Pure and Applied Geophysics

Zhu, Lupei; Tan, Ying; Helmberger, Donald; Saikia, Chandan

doi: 10.1007/s00024-006-0073-7pmid: N/A

We use the recordings from 51 earthquakes produced by a PASSCAL deployment in Tibet to develop a two-layer crustal model for the region. Starting with their ISC locations, we iteratively fit the P-arrival times to relocate the earthquakes and estimate mantle and crustal seismic parameters. An average crustal P velocity of 6.2–6.3 km/s is obtained for a crustal thickness of 65 km while the P velocity of the uppermost mantle is 8.1 km/s. The upper layer of the model is further fine-tuned by obtaining the best synthetic SH waveform match to an observed waveform for a well-located event. Green's functions from this model are then used to estimate the source parameters for those events using a grid search procedure. Average event relocation relative to the ISC locations, excluding two poorly located earthquakes, is 16 km. All but one earthquake are determined by the waveform inversion to be at depths between 5 and 15 km. This is 15 km shallower, on average, than depths reported by the ISC. The shallow seismicity cut-off depth and low crustal velocities suggest high temperatures in the lower crust. Thrust faulting source mechanisms dominate at the margins of the plateau. Within the plateau, at locations with surface elevations less than 5 km, source mechanisms are a mixture of strike-slip and thrust. Most events occurring in the high plateau where elevations are above 5 km show normal faulting. This indicates that a large portion of the plateau is under EW extension.

Levshin, A.; Panza, G.

doi: 10.1007/s00024-006-0069-3pmid: N/A

We consider several examples demonstrating that the formal modal representation of surface wavefields often does not describe adequately observable wave parameters, such as the phase and group velocity dispersion of higher modes. The main reason for this is the existence in the medium of several waveguides or weakly coupled wavefields in the same waveguide. In such cases the separation of neighboring higher modes may be impossible, and observed dispersion curves may significantly differ from the ones predicted by the theory. From the example related to the studies of the crustal and upper mantle structure we found that the difficulty in the separation of first and second crustal higher modes can be overcome by applying a special inversion procedure. This procedure ignores the existence of a low velocity layer in the upper mantle when fitting the observable higher-mode dispersion curve to the one predicted by the model.

Ketter, Brett; Velasco, Aaron; Ammon, Charles; Randall, George

doi: 10.1007/s00024-006-0071-9pmid: N/A

We develop one-dimensional (1-D) path-specific velocity models in western China using new Rayleigh and Love wave group and phase velocity dispersion measurements for 20 events in the region. The earthquakes were grouped into three geographic clusters from which we compute the average phase and group velocity dispersion. We invert the average dispersion curves simultaneously for 1-D shear-velocity models appropriate for the three central Asian paths, using three previous shear-velocity models as initial models. The models are validated by forward modeling waveforms of recent events. The crustal thickness beneath western China in the vicinity of the Lop Nor test site is 50–60 km and our velocity models are consistent with major geologic features (e.g., basins and mountain ranges) and previous structural models for this region.

Bhukta, Subrata; Sain, K.; Tewari, H.

doi: 10.1007/s00024-006-0070-xpmid: N/A

During the Pamir Himalayan project in the year 1975 seismic refraction and wide-angle reflection data were recorded along a 270 km long Lawrencepur-Astor (Sango Sar) profile in the northwest Himalayas. The profile starts in the Indus plains and crosses the Main Central Thrust (MCT), the Hazara Syntaxis, the Main Mantle Thrust (MMT) and ends to the east of Nanga Parbat. The seismic data, as published by Guerra et al. (1983), are reinterpreted using the travel-time ray inversion method of Zelt and Smith (1992) and the results of inversion are constrained in terms of parameter resolution and uncertainty estimation. The present model shows that the High Himalayan Crystallines (HHC, velocity 5.4 km s−1) overlie the Indian basement (velocity 5.8–6.0 km s−1). The crust consists of four layers of velocity 5.8–6.0, 6.2, 6.4 and 6.8 km s−1 followed by the upper mantle velocity of 8.2 km s−1 at a depth of about 60 km.

Narayan, J.; Sharma, M.; Maheshwari, B.

doi: 10.1007/s00024-006-0074-6pmid: N/A

This paper presents tsunami intensity mapping and damage patterns along the surveyed coast of Tamilnadu (India) of the deadly Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004. The tsunami caused severe damage and claimed many victims in the coastal areas of eleven countries bordering the Indian Ocean. A twelve-stage tsunami intensity scale proposed by Papadopoulos and Imamura (2001) was followed to assign the intensity at the visited localities. Along the coast of the Indian mainland, tsunami damage sustained exclusively. Most severe damage was observed in Nagapattinam Beach, Nabiyarnagar, Vellaipalyam, and the Nagapattinam Port of Nagapattinum District on the east coast and Keelamanakudy village of Kanyakumari District on the western coast of Tamilnadu. The maximum assigned tsunami intensity was X+ at these localities. Minimum intensity V+ was received along the coast of Thanjavur, Puddukkotai and Ramnathpuram Districts in Palk Strait. The general observation reported by many people was that the first arrival was a tsunami crest. The largest tsunami waves were first arrivals on the eastern coast and the second arrivals on the western coast. Along the coast, people were unaware of the tsunami, and no anomalous behavior of ocean animals was reported. Good correlation was observed between the severity of damage and the presence of shadow zone of Sri Lanka, reflected waves from Sri Lanka and the Maldives Islands, variation in the width of the continental shelf, elevation of the coast and the presence of breakwaters. The presence of medu (naturally elevated landmass very close to the sea shore and elongated parallel to the coast) reduced the impact of the tsunami on the built environment.

Gusev, Alexander; Guseva, Eugenia; Panza, Giuliano

doi: 10.1007/s00024-006-0068-4pmid: N/A

For any earthquake, the slipping fault and the source of high-frequency seismic waves, by and large, coincide. On a more local scale, however, the areas of high seismic slip rate and of increased high-frequency radiation output (seismic luminosity) need not match. To study in some detail how slip rate and seismic luminosity are interrelated, a systematic study is performed that uses 251 records of teleseismic P waves from 23 intermediate-depth earthquakes of magnitude 6.8 and above. From a broadband trace we extract two time histories: (1) displacement and (2) 0.5–2.5 Hz band-passed and squared velocity, or ``HF power'', and calculate correlation coefficient, ρ between the two. To reduce the bias related to formation of P coda, a special procedure is applied to data. We estimated the average value ρ = 0.52 (range of event averages 0.35 to 0.65) for the correlation coefficient between the radiated time histories for displacement and ``HF power'', which is considerably below the ``ideal'' value of unity. We argue that the same or even lower value characterizes the degree of slip rate - seismic luminosity correlation at the fault. Two factors may contribute to the revealed decorrelation: (1) random fluctuations of observed HF power (inevitable for a signal with a limited bandwidth), and (2) the genuine mismatch of slip rate and mean luminosity. We show that these factors, acting separately, would result in the ρ values equal to, correspondingly, 0.72 and 0.80. We also show that genuine decorrelation is statistically significant. We conclude that the observed values of ρ indicate genuine differences between the distributions of the slip rate and the seismic luminosity over the fault area. These results provide important constraints both for the accurate wide-band simulation of strong ground motion and for theoretical dynamic source models.

Liu, Yinbin; Schmitt, Douglas

doi: 10.1007/s00024-006-0075-5pmid: N/A

The anisotropy of a periodically layered isotropic medium is numerically modeled in order to study the effect of the scale of heterogeneity on seismic observations. An important motivation is to delineate the wavelength ranges over which a pulse propagating obliquely through the structure will be described by either ray (short wavelength) or effective medium (long wavelength) theory. The same band-limited pulse is propagated obliquely at a variety of incidence angles through a compositionally uniform layered structure as a function of the layer thicknesses. The resulting seismograms display similar behavior to that encountered for normal incidence including the effects of stop- and pass-bands. Velocities determined from time picks on these seismograms show a large difference in velocities between the long and short wavelength limits as has been previously demonstrated for normal incidence propagation. The bulk of the transition between these two limits is independent of incidence angle and occurs when the ratio between the wavelength and the layering thickness is near a value of 10. Two more geologically reasonable models show that these effects are diminished with smaller contrasts between the layers.

Wu, Jianping; Jiao, Wenjie; Ming, Yuehong; Su, Wei

doi: 10.1007/s00024-006-0076-4pmid: N/A

21 earthquakes recorded by a temporary seismic network in the Changbaishan Tianchi volcanic area in Northeast China operated during the summer of 2002 and 2003 were analyzed to estimate the S coda attenuation. The attenuation quality factor Q c was estimated using the single scattering attenuation model of Sato (1977) in the frequency band from 4 to 24 Hz. All the events studied in this paper occurred at depths from 2 to 6 km with ML of 1.4–2.8. The epicentral distances are less than 25 km. For all events which occurred near the Tianchi Lake (caldera), the Q c patterns obtained at the stations near the lake are similar, and the Q c values are relatively small. At the stations located about 15 km east of the Tianchi Lake, however, the average Q c is significantly higher. For an event which occurred 25km from the lake to the west, Q c patterns derived at the stations near the lake are quite similar to the above mentioned Q c for stations located in the east. Further study shows that Q c value in the north and central areas of the volcano is relatively lower than that in the surrounding area. Compared to other volcanic areas in the world, the average Q c of the Changbaishan Tianchi volcanic area is obviously lower. The deep seismic sounding and teleseismic receiver function studies indicated more than one lower velocity layer in the crust. The MT studies suggested the presence of high conductive bodies beneath the area. We interpret the strong attenuation of coda waves near the Changbaishan Tianchi volcano as being possibly related to high temperature medium caused by shallow magma chambers.

Kumar, Dinesh; Ram, V.; Khattri, K.

doi: 10.1007/s00024-006-0078-2pmid: N/A

The accelerograms of the 1999 Chamoli earthquake and nine of its aftershocks, which occurred in Uttaranchal Himalaya, have been analyzed to investigate their source parameters, the site amplification functions and the average effective shear-wave quality factor Qseff in the region. The fault plane solution of the main shock is obtained using the spectral amplitudes of SH waves (approximated by transverse components of accelerograms) of the high-energy packets observed in the accelerograms of the main shock. It is found to be comparable with the reported solutions in other studies. Similarly the other source parameters (viz., seismic moment = (5.03±1.7) × 1025 dyne-cm, stress drop = 65 bars, source duration = 5.2 s and moment magnitude = 6.4) estimated for the main shock are consistent with the values obtained in other studies. The stress drops estimated for the aftershocks vary from 23 bars to 153 bars and the seismic moment from 1.4 × 1023 dyne-cm to 2.9 × 1023 dyne-cm. The average estimated values of the effective shear-wave quality factor Qseff vary from 655±359 in the Uttaranchal sector of Himalaya and 1475±130 in the Delhi region. In general, the Qseff value increases with an increase in the epicentral distance reflecting the penetration of the waves into deeper layers of the crust as the epicentral distance of the observation point increases. These values of Qseff indicate that in general the curst is at low temperatures that will promote brittle behavior and conditions for episodic failure as compared to creep, under the accumulated strains from plate collision at the Himalaya plate boundary. The site amplification characteristics at sites have been identified from the frequency bands of significant amplification observed in the spectral ratios of the horizontal to the vertical component records. The decay of peak ground acceleration (PGA) values with distance has been investigated using the empirical regression curves vis-à-vis the site amplification factors.

Zhou, Bing; Greenhalgh, Stewart

doi: 10.1007/s00024-006-0081-7pmid: N/A

Simulation of seismic waves from a 3D point-source in a 2D medium may be performed in the frequency-wavenumber domain (called 2.5D modelling). It involves computing the Fourier-transformed Green's function for a number of frequency (ω) and strike direction wavenumber (k y ) values and doubly inverse transforming to convert to the traveltime and distance space. Such modeling produces a wavefield with 3D features but the computation becomes pseudo 2D (i.e., in the xz-plane) rather than 3D (in the xyz-frame). The common sampling strategy for the wavenumber is inefficient for 2.5D wave modeling because it employs a large number of wavenumbers (k y ). This leads to a high cost of computer time in the linear-equation-solving processing, which detracts from the advantages of 2.5D modeling. In this paper, we use two analytic frequency-wavenumber-domain solutions for seismic waves in a homogeneous medium and an inhomogeneous media (two semi-infinite media in contact) to investigate the properties of the solutions and an efficient sampling strategy for choosing the wavenumbers. We have carried out analytic and numerical experiments with these solutions, and present adaptive Gauss–Legendre abscissae for the wavenumber sampling in terms of a modeling situation. We show that the effective range and the number of sampling points of the wavenumber define the adaptive sampling strategy, and they can be estimated in terms of the wavelength and the maximum source-receiver offset. We apply this sampling strategy to the finite-element method and demonstrate that the range and number of sampling points may be adapted for obtaining significant computational efficiency and satisfactory accuracy for every frequency component. Such 2.5D wave modeling can be readily applied for frequency-domain full-waveform inversion for seismic surface measurements and crosshole seismic waveform tomography.