CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.

1 Earthquakes An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time. Earthquakes are measured using observations from seismometers. The moment magnitude is the most common scale on which earthquakes larger than approximately 5 are reported for the entire globe. The more numerous earthquakes smaller than magnitude 5 reported by national seismological observatories are measured mostly on the local magnitude scale, also referred to as the Richter scale. These two scales are numerically similar over their range of validity. Magnitude 3 or lower earthquakes are mostly almost imperceptible or weak and magnitude 7 and over potentially cause serious damage over larger areas, depending on their depth. The

largest earthquakes in historic times have been of magnitude slightly over 9, although there is no limit to the possible magnitude. The most recent large earthquake of magnitude 9.0 or larger was a 9.0 magnitude earthquake in Japan in 2011, and it was the largest Japanese earthquake since records began. Intensity of shaking is measured on the modified Mercalli scale. The shallower an earthquake, the more damage to structures it causes, all else being equal. At the Earth's surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by shaking and sometimes displacement of the ground. When the epicenter of a large earthquake is located offshore, the seabed may be displaced sufficiently to cause a tsunami. Earthquakes can also trigger landslides, and occasionally volcanic activity. In its most general sense, the word earthquake is used to describe any seismic event whether natural or caused by humans that generates seismic waves. Earthquakes are caused mostly by rupture of geological faults, but also by other events such as volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts, and nuclear tests. An earthquake's point of initial rupture is called its focus or
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hypocenter. The epicenter is the point at ground level directly above the hypocenter. 1.2 Naturally occurring earthquakes Tectonic earthquakes occur anywhere in the earth where there is sufficient stored elastic strain energy to drive fracture propagation along a fault plane. The sides of a fault move past each other smoothly and a seismically only if there are no irregularities or asperities along the fault surface that increase the frictional resistance. Most fault surfaces do have such asperities and this leads to a form of stick-slip behaviour. Once the fault has locked, continued relative motion between the plates leads to increasing stress and therefore, stored strain energy in the volume around the fault surface. This continues until the stress has risen sufficiently to break through the asperity, suddenly allowing sliding over the locked portion of the fault, releasing the stored energy. This energy is released as a combination of radiated elastic strain seismic waves, frictional heating of the fault surface, and cracking of the rock, thus causing an earthquake. This process of gradual build-up of strain and stress punctuated by occasional sudden earthquake
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failure is referred to as the elastic-rebound theory. It is estimated that only 10 percent or less of an earthquake's total energy is radiated as seismic energy. Most of the earthquake's energy is used to power the earthquake fracture growth or is converted into heat generated by friction. Therefore, earthquakes lower the Earth's available elastic potential energy and raise its temperature, though these changes are negligible compared to the conductive and convective flow of heat out from the Earth's deep interior. 1.3 Earthquake Fault Types There are three main types of fault, all of which may cause an earthquake: normal, reverse (thrust) and strike-slip. Normal and reverse faulting are examples of dip-slip, where the displacement along the fault is in the direction of dip and movement on them involves a vertical component. Normal faults occur mainly in areas where the crust is being extended such as a divergent boundary. Reverse faults occur in areas where the crust is

being shortened such as at a convergent boundary. Strike-slip faults are steep structures where the two sides of the fault slip horizontally past each other; transform boundaries are a particular

type of strike-slip fault. Many earthquakes are caused by movement on faults that have components of both dip-slip and strike-slip; this is known as oblique slip. Reverse faults, particularly those along convergent plate

boundaries are associated with the most powerful earthquakes, including almost all of those of magnitude 8 or more. Strike-slip faults, particularly continental transforms can produce major

earthquakes up to about magnitude 8. Earthquakes associated with normal faults are generally less than magnitude 7. This is so because the energy released in an earthquake, and thus its magnitude, is proportional to the area of the fault that ruptures and the stress drop. Therefore, the longer the length and the wider the width of the faulted area, the larger the resulting magnitude. The topmost, brittle part of the Earth's crust, and the cool slabs of the tectonic plates that are descending down into the hot mantle, are the only parts of our planet which can store elastic energy and release it in fault ruptures. Rocks hotter than about 300 degrees Celsius flow in response to stress; they do not rupture in earthquakes. The maximum observed lengths of ruptures and

mapped faults, which may break in one go are approximately 1000 km. Examples are the earthquakes in Chile, 1960; Alaska, 1957; Sumatra, 2004, all in subduction zones. The longest earthquake ruptures on strike-slip faults, like the San Andreas Fault (1857, 1906), the North Anatolian Fault in Turkey (1939) and the Denali Fault in Alaska (2002), are about half to one third as long as the lengths along subducting plate margins, and those along normal faults are even shorter.

Fig.1: Showing Fault types

The

most

important

parameter

controlling

the

maximum

earthquake magnitude on a fault is however not the maximum available length, but the available width because the latter varies by a factor of 20. Along converging plate margins, the dip angle of the rupture plane is very shallow, typically about 10 degrees. Thus the width of the plane within the top brittle crust of the Earth can become 50 to 100 km (Japan, 2011; Alaska, 1964), making the most powerful earthquakes possible. Strike-slip faults tend to be oriented near vertically, resulting in an approximate width of 10 km within the brittle crust, thus

earthquakes with magnitudes much larger than 8 are not possible. Maximum magnitudes along many normal faults are even more limited because many of them are located along spreading centers, as in Iceland, where the thickness of the brittle layer is only about 6 km. In addition, there exists a hierarchy of stress level in the three fault types. Thrust faults are generated by the highest, strike slip by intermediate, and normal faults by the lowest stress levels.[10]This can easily be understood by considering the direction of the greatest

principal stress, the direction of the force that 'pushes' the rock mass during the faulting. In the case of normal faults, the rock mass is pushed down in a vertical direction, thus the pushing force (greatest principal stress) equals the weight of the rock mass itself. In the case of thrusting, the rock mass 'escapes' in the direction of the least principal stress, namely upward, lifting the rock mass up, thus the overburden equals the least principal stress. Strike-slip faulting is intermediate between the other two types described above. This difference in stress regime in the three faulting environments can contribute to differences in stress drop during faulting, which contributes to differences in the radiated energy, regardless of fault dimensions. 1.4 Effects of Earthquakes 1755 copper engraving depicting Lisbonin ruins and in flames after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, which killed an estimated 60,000 people. A tsunami overwhelms the ships in the harbor. The effects of earthquakes include, but are not limited to, the following:

a. Shaking and ground rupture Shaking and ground rupture are the main effects created by earthquakes, principally resulting in more or less severe damage to buildings and other rigid structures. The severity of the local effects depends on the complex combination of the earthquake magnitude, the distance from the epicenter, and the local geological and geomorphological conditions, which may amplify or reduce wave propagation. acceleration. Specific local geological, geomorphological, and geostructural The ground-shaking is measured by ground

features can induce high levels of shaking on the ground surface even from low-intensity earthquakes. This effect is called site or local amplification. It is principally due to the transfer of the seismic motion from hard deep soils to soft superficial soils and to effects of seismic energy focalization owing to typical geometrical setting of the deposits. Ground rupture is a visible breaking and displacement of the Earth's surface along the trace of the fault, which may be of the order of several metres in the case of major earthquakes. Ground
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rupture is a major risk for large engineering structures such as dams, bridges and nuclear power stations and requires careful mapping of existing faults to identify any which are likely to break the ground surface within the life of the structure. b. Landslides and avalanches Earthquakes, along with severe storms, volcanic activity, coastal wave attack, and wildfires, can produce slope instability leading to landslides, a major geological hazard. Landslide danger may persist while emergency personnel are attempting rescue. c. Fires Earthquakes can cause fires by damaging electrical power or gas lines. In the event of water mains rupturing and a loss of pressure, it may also become difficult to stop the spread of a fire once it has started. For example, more deaths in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake were caused by fire than by the earthquake itself. d. Soil liquefaction Soil liquefaction occurs when, because of the shaking, watersaturated granular material (such as sand) temporarily loses its
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strength and transforms from a solid to a liquid. Soil liquefaction may cause rigid structures, like buildings and bridges, to tilt or sink into the liquefied deposits. For example, in the 1964 Alaska earthquake, soil liquefaction caused many buildings to sink into the ground, eventually collapsing upon themselves.[50] e. Tsunami Tsunamis are long-wavelength, long-period sea waves produced by the sudden or abrupt movement of large volumes of water. In the open ocean the distance between wave crests can surpass 100 kilometers (62 mi), and the wave periods can vary from five minutes to one hour. Such tsunamis travel 600-800 kilometers per hour (373497 miles per hour), depending on water depth. Large waves produced by an earthquake or a submarine landslide can overrun nearby coastal areas in a matter of minutes. Tsunamis can also travel thousands of kilometers across Open Ocean and wreak destruction on far shores hours after the earthquake that generated them. Ordinarily, subduction earthquakes under magnitude 7.5 on the Richter scale do not cause tsunamis, although some instances of
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this have been recorded. Most destructive tsunamis are caused by earthquakes of magnitude 7.5 or more. f. Floods A flood is an overflow of any amount of water that reaches land.[52] Floods occur usually when the volume of water within a body of water, such as a river or lake, exceeds the total capacity of the formation, and as a result some of the water flows or sits outside of the normal perimeter of the body. However, floods may be secondary effects of earthquakes, if dams are damaged.

Earthquakes may cause landslips to dam rivers, which collapse and cause floods. The terrain below the Sarez Lake in Tajikistan is in danger of catastrophic flood if the landslide dam formed by the earthquake, known as the Usoi Dam, were to fail during a future earthquake. Impact projections suggest the flood could affect roughly 5 million people.

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g. Human impacts An earthquake may cause injury and loss of life, road and bridge damage, general property damage (which may or may not be covered by earthquake insurance), and collapse or destabilization (potentially leading to future collapse) of buildings. The aftermath may bring disease, lack of basic necessities, and higher insurance premiums.

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CHAPTER TWO FOCAL MECHANISM The focal mechanism of an earthquake describes the inelastic

deformation in the source region that generates the seismic waves. In the case of a fault-related event it refers to the orientation of the fault plane that slipped and the slip vector and is also known as a fault-plane solution. Focal mechanisms are derived from a solution of the moment tensor for the earthquake, which itself is estimated by an analysis of observed seismic waveforms. The focal mechanism can be derived from observing the pattern of "first motions", that is, whether the first arriving P waves break up or down. This method was used before waveforms were recorded and analysed digitally and this method is still used for earthquakes too small for easy moment tensor solution. Focal mechanisms are now mainly derived using semi-automatic analysis of the recorded waveforms. After an earthquake occurs, seismologists create graphics of focal mechanisms, informally referred to as beach balls, to show the faulting motions that produced the earthquake. Focal
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mechanisms, also known as fault-plane solutions, are based on the direction of the first arriving P wave, and are used to show direction of movement on a fault using great circles with 2 intersecting curves. When the ground shifts abruptly as it does during an earthquake, energy in the form of seismic waves radiates in all directions. The P waves curve through the Earth's interior up to the surface, pushing and pulling the ground from beneath the seismometer. A P wave that lifts the ground corresponds to a crest on the seismogram; a P wave that pulls the ground inward corresponds to a

trough. Seismologists can examine the first motion of the P waves to reconstruct the initial forces that triggered the event. Seismologists refer to the direction of slip in an earthquake and the orientation of the fault on which it occurs as the focal mechanism. They use information from seismograms to calculate the focal mechanism and typically display it on maps as a "beach ball" symbol. This symbol is the projection on a horizontal plane of the lower half of an imaginary, spherical shell (focal sphere) surrounding the earthquake source (A). A line is scribed where the
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fault plane intersects the shell. The stress-field orientation at the time of rupture governs the direction of slip on the fault plane, and the beach ball also depicts this stress orientation. In this schematic, the gray quadrants contain the tension axis (T), which reflects the minimum compressive stress direction, and the white quadrants contain the pressure axis (P), which reflects the maximum compressive stress direction. The computed focal mechanisms show only the P and T axes and do not use shading.

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Figure 2: Schematic diagram of a focal mechanism These focal mechanisms are computed using a method that attempts to find the best fit to the direction of P-first motions observed at each station. For a double-couple source mechanism (or only shear motion on the fault plane), the compression firstmotions should lie only in the quadrant containing the tension axis, and the dilatation first-motions should lie only in the quadrant containing the pressure axis. However, first-motion observations will frequently be in the wrong quadrant. This occurs because a) the algorithm assigned an incorrect first-motion direction because the signal was not impulsive, b) the earthquake velocity model, and hence, the earthquake location is incorrect, so that the computed position of the first-motion observation on the focal sphere (or ray azimuth and angle of incidence with respect to vertical) is incorrect, or c) the seismometer is mis-wired, so that "up" is "down". The latter explanation is not a common occurrence. For mechanisms computed using only first-motion directions, these incorrect first-motion observations may greatly affect the computed focal mechanism parameters. Depending on

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the distribution and quality of first-motion data, more than one focal mechanism solution may fit the data equally well. For mechanisms calculated from first-motion directions as well as some methods that model waveforms, there is an ambiguity in identifying the fault plane on which slip occurred from the orthogonal, mathematically equivalent, auxiliary plane. We

illustrate this ambiguity with four examples (B). The block diagrams adjacent to each focal mechanism illustrate the two possible types of fault motion that the focal mechanism could represent. Note that the view angle is 30-degrees to the left of and above each diagram. The ambiguity may sometimes be resolved by comparing the two fault-plane orientations to the alignment of small earthquakes and aftershocks. The first three examples describe fault motion that is purely horizontal (strike slip) or vertical (normal or reverse). The oblique-reverse mechanism illustrates that slip may also have components of horizontal and vertical motion.

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CHAPTER THREE EARTHQUAKE FOCAL MECHANISMS 3.1 Focal Mechanism Solutions This session focuses on Focal Mechanism Solutions, often called Beachball diagrams. These are a very commonly used way of graphically representing the fault geometry and slip direction of an earthquake. The original method of constructing beachball

diagrams was through the P-wave first motion, this is going to be the method we focus on here as it is the most intuitive to understand. However, now the focal mechanism solutions that are published in catalogs like the NEIC and Harvard CMT are retrieved from calculation of the moment tensor. The moment tensor is a more complete (but non-graphical) method of representing the source mechanism, which the beachball diagram can be extracted from.

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Examples

Figure 3: fault motion and corresponding fault plane solution These are examples of the simple cases of strike-slip and pure dipslip (normal and thrust) motion on a fault. The upper images show block diagrams illustrating the fault motion and the lower images the corresponding fault plane solution. These are the types of diagrams that will be explained during this session. Two steps to understanding 1) The stereographic projection 2) The geometry of first motions and how this is used to define fault motion.

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There are two stages to understanding these diagrams. The first is the challenge, its all about being able to show a 3D problem in 2D. If you can understand the stereographic projection than the focal mechanism solution is only a small additional step. There are several ways of projecting spherical data into a 2D plot, the one we are going to be using is the stereographic projection. In the examples shown on the slide the lower hemisphere is shown in black and the upper (if it can be plotted) is shown in red. The power of the stereographic projection is that angles and shapes are preserved, i.e. the dip of planes or the plunge of linear features are accurately reproduced (this is called conformal behavior, the price of this is that the area of objects is distorted.)

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Figure 4: showing the lower and upper hemisphere

3.2 Stereographic Projection To visualize the stereographic projection imagine looking straight down onto half a sphere, although this is not exactly the projection it is close enough to help understand what the data plotted using this projection are showing. The easiest data to plot on a stereographic projection are vertical planes. Imagine looking straight down onto a bowl cut by vertical planes, the line where the plane meets the bowl would appear to be a straight line cutting
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across the bowl. This will be demonstrated with a model in the session. Likewise a plane dipping at any other angle will appear to be a curved line running across the circle, with the amount of curvature varying with the dip of the plane (again this will be demonstrated with a model in the session). A method of projecting half a sphere onto a circle. e.g. planes cutting vertically through the sphere plot as straight lines

Figure 5: showing a stereographic projection

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3.3 Stereonets The stereonet is a template for drawing structures in the stereographic projection. Planes dipping at any angle plot as a line called a great circle. The stereonet includes great circles for all angles of dip, but only one azimuth (if all azimuths were drawn the plot would have so many lines it would be impossible to use). But by rotating the stereonet any azimuth can be represented.

Figure 7: showing stereonet

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CHAPTER FOUR 4.1 Composite Focal Mechanisms When the main shock of an earthquake is only detected within a limited region and the amount and azimuthal distribution of first motions is not sufficient to construct a focal mechanism from this single event, composite focal mechanisms are constructed by superimposing data from aftershocks or other events rupturing the same fault segment (Sbar et al., 1972). For this one major assumption is that all aftershocks used have the same focal mechanism, i.e. have the same radiation pattern, as the main shock. This is reasonable if aftershocks occur along the same fault as the main shock. However, in practice, aftershocks do not necessarily occur along the same fault plane responsible for the main shock. Some aftershocks may occur on faults of a much different orientation from the main shock. Hence, composites rarely show a perfect separation of compressional and dilatational first motions.

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4.2 World Stress Map Quality Ranking All data in the WSM database are quality ranked to facilitate comparison between different indicators of stress orientation (e.g. focal mechanism solutions, drilling-induced tensile fractures,

overcoring). Ideally, the regional stress field would be estimated from a number of events in a given area with a broad azimuthal distribution of fault orientations. The more reliable stress orientation is reflected in the higher WSM quality for the formal inversion of several focal mechanisms (FMF). Criteria for down-ranking the WSM quality are: - A low number of used seismic stations - Large gaps in the azimuthal coverage - Instability of the solution due to minor changes in the dataset or in the inversion parameters - A high CLVD and/or isotropic part in the moment tensor - A high mathematical standard deviation and data variance

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REFERENCES "Earthquake FAQ". Crustal.ucsb.edu. Retrieved 2011-07-24.

"Global Centroid Moment Tensor Catalog". Globalcmt.org. Retrieved 2011-07-24 http://www.usarray.org/edu/university/utahmine

Isacks, B. & Molnar, P. (1971). Distribution of stresses in the descending lithosphere from a global survey of focalmechanism solutions of mantle earthquakes, Review of Geophysics and Space Physics, 9, 103-174.

Marius Vassiliou (1984). Stresses in Subducting Slabs as Revealed by Earthquakes Analysed by Moment Tensor Inversion, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 69, 195-202.

Sibson R. H. (1982) "Fault Zone Models, Heat Flow, and the Depth Distribution of Earthquakes in the Continental Crust of the United States", Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol 72, No. 1, pp. 151163

Sibson, R. H. (2002) "Geology of the crustal earthquake source" International handbook of earthquake and engineering seismology, Volume 1, Part 1, page 455, eds. W H K Lee, H Kanamori, P C Jennings, and C. Kisslinger, Academic Press, ISBN / ASIN: 0124406521 Sipkin, S.A., 1994, Rapid determination of global moment-tensor solutions: Geophysical Research Letters, v. 21, p. 16671670.
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Sykes, L.R. (1967). Mechanism of earthquakes and nature of faulting on the mid-oceanic ridges, Journal of Geophysical Research, 72, 5-27.

Wilson, J.T. (1965). A new class of faults and their bearing on continental drift, Nature, 207, 343-347.

Wyss, M. (1979). "Estimating expectable maximum magnitude of earthquakes from fault dimensions". Geology 7 (7): 336 340. Bibcode1979Geo.....7..336W. doi:10.1130/00917613(1979)7<336:EMEMOE>2.0.CO;2.

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