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At least 721 records · Page 40Linked to original sources

USGS2010

Localized surface disruptions observed by InSAR during strong earthquakes in Java and Hawai'i

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar data spanning strong earthquakes on the islands of Java and Hawai‘i in 2006 reveal patches of subsidence and incoherence indicative of localized ground failure. Interferograms spanning the 26 May 2006 Java earthquake suggest an area of about 7.5 km 2 of subsidence (~2 cm) and incoherence south of the city of Yogyakarta that correlates with significant damage to housing, high modeled peak ground accelerations, and poorly consolidated geologic deposits. The subsidence and incoherence is inferred to be a result of intense shaking and/or damage. At least five subsidence patches on the west side of the Island of Hawai‘i, ranging 0.3–2.2 km 2 in area and 3–8 cm in magnitude, occurred as a result of a pair of strong earthquakes on 15 October 2006. Although no felt reports or seismic data are available from the areas in Hawai‘i, the Java example suggests that the subsidence patches indicate areas of amplified earthquake shaking. Surprisingly, all subsidence areas in Hawai‘i were limited to recent, and supposedly stable, lava flows and may reflect geological conditions not detectable at the surface. In addition, two ‘a‘ā lava flows in Hawai‘i were partially incoherent in interferograms spanning the earthquakes, indicating surface disruption as a result of the earthquake shaking. Coearthquake incoherence of rubbly deposits, like ‘a‘ā flows, should be explored as a potential indicator of earthquake intensity and past strong seismic activity.

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America↗

USGS2024

Site response in the Walnut Creek–Concord region of the San Francisco Bay, California: Ground motion amplification in a fault-bounded basin

Thirty‐seven portable accelerometers were deployed in the eastern San Francisco Bay communities of Walnut Creek and Concord to study site response in a fault‐bounded, urban, sedimentary basin. Local earthquakes were recorded for a period of two years from 2017 to 2019 resulting in 101 well‐recorded events. Site response is estimated by two methods: the reference site spectral ratio method and a source‐site spectral inversion method. The reference site spectral ratio method allows investigation of the variability of site amplification with source azimuth and frequency. The source‐site spectral inversion method yields the best least‐squares fit to site response for a database of ground‐motion records. Both methods show substantial amplification in the Walnut Creek–Concord basin below 2 Hz indicating strong surface‐wave development. Greater amplification is seen for sources aligned along the long axis of the basin. Inversion using close‐in sources at short distances yields lower amplification at longer periods than the entire data set due to reduced surface‐wave generation for steeper angles of incidence. Inversion of site response spectra for shallow shear‐wave velocity using a global search algorithm yields V S30 values consistent with generalized mapping results based on geology and topography but with greater variability due to local site variations. 3D finite‐element modeling shows greater amplification in the Walnut Creek–Concord basin with a basin‐edge effect likely contributing to higher ground motions. Topography is also seen to lead to increased scattering and shadowing effects.

California↗

USGS2012

Significant motions between GPS sites in the New Madrid region: implications for seismic hazard

Position time series from Global Positioning System (GPS) stations in the New Madrid region were differenced to determine the relative motions between stations. Uncertainties in rates were estimated using a three‐component noise model consisting of white, flicker, and random walk noise, following the methodology of Langbein, 2004. Significant motions of 0.37±0.07 (one standard error) mm/yr were found between sites PTGV and STLE, for which the baseline crosses the inferred deep portion of the Reelfoot fault. Baselines between STLE and three other sites also show significant motion. Site MCTY (adjacent to STLE) also exhibits significant motion with respect to PTGV. These motions are consistent with a model of interseismic slip of about 4 mm/yr on the Reelfoot fault at depths between 12 and 20 km. If constant over time, this rate of slip produces sufficient slip for an M 7.3 earthquake on the shallow portion of the Reelfoot fault, using the geologically derived recurrence time of 500 years. This model assumes that the shallow portion of the fault has been previously loaded by the intraplate stress. A GPS site near Little Rock, Arkansas, shows significant southward motion of 0.3–0.4 mm/yr (±0.08 mm/yr) relative to three sites to the north, indicating strain consistent with focal mechanisms of earthquake swarms in northern Arkansas.

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America↗

USGS2016

Comparisons between vs30 and spectral response for 30 sites in Newcastle, Australia from collocated seismic cone penetrometer, active- and passive-source vs data

Although the time‐averaged shear‐wave velocity down to 30 m depth ( V S 30 ) can be a proxy for estimating earthquake ground‐motion amplification, significant controversy exists about its limitations when used as a single parameter for the prediction of amplification. To examine this question in absence of relevant strong‐motion records, we use a range of different methods to measure the shear‐wave velocity profiles and the resulting theoretical site amplification factors (AFs) for 30 sites in the Newcastle area, Australia, in a series of blind comparison studies. The multimethod approach used here combines past seismic cone penetrometer and spectral analysis of surface‐wave data, with newly acquired horizontal‐to‐vertical spectral ratio, passive‐source surface‐wave spatial autocorrelation (SPAC), refraction microtremor (ReMi), and multichannel analysis of surface‐wave data. The various measurement techniques predicted a range of different AFs. The SPAC and ReMi techniques have the smallest overall deviation from the median AF for the majority of sites. We show that V S 30 can be related to spectral response above a period T of 0.5 s but not necessarily with the maximum amplification according to the modeling done based on the measured shear‐wave velocity profiles. Both V S 30 and AF values are influenced by the velocity ratio between bedrock and overlying sediments and the presence of surficial thin low‐velocity layers (<2 m thick and <150 m/s), but the velocity ratio is what mostly affects the AF. At 0.2< T <0.4 s, the AFs are largely controlled by the surficial geology of a particular site. AF maxima are the highest in the hard classes, which is the inverse of the findings used in the Australian Building Code. Only for T >0.5 s do the amplification curves consistently show higher values for soft site classes and lower for hard classes.

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America↗

USGS2016

A fault-based model for crustal deformation, fault slip-rates and off-fault strain rate in California

We invert Global Positioning System (GPS) velocity data to estimate fault slip rates in California using a fault‐based crustal deformation model with geologic constraints. The model assumes buried elastic dislocations across the region using Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast Version 3 (UCERF3) fault geometries. New GPS velocity and geologic slip‐rate data were compiled by the UCERF3 deformation working group. The result of least‐squares inversion shows that the San Andreas fault slips at 19–22  mm/yr along Santa Cruz to the North Coast, 25–28  mm/yr along the central California creeping segment to the Carrizo Plain, 20–22  mm/yr along the Mojave, and 20–24  mm/yr along the Coachella to the Imperial Valley. Modeled slip rates are 7–16  mm/yr lower than the preferred geologic rates from the central California creeping section to the San Bernardino North section. For the Bartlett Springs section, fault slip rates of 7–9  mm/yr fall within the geologic bounds but are twice the preferred geologic rates. For the central and eastern Garlock, inverted slip rates of 7.5 and 4.9  mm/yr, respectively, match closely with the geologic rates. For the western Garlock, however, our result suggests a low slip rate of 1.7  mm/yr. Along the eastern California shear zone and southern Walker Lane, our model shows a cumulative slip rate of 6.2–6.9  mm/yr across its east–west transects, which is &sim;1  mm/yr increase of the geologic estimates. For the off‐coast faults of central California, from Hosgri to San Gregorio, fault slips are modeled at 1–5  mm/yr, similar to the lower geologic bounds. For the off‐fault deformation, the total moment rate amounts to 0.88×10 19   N·m/yr, with fast straining regions found around the Mendocino triple junction, Transverse Ranges and Garlock fault zones, Landers and Brawley seismic zones, and farther south. The overall California moment rate is 2.76×10 19   N·m/yr, which is a 16% increase compared with the UCERF2 model.

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America↗

USGS1999

Deformation and quaternary faulting in southeast Missouri across the Commerce geophysical lineament

High-resolution seismic-reflection data acquired at three sites along the surface projection of the Commerce geophysical lineament in southeast Missouri reveal a complex history of post-Cretaceous faulting that has continued into the Quaternary. Near Qulin, Missouri, approximately 20 m of apparent vertical fault displacement has occurred in the Quaternary. Reflection data collected at Idalia Hill, about 45 km to the northeast, reveal a series of reverse and possibly right-lateral strike-slip faults with Quaternary displacement. In the Benton Hills, 45 km northeast of Idalia Hill, seismic data image a complicated series of anticlinal and synclinal fault-bounded blocks immediately north of the Commerce fault. We infer that most of the deformation imaged in the upper 400 m of these three data sets occurred since post-Cretaceous time, and a significant portion of it occurred during Quaternary time. Collectively, these seismic data along with geomorphic and surface-geologic evidence suggest (1) the existence of at least one potential seismogenic structure in southeastern Missouri outside the main zones of New Madrid seismicity, and (2) these structures have been active during the Quaternary. The geographic location of the imaged deformation suggests it is related to structures along with the Commerce geophysical lineament.

Missouri↗

USGS2022

Empirical map-based nonergodic models of site response in the greater Los Angeles area

We develop empirical estimates of site response at seismic stations in the Los Angeles area using recorded ground motions from 414 M 3–7.3 earthquakes in southern California. The data are from a combination of the Next Generation Attenuation‐West2 project, the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes, and about 10,000 newly processed records. We estimate site response using an iterative mixed‐effects residuals partitioning approach, accounting for azimuthal variations in anelastic attenuation and potential bias due to spatial clusters of colocated earthquakes. This process yields site response for peak ground acceleration, peak ground velocity, and pseudospectral acceleration relative to a 760 m/s shear‐wave velocity ( ⁠ V S "> V V S "> s ) reference condition. We employ regression kriging to generate a spatially continuous site response model, using the linear site and basin terms from Boore et al. (2014) as the background model, which depend on V S "> V V S "> s V S "> 30 ⁠ and depth to the 1 km/s V S "> V V S "> s isosurface. This is different from past approaches to nonergodic models, in which spatially varying coefficients are regressed. We validate the model using stations in the Community Seismic Network (CSN) that are in the middle of our model spatial domain but were not considered in model development, finding strong agreement between the interpolated model and CSN data for long periods. Our model could be implemented in regional seismic hazard analyses, which would lead to improvements especially at long return periods. Our site response model also has potential to improve both ground‐motion accuracy and warning times for the U.S. Geological Survey ShakeAlert earthquake early warning (EEW) system. For a point‐source EEW simulation of the 1994 M 6.7 Northridge earthquake, our model produces ground motions more consistent with the ground‐truth ShakeMap and would alert areas with high population density such as downtown Los Angeles at lower estimated magnitudes (i.e., sooner) than an ergodic model for a modified Mercalli intensity 4.5 alerting threshold.

California↗

USGS2018

The 2013–2016 induced earthquakes in Harper and Sumner Counties, southern Kansas

We examine the first four years (2013–2016) of the ongoing seismicity in southern Kansas using high‐precision locations derived from a local seismometer network. The earthquakes occur almost exclusively in the shallow crystalline basement, below the wastewater injection horizon of the Arbuckle Group at the base of the sedimentary section. Multiple lines of evidence lead us to conclude that disposal of wastewater from the production of oil and gas by deep injection is the probable cause for the surge of seismicity that began in 2013. First, the seismicity correlates in space and time with the injection. We observe increases in seismicity subsequent to increases in injection and decreases in seismicity in response to decreases in injection. Second, the earthquake‐rate change is statistically improbable to be of natural origin. From 1974 through the time of the injection increase in 2012, no M L "> M L 4 or larger earthquakes occurred in the study area, while six occurred between 2012 and 2016. The probability of this rate change occurring randomly is ∼ 0.16 % "> ∼ 0.16 % . Third, the other potential industrial drivers of seismicity (hydraulic fracturing and oil production) do not correlate in space or time with seismicity. Local geological conditions are important in determining whether injection operations will induce seismicity, as shown by absence of seismicity near the largest injection operations in the southwest portion of our study area. In addition to local operations, the presence of seismicity 10+ km from large injection wells indicates that regional injection operations also need to be considered to understand the effects of injection on seismicity.

Kansas↗

USGS2005

Subsurface structure and kinematics of the Calaveras-Hayward fault stepover from three-dimensional V p and seismicity, San Francisco Bay region, California

The Calaveras and Hayward faults are major components of the San Andreas fault system in the San Francisco Bay region. Dextral slip is presumed to transfer from the Calaveras fault to the Hayward fault in the Mission Hills region, an area of uplift in the contractional stepover between the two faults. Here the estimated deep slip rates drop from 15 to 6 mm/yr on the Calaveras fault, and slip begins on the Hayward fault at an estimated 9 mm/yr. A lineament of microseismicity near the Mission fault links the seismicity on the Calaveras and Hayward faults and is presumed to be related directly to this slip transfer. However, geologic and seismologic evidence suggest that the Mission fault may not be the source of the seismicity and that the Mission fault is not playing a major role in the slip transfer. We perform a joint inversion for hypocenters and the 3D P -wave velocity structure of the stepover region using 477 earthquakes. We find strong velocity contrasts across the Calaveras and Hayward faults, corroborated by geologic, gravity, and aeromagnetic data. Detailed examination of two seismic lineaments in conjunction with the velocity model and independent geologic and geophysical evidence suggests that they represent the southern extension of a northeasterly dipping Hayward fault that splays off the Calaveras fault, directly accounting for the deep slip transfer. The Mission fault appears to be accommodating deformation within the block between the Hayward and Calaveras faults. Thus, the Calaveras and Hayward faults need to be considered as a single system for developing rupture scenarios for seismic hazard assessments.

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America↗

USGS2024

Seismic tomography 2023

Seismic tomography is the most abundant source of information about the internal structure of the Earth at scales ranging from a few meters to thousands of kilometers. It constrains the properties of active volcanoes, earthquake fault zones, deep reservoirs and storage sites, glaciers and ice sheets, or the entire globe. It contributes to outstanding societal problems related to natural hazards, resource exploration, underground storage, and many more. The recent advances in seismic tomography are being translated to nondestructive testing, medical ultrasound, and helioseismology. Nearly 50 yr after its first successful applications, this article offers a snapshot of modern seismic tomography. Focused on major challenges and particularly promising research directions, it is intended to guide both Earth science professionals and early‐career scientists. The individual contributions by the coauthors provide diverse perspectives on topics that may at first seem disconnected but are closely tied together by a few coherent threads: multiparameter inversion for properties related to dynamic processes, data quality, and geographic coverage, uncertainty quantification that is useful for geologic interpretation, new formulations of tomographic inverse problems that address concrete geologic questions more directly, and the presentation and quantitative comparison of tomographic models. It remains to be seen which of these problems will be considered solved, solved to some extent, or practically unsolvable over the next decade.

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America↗

USGS2002

Site effects in Avcilar, West of Istanbul, Turkey, from strong- and weak-motion data

Approximately 1000 people were killed in the collapse of buildings in Istanbul, Turkey, during the 17 August 1999 I??zmit earthquake, whose epicenter was roughly 90 km east of the city. Most of the fatalities and damage occurred in the suburb of Avcilar that is 20 km further west of the epicenter than the city proper. To investigate this pattern of damage, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute (KOERI), deployed portable digital seismographs at seven free-field sites in western Istanbul, to record aftershocks during the period from 24 August to 2 September. The primary objective of this deployment was to study the site effects by comparing the aftershock ground motions recorded at sites inside and outside the damaged area, and to correlate site effects with the distribution of the damaged buildings. In addition to using weak-motion data, mainshock and aftershock acceleration records from the KOERI permanent strong-motion array were also used in estimating the site effects. Site effects were estimated using S waves from both types of records. For the weak-motion data set, 22 events were selected according to the criteria of signal-to-noise ratio (S/N ratio) and the number of stations recording the same event. The magnitudes of these events ranged from 3.0 to 5.2. The acceleration data set consisted of 12 events with magnitudes ranging from 4.3 to 5.8 and included two mainshock events. Results show that the amplifying frequency band is, in general, less than 4 Hz, and the physical properties of the geologic materials are capable of amplifying the motions by a factor of 5-10. In this frequency band, there is a good agreement among the spectral ratios obtained from the two mainshocks and their aftershocks. The damage pattern for the 17 August I??zmit earthquake is determined by several factors. However, our study suggests that the site effects in Avcilar played an important role in contributing to the damage.

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America↗

USGS1994

The co-seismic slip distribution of the Landers earthquake

We derived a model for the co-seismic slip distribution on the faults which ruptured during the Landers earthquake sequence of 28 June 1992. The model is based on the inversion of surface geodetic measurements, primarily vector displacements measured using the Global Positioning System ( GPS ). The inversion procedure assumes that the slip distribution is to some extent smooth and purely right-lateral strike slip. For a given fault geometry, a family of solutions of varying smoothness can be generated. We choose the optimal model from this family based on cross-validation, which measures the predictive power of the data, and the trade-off of misfit and roughness. Solutions which give roughly equal weight to misfit and smoothness are preferred and have certain features in common: (1) there are two main patches of slip, on the Johnson Valley fault, and on the Homestead Valley, Emerson, and Camp Rock faults; (2) virtually all slip is in the upper 10 to 12 km; and (3) the model reproduces the general features of the geologically measured surface displacements, without prior constraints on the surface slip. In all models, regardless of smoothing, very little slip is required on the fault that represents the Big Bear event, and the total moment of the Landers event is 9 · 10 19 N-m. The nearly simultaneous rupture of multiple distinct faults suggests that much of the crust in this region must have been close to failure prior to the earthquake.

California↗

USGS2006

Introduction to the special issue on the 2004 Parkfield earthquake and the Parkfield earthquake prediction experiment

The 28 September 2004 M 6.0 Parkfield earthquake, a long-anticipated event on the San Andreas fault, is the world's best recorded earthquake to date, with state-of-the-art data obtained from geologic, geodetic, seismic, magnetic, and electrical field networks. This has allowed the preearthquake and postearthquake states of the San Andreas fault in this region to be analyzed in detail. Analyses of these data provide views into the San Andreas fault that show a complex geologic history, fault geometry, rheology, and response of the nearby region to the earthquake-induced ground movement. Although aspects of San Andreas fault zone behavior in the Parkfield region can be modeled simply over geological time frames, the Parkfield Earthquake Prediction Experiment and the 2004 Parkfield earthquake indicate that predicting the fine details of future earthquakes is still a challenge. Instead of a deterministic approach, forecasting future damaging behavior, such as that caused by strong ground motions, will likely continue to require probabilistic methods. However, the Parkfield Earthquake Prediction Experiment and the 2004 Parkfield earthquake have provided ample data to understand most of what did occur in 2004, culminating in significant scientific advances.

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America↗

USGS1995

Strain accumulation in Owens Valley, California, 1974 to 1988

Strain accumulation observed over the 1974 to 1988 interval in a 25 by 100 km aperture trilateration network spanning Owens Valley is adequately described by a strain rate that is uniform in space and time. The tensor strain-rate components referred to a coordinate system with the 2 axis directed N18°W (parallel to the trend of the valley) and the 1 axis N72°E are ∈˙11′ = 0.042 ± 0.014 μstrain/yr, ∈˙12′ = -0.058 ± 0.007 μstrain/yr, and ∈˙22′ = 0.002 ± 0.014 μstrain/yr; quoted uncertainties are standard deviations and extension is reckoned positive. Across the 25-km breadth of the network, this amounts to 1.0 ± 0.3 mm/yr extension normal to the axis of the valley, 2.9 ± 0.4 mm/yr right-lateral shear across the axis, and no extension parallel to the axis. If the measured strain accumulation is attributed to slip on the deeper section of the Owens Valley fault with the uppermost 10 km of the fault locked, the observed right-lateral deformation would imply about 7 mm/yr right-lateral slip on the buried fault, much greater than the geologic estimate of 2 ± 0.5 mm/yr right-lateral secular slip (Beanland and Clark, 1994). Nor is the observed uplift profile across the valley consistent with continuing normal slip on just the deep segment of the Owens Valley fault; normal slip at depth on the Sierra frontal fault also seems to be required. The observed deformation across Owens Valley apparently implies processes more complicated than those represented by the conventional model of strain accumulation along a throughgoing fault.

California↗

USGS2006

An assessment of the impact of the 2003 EPRI ground-motion prediction models on the USGS national seismic-hazard maps

Ground-motion attenuation relations have an important impact on seismic hazard analyses. Ground-motion modeling is particularly sensitive to assumptions about wave-propagation attenuation (crustal Q and geometrical spreading), as well as source and site conditions. Studies of path attenuation from earthquakes in eastern North America (ENA) provide insights into the appropriateness of specific attenuation relations. An Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) (2003, 2004) study combines published ENA ground-motion attenuation relations into four model forms: single-corner, double-corner, hybrid-empirical, and finite-fault. When substituted in the U.S. Geological Survey 2002 national seismic hazard maps for the five ENA relations originally used in those hazard calculations, the EPRI (2003) relations predict similar ground motions and hazard at short periods (<0.5 sec) and significantly lower ground motions (20%-50%) at longer periods (>0.5 sec), relative to the 2002 national maps. A major reason for this difference is due to the crustal seismic-wave attenuation model assumed in a few of the ENA relations combined into the EPRI (2003, 2004) models. Although appropriate differences in geometrical spreading models among ENA relations can also be significant, a few ENA relations have 1-Hz Q-values (Q0) that are below the EPRI (1993) consensus range for Q0 when coupled with a geometrical spreading of R-0.5. The EPRI (2003, 2004) single-corner relation is strongly influenced by the inclusion of ENA relations with assumed Q0 below the EPRI (1993) range, which explains much of the discrepancy in predictions at longer periods.

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America↗

USGS2012

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.

California↗

USGS2017

A fault‐based model for crustal deformation in the western United States based on a combined inversion of GPS and geologic inputs

We develop a crustal deformation model to determine fault‐slip rates for the western United States (WUS) using the Zeng and Shen (2014) method that is based on a combined inversion of Global Positioning System (GPS) velocities and geological slip‐rate constraints. The model consists of six blocks with boundaries aligned along major faults in California and the Cascadia subduction zone, which are represented as buried dislocations in the Earth. Faults distributed within blocks have their geometrical structure and locking depths specified by the Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast, version 3 (UCERF3) and the 2008 U.S. Geological Survey National Seismic Hazard Map Project model. Faults slip beneath a predefined locking depth, except for a few segments where shallow creep is allowed. The slip rates are estimated using a least‐squares inversion. The model resolution analysis shows that the resulting model is influenced heavily by geologic input, which fits the UCERF3 geologic bounds on California B faults and ±one‐half of the geologic slip rates for most other WUS faults. The modeled slip rates for the WUS faults are consistent with the observed GPS velocity field. Our fit to these velocities is measured in terms of a normalized chi‐square, which is 6.5. This updated model fits the data better than most other geodetic‐based inversion models. Major discrepancies between well‐resolved GPS inversion rates and geologic‐consensus rates occur along some of the northern California A faults, the Mojave to San Bernardino segments of the San Andreas fault, the western Garlock fault, the southern segment of the Wasatch fault, and other faults. Off‐fault strain‐rate distributions are consistent with regional tectonics, with a total off‐fault moment rate of 7.2 × 10 18 "> 7.2 × 10 18 and 8.5 × 10 18    N · m / year "> 8.5 × 10 18 N ⋅ m / year for California and the WUS outside California, respectively.

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America↗

USGS1994

Fault-zone waves observed at the southern Joshua Tree earthquake rupture zone

Waveform and spectral characteristics of several aftershocks of the M 6.1 22 April 1992 Joshua Tree earthquake recorded at stations just north of the Indio Hills in the Coachella Valley can be interpreted in terms of waves propagating within narrow, low-velocity, high-attenuation, vertical zones. Evidence for our interpretation consists of: (1) emergent P arrivals prior to and opposite in polarity to the impulsive direct phase; these arrivals can be modeled as headwaves indicative of a transfault velocity contrast; (2) spectral peaks in the S wave train that can be interpreted as internally reflected, low-velocity fault-zone wave energy; and (3) spatial selectivity of event-station pairs at which these data are observed, suggesting a long, narrow geologic structure. The observed waveforms are modeled using the analytical solution of Ben-Zion and Aki (1990) for a plane-parallel layered fault-zone structure. Synthetic waveform fits to the observed data indicate the presence of NS-trending vertical fault-zone layers characterized by a thickness of 50 to 100 m, a velocity decrease of 10 to 15% relative to the surrounding rock, and a P -wave quality factor in the range 25 to 50.

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America↗