate the event to either a transform fault a parallel in a coordinate system defined by the pole of rotation between two plates or a mid oceanic ridge a meridian using arrival times from the international seismological center isc bulletin we have relocated about 1500 globally distributed events for the time period 1976 1998 the isc locations can be as much as 70 km away from appropriate topographic features our new locations support that large interplate earthquakes occur on or very close to the primary bathymetric features for earthquakes with unknown mechanism or magnitude below the cmt threshold or predate the cmt catalog we use a simultaneous joint hypocenter determination procedure with respect to the already relocated master events jhdme we invert for earthquakes first for the romanche fracture zone rfz and then for a region extending from 30 n to 30 s seismicity agrees well with the main active ridge or transform however a small number of events might be related to the secondary bathymetry features the improved locations for mid oceanic earthquakes based on bathymetry could help improve our understanding of the oceanic crustal and deep earth structure seismic slip and budget constraint along plate boundaries and dynamics of plate tectonics

thermal stress and the spacings of transform faults bathymetric charts are used with satellite altimeter profiles to locate major ridge transform intersections along five spreading ridges the ridges are the mid atlantic ridge the east pacific rise the chile rise the pacific antarctic rise and the southeast indian ridge analysis of these data show spacings between transform faults w increase linearly with spreading rate w 6 28 m y this linear correlation is explained by a thermoelastic model of a cooling strip of lithosphere spreading at a rate the traction free boundaries of the thin elastic strip simulate cracks in the lithosphere at transform faults a two dimensional thermoelastic solution for the in plane stress shows the largest stress component is tensional and parallel to the ridge stresses are zero at the ridge and increase as age to a maximum value at an age of w 4 all stress components are small for ages greater than w when the transform spacing is large compared with the spreading rate w 100 m y thermal stresses exceed the strength of the lithosphere for ages between 0 and 30 ma the observed maximum ratio of transform spacing to spreading rate w 10 m y results in low thermal stresses that only exceed the strength of the lithosphere for ages less than 1 ma thus transform faults relieve most of the thermal stress model predictions also agree with earthquake studies showing that normal faults in young lithosphere have tensional axes aligned with the ridge moreover oceanic intraplate earthquakes rarely occur in lithosphere older than 30 ma as predicted by the model these and other geophysical observations confirm turcotte s hypothesis that transform faults are thermal contraction cracks

the rigid plate and shrinking plate hypotheses implications for the azimuths of transform faults the rigid plate hypothesis implies that oceanic lithosphere does not contract horizontally as it cools hereinafter rigid plate an alternative hypothesis that vertically averaged tensional thermal stress in the competent lithosphere is fully relieved by horizontal thermal contraction hereinafter shrinking plate predicts subtly different azimuths for transform faults the size of the predicted difference is as large as 2 44 with a mean and median of 0 46 and 0 31 respectively and changes sign between right lateral rl slipping and left lateral ll slipping faults for the morvel transform fault data set all six plate pairs with both rl and ll slipping faults differ in the predicted sense with the observed difference averaging 1 4 0 9 95 confidence limits which is consistent with the predicted difference of 0 9 the sum squared normalized misfit r to global transform fault azimuths is minimized for 0 8 0 4 95 confidence limits where is the fractional multiple of the predicted difference in azimuth between the shrinking plate 1 and rigid plate 0 hypotheses thus observed transform azimuths differ significantly between rl slipping and ll slipping faults which is inconsistent with the rigid plate hypothesis but consistent with the shrinking plate hypothesis which indicates horizontal shrinking rates of 2 ma 1 for newly created lithosphere 1 ma 1 for 0 1 ma old lithosphere 0 2 ma 1 for 1 ma old lithosphere and 0 02 ma 1 for 10 ma old lithosphere which are orders of magnitude higher than the mean intraplate seismic strain rate of 10 6 ma 1 5 10 19 s 1

control on seafloor spreading geometries by stress and strain induced lithospheric weakening abstract seafloor spreading typically occurs along ridge segments oriented at right angles to plate motion and offset by orthogonal transform faults few regions exhibit different patterns such as the east pacific rise epr which additionally displays overlapping spreading centres oscs and microplates we introduce a dynamical model using two independent scalar types of damage in an elastic plate that generates most observed spreading geometries as natural failure modes suggesting that the dynamics of the underlying mantle have only a minor influence on accretionary plate margins the elastic modulus that is affected by the damage determines the type of localized deformation damage reducing the bulk modulus tends to result in tensile fractures while a reduction in shear modulus leads to shear fractures the damage source determines the fracture orientation material weakening in tension results in fractures perpendicular to the most tensile principal stress while shear weakening results in two conjugate fractures at 45 relative to the applied stress strain or energy dependent damage results in propagating localized fractures stress dependent damage tends to evolve into diffuse regions that may eventually focus into narrow zones starting from small perturbations with reduced elastic moduli as nucleation points all ridge geometries start with ridge propagation caused by tensile energy reducing both elastic moduli by a model of damage caused by tensile energy reducing both moduli orthogonal transform faults develop in regions between offset segments if there is an additional reduction in shear modulus due to shear stress the orthogonality of the transform faults does not derive from the local stress orientation but from the dynamics of damage focusing which causes the fault to converge towards an optimal geometry that concentrates nearly all deformation into damaged zones oscs form when the shear damage leading to transform faults is suppressed while microplate formation requires additional reduction of the shear modulus by tensile energy oblique spreading at 45 recently discovered along ultraslow spreading ridges occurs when both moduli are weakened by shear energy a parameter regime exists in which ridge transform patterns develop at low applied tension while microplates form at higher stresses these results indicate that at least three different micromechanical processes operate with different evolution rates oscs and oblique spreading require different material properties

lithospheric stress near a ridge transform intersection oceanic lithosphere at a ridge transform intersection has distinct structural characteristics the spreading axis and normal fault scarps which parallel the ridge axis away from the intersection locally curve towards the transform fault this implies that the least compressive stress direction becomes oblique to the spreading direction near a ridge transform intersection this stress field may be the result of a tensile ridge axis stress resisting plate separation and a transform shear stress resisting relative plate motion a plane stress plate model with prescribed plate boundary stresses is formulated to explore this hypothesis the orientation of the least compressive horizontal stress near an intersection depends strongly on the ratio of the applied boundary stresses thus ridge axis curvature may place an important constraint on plate boundary forces

estimates of stress drop and crustal tectonic stress from the 27 february 2010 maule chile earthquake implications for fault strength 1 the great 27 february 2010 mw 8 8 earthquake off the coast of southern chile ruptured a 600 km length of subduction zone in this paper we make two independent estimates of shear stress in the crust in the region of the chile earthquake first we use a coseismic slip model constrained by geodetic observations from interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar and gps to derive a spatially variable estimate of the change in static shear stress along the ruptured fault second we use a static force balance model to constrain the crustal shear stress required to simultaneously support observed fore arc topography and the stress orientation indicated by the earthquake focal mechanism this includes the derivation of a semianalytic solution for the stress field exerted by surface and moho topography loading the crust we find that the deviatoric stress exerted by topography is minimized in the limit when the crust is considered an incompressible elastic solid with a poisson ratio of 0 5 and is independent of young s modulus this places a strict lower bound on the critical stress state maintained by the crust supporting plastically deformed accretionary wedge topography we estimate the coseismic shear stress change from the maule event ranged from 6 mpa stress increase to 17 mpa stress drop with a maximum depth averaged crustal shear stress drop of 4 mpa we separately estimate that the plate driving forces acting in the region regardless of their exact mechanism must contribute at least 27 mpa trench perpendicular compression and 15 mpa trench parallel compression this corresponds to a depth averaged shear stress of at least 7 mpa the comparable magnitude of these two independent shear stress estimates is consistent with the interpretation that the section of the megathrust fault ruptured in the maule earthquake is weak with the seismic cycle relieving much of the total sustained shear stress in the crust

outward growth of the tibetan plateau during the cenozoic a review abstract the surface uplift history of the tibetan plateau tp offers a key testing ground for evaluating models of collisional tectonics and holds important implications for processes ranging from global cooling to the onset of the asian monsoon various models have been proposed to reveal the surface uplift history of the tp but controversies remain we evaluate these models using data from sedimentology and stratigraphy structural geology magmatism exhumation and paleoaltimetry studies structural analyses indicate that thrust belts which spread from the central tp outward toward its surrounding margins accommodated most of the india asia convergence and facilitated crustal shortening and thickening in the central tp eocene adakitic rocks located in the qiangtang and the lhasa blocks likely were generated by partial melting of an eclogitic source paleogene 50 30 ma potassic rocks only occur in the qiangtang block whereas late oligocene late miocene 26 8 ma potassic rocks occur both in the qiangtang and lhasa blocks low temperature thermochronologic ages in the central tp are older than 40 35 ma whereas those in the margins are younger than 20 ma mostly late miocene and pliocene pleistocene in age independent paleoaltimetry estimates suggest that the lhasa and qiangtang terranes attained their current elevations during the eocene most likely due to the initial collision between india and lhasa whereas the hoh xil basin area to the north and himalayas to the south were still low even below sea level in the latter case we argue for an inside out growth pattern for the tibetan plateau the tp grew southward and northward from a nucleus of high topography and is likely to continue expanding along the mazar tagh fault to the northwest the kuantai shan hei shan longshou shan to the northeast the longquan shan to the east and the shillong plateau to the south if the northward force of india would not diminished

on the gravitational potential of the earth s lithosphere the mean potential energy of the lithosphere is useful for defining the tectonic reference state trs of the earth and can be used to constrain the ambient state of stress in the plates in the absence of external forces applied at the base or along plate boundaries a lithospheric column with the potential energy of the trs would remain undeformed thus the difference between the potential energy of a lithospheric column and the trs determines whether the column is in an extensional joeutral or compressional state of stress we evaluate and intraplate variations about this mean using a simple first order lithospheric density model this model assumed that the continental geotherm is linear and density variations below a depth of 125 km have negligible influence on and is consistent with observed geoid anomalies across continental margins is estimated to be 2 379 1014 n m 1 which is equivalent to the potential energy of both near sea level continental lithosphere 160 to 220 m for an assumed crustal density c in the range 2800 2700 kg m 3 and cooling oceanic lithosphere at a depth of 4 3 km with the exception of eurasia which has anomalously high mean potential energy 2 383 1014 n m 1 the mean potential energies of the continental plates are nearly identical to the global mean the mean potential of the oceanic plates was found to be a strong function of the mean age of the oceanic lithosphere both the global and plate mean potential energies are relatively insensitive to a wide range in c the potential of the mid ocean ridges 2 391 1014 n m 1 is greater than the global mean which is consistent with the divergent nature of the ridges elevated continental lithosphere with a height of about 70 m has an equivalent potential energy to suggesting that in the absence of external forces continental regions will be in a slightly extensional state of stress the importance of our potential energy formulation is substantiated by the strong correlation between the torque poles associated with the potential energy distributions and the observed plate velocity poles for the south american nazca indo australian and pacific plates

the slip history of the 1994 northridge california earthquake determined from strong motion teleseismic gps and leveling data we present a rupture model of the northridge earthquake determined from the joint inversion of near source strong ground motion recordings p and sh teleseismic body waves global positioning system gps displacement vectors and permanent uplift measured along leveling lines the fault is defined to strike 122 and dip 40 to the south southwest the average rake vector is determined to be 101 and average slip is 1 3 m the peak slip reaches about 3 m our estimate of the seismic moment is 1 3 0 2 10 26 dyne cm potency of 0 4 km3 the rupture area is small relative to the overall aftershock dimensions and is approximately 15 km along strike nearly 20 km in the dip direction and there is no indication of slip shallower than about 5 to 6 km the up dip strong motion velocity waveforms are dominated by large s wave pulses attributed to source directivity and are comprised of at least 2 to 3 distinct arrivals a few seconds apart stations at southern azimuths indicate two main s wave arrivals separated longer in time about 4 to 5 sec these observations are best modeled with a complex distribution of subevents the initial s wave arrival comes from an asperity that begins at the hypocenter and extends up dip and to the north where a second larger subevent is centered about 12 km away the secondary s arrivals at southern azimuths are best fit with additional energy radiation from another high slip region at a depth of 19 km 8 km west of the hypocenter the resolving power of the individual data sets is examined by predicting the geodetic gps and leveling displacements with the dislocation model determined from the waveform data and vice versa and also by analyzing how well the teleseismic solution predicts the recorded strong motions the general features of the geodetic displacements are not well predicted from the model determined independently from the strong motion data likewise the slip model determined from geodetic data does not adequately reproduce the strong motion characteristics whereas a particularly smooth slip pattern is sufficient to satisfy the geodetic data the strong motion and teleseismic data require a more heterogeneous slip distribution in order to reproduce the velocity amplitudes and frequency content although the teleseismic model can adequately reproduce the overall amplitude and frequency content of the strong motion velocity recordings it does a poor job of predicting the geodetic data consequently a robust representation of the slip history and heterogeneity requires a combined analysis of these data sets

amplification of ground motion and waveform complexity in fault zones examples from the san andreas and calaveras faults summary p wave seismograms at ranges less than 10 km are synthesized by asymptotic ray theory and by summation of gaussian beams for point sources located in a low velocity wedge surrounding a fault the computations are performed using models of the wedge inferred from the analysis of reflection and refraction experiments across the san andreas and haywardcalaveras faults calculations in these models show that the 10 20hz vertical displacements of earthquakes located at 3 10 km depth are amplified by up to an order of magnitude in a 1 2 km wide region centred on the fault trace compared to displacements predicted by laterally homogeneous models of the crust this amplification is not cancelled by high attentuation in the fault zone and compensates for the reduction in amplitudes directly above the source predicted from the radiation pattern of a strike slip earthquake depending on the source depth of the earthquake and the structure and velocity contrast of the wedge multiple triplications in the travel time curve of direct p and s waves will occur at stations in the fault zone a wedge model successfully predicts the triplications observed in the p waveforms of aftershocks of the coyote lake earthquake recorded in the fault zone showing that body waves from microearthquakes can be used to determine the three dimensional velocity structure of the fault zone the amplification waveform complexity and distortion of ray paths introduced by the lowvelocity wedge suggest that its effects should be included in the interpretation of strong ground motions and travel times observed in the fault zone for realistic models of the wedge asymptotically approximate methods of calculating the body waveforms are strictly valid for frequencies greater than 20hz numerical methods may be necessary to calculate accurately the wavefield at lower frequencies

rift valley no rift valley transition at mid ocean ridges a simple mechanical model for the axial topographic and gravity variations with spreading rate is developed the model emphasizes the rapid transition from one mechanism to another with changing spreading rate our model has a brittle layer over a ductile layer which are being pulled by forces away from the ridge axis there exists a potential failure zone of width lf where the stresses within the brittle plate exceeds its yield strength if the yield strength of the brittle plate is nearly constant this width is largely determined by the strain rate and the viscosity of the strong mantle the high ductility of oceanic crust at high temperatures relative to that of mantle at the same temperatures leads to the concept of a decoupling region a critical feature in this model the size of the decoupling region ld is determined by the thickness of the oceanic crust and temperatures within the crust if the decoupling region is small ld lf as shown to be the case for fast spreading ridges then each of the two layers responds separately to the horizontal stretching the brittle plate will be broken only at the axis and any buoyant force of the region would lift it up to form the rise crest high as a result of local isostasy the changing size of the decoupling region gives rise to the transition from atlantic type axial topography to pacific type as well as the transition from a high amplitude highly variable gravity signature to a low amplitude very uniform gravity signature parameters can be chosen so that such a transition occurs at a half rate of 35 mm yr which is the critical half rate suggested by both topographic and gravity data

earthquake ground motion in the mygdonian basin greece the e2vp verification and validation of 3d numerical simulation up to 4 hz n a low seismicity context the use of numerical simulations becomes essential due to the lack of representative earthquakes for empirical approaches the goals of the euroseistest verification and validation project e2vp are to provide 1 a quantitative analysis of accuracy of the current most advanced numerical methods applied to realistic 3d models of sedimentary basins verification and 2 a quantitative comparison of the recorded ground motions with their numerical predictions validation the target is the euroseistest site located within the mygdonian basin greece the site is instrumented with surface and borehole accelerometers and a 3d model of the medium is available the simulations are performed up to 4 hz beyond the 0 7 hz fundamental frequency thus covering a frequency range at which ground motion undergoes significant amplification the discrete representation of material heterogeneities the attenuation model the approximation of the free surface and nonreflecting boundaries are identified as the main sources of differences among the numerical predictions the predictions well reproduce some but not all features of the actual site effect the differences between real and predicted ground motions have multiple origins the accuracy of source parameters location hypocentral depth and focal mechanism the uncertainties in the description of the geological medium damping internal sediment layering structure and shape of the sediment basement interface overall the agreement reached among synthetics up to 4 hz despite the complexity of the basin model with code to code differences much smaller than predictions to observations differences makes it possible to include the numerical simulations in site specific analysis in the 3d linear case and low to intermediate frequency range

the effect of topography on earthquake ground motion a review and new results a brief review of experimental and theoretical results about the effect of topography on seismic motion shows that they are consistent only on a qualitative basis amplification at mountain tops for wavelengths comparable with mountain widths is predicted and observed but the numerical simulations often underestimate the actual observed effects we propose that this disagreement is because current models are not complex enough we therefore computed the response to incident sh waves of a set of different complex configurations that include two dimensional surface topography with or without periodic ridges and subsurface layering the results show that 1 the topographic effect in itself is difficult to isolate from other effects like surface layering and therefore the amplification on top of geomorphologically complex sites cannot be predicted by a priori estimations based solely on topography and 2 the high crest base amplification ratio observed in the field cannot usually be matched even with complex two dimensional structures with incident plane sh waves which suggests that more complex models are needed to incorporate more complex wave fields e g sv surface and three dimensional geologic configurations

ground motion amplification in the marina district abstract following the 18 october 1989 loma prieta earthquake triggered seismographs were deployed in and around the marina district to investigate site amplification in the 3 weeks after the mainshock 16 aftershocks were recorded by two or more of these stations two additional stations deployed in march 1990 recorded three earthquakes that occurred in contra costa county by recasting the method of spectral ratios into a generalized inverse problem we combine the shear wave spectra from these 19 aftershocks to estimate the relative site amplification as a function of frequency all five stations located in the marina district are amplified by factors of 6 to 10 at 1 hz and 2 to 4 at 3 hz relative to a station located on franciscan sandstone at fort mason irrespective of whether they are sited on artificial fill or beach sand two stations located on dune sand just outside the marina district are amplified by factors of 2 to 4 for frequencies above 1 hz four stations located on franciscan sandstone in pacific heights nob hill rincon hill and diamond heights show little relative amplification conditional estimates of the mainshock spectra can be determined at stations that only recorded aftershocks if they can be linked to stations that recorded the mainshock these estimates are predicated on the assumption that the ground behaved linearly in the mainshock an assumption that is clearly violated for those sites where there was ground failure using this method of extrapolation for a site in the marina district that showed no evidence of ground failure yields mainshock spectra that are slightly greater than the mainshock spectra from the outer harbor wharf in oakland and near the pacific park plaza in emeryville and that significantly exceed the mainshock spectra from all the free field accelerograms located in san francisco

stress fields associated with oceanic transform faults abstract although their formation is commonly attributed to shear stresses oceanic transform faults contain many structural elements indicating extension across them examples include transform parallel tension fractures normal faults grabens dykes and small scale spreading centres at the junctions between transform faults and adjacent ridge segments there are commonly sets of oblique fractures a detailed field study of oblique fractures in the vicinity of a junction between a mid ocean ridge and an oceanic fracture zone in north iceland shows that they are mostly tension fractures and normal faults this paper presents the results of a boundary element study of the stress field associated with the junction between an oceanic transform fault and its ridge segments the results show that uniaxial tensile loading plate pull parallel with the transform fault tends to lock it but also gives rise to shear stress concentration in a zone that coincides with the fault this shear stress is primarily responsible for the strike slip faulting and associated earthquakes in the transform fault to generate the transform parallel fracture zone graben normal faults tensile fractures dykes and spreading centres however requires tensile loading parallel with the ridge axis the results suggest that biaxial ridge parallel and ridge perpendicular tensile loading generates a stress field that 1 unlocks and makes slip easier on the transform faults and 2 explains the oblique fractures at the ridge transform junctions

directional topographic site response at tarzana observed in aftershocks of the 1994 northridge california earthquake implications for mainshock motions abstract the northridge earthquake caused 1 78 g acceleration in the east west direction at a site in tarzana california located about 6 km south of the mainshock epicenter the accelerograph was located atop a hill about 15 m high 500 m long and 130 m wide striking about n78 e during the aftershock sequence a temporary array of 21 three component geophones was deployed in six radial lines centered on the accelerograph with an average sensor spacing of 35 m station c00 was located about 2 m from the accelerograph we inverted aftershock spectra to obtain average relative site response at each station as a function of direction of ground motion we identified a 3 2 hz resonance that is a transverse oscillation of the hill a directional topographic effect the top base amplification ratio at 3 2 hz is about 4 5 for horizontal ground motions oriented approximately perpendicular to the long axis of the hill and about 2 for motions parallel to the hill this resonance is seen most strongly within 50 m of c00 other resonant frequencies were also observed a strong lateral variation in attenuation probably associated with a fault caused substantially lower motion at frequencies above 6 hz at the east end of the hill there may be some additional scattered waves associated with the fault zone and seen at both the base and top of the hill causing particle motions not spectral ratios at the top of the hill to be rotated about 20 away from the direction transverse to the hill the resonant frequency but not the amplitude of our observed topographic resonance agrees well with theory even for such a low hill comparisons of our observations with theoretical results indicate that the 3d shape of the hill and its internal structure are important factors affecting its response the strong transverse resonance of the hill does not account for the large east west mainshock motions assuming linear soil response mainshock east west motions at the tarzana accelerograph were amplified by a factor of about 2 or less compared with sites at the base of the hill probable variations in surficial shear wave velocity do not account for the observed differences among mainshock acceleration observed at tarzana and at two different sites within 2 km of tarzana

evidence for weak oceanic transform faults 1 we present the results of a series of 3 d boundary element calculations to investigate the effects of oceanic transform faults on stress state and fault development at adjacent mid ocean ridge spreading centers we find that the time averaged strength of transform faults is low and that on time scales longer than a typical earthquake cycle transform faults behave as zones of significant weakness specifically mechanical coupling of only 5 best explains the observed patterns of strike slip and oblique normal faulting near a ridge transform intersection on time scales shorter than a typical earthquake cycle transient locked periods can produce anomalous reverse faulting similar to that observed at the inside corner ic of several slow spreading ridge segments furthermore we predict that extensional stresses will be suppressed at the ic due to the shear along the transform resisting ridge normal extension this implies that an alternative mechanism is necessary to explain the preferential normal fault growth and enhanced microseismicity observed at many ics index terms 3035 marine geology and geophysics midocean ridge processes citation behn m d j lin and m t zuber evidence for weak oceanic transform faults geophys res lett 29 24 2207 doi 10 1029 2002gl015612 2002

geomorphological mapping of glacial landforms from remotely sensed data an evaluation of the principal data sources and an assessment of their quality abstract this paper presents the results of an experiment to compare glacial geomorphology mapped from remotely sensed imagery with 1 10 000 scale field mapping the field mapping was validated against high resolution lidar imagery of an area glacierized during the younger dryas and found to provide an essentially reliable if not complete representation of the glacial geomorphology the experiment consists of comparing the field mapping with digital elevation models shuttle radar topography mission c band landmap os panorama os profile nextmap and satellite imagery landsat thematic mapper of a 100 km2 region of central scotland north of glasgow that was last glaciated during the last glacial maximum and during the younger dryas respectively c 14 5 and 11 5 cal ka bp for the purposes of this exercise we concentrated on glacial lineaments flutes drumlins and crag and tail but attention was also given to moraine ridges and eskers qualitative and quantitative comparisons are performed and the results show that of the remotely sensed data sets only nextmap great britain provided results that showed any approximation to the field mapping os panorama and os profile provided very poor approximations and the other methods fail to provide any information of value attention is given to the issues of scale and the differences between a small scale detailed study such as this experiment in which a high resolution glacial geomorphological reconstruction is required and the small scale studies where the remote sensing techniques used here provide important evidence of regional significance when glaciers formed the largest elements of the landscape the paper concludes with a consideration of protocols for future geomorphological mapping exercises and outlines some of the requirements that must be adopted as these protocols are developed