ground motion modeling of the 1906 san francisco earthquake part ii ground motion estimates for the 1906 earthquake and scenario events abstract we estimate the ground motions produced by the 1906 san francisco earthquake making use of the recently developed song et al 2008 source model that combines the available geodetic and seismic observations and recently constructed 3d geologic and seismic velocity models our estimates of the ground motions for the 1906 earthquake are consistent across five ground motion modeling groups employing different wave propagation codes and simulation domains the simulations successfully reproduce the main features of the boatwright and bundock 2005 shakemap but tend to over predict the intensity of shaking by 0 1 0 5 modified mercalli intensity mmi units velocity waveforms at sites throughout the san francisco bay area exhibit characteristics consistent with rupture directivity local geologic conditions e g sedimentary basins and the large size of the event e g durations of strong shaking lasting tens of seconds we also compute ground motions for seven hypothetical scenarios rupturing the same extent of the northern san andreas fault considering three additional hypocenters and an additional random distribution of slip rupture directivity exerts the strongest influence on the variations in shaking although sedimentary basins do consistently contribute to the response in some locations such as santa rosa livermore and san jose these scenarios suggest that future large earthquakes on the northern san andreas fault may subject the current san francisco bay urban area to stronger shaking than a repeat of the 1906 earthquake ruptures propagating southward towards san francisco appear to expose more of the urban area to a given intensity level than do ruptures propagating northward

broad band deconvolution of gdsn data summary advances in the theory of wave propagation and source mechanism have coincided with the recent deployment of a global network of digitally recording seismographs the gdsn global digital seismograph network we demonstrate that broad band records of body wave ground displacement and velocity with spectral information from several hertz to tens of seconds can be obtained by the simultaneous deconvolution of the long and short period components of the gdsn seismographs frequency dependent effects in body waves that may arise from source complexity or from propagation through the earth are much more apparent and measurable in the broad band records than in the original seismograms

finite faults and inverse theory with applications to the 1979 imperial valley earthquake abstract using a representation theorem from elastodynamics subsurface slip on a known fault is formulated as the solution to an inverse problem in which recorded surface ground motion is the data two methods of solution are presented the least squares method which minimizes the squared differences between theory and data and the constrained least squares method which simultaneously maintains a set of linear inequalities instabilities in the solution are effectively eliminated in both methods and the sensitivity of the solution to small changes in the data is quantitatively stated the inversion methodology is applied to 77 components of near field ground acceleration recorded during the 15 october 1979 imperial valley earthquake the faulting is constrained to propagate bilaterally away from the epicenter at an average velocity of 90 per cent of the shear wave speed on a vertical fault plane extending from the surface to 10 km depth inequality constraints are used to keep the faulting sequence physically reasonable by maintaining right lateral motion and positive slip velocity the preferred solution is stable and provides a good fit to the data it is also realistic and consistent with observed surface offsets and independent estimates of seismic moment

anomalously deep earthquakes beneath the new hebrides trench abstract the central new hebrides island arc is a morphologically complex area where the island blocks of santo and malekula replace the trench and override the d9entrecasteaux fracture zone dfz a major aseismic ridge on the subducting plate earthquakes recorded by a local network have been located beneath the trench southwest of malekula at depths of 60 to 90 km because these locations are unusual and because tests with hypothetical data showed that two minima one for shallow depths and one for deep depths exist on the travel time surface for events in this area we investigated these hypocenters in more detail location quality was judged primarily by the fit to p and s wave arrival times calculated in a variety of velocity models we found that while the standard deviations of the travel time residuals from some of the events were nearly the same for shallow and deep locations they were significantly lower for several events at the deeper minimum moreover the marginal a posteriori density functions for depth indicate that the deeper depths are significantly more probable activity in this area appears to be sporadic most of the events were aftershocks of a large earthquake m w 7 1 in 1981 and a cluster of events was reported to have occurred in the same area over a period of one month in 1986 the existence of deep earthquakes in this area may be due to interactions of the dfz with santo and malekula because their locations follow a trend in the seismicity that parallels the western coast of the island blocks they also occur directly north of a sharp bend in the trench and near a major seismic discontinuity and may be a manifestation of recent en echelon subduction if these earthquakes are not occurring along the boundary of a new subduction zone the inferred existence of brittle failure at depths usually associated with a ductile rheology brings into question our understanding of the mechanics of the oceanic lithosphere

seismic source modeling seismic source modeling is taken to mean the modeling of seismograms to investigate kinematic properties of the earthquake source current trends such as the use of other data types e g geodetic measurements of coseismic deformation and the explicit consideration of source dynamics when modeling seismograms are beginning to blur this definition but i will adhere to it in this review i have divided seismic source modeling into teleseismic regional and near source modeling teleseismic modeling has the advantage of global coverage for earthquakes of magnitude 5 5 and larger but does not provide much more than point source parameters regional distance modeling has the advantage of a more rapid assessment of earthquake source properties but is complicated by relatively complex wave propagation the coverage is also limited to areas of broadband regional networks typically continental areas of developed countries near source modeling has the potential for detailed imaging of source properties but very few earthquakes occur in regions with sufficient instrumentation to allow this i have also included a section on historical earthquakes because of the additional issues that seismologists face in working with pre wwssn data and because of the important issues such as earthquake recurrence that require historical data in addition to reviewing the progress in seismic source modeling during the last four years i have also briefly reviewed some of the progress in understanding earthquake physics and hazards that has come about because of basic research in earthquake source modeling

modeling and validation of a 3d velocity structure for the santa clara valley california for seismic wave simulations a 3d seismic velocity and attenuation model is developed for santa clara valley california and its surrounding uplands to predict ground motions from scenario earthquakes the model is developed using a variety of geologic and geophysical data our starting point is a 3d geologic model developed primarily from geologic mapping and gravity and magnetic surveys an initial velocity model is constructed by using seismic velocities from boreholes reflection refraction lines and spatial autocorrelation microtremor surveys this model is further refined and the seismic attenuation is estimated through waveform modeling of weak motions from small local events and strong ground motion from the 1989 loma prieta earthquake waveforms are calculated to an upper frequency of 1 hz using a parallelized finite difference code that utilizes two regions with a factor of 3 difference in grid spacing to reduce memory requirements cenozoic basins trap and strongly amplify ground motions this effect is particularly strong in the evergreen basin on the northeastern side of the santa clara valley where the steeply dipping silver creek fault forms the southwestern boundary of the basin in comparison the cupertino basin on the southwestern side of the valley has a more moderate response which is attributed to a greater age and velocity of the cenozoic fill surface waves play a major role in the ground motion of sedimentary basins and they are seen to strongly develop along the western margins of the santa clara valley for our simulation of the loma prieta earthquake

simulated ground motion in santa clara valley california and vicinity from m 6 7 scenario earthquakes abstract models of the santa clara valley scv 3d velocity structure and 3d finite difference software are used to predict ground motions from scenario earthquakes on the san andreas saf monte vista shannon south hayward and calaveras faults twenty different scenario ruptures are considered that explore different source models with alternative hypocenters fault dimensions and rupture velocities and three different velocity models ground motion from the full wave field up to 1 hz is exhibited as maps of peak horizontal velocity and pseudospectral acceleration at periods of 1 3 and 5 sec basin edge effects and amplification in sedimentary basins of the scv are observed that exhibit effects from shallow sediments with relatively low shear wave velocity 330 m sec scenario earthquakes have been simulated for events with the following magnitudes 1 m 6 8 7 4 calaveras sources 2 m 6 7 6 9 south hayward sources 3 m 6 7 monte vista shannon sources and 4 m 7 1 7 2 peninsula segment of the saf sources ground motions are strongly influenced by source parameters such as rupture velocity rise time maximum depth of rupture hypocenter and source directivity cenozoic basins also exert a strong influence on ground motion for example the evergreen basin on the northeastern side of the scv is especially responsive to 3 5 sec energy from most scenario earthquakes the cupertino basin on the southwestern edge of the scv tends to be highly excited by many peninsula and monte vista fault scenarios sites over the interior of the evergreen basin can have long duration coda that reflect the trapping of seismic energy within this basin plausible scenarios produce predominantly 5 sec wave trains with greater than 30 cm sec sustained ground motion amplitude with greater than 30 sec duration within the evergreen basin

broadband waveform modeling of moderate earthquakes in the san francisco bay area and preliminary assessment of the usgs 3d seismic velocity model abstract recently the united states geologic survey earthquake hazards program developed a 3d seismic velocity model of northern california based on geology including a detailed model of the urbanized san francisco bay area in this study we report comparisons of observed three component broadband 0 03 0 25 hz waveforms with synthetic seismograms computed with the new 3d model using an elastic finite difference method we selected a set of 12 moderate earthquakes m w 4 0 5 1 that occurred within the greater san francisco bay area having well constrained source parameters and broadband recordings with high signal to noise ratios the objective of this study was to investigate how well the 3d velocity model predicts observed waveforms and to identify features of the model that may require revision to improve the waveform fits and predictions of ground motions for future events we show for the 3 september 2000 yountville earthquake that reported source parameters accurately predict waveforms at two close strong motion stations approximately 10 km from the epicenter by comparing synthetics for the average 1d model gil7 stidham et al 1999 and the 3d structures we show that the effects of seismic wave propagation in the 3d model become important for frequencies at and above 0 1 hz periods less than 10 sec comparison of observed and synthetic seismograms for the 3d model consistently shows that the model predicts energy arriving earlier than is observed particularly for the surface waves indicating that the shear velocities in the upper crust must be reduced we cross correlated the observed and synthetic waveforms and recorded the delay time and linear correlation for best alignment of the data and delayed synthetic the results indicate that generally the 3d model predicts the observed waveforms well mean linear correlations 0 41 and includes features that arise from the interaction of the wave field with 3d structure especially the major sedimentary basins in san pablo bay san francisco bay santa clara valley and livermore valley simple conversion of the observed delay times for optimal alignment suggests shear velocities should be reduced by 4 5 on average based on these findings we conclude that the model is an excellent first step suggesting that the overall structure of the model is accurate i e the basin and discontinuity geometry however the velocities must be reduced to improve the observed timing of surface wave arrivals

seismic remote sensing for the earthquake source process and near source strong shaking a case study of the october 16 1999 hector mine earthquake a new methodology to automatically determine the earthquake source process and near source strong ground motions using regional and local distance data was used to study the october 16 1999 hector mine earthquake mw7 1 broadband displacement data were inverted for the seismic moment tensor and to resolve the fault plane ambiguity independent of aftershock location and surface faulting information the identified nnw striking fault plane was used to invert for the distribution of fault slip over a planar surface the slip model was used to predict near fault peak ground velocity which was found to agree well with the trinet shakemap and also with near fault observations that were not available at the time of the initial analysis our method if automated is capable of providing near source strong ground motion information within 30 minutes of the earthquake origin time even in cases where there are few near fault recording instruments

site amplifications for generic rock sites seismic shear wave velocity as a function of depth for generic rock sites has been estimated from borehole data and studies of crustal velocities and these velocities have been used to compute frequency dependent amplifications for zero attenuation for use in simulations of strong ground motion we define a genetic rock site as one whose velocity at shallow depths equals the average of those from the rock sites sampled by the borehole data most of the boreholes are in populated areas for that reason the rock sites sampled are of particular engineering significance we consider two genetic rock sites rock corresponding to the bulk of the borehole data and very hard rock such as is found in glaciated regions in large areas of eastern north america or in portions of western north america the amplifications on rock sites can be in excess of 3 5 at high frequencies in contrast to the amplifications of less than 1 2 on very hard rock sites the consideration of unattenuated amplification alone is computationally convenient but what matters for ground motion estimation is the combined effect of amplification and attenuation for reasonable values of the attenuation parameter k 0 the combined effect of attenuation and amplification for rock sites peaks between about 2 and 5 hz with a maximum level of less than 1 8 the combined effect is about a factor of 1 5 at 1 hz and is less than unity for frequencies in the range of 10 to 20 hz depending on t using these amplifications we find provisional values of about ao 70 bars and k 0 0 035 sec for rock sites in western north america by fitting our empirically determined response spectra for an m 6 5 event to simulated values the borehole data yield shear velocities 033o of 618 and 306 rrdsec for rock and soil sites respectively when averaged over the upper 30 m from this we recommend that v30 equals 620 and 310 m sec for applications requiring the average velocity for rock and soil sites in western north america by combining the amplifications for rock sites and the site factors obtained from our analysis of strong motion data we derive amplifications for sites with 17 3o 520 m sec nehrp class c corresponding to a mix of rock and soil sites and v3o 310 and 255 m sec average soil and nehrp class d sites respectively for the average soil site the combined effect of amplification and attenuation exceeds a factor of 2 0 for frequencies between 0 4 and about 4 hz with a peak site effect of 2 4 the peak of the nehrp class d site effect is 2 7

constraints on the 29 june 1992 little skull mountain nevada earthquake sequence provided by robust hypocenter estimates abstract the m s 5 4 little skull mountain earthquake of 29 june 1992 occurred within 21 km of yucca mountain nevada the site of a proposed high level nuclear waste repository data from a dense portable seismic network have enabled us to examine the faulting process in detail standard linearized least squares procedures were used to determine hypocenter estimates for all the events a grid search technique was applied to test the robustness of estimates of the hypocenters of the mainshock and six of the largest aftershocks projection of the mainshock fault plane to the surface delineated by its focal mechanism and the distribution of aftershocks defines a strike subparallel to a north northeast structural trend within jackass flats and collinear with the mine mountain fault system this result implies reactivation of mapped faults with no known quaternary movement and growth or reactivation of buried faults having no clear surface manifestation the aftershock distribution suggests that postseismic strain release occurred up dip from the mainshock on the mainshock fault plane and on several secondary faults the mainshock focal mechanism and the aftershock distribution indicate a normal slip rupture on a plane with a strike of n55 e a dip of 56 and a rake of 72 results of the grid search analysis show that the mainshock and three of the largest aftershocks probably occurred on the same fault plane and that the other three occurred off the mainshock fault plane two on a steeply dipping n200 e striking plane with dextral strike slip displacements and the other possibly on a plane conjugate to the mainshock rupture plane focal mechanism unknown

a very broad band inversion method for the recovery of earthquake source parameters abstract waveform studies of the earthquake source have traditionally been performed in narrow bands of the seismic spectrum waveform matching of p and sh waves emphasizes frequencies near and above the corner frequency normal mode and surface wave analyses on the other hand are performed on data which contain information only below the corner frequency a new method is presented which formally includes the result of a long period centroid moment tensor analysis in an inversion of broad band body wave phases a parametrized source model is used which allows for the recovery of a detailed source time function as well as the direction and magnitude of rupture propagation the technical details and the performance of the method are demonstrated in an analysis of the october 28 1983 borah peak idaho earthquake in particular it is shown how the combination of the long period and broad band data sets in the inversion improves the resolution of both the focal mechanism and the scalar moment the very broad band method is applied in an analysis of the september 19 1985 michoacan m w 8 0 earthquake two concentrations of moment release are identified in the source time function separated by 25 30 s in time the spatial distribution of moment is well explained both by a model of unilateral rupture towards the east with a propagation velocity of 2 4 km s 1 and by two point sources separated by 95 km it is shown that the p wave data are largely insensitive to the scalar moment and that source time functions obtained without consideration of the total moment release exaggerate the heterogeneity of slip on the fault plane source time functions which do contain the total moment show that a large fraction of the moment was released smoothly over the whole duration 80 s of the event the results suggest that the fault plane was characterized by two regions of high stress drop but that a large portion of slip occurred on surrounding weak portions of the plane

seismic activity of the san francisco bay region moment magnitude m with objective confidence level uncertainties are estimated for felt san francisco bay region earthquakes using bakun and went worth s 1997 analysis strategy for seismic intensity observations the frequency magnitude distribution is well described for m 5 5 events since 1850 by a gutenberg richter relation with a b value of 0 90 the seismic moment rate m yr since 1836 is 2 68 1018 n m yr 95 confidence range 1 29 1018 n m yr to 4 07 1018 n m yr the seismic moment rate since 1850 is nearly the same m yr in the 56 years before 1906 is about 10 times that in the 70 years after 1906 in contrast m yr since 1977 is about equal that in the 56 years before 1906 80 1 14 of the plate motion moment accumulation rate is available for release in earthquakes the historical m yr and the portion of the plate motion moment accumulation rate available for release in earthquakes are used in a seismic cycle model to estimate the rate of seismic activity in the twenty first century high and low rates of future seismic activity are both permissible given the range of possible seismic cycle recurrence times t and the uncertainties in the historical m and in the percentage of plate motion available for release in earthquakes if the historical seismic moment rate is not greater than the estimated 2 68 1018 n m yr and the percentage of the plate motion moment accumulation available for release in earthquakes is not less than the estimated 80 then for all t the rate of seismic moment release from now until the next 1906 sized shock will be comparable to the rate from 1836 to 1905 when m 6 1 2 shocks occurred every 15 to 20 years

moderate earthquake ground motion validation in the san francisco bay area abstract we performed 3d ground motion simulations for 10 recent small to moderate earthquakes m w 4 1 5 4 in the san francisco bay area to evaluate two versions of the usgs3d velocity model brocher 2005 jachens et al 2006 brocher 2008 comparisons were made in terms of modeling phase arrival timing peak ground motion amplitudes and the seismic waveforms in the simulations we assumed the source parameters reported in the berkeley seismological laboratory bsl moment tensor catalog broadband seismic data from the berkeley digital seismic network bdsn and strong motion data from the usgs and the california geological survey cgs strong motion arrays were used in the analysis the comparison of peak ground velocity pgv for both models reveals that both 3d models predict the observed pgv well over four orders of magnitude and p and s wave timing and pseudospectral acceleration psa are well modeled by the 3d structure while the revised model model 8 3 0 significantly improved the timing of the first arrival and the waveform fit is generally good there remain discrepancies in estimated amplitudes and durations that require improvements to the structure nevertheless from our low frequency 0 5 hz analysis we found that the 3d model is suitable for the simulation of pgv to assess the strong shaking hazard of future large earthquakes because earthquakes larger than m 6 have pgv carried by waves of 1 to several seconds period

the effects of refractor topography and overburden anisotropy on time term solutions of refractor anisotropy summary it is generally held that a non iterative time term solution gives a satisfactory model if refractor dips are everywhere less than 10 mo although this is a reasonable assumption for a refractor with a constant dip for structures with strong directional characteristics such as anticlines and syn clines the solution can be seriously degraded and will exhibit a refractor velocity that could be erroneously interpreted as anisotropic by ray tracing through a continental model of an isotropic crust and upper mantle separated by an anticlinal moho nowhere dipping more than 8 mo it is demonstrated that the pntravel time can be well fitted by a non iterative time term solution with a 4 4 per cent upper mantle anisotropy the effect is smaller for oceanic cases these studies illustrate the importance of carrying out an iterative sequence of solutions and indicate that convergence at the correct solution will occur when a good azimuthal distribution of observations is available it is further demonstrated that an anisotropic crust can perturb the travel times in a similar way to an anisotropic upper mantle the correct separation of crustal and upper mantle effects requires the independent utilization of pn and crustal phases

how fast is rupture during an earthquake new insights from the 1999 turkey earthquakes we report that during the two devastating 1999 earthquakes in turkey rupture propagated over a large part of the nearly 200km long fault zone at supershear speed approaching 5km s we present observations and modeling which confirm the original inference of supershear rupture during the izmit earthquake and we show that supershear rupture also occurred during the duzce earthquake we show that the rupture velocity measured about 2 times the shear wave velocity is the value predicted by theoretical studies in fracture dynamics we look for clues to explain these observations

broadband simulations for mw 7 8 southern san andreas earthquakes ground motion sensitivity to rupture speed using the high performance computing resources of the southern california earthquake center we simulate broadband 0 10 hz ground motions for three m w 7 8 rupture scenarios of the southern san andreas fault the scenarios incorporate a kinematic rupture description with the average rupture speed along the large slip portions of the fault set at 0 96 0 89 and 0 84 times the local shear wave velocity consistent with previous simulations a southern hypocenter efficiently channels energy into the los angeles region along the string of basins south of the san gabriel mountains however we find the basin ground motion levels are quite sensitive to the prescribed rupture speed with peak ground velocities at some sites varying by over a factor of two for variations in average rupture speed of about 15 these results have important implications for estimating seismic hazards in southern california and emphasize the need for improved understanding of earthquake rupture processes

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

lateral and vertical variability in crustal velocity structure in a small area of the north atlantic abstract the detailed velocity structure of a 70 by 35 km area of 6 10 ma old crust on the flank of the mid atlantic ridge at 24 n was studied using 358 explosive charges and several hundred 16 4 1 airgun shots fired into an array of eight ocean bottom hydrophones inversion of the first arrival refracted travel times shows that the crust comprises a normal oceanic section about 5 km thick with a steep velocity gradient in the upper crust increasing from about 3 5 km sec at the seafloor overlying a typical oceanic layer 3 and a probably anisotropic mantle delay time function mapping using two datasets containing arrivals from layer 3 and from the mantle show that lateral variability is generally low over most of the survey area with a small region of high delay times in the northwest corner caused by the presence of abnormal crust probably associated with a minor fracture zone we find that the topography of the base of layer 2 is similar to that of the top indicating that the normal faulting which occurs along the margins of the median valley extends down at least into layer 3 our observations from mantle arrivals are consistent with a much flatter moho which constrains possible models of crustal formation at the spreading centre

allochthonous terranes in alaska implications for the structure and evolution of the bering sea shelf abundant evidence has been gathered in support of the concept that much of the pacific margin of north america consists of allochthonous terranes that were accreted during mesozoic and early tertiary time in particular southern alaska is almost completely composed of separate terranes whose stratigraphy and paleomagnetism indicate distant origins the bering sea continental shelf is among the largest shelves in the world almost half as large as alaska itself some of the allochthonous terranes in alaska probably continue beneath the continental shelf but their distribution beyond the shoreline has not been determined we believe that much of the continental shelf is probably composed of allochthonous terranes in much the same way as southern alaska geophysical data from the bering continental shelf have been used to test this hypothesis although inconclusive without extensive drilling multichannel seismic profiles and magnetic data indicate the composite character of the shelf basement the magnetic anomalies can be separated into specific domains of limited extent these magnetic variations suggest a corresponding variation of rock terranes beneath the shelf in addition multichannel seismic profiles show possible thrust faults within the shelf basement that could be sutures between separate terranes

earthquake source parameters and stress distribution in the adak island region of the central aleutian islands alaska source parameters have been systematically determined for all earthquakes with mw 5 that occurred between 172 w and 179 w longitude in the adak island region of the central aleutian islands during 1977 march 1987 we relocate the events using a plate velocity model developed for the region and use two alternative methods of depth determination the first method uses arrival times of direct and prominent reflected phases primarily pwp the second method uses broadband p wave displacement seismograms in an inversion for source depth the analysis of these events provides a well constrained data set for the study of stress release along an active subduction zone three earthquakes which occurred seaward of the trench axis are located just below the crust mantle interface and show extension nearly perpendicular to the trench axis seven events occurred in the wadati benioff zone sixty four events are located in the main thrust zone and except for five unusual events are characterized by thrust mechanisms with one nodal plane dipping north at a shallow angle in cross section the thrust zone appears as a thin 10 15 km thickness interplate region which extends from 15 to 50 km depth a 10 15 average discrepancy between observed slip vector azimuths and the predicted relative motion direction between the pacific and north american plates exists for these events the observed slip vectors are oriented more normal to the trench than is predicted by plate motions five earthquakes which occurred as aftershocks to the may 7 1986 earthquake mw 8 0 in the crust of the overriding plate have strike slip mechanisms consistent with right lateral motion on arc parallel fault planes observations of slip vectors along the whole aleutian arc show a similar trend to that observed in the adak island region the largest differences 30 between observed and predicted slip azimuths occur around 175 e we propose a model of plate interaction in which a portion of the along arc motion occurs along a weak strike slip shear zone in the upper plate near the volcanic line the slip azimuths in the main thrust zone fit this model well if the amount of transcurrent slip occurring in the upper plate is 60 of the arc parallel relative plate motion a consequence of the model is along arc extension of the overriding plate between the accretionary wedge and the volcanic line especially in the western part of the aleutian arc calculations based on a tectonic model by geist et al 1988 for the formation of arc summit basins through block rotation and translation suggest that along arc extension has been significant since late miocene or early pliocene

three dimensional p wave velocity model for the san francisco bay region california 1 a new three dimensional p wave velocity model for the greater san francisco bay region has been derived using the double difference seismic tomography method using data from about 5 500 chemical explosions or air gun blasts and approximately 6 000 earthquakes the model region covers 140 km ne sw by 240 km nw se extending from 20 km south of monterey to santa rosa and reaching from the pacific coast to the edge of the great valley our model provides the first regional view of a number of basement highs that are imaged in the uppermost few kilometers of the model and images a number of velocity anomaly lows associated with known mesozoic and cenozoic basins in the study area high velocity vp 6 5 km s features at 15 km depth beneath part of the edge of the great valley and along the san francisco peninsula are interpreted as ophiolite bodies the relocated earthquakes provide a clear picture of the geometry of the major faults in the region illuminating fault dips that are generally consistent with previous studies ninety five percent of the earthquakes have depths between 2 3 and 15 2 km and the corresponding seismic velocities at the hypocenters range from 4 8 km s presumably corresponding to franciscan basement or mesozoic sedimentary rocks of the great valley sequence to 6 8 km s the top of the seismogenic zone is thus largely controlled by basement depth but the base of the seismogenic zone is not restricted to seismic velocities of 6 3 km s in this region as had been previously proposed

simulating strong motions of large earthquakes using recordings of small earthquakes the loma prieta mainshock as a test case abstract a simple method is developed for predicting ground motions for future large earthquakes for specific sites by summing and filtering recordings of adjacent small earthquakes this method is tested by simulating strong motion records for the loma prieta earthquake m 7 0 using aftershocks m 3 7 to 4 0 recorded at the same sites i use an asperity rupture model where the rms stress drop averaged over the fault plane is constant with moment the observed spectra indicate that stress drop remains constant from the m 3 aftershocks up to the m 7 mainshock about six orders of magnitude in seismic moment each simulation sums the seismogram of one aftershock with time delays appropriate for propagating rupture and incorporates directivity and site response the simulation scales the spectrum in accordance with a constant stress drop 2 source model in this procedure the high frequency energy of the aftershock sum above the corner frequency of the aftershock is not reduced when it is convolved with the mainshock slip velocity function unlike most previous methods of summation for most cases the spectra 0 6 to 20 hz peak accelerations and durations of the simulated mainshock records are in good agreement with the observed strong motion records even though only one aftershock waveform was used in each simulation this agreement indicates that the response of these soil sites is essentially linear for accelerations up to about 0 3 g the summed aftershock records display the same site dependent values of f max as the mainshock records implying that f max is a site effect rather than a property of the mainshock rupture process

a site conditions map for california based on geology and shear wave velocity one simple way of accounting for site conditions in calculating seismic hazards is to use the shear wave velocity in the shallow subsurface to classify materials the average shear wave velocity to 30 m v 30s has been used to develop site categories that can be used for modifying a calculated ground motion to account for site conditions we have prepared a site category map of california by first classifying the geologic units shown on 1 250 000 scale geologic maps our classification of geologic units is based on v 30s measured in 556 profiles and geological similarities between units for which we have v s data and the vast majority of units for which we have no data we then digitized the geologic boundaries from those maps that separated units with different site classifications v s data for california shows that several widespread geologic units have ranges of v 30s values that cross the boundaries between nehrp ubc site categories the franciscan complex has v 30s values across ubc categories b and c with a mean value near the boundary between those two categories older alluvium and late tertiary bedrock have v 30s values that range from about 300 to about 450 m sec across the boundary between categories c and d to accommodate these units we have created intermediate categories which we informally call bc and cd geologic units that have or are interpreted to have v 30s values near the boundary of the ubc categories are placed in these intermediate units in testing our map against the available v 30s measurements we have found that 74 of the measured v 30s values fall within the range assigned to the v s category where they fall on the map this ratio is quite good considering the inherent problems in plotting site specific data on a regional map and the variability of physical properties in geologic units we have also calculated the mean and distribution of v 30s for each of our map units and prepared composite profiles showing the variation of v s in the upper 100 m from the available v s data these data show that the map categories that we have defined based on geologic units have different v s properties that can be taken into account in calculating seismic hazards

shallow dips of normal faults during rapid extension earthquakes in the woodlark d entrecasteaux rift system papua new guinea earthquakes in the woodlark d entrecasteaux rift system reveal changes in fault geometry along strike as extension progresses from continental to oceanic modes in one segment evidence is found for earthquakes on shallow dipping normal faults to examine these trends locations of 147 earthquakes are redetermined and focal mechanisms for 21 events are derived from waveform inversion where seafloor spreading occurs east of 152 e most earthquakes illuminate a ne sw strike slip fault north of the oceanic rift system along the woodlark rise elsewhere earthquakes occur along a well defined rift zone and focal mechanisms reveal normal faulting with north south t axes and depths less than 10 km most normal faulting earthquakes show high angle fault planes dips 40 50 but several are consistent with slip on moderately low angle planes dipping 15 35 these low angle nodal planes are only found in a region between 150 5 e and 152 5 e where the transition occurs from seafloor spreading to continental rifting a seismic reflection profile near 151 e reveals a major normal fault that dips to the north at 25 35 just landward of the oceanic rift tip that fault and parallel structures are excellent candidates for the fault that slipped in at least two of the earthquakes studied hence normal faults dipping 30 are likely to be seismically active in at least one part of this rift system in this region just landward from the rift tip the highest extension rates are expected 40 mm yr and strain appears localized on a single system of normal faults because shallow dips for normal faults are seen near the rift tip but not elsewhere along strike high strain rates may be an important factor in allowing normal faults to slip at unusually shallow dips perhaps high shear traction at the base of the upper crust localized by nearby spreading sufficiently alters the local stress regime

bering sea earthquake of february 21 1991 active faulting along the bering shelf edge on february 21 1991 an ms 6 8 shallow earthquake occurred in the eastern bering sea in an area which previously has shown no significant seismic activity the earthquake was located on the bering shelf close to the shelf edge near one of the elongate basins zhemchug basin that follow the outer shelf to better understand the causes of this unusual event we relocated the earthquake and its aftershocks determined its source mechanism and depth and examined multichannel seismic observations of structures near the epicenter the event was relocated from regional and teleseismic p and s arrival times using a nonlinear inverse technique as were the 19 previous well recorded bering sea earthquakes in global catalogs 1964 1987 the 1991 mainshock epicenter was located on the western flank of zhemchug basin the only four previous events with small 1 location errors relocated at the outer shelf near the pribilof islands the focal mechanism for the 1991 event determined by inversion of teleseismic broadband body waves and centroid moment tensor data shows oblique normal faulting with the t axis oriented north south one nodal plane dips steeply to the northeast and strikes parallel to the basin axis subparallel to faults that bound zhemchug basin this earthquake may be due to slip on one of these normal faults several of which are seen to offset young strata on a multichannel seismic line 30 km south of the earthquake it has previously been suggested that the large canyons that cut the bering shelf and the adjacent outer shelf basins are fault controlled but this event and its aftershocks provide the first strong evidence to support the hypothesis that these structures are currently active and produce earthquakes seismic activity along the bering shelf edge may provide a good explanation for felt reports of several large events in the 1800s that have so far been difficult to associate with interplate activity along the aleutian trench or with any other seismically active structure

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

ground motion modeling of hayward fault scenario earthquakes part ii simulation of long period and broadband ground motions abstract we simulate long period t 1 0 2 0 s and broadband t 0 1 s ground motions for 39 scenario earthquakes m w 6 7 7 2 involving the hayward calaveras and rodgers creek faults for rupture on the hayward fault we consider the effects of creep on coseismic slip using two different approaches both of which reduce the ground motions compared with neglecting the influence of creep nevertheless the scenario earthquakes generate strong shaking throughout the san francisco bay area with about 50 of the urban area experiencing modified mercalli intensity vii or greater for the magnitude 7 0 scenario events long period simulations of the 2007 m w 4 18 oakland earthquake and the 2007 m w 5 45 alum rock earthquake show that the u s geological survey s bay area velocity model version 08 3 0 permits simulation of the amplitude and duration of shaking throughout the san francisco bay area for hayward fault earthquakes with the greatest accuracy in the santa clara valley san jose area the ground motions for the suite of scenarios exhibit a strong sensitivity to the rupture length or magnitude hypocenter or rupture directivity and slip distribution the ground motions display a much weaker sensitivity to the rise time and rupture speed peak velocities peak accelerations and spectral accelerations from the synthetic broadband ground motions are on average slightly higher than the next generation attenuation nga ground motion prediction equations we attribute much of this difference to the seismic velocity structure in the san francisco bay area and how the nga models account for basin amplification the nga relations may underpredict amplification in shallow sedimentary basins the simulations also suggest that the spudich and chiou 2008 directivity corrections to the nga relations could be improved by increasing the areal extent of rupture directivity with period

probabilistic estimates of surface coseismic slip and afterslip for hayward fault earthquakes we examine the partition of long term geologic slip on the hayward fault into interseismic creep coseismic slip and afterslip using monte carlo simulations we compute expected coseismic slip and afterslip at three alinement array sites for hayward fault earthquakes with nominal moment magnitudes ranging from about 6 5 to 7 1 we consider how interseismic creep might affect the coseismic slip distribution as well as the variability in locations of large and small slip patches and the magnitude of an earthquake for a given rupture area we calibrate the estimates to be consistent with the ratio of interseismic creep rate at the alinement array sites to the geologic slip rate for the hayward fault we find that the coseismic slip at the surface is expected to comprise only a small fraction of the long term geologic slip the median values of coseismic slip are less than 0 2 m in nearly all cases as a result of the influence of interseismic creep and afterslip however afterslip makes a substantial contribution to the long term geologic slip and may be responsible for up to 0 5 1 5 m median plus one standard deviation s d of additional slip following an earthquake rupture thus utility and transportation infrastructure could be severely impacted by afterslip in the hours and days following a large earthquake on the hayward fault that generated little coseismic slip inherent spatial variability in earthquake slip combined with the uncertainty in how interseismic creep affects coseismic slip results in large uncertainties in these slip estimates

seismic imaging of the 1999 izmit turkey rupture inferred from the near fault recordings we use near fault accelerograms to infer the space time history of rupture on the fault during the izmit earthquake the records show that the ground displacement and velocity near the fault were surprisingly simple rupture propagated toward the west at a velocity of about 3 km s and toward the east at a remarkably high average velocity of 4 7 km s over a distance of about 45 km before decelerating to about 3 1 km s on the eastern segment slip on the fault is particularly large down to a depth of 20 km on the central portion of the fault where it reaches about 7 m slip is large also below 10 km on the eastern fault segment and this may have contributed to the loading of shear stress on the duzce fault on the western fault segment large slip seems confined to shallow depths

the aftershock signature of supershear earthquakes recent studies show that earthquake faults may rupture at speeds exceeding the shear wave velocity of rocks this supershear rupture produces in the ground a seismic shock wave similar to the sonic boom produced by a supersonic airplane this shock wave may increase the destruction caused by the earthquake we report that supershear earthquakes are characterized by a specific pattern of aftershocks the fault plane itself is remarkably quiet whereas aftershocks cluster off the fault on secondary structures that are activated by the supershear rupture the post earthquake quiescence of the fault shows that friction is relatively uniform over supershear segments whereas the activation of off fault structures is explained by the shock wave radiation which produces high stresses over a wide zone surrounding the fault

computer simulations of alaskan neotectonics ongoing deformation and fault slip neotectonics in the alaskan bering sea region were modeled with thin plate finite element methods by computing anelastic strain rate stress and velocity fields which represent time averages over several seismic cycles models included variable crust and lithosphere thickness heat flow and elevation and incorporated all faults known or thought to be active three sets of experiments totaling 46 models were computed with systematic variations of shear traction on the megathrust fault friction within north america internal friction of lithospheric blocks and mantle creep strength model quality was scored by comparing predictions to geologic data on fault slip rates the most compressive horizontal principal stress direction and geodimeter and very long baseline interferometry vlbi baseline rates best results were obtained with a driving traction of only 10 15 mpa on the aleutian megathrust and fault friction of only 0 17 within north america this is clearly a low stress model the fanning of away from the syntaxis was reproduced but does not imply high deviatoric stress magnitudes within the north american plate the aleutian forearc west of kodiak island moves westward along strike at rates which increase to 65 mm yr 1 in the komandorsky region however no crust is presently escaping westward from the alaskan syntaxis instead it is shortened and stacked by thrusting principally in the vicinity of the chugach and wrangell mountains because stresses in this model are low and are delicately balanced against topography it is likely that the present regime represents a transient response to plio pleistocene glacial mass redistribution and differs from typical tectonic flow in the tertiary

crustal velocity structure on the flanks of the mid atlantic ridge at 24 n summary a detailed seismic refraction survey was made over a 70 35 km area of young 9 ma crust at 24 n 45 w to investigate the detailed velocity structure of a portion of typical oceanic crust an array of eight ocean bottom hydrophones was used to monitor 358 explosive charges and over 750 airgun shots the crust exhibits normal oceanic structure with a steep vertical velocity gradient through layer 2 and almost 3 km of layer 3 material with a mean velocity of 6 65 km s 1 overlying probably anisotropic mantle ray tracing shows that the major amplitude variations observed in the upper crustal returns are governed more strongly by the seafloor topography than by the seismic velocity structure within the crust a delay time function method was used to invert the 1613 well determined first arrival travel times from the explosives we find that the delay time vanes by only 0 05 0 10s over most of the survey area but that there are rather larger delay times in the north west corner which may be associated with crust formed in the vicinity of a ridge jump we also find a systematic correlation between variations in delay time and in the seafloor depth at the ray entry point with smallest delay times where the seafloor is deepest this is consistent with a model of the crust in which the topography of the base of layer 2 and the moho is a subdued copy of the upper basement surface

a regional view of urban sedimentary basins in northern california based on oil industry compressional wave velocity and density logs compressional wave sonic and density logs from 119 oil test wells provide knowledge of the physical properties and impedance contrasts within urban sedimentary basins in northern california which is needed to better understand basin amplification these wire line logs provide estimates of sonic velocities and densities for primarily upper cretaceous to pliocene clastic rocks between 0 1 and 5 6 km depth to an average depth of 1 8 km regional differences in the sonic velocities and densities in these basins largely 1reflect variations in the lithology depth of burial porosity and grain size of the strata but not necessarily formation age for example miocene basin filling strata west of the calaveras fault exhibit higher sonic velocities and densities than older but finer grained and or higher porosity rocks of the upper cretaceous great valley sequence as another example hard eocene sandstones west of the san andreas fault have much higher impedances than eocene strata mainly higher porosity sandstones and shales located to the east of this fault and approach those expected for franciscan complex basement rocks basement penetrations define large impedence contrasts at the sediment basement contact along the margins of several basins where quaternary pliocene and even miocene deposits directly overlie franciscan or salinian basement rocks at depths as much as 1 7 km in contrast in the deepest geographic centers of the basins such logs exhibit only a modest impedance contrast at the sediment basement contact at depths exceeding 2 km prominent up to 1 km sec and thick up to several hundred meters velocity and density reversals in the logs refute the common assumption that velocities and densities increase monotonically with depth online material borehole log regression parameters and metadata

ground motion modeling of hayward fault scenario earthquakes part i construction of the suite of scenarios abstract we construct kinematic earthquake rupture models for a suite of 39 m w 6 6 7 2 scenario earthquakes involving the hayward calaveras and rodgers creek faults we use these rupture models in 3d ground motion simulations as discussed in part ii aagaard et al 2010 to provide detailed estimates of the shaking for each scenario we employ both geophysical constraints and empirical relations to provide realistic variation in the rupture dimensions slip heterogeneity hypocenters rupture speeds and rise times the five rupture lengths include portions of the hayward fault as well as combined rupture of the hayward and rodgers creek faults and the hayward and calaveras faults we vary rupture directivity using multiple hypocenters typically three per rupture length yielding north to south rupture bilateral rupture and south to north rupture for each rupture length and hypocenter we consider multiple random distributions of slip we use two approaches to account for how aseismic creep might reduce coseismic slip for one subset of scenarios we follow the slip predictable approach and reduce the nominal slip in creeping regions according to the creep rate and time since the most recent earthquake whereas for another subset of scenarios we apply a vertical gradient to the nominal slip in creeping regions the rupture models include local variations in rupture speed and use a ray tracing algorithm to propagate the rupture front although we are not attempting to simulate the 1868 hayward fault earthquake in detail a few of the scenarios are designed to have source parameters that might be similar to this historical event

the origin of summit basins of the aleutian ridge implications for block rotation of an arc massif it is proposed that many summit basins along the aleutian arc form from the clockwise rotation of blocks of the arc massif summit basins are arc parallel grabens or half grabens formed within the arc massif and are commonly located near or along the axis of late cenozoic volcanism geomorphically the aleutian arc appears to consist of contiguous rhombic blocks of varying size tens to hundreds of kilometers in length the boundaries between adjacent blocks are delineated by fault controlled canyons that cut the southern slope of the arc transverse to its regional trend evidence that these blocks have rotated clockwise is provided by the triangular shaped summit basins bordering the blocks to the north oblique physiographic trends offsets in the summit platform and broad deflections in the southern slope of the arc we present a model for block rotation that involves translation of blocks parallel to an arc it is suggested that block rotation which appears to have accelerated in late cenozoic time is linked to 1 a shift in the euler pole for the pacific plate 2 the consequential start up of late cenozoic volcanism 3 improved interplate coupling instigated by sediment flooding of the aleutian trench and 4 westward subduction of northeast striking segments of the inactive kula pacific ridge

near source ground motions from simulations of sustained intersonic and supersonic fault ruptures we examine the long period near source ground motions from simulations of m 7 4 events on a strike slip fault using kinematic ruptures with rupture speeds that range from subshear speeds through intersonic speeds to supersonic speeds the strong along strike shear wave directivity present in scenarios with subshear rupture speeds disappears in the scenarios with ruptures propagating faster than the shear wave speed furthermore the maximum horizontal displacements and velocities rotate from generally fault perpendicular orientations at subshear rupture speeds to generally fault parallel orientations at supersonic rupture speeds for rupture speeds just above the shear wave speed the orientations are spatially heterogeneous as a result of the random nature of our assumed slip model at locations within a few kilometers of the rupture the time histories of the polarization of the horizontal motion provide a better diagnostic with which to gauge the rupture speed than the orientation of the peak motion subshear ruptures are associated with significant fault perpendicular motion before fault parallel motion close to the fault supershear ruptures are associated with fault perpendicular motion after significant fault parallel motion consistent with previous studies we do not find evidence for prolonged supershear rupture in the long period 2 sec ground motions from the 1979 imperial valley earthquake however we are unable to resolve the issue of whether a limited portion of the rupture approximately 10 km in length propagated faster than the shear wave speed additionally a recording from the 2002 denali fault earthquake does appear to be qualitatively consistent with locally supershear rupture stronger evidence for supershear rupture in earthquakes may require very dense station coverage in order to capture these potentially distinguishing traits

effects of large scale surface topography on ground motions as demonstrated by a study of the san gabriel mountains los angeles california we investigate the effects of large scale surface topography on ground motions generated by nearby faulting we show a specific example studying the effect of the san gabriel mountains which are bounded by the mojave segment of the san andreas fault on the north and by the los angeles basin on the south by si mulating a mw 7 5 earthquake on the mojave segment of the san andreas fault we show that the san gabriel mountains act as a natural seismic insulator for metropo litan los angeles the topography of the mountains scatters the surface waves gen erated by the rupture on the san andreas fault leading to less efficient excitation of basin edge generated waves and natural resonances within the los angeles basin the effect of the mountains reduces the peak amplitude of ground velocity for some regions in the basin by as much as 50 in the frequency band up to 0 5 hz these results suggest that depending on the relative location of faulting and the nearby large scale topography the topography can shield some areas from ground shaking

seismic p wave anisotropy in the subcrustal lithosphere of north west australia summary reduced p travel times from the archaean pilbara craton of north west australia show a strong correlation with azimuth which could be used as evidence of anisotropy however the azimuthal correlation could also be explained by a southerly dip of between 1 and 2 on the crustmantle boundary although the models from several reversed seismic profiles across the craton suggest a smaller dip a time term analysis of the p data yielded several models the preferred solution in which the dip on the crust mantle boundary is similar to that in the models from the reversed profiles has approximately 2 per cent anisotropy in the uppermost mantle with the direction of maximum velocity 30 east of north one possible cause of the anisotropy is that olivine crystals were aligned by syntectonic recrystallization and or power law creep in the tensional environment caused at the base of the lithosphere by flexure during loading of the lithosphere by the strata of the hamersley basin which overlies the pilbara craton a seismic discontinuity occurs about 15 km below the crust mantle boundary under the craton a qualitative analysis of all available seismic data suggests that the velocity below the boundary is probably also anisotropic with the direction of maximum velocity between north and 40 west of north the direction of minimum velocity below the sub moho boundary correlates loosely with the direction of basement lineaments in the proterozoic capricorn orogenic belt to the south of the craton suggesting that the anisotropy under the boundary may be younger than that immediately under the crustlmantle boundary this is consistent with the notion that the aichaean lithosphere was thinner than the present lithosphere

slip in the 1868 hayward earthquake from the analysis of historical triangulation data despite the importance of the hayward fault for earthquake hazards in the san francisco bay area neither the rupture length nor the average coseismic slip in the most recent major earthquake which occurred in 1868 is well known we estimate slip in the 1868 earthquake by analyzing triangulation data collected between 1853 1860 and 1876 1891 we apply a denuisancing procedure that projects out the dependence of that data on station coordinates allowing their displacements to be estimated directly the best fit to the data is obtained with a 52 km long by 10 km deep rupture that extends from warm springs to near berkeley considerably longer than the 30 km of reported surface breakage the estimated slip for an earthquake of this length is 1 9 0 4 m and the seismic moment is m0 3 0 0 7 1019 n m corresponding to mw 7 0 the data are inconsistent with regionally high strain rate prior to the 1906 earthquake as had been previously suggested the triangulation data record northeastward displacement of station loma prieta presumably as a result of the 1865 earthquake the fault normal displacement is not easily explained by slip on either the san andreas fault or the 1989 loma prieta rupture surface this observation is however consistent with an mw 6 3 4 thrust event northeast of the san andreas fault in the southern santa cruz mountains thrust belt

an experiment in systematic study of global seismicity centroid moment tensor solutions for 201 moderate and large earthquakes of 1981 data from the global digital seismograph network were used to obtain centroid moment tensor solutions using the method of dziewonski et al 1981 results were obtained for 201 earthquakes ranging in seismic moment from 7 1023 to 3 1027 dyne cm the wide dynamic range of the sro asro stations allows us to investigate using the same algorithm series of events among which the smallest and the largest may differ in moment by a factor as large as 1000 among the events studied is a particularly interesting series in january 1981 off the island of honshu the main shock was preceded by three foreshocks and followed by four aftershocks all falling within the range of our analysis there is an indication that the source mechanism changes with the size of the event statistical analysis of the results for all earthquakes reveals that the half duration of shallow and intermediate events is approximated by 1 6 10 8 m01 3 the shifts in origin time for deep focus earthquakes are indicative of the general complexity of these events which depends only weakly on the seismic moment the extreme departures from a double couple mechanism seem to depend both on the moment and on the focal depth while for shallow earthquakes these departures decrease from a maximum at about 1025 dyne cm with increasing moment the reverse appears to be true with respect to deep focus earthquakes shallow earthquakes north of new guinea and along the solomon islands show systematic and substantial departures from the double couple mechanism

testing community velocity models for southern california using the ambient seismic field abstract we correlate the vertical component of ambient seismic noise data recorded on 56 broadband stations with dense coverage in the greater los angeles area to determine station to station green s functions these green s functions provide an important test of community velocity models southern california earthquake center scec cvm 4 0 and cvm h 5 2 used for strong ground motion prediction for future scenario earthquakes in southern california comparisons of the ambient noise green s functions for nearly 300 paths with those calculated by the finite element method in the community velocity models reveal a strong waveform similarity for the dominant surface waves between 0 1 and 0 2 hz we find a mean correlation coefficient between the ambient noise and finite element green s functions of 0 62 for the cvm 4 0 and 0 49 for the cvm h 5 2 indicating stronger waveform similarity for cvm 4 0 we also find that for 77 of the paths the surface waves in the finite element green s functions for cvm 4 0 arrive early suggesting that the cvm 4 0 has velocities in the upper 10 km that are too fast along these paths the same bias is evident for cvm h 5 2 but is substantially smaller with only 61 of the paths too fast for 67 of the paths cvm 4 0 has velocities faster than cvm h 5 2 the time lags we obtain between the ambient noise and finite element green s functions provide key information for improving future community velocity models

seismic anisotropy the state of the art ii summary the theory causes observations and possible applications of seismic anisotropy in the earth have developed considerably since the previous state of the art paper was published in 1977 the behaviour of waves in layered anisotropic media is now much better understood and the evidence for seismic anisotropy indicates that anisotropy is likely to be present throughout much of the crust and upper mantle the top few hundred kilometres of the mantle appears to be anisotropic with the orientations aligned by the present or palaeo stress field the upper part of the crust is frequently anisotropic probably due to cracks differentially aligned by the non lithostatic stresses the possibility of being able to monitor crack geometry by seismic techniques opens a wide range of applications in currently important activities

a faulting model for the 1979 imperial valley earthquake by comparing synthetic particle velocities with the near source strong motion data we have constructed by trial and error a faulting model for the 1979 imperial valley earthquake the calculation of the synthetic seismograms takes into account the vertical inhomogeneity of the elastic parameters in the imperial valley and the spatial variation of the slip rate parameters on the fault plane the independent slip rate parameters are 1 the strike slip rate amplitude 2 the dip slip rate amplitude 3 the duration that slip rate is nonzero the rise time of the slip function and 4 the rupture time which determines when the slip rate is initiated our faulting model has the following principal features 1 faulting occurred on the imperial fault and on the brawley fault rupture on the brawley fault being triggered by rupture on the imperial fault 2 the imperial fault is a plane 35 km long and 13 km wide with a strike of 323 measured clockwise from north and a dip of 80 ne the brawley fault is a 10 km long and 8 km wide plane with a strike of 360 and a dip of 90 3 faulting on the imperial fault is primarily right lateral strike slip with a small component of normal dip slip in the sediments at its northern end the larger strike slip rates are generally confined between depths of 5 and 13 km with maximum values of about 1 0 m s the duration varies on the fault with a maximum of 1 9 s which is considerably shorter than the total time for the rupture to take place 4 the rupture velocity on the imperial fault is highly variable locally it exceeds the shear wave velocity and in one instance the compressional wave velocity the average rupture velocity though is less than the shear wave velocity 5 although the slip on the brawley fault contributes only about 4 of the total moment it greatly affects the ground motion at nearby stations 6 the total seismic moment is 6 7 1018 n m where the imperial fault contributes 6 4 1018 n m and the brawley fault contributes 2 7 1017 n m in the process of trying almost 300 faulting models we found that given the elastic parameters of the medium the synthetic seismograms were most sensitive to the specification of the rupture time although the slip rate amplitudes are linearly related to the data the rupture time and the duration are not the parameterization of the nonlinear variables has a strong effect on the generation of synthetic seismograms from a finite fault

compressional and shear wave velocity versus depth relations for common rock types in northern california abstract this article presents new empirical compressional and shear wave velocity vp and vs versus depth relationships for the most common rock types in northern california vp versus depth relations were developed from borehole laboratory seismic refraction and tomography and density measurements and were converted to vs versus depth relations using new empirical relations between vp and vs the relations proposed here account for increasing overburden pressure but not for variations in other factors that can influence velocity over short distance scales such as lithology consolidation induration porosity and stratigraphic age standard deviations of the misfits predicted by these relations thus provide a measure of the importance of the variability in vp and vs caused by these other factors because gabbros greenstones basalts and other mafic rocks have a different vp and vs relationship than sedimentary and granitic rocks the differences in vs between these rock types at depths below 6 or 7 km are generally small the new relations were used to derive the 2005 u s geological survey seismic velocity model for northern california employed in the broadband strong motion simulations of the 1989 loma prieta and 1906 san francisco earthquakes initial tests of the model indicate that the vp model generally compares favorably to regional seismic tomography models but that the vp and vs values proposed for the franciscan complex may be about 5 too high

evidence for a supershear transient during the 2002 denali fault earthquake elastodynamic considerations suggest that the acceleration of ruptures to supershear velocities is accompanied by the release of rayleigh waves along the fault from the stress breakdown zone these waves generate a secondary slip pulse trailing the rupture front but manifest almost entirely in ground motion perpendicular to the fault in the near source region we construct a spontaneously propagating rupture model exhibiting these features and use it to explain ground motions recorded during the 2002 denali fault earthquake at pump station 10 located 3 km from the fault we show that the initial pulses on both the fault normal and fault parallel components are due to the supershear stress release on the fault whereas the later arriving fault normal pulses result from the trailing subshear slip pulse on the fault online material mpeg movies of rupture history and ground motion

rupture process of the 1999 kocaeli turkey earthquake estimated from strong motion waveforms the multiple time window linear waveform inversion is applied to study the source process of the 1999 kocaeli turkey earthquake using strong motion data two peculiar observations characterize this event the first one is a conflicting observation of the long surface ruptures and short source duration resulting from the observed strong motion waveforms the second is an anomalously short s p time observed at a station skr considering its hypocentral distance a supershear rupture propagation ellsworth and celebi 1999 and the p wave triggering of an asperity anderson et al 2000 were both proposed to explain the record at skr our waveform inversion study is aimed to examine these possibilities in order to clarify the relation between the spatial distribution of the surface ruptures and coseismic slips we divide the assumed fault plane into three parts and look for the first time window front propagation velocity propagation velocity of triggering front of the first time window at each subfault in each part by performing numerous inversions changing the first time window front propagation velocity separately in each part and selecting the best first time window propagation velocities that give largest variance reduction at the same time appropriate smoothness of spatiotemporal slip distribution is searched for by performing inversions with different strength of smoothing constraints against the observational equations and judging the relative appropriateness of inversion results in terms of the akaike s bayesian information criterion the best source model is characterized by an asperity that is about 35 km east of the epicenter and near a segment boundary at sapanca lake triggered by the first time window front with 5 8 km sec close to p wave velocity the time progression of the rupture suggests a scenario where a p wave arriving from the hypocenter or somewhere around the hypocenter triggered the second largest asperity near the junction of the segments at sapanca lake which is a preferable interpretation the first time window propagation velocities west of the hypocenter and east of skr are expected to be 3 0 km sec manuscript received 20 august 2000

active thrust front of the greater caucasus the april 29 1991 racha earthquake sequence and its tectonic implications although fault bounded thrust sheest are common in the geological record seismic evidence for their motion is sparse the april 29 1991 racha earthquake m s 7 0 the largest instrumentally recorded earthquake in the greater caucasus is one of the largest recent earthquakes in continental thrust belts and provides evidence on mechanisms of thrust sheet motion using data from a deployment of program for array seismic studies of the continental lithosphere passcal digital seismographs and various other instrumental we locate 1952 aftershocks occurring between may 7 and june 30 1991 the aftershocks form a zone 70 km long and 10 25 km wide striking e w following the racha ridge at the southern boundary of the greater caucasus thrust system teleseismic body waves are inverted for source parameters of the mainshock and the two largest aftershocks the solutions show thrust faulting with centroid depths of 3 10 km comparable to depths of locally recorded aftershocks 2 12 km the shallow dipping nodal plane the aftershock distribution and surface geology demonstrate that the main event was caused by faulting on a thrust system dipping nne at 20 o 31 o bounding the southern slope of the greater caucasus this fault system thrusts the greater caucasus structures south over the dzhirula basement massif the inferred fault geometry suggests that the active fault is either a detachment between sediments and dzhirula basement or cuts through the basement at shallow depths the 1500 m high racha ridge overlies the aftershock zone and is a likely consequence of repeated similar earthquakes hence the 1991 earthquake sequence shows that the western greater caucasus is accommodating plate convergence at a rate possibly comparable to the eastern greater caucasus a few millimeters per year along strike geological discontinuities above and below the thrust surface correspond to the eastern end of the mainshock rupture area no strong evidence for transfer structures could be found along strike suggesting that differences in collisional style between the western and eastern greater caucasus may reflect differences in mechanical properties rather than differences in convergence rate a june 15 1991 event and its aftershocks southeast of the primary aftershock zone along strike show fault planes and slip vectors rotated 41 o clockwise from the mainshock this rotation is consistent with an along strike change in direction of the thrust front near 44 o e longitude and demonstrates strong local structural or topographic control on slip direction the rotation requires along strike shortening within the greater caucasus thrust system at a rate comparable to the rate of thrusting

ground motion modeling of the 1906 san francisco earthquake part i validation using the 1989 loma prieta earthquake we compute ground motions for the beroza 1991 and wald et al 1991 source models of the 1989 magnitude 6 9 loma prieta earthquake using four different wave propagation codes and recently developed 3d geologic and seismic velocity models in preparation for modeling the 1906 san francisco earthquake we use this well recorded earthquake to characterize how well our ground motion simulations reproduce the observed shaking intensities and amplitude and durations of recorded motions throughout the san francisco bay area all of the simulations generate ground motions consistent with the large scale spatial variations in shaking associated with rupture directivity and the geologic structure we attribute the small variations among the synthetics to the minimum shear wave speed permitted in the simulations and how they accommodate topography our long period simulations on average under predict shaking intensities by about one half modified mercalli inten sity mmi units 25 35 in peak velocity while our broadband simulations on average under predict the shaking intensities by one fourth mmi units 16 in peak velocity discrepancies with observations arise due to errors in the source models and geologic structure the consistency in the synthetic waveforms across the wave propagation codes for a given source model suggests the uncertainty in the source parameters tends to exceed the uncertainty in the seismic velocity structure in agree ment with earlier studies we find that a source model with slip more evenly distributed northwest and southeast of the hypocenter would be preferable to both the beroza and wald source models although the new 3d seismic velocity model improves upon previous velocity models we identify two areas needing improvement nevertheless we find that the seismic velocity model and the wave propagation codes are suitable for modeling the 1906 earthquake and scenario events in the san francisco bay area online material modified mercalli intensities and velocity waveforms and a movie of simulated wave propagation