Predecessors of the giant 1960 Chile earthquake

It is commonly thought that the longer the time since last earthquake, the larger the next earthquake's slip will be. But this logical predictor of earthquake size, unsuccessful for large earthquakes on a strike-slip fault, fails also with the giant 1960 Chile earthquake of magnitude 9.5 (ref. 3). Although the time since the preceding earthquake spanned 123 years (refs 4, 5), the estimated slip in 1960, which occurred on a fault between the Nazca and South American tectonic plates, equalled 250-350 years' worth of the plate motion. Thus the average interval between such giant earthquakes on this fault should span several centuries. Here we present evidence that such long intervals were indeed typical of the last two millennia. We use buried soils and sand layers as records of tectonic subsidence and tsunami inundation at an estuary midway along the 1960 rupture. In these records, the 1960 earthquake ended a recurrence interval that had begun almost four centuries before, with an earthquake documented by Spanish conquistadors in 1575. Two later earthquakes, in 1737 and 1837, produced little if any subsidence or tsunami at the estuary and they therefore probably left the fault partly loaded with accumulated plate motion that the 1960 earthquake then expended.     

Tracking the rupture of the Mw = 9.3 Sumatra earthquake over 1,150 km at teleseismic distance

On 26 December 2004, a moment magnitude Mw = 9.3 earthquake occurred along Northern Sumatra, the Nicobar and Andaman islands, resulting in a devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean region. The rapid and accurate estimation of the rupture length and direction of such tsunami-generating earthquakes is crucial for constraining both tsunami wave-height models as well as the seismic moment of the events. Compressional seismic waves generated at the hypocentre of the Sumatra earthquake arrived after about 12 min at the broadband seismic stations of the German Regional Seismic Network (GRSN), located approximately 9,000 km from the event. Here we present a modification of a standard array-seismological approach and show that it is possible to track the propagating rupture front of the Sumatra earthquake over a total rupture length of 1,150 km. We estimate the average rupture speed to be 2.3-2.7 km s(-1) and the total duration of rupture to be at least 430 s, and probably between 480 and 500 s.     

Plate-boundary deformation associated with the great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake

The Sumatra-Andaman earthquake of 26 December 2004 is the first giant earthquake (moment magnitude M(w) > 9.0) to have occurred since the advent of modern space-based geodesy and broadband seismology. It therefore provides an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the characteristics of one of these enormous and rare events. Here we report estimates of the ground displacement associated with this event, using near-field Global Positioning System (GPS) surveys in northwestern Sumatra combined with in situ and remote observations of the vertical motion of coral reefs. These data show that the earthquake was generated by rupture of the Sunda subduction megathrust over a distance of >1,500 kilometres and a width of <150 kilometres. Megathrust slip exceeded 20 metres offshore northern Sumatra, mostly at depths shallower than 30 kilometres. Comparison of the geodetically and seismically inferred slip distribution indicates that approximately 30 per cent additional fault slip accrued in the 1.5 months following the 500-second-long seismic rupture. Both seismic and aseismic slip before our re-occupation of GPS sites occurred on the shallow portion of the megathrust, where the large Aceh tsunami originated. Slip tapers off abruptly along strike beneath Simeulue Island at the southeastern edge of the rupture, where the earthquake nucleated and where an M(w) = 7.2 earthquake occurred in late 2002. This edge also abuts the northern limit of slip in the 28 March 2005 M(w) = 8.7 Nias-Simeulue earthquake.     

SeisComP3地震监测软件系统及其在海啸预警系统建设中的应用

 SeisComP3 软件系统是近些年发展起来的一款免费的、部分开源的地震实时监测与自动处理系统。根据地震监测、大地震海啸预警等工作需求,本研究组应用SeisComP3 系统提供的实用工具进行辅助功能开发,实现地震数据的实时汇集、共享与自动处理,为大地震海啸预警提供及时、可靠的地震基本参数。同时,基于SeisComP3 系统地震自动定位结果和实时波形数据,应用W 震相方法快速反演海啸强震震源机制解,为海啸数据模拟程序提供实际发震断层面参数解,提高后续海啸数值预报的准确性。实际应用表明：SeisComP3 软件系统为海啸业务提供了重要的数据保障和科技支撑,促进了海啸预警预报工作的发展。     

Coseismic and postseismic slip of the 2011 magnitude-9 Tohoku-Oki earthquake

Most large earthquakes occur along an oceanic trench, where an oceanic plate subducts beneath a continental plate. Massive earthquakes with a moment magnitude, M(w), of nine have been known to occur in only a few areas, including Chile, Alaska, Kamchatka and Sumatra. No historical records exist of a M(w) = 9 earthquake along the Japan trench, where the Pacific plate subducts beneath the Okhotsk plate, with the possible exception of the ad 869 Jogan earthquake, the magnitude of which has not been well constrained. However, the strain accumulation rate estimated there from recent geodetic observations is much higher than the average strain rate released in previous interplate earthquakes. This finding raises the question of how such areas release the accumulated strain. A megathrust earthquake with M(w) = 9.0 (hereafter referred to as the Tohoku-Oki earthquake) occurred on 11 March 2011, rupturing the plate boundary off the Pacific coast of northeastern Japan. Here we report the distributions of the coseismic slip and postseismic slip as determined from ground displacement detected using a network based on the Global Positioning System. The coseismic slip area extends approximately 400?km along the Japan trench, matching the area of the pre-seismic locked zone. The afterslip has begun to overlap the coseismic slip area and extends into the surrounding region. In particular, the afterslip area reached a depth of approximately 100?km, with M(w) = 8.3, on 25 March 2011. Because the Tohoku-Oki earthquake released the strain accumulated for several hundred years, the paradox of the strain budget imbalance may be partly resolved. This earthquake reminds us of the potential for M(w)?≈?9 earthquakes to occur along other trench systems, even if no past evidence of such events exists. Therefore, it is imperative that strain accumulation be monitored using a space geodetic technique to assess earthquake potential.     

Earthquake slip on oceanic transform faults

Oceanic transform faults are one of the main types of plate boundary, but the manner in which they slip remains poorly understood. Early studies suggested that relatively slow earthquake rupture might be common; moreover, it has been reported that very slow slip precedes some oceanic transform earthquakes, including the 1994 Romanche earthquake. The presence of such detectable precursors would have obvious implications for earthquake prediction. Here we model broadband seismograms of body waves to obtain well-resolved depths and rupture mechanisms for 14 earthquakes on the Romanche and Chain transform faults in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean. We found that earthquakes on the longer Romanche transform are systematically deeper than those on the neighbouring Chain transform. These depths indicate that the maximum depth of brittle failure is at a temperature of approximately 600 degrees C in oceanic lithosphere. We find that the body waves from the Romanche 1994 earthquake can be well modelled with relatively deep slip on a single fault, and we use the mechanism and depth of this earthquake to recalculate its source spectrum. The previously reported slow precursor can be explained as an artefact of uncertainties in the assumed model parameters.     

Indonesian earthquake: earthquake risk from co-seismic stress

Following the massive loss of life caused by the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake in Indonesia and its tsunami, the possibility of a triggered earthquake on the contiguous Sunda trench subduction zone is a real concern. We have calculated the distributions of co-seismic stress on this zone, as well as on the neighbouring, vertical strike-slip Sumatra fault, and find an increase in stress on both structures that significantly boosts the already considerable earthquake hazard posed by them. In particular, the increased potential for a large subduction-zone event in this region, with the concomitant risk of another tsunami, makes the need for a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean all the more urgent.     

2010年智利强震引发的海啸对台湾周边海域的影响

2010年2月27日南美洲智利中部近岸发生强震并引发海啸.利用海啸期间台湾周边海域验潮站的潮位资料,分析了此次海啸对台湾周边海域的影响,海啸波通过太平洋于震后25.5h到达台湾周边海域,最大波高达44 cm.进而从理论上讨论了海啸传播时间和波高变化的简单计算方法,并引入了波高衰减因子.结果表明,该简单计算方法能快速且较准确地计算出海啸波的传播时间,引入的波高衰减因子,可在一定程度上为台湾周边海域海啸的方便快捷的预警提供参考.     

Plateau 'pop-up' in the great 1897 Assam earthquake

The great Assam earthquake of 12 June 1897 reduced to rubble all masonry buildings within a region of northeastern India roughly the size of England, and was felt over an area exceeding that of the great 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Hitherto it was believed that rupture occurred on a north-dipping Himalayan thrust fault propagating south of Bhutan. But here we show that the northern edge of the Shillong plateau rose violently by at least 11 m during the Assam earthquake, and that this was due to the rupture of a buried reverse fault approximately 110 km in length and dipping steeply away from the Himalaya. The stress drop implied by the rupture geometry and the prodigious fault slip of 18 +/- 7 m explains epicentral accelerations observed to exceed 1g vertically and surface velocities exceeding 3 m s-1 (ref. 1). This quantitative observation of active deformation of a 'pop-up' structure confirms that faults bounding such structures can penetrate the whole crust. Plateau uplift in the past 2-5 million years has caused the Indian plate to contract locally by 4 +/- 2 mm yr-1, reducing seismic risk in Bhutan but increasing the risk in northern Bangladesh.     

Insight into the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake from GPS measurements in southeast Asia

Data collected at approximately 60 Global Positioning System (GPS) sites in southeast Asia show the crustal deformation caused by the 26 December 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake at an unprecedented large scale. Small but significant co-seismic jumps are clearly detected more than 3,000 km from the earthquake epicentre. The nearest sites, still more than 400 km away, show displacements of 10 cm or more. Here we show that the rupture plane for this earthquake must have been at least 1,000 km long and that non-homogeneous slip is required to fit the large displacement gradients revealed by the GPS measurements. Our kinematic analysis of the GPS recordings indicates that the centroid of released deformation is located at least 200 km north of the seismological epicentre. It also provides evidence that the rupture propagated northward sufficiently fast for stations in northern Thailand to have reached their final positions less than 10 min after the earthquake, hence ruling out the hypothesis of a silent slow aseismic rupture.     

The deterministic nature of earthquake rupture

Understanding the earthquake rupture process is central to our understanding of fault systems and earthquake hazards. Multiple hypotheses concerning the nature of fault rupture have been proposed but no unifying theory has emerged. The conceptual hypothesis most commonly cited is the cascade model for fault rupture. In the cascade model, slip initiates on a small fault patch and continues to rupture further across a fault plane as long as the conditions are favourable. Two fundamental implications of this domino-like theory are that small earthquakes begin in the same manner as large earthquakes and that the rupture process is not deterministic--that is, the size of the earthquake cannot be determined until the cessation of rupture. Here we show that the frequency content of radiated seismic energy within the first few seconds of rupture scales with the final magnitude of the event. We infer that the magnitude of an earthquake can therefore be estimated before the rupture is complete. This finding implies that the rupture process is to some degree deterministic and has implications for the physics of the rupture process.     

Unusually large earthquakes inferred from tsunami deposits along the Kuril trench

The Pacific plate converges with northeastern Eurasia at a rate of 8-9 m per century along the Kamchatka, Kuril and Japan trenches. Along the southern Kuril trench, which faces the Japanese island of Hokkaido, this fast subduction has recurrently generated earthquakes with magnitudes of up to approximately 8 over the past two centuries. These historical events, on rupture segments 100-200 km long, have been considered characteristic of Hokkaido's plate-boundary earthquakes. But here we use deposits of prehistoric tsunamis to infer the infrequent occurrence of larger earthquakes generated from longer ruptures. Many of these tsunami deposits form sheets of sand that extend kilometres inland from the deposits of historical tsunamis. Stratigraphic series of extensive sand sheets, intercalated with dated volcanic-ash layers, show that such unusually large tsunamis occurred about every 500 years on average over the past 2,000-7,000 years, most recently approximately 350 years ago. Numerical simulations of these tsunamis are best explained by earthquakes that individually rupture multiple segments along the southern Kuril trench. We infer that such multi-segment earthquakes persistently recur among a larger number of single-segment events.     

BKP双旋转体系与朝鲜半岛地震活动安全岛效应

朝鲜半岛位于中国东北和日本西南部的地震频发区之间,但在历史资料或仪器记录中,过去百年内没有发生过灾难性的地震。为了说明这一问题,引入了阿穆尔板块(BKP),通过对板块周缘地震进行震源机制解的分析,给定了一个科学合理的边界带,结合GPS相对位移测量,结果显示,BKP内部以郯庐断裂带为界,北部作逆时针旋转,南部朝鲜半岛作顺时针旋转的"双旋转"运动。BKP在旋转过程中,通过郯庐断裂带卸载了大部分的旋转应力。根据古登堡-里克特经验公式计算,在1900~2014年间,沿BKP边界的地震带释放总能量是朝鲜半岛地震的(M≥3.0)10~6倍,说明朝鲜半岛处于一个稳定的"安全岛"状态。通过研究,初探了阿穆尔板块边界的划定和板块边缘及内部构造运动的问题,且从多方面阐明了朝鲜半岛免于灾难性地震的原因。     

Source rupture process of Lushan M S7.0 earthquake, Sichuan, China and its tectonic implications

The source rupture process of the M _S7.0 Lushan earthquake was here evaluated using 40 long-period P waveforms with even azimuth coverage of stations. Results reveal that the rupture process of the Lushan M _S7.0 event to be simpler than that of the Wenchuan earthquake and also showed significant differences between the two rupture processes. The whole rupture process lasted 36 s and most of the moment was released within the first 13 s. The total released moment is 1.9×10¹⁹N m with M _W=6.8. Rupture propagated upwards and bilaterally to both sides from the initial point, resulting in a large slip region of 40 km×30 km, with the maximum slip of 1.8 m, located above the initial point. No surface displacement was estimated around the epicenter, but displacement was observed about 20 km NE and SW directions of the epicenter. Both showed slips of less than 40 cm. The rupture suddenly stopped at 20 km NE of the initial point. This was consistent with the aftershock activity. This phenomenon indicates the existence of significant variation of the medium or tectonic structure, which may prevent the propagation of the rupture and aftershock activity. The earthquake risk of the left segment of Qianshan fault is worthy of attention.     

火山成因的海啸触发机制分析

2022年汤加火山爆发，引发了全球范围内的海啸，使火山海啸这一非典型性海啸受到学界的广泛关注。整理了全球历史火山海啸事件相关数据，分析了火山地震、火山结构失稳、水下爆炸、火山碎屑流、气压波这5种触发海啸的机制，介绍了2022年汤加火山海啸事件触发机制。指出未来火山海啸的研究方向为：从地质构造角度分析潜在海啸灾害的时空分布规律；以气象海啸和水下爆炸为重点，发展完善火山海啸各机制及传播理论；从技术角度解决火山海啸的相关预警问题。     

Numerical simulation of March 11, 2011 Honshu, Japan tsunami

In order to predict tsunami hazards through numerical simulation,by using the focal mechanisms as well as fault parameters of Japan’s 2011 Tohoku Earthquake provided by National Geological Survey(referred to as USGS),we proposed a numerical model to simulate the Honshu,Japan tsunami.Numerical computing is conducted to investigate the security along the coast.We also analyzed the simulation results and distribution of tsunami disaster,trying to achieve a more reasonable tsunami warning program.Our numerical model is composed of simulation of surface deformation after the earthquake and the tsunami propagation process which is based on two dimensional shallow water equations.The simulation results show the characteristics of the tsunami propagation,and arrival times on recorder points are consistent with tsunami observation.This model can be applied to evaluate the security of the coastal area and obtain more accurate tsunami warning.     

Records of the tsunami induced by the 2010 Chilean earthquake from Xiaoqushan seafloor observatory in the East China Sea

Sea-level variation can be induced by periodic tides, stochastic wind, air pressure, and swell. Larger sea-level variation has the potential to cause coastal disasters. In this paper, real-time continuous data obtained by the Xiaoqushan seafloor observatory in the East China Sea were analyzed employing frequency power spectral and tidal harmonic methods to extract the major components and periodicities of sea-level change. The sea-level anomaly (sla) was calculated by subtracting the tidal components from the observed sea level data. In the study period, the correlation between sla and the local north-south wind speed was high with a correlation coefficient of 0.65 at the 95% confidence level. The local wind-induced sea-level anomaly (sla wind ) was therefore computed through linear fitting. Although sla wind is one of the main components of sla, the residual sea-level anomaly (sla residual ) obtained by subtracting sla wind from sla is not zero, suggesting that there are other factors besides wind. Detailed analysis of the sea-level data at the time of the 8.8-magnitude Chilean earthquake on February 27, 2010 showed a peak sla residual value of 0.48 m at around 15:00 on February 28, which was highly coincident with the tsunami arrival time forecast by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The peak sla residual event is therefore linked with the tsunami induced by the 2010 Chilean earthquake. This is the first time that a tsunami has been detected using real-time continuous data recorded by a seafloor observatory in the sea off China. Such observations are expected to improve tsunami forecast models and promote the development of a tsunami warning system and a seafloor observatory network in the East China Sea.     

南海潜在海啸源危险性的定量分析

利用COMCOT模型, 分析马尼拉海沟一个潜在海啸源的危险性。通过改变震级和震源深度两个海啸初始场信息, 揭示海啸登陆中国沿海地区时的首波波幅与二者的定量关系。结果表明: 震源深度对首波波幅的影响幅度可以达到50%, 地震震级不同, 震源深度对首波波幅的影响趋势也不同; 海啸登陆时的首波波幅基本上随着震级的增加而加大, 但由于海啸波会与近岸的反射波互相叠加, 可能导致在海啸传播至近岸过程中首波登陆波幅异常减小; 震级达到Mw 8.6时, 海啸等级为1级, 部分沿海地区会遭受海啸威胁。     

Predicting the endpoints of earthquake ruptures

The active fault traces on which earthquakes occur are generally not continuous, and are commonly composed of segments that are separated by discontinuities that appear as steps in map-view. Stress concentrations resulting from slip at such discontinuities may slow or stop rupture propagation and hence play a controlling role in limiting the length of earthquake rupture. Here I examine the mapped surface rupture traces of 22 historical strike-slip earthquakes with rupture lengths ranging between 10 and 420 km. I show that about two-thirds of the endpoints of strike-slip earthquake ruptures are associated with fault steps or the termini of active fault traces, and that there exists a limiting dimension of fault step (3-4 km) above which earthquake ruptures do not propagate and below which rupture propagation ceases only about 40 per cent of the time. The results are of practical importance to seismic hazard analysis where effort is spent attempting to place limits on the probable length of future earthquakes on mapped active faults. Physical insight to the dynamics of the earthquake rupture process is further gained with the observation that the limiting dimension appears to be largely independent of the earthquake rupture length. It follows that the magnitude of stress changes and the volume affected by those stress changes at the driving edge of laterally propagating ruptures are largely similar and invariable during the rupture process regardless of the distance an event has propagated or will propagate.     

印度洋海啸及其启示

着重阐述了地震海啸与其他地震次生灾害相比的特殊性,提出了“海震”的概念,并指出了印度洋海啸对今后抗震救灾工作的启示。