Regional Moment Tensors of the 2009 L'Aquila Earthquake Sequence

Broadband waveform inversion of ground velocities in the 0.02 0.10 Hz frequency band is successfully applied to 181 earthquakes with ML ≥ 3 of the April, 2009, L'Aquila, Italy, earthquake sequence. This was made possible by the development of a new regional crustal velocity model constrained by deep crustal profiles, surfacewave dispersion and teleseismic Pwave receiver functions and tested through waveform fit. Although all earthquakes exhibit normal faulting, with the fault plane dipping southwest at about 55º for the majority of events, a subset of events had much shallower dips. The issue of confidence in the derived parameters was investigated by applying the same inversion procedure by two groups who subjectively selected different traces for inversion. The unexpected difficulty in modeling the regional broadband waveforms of the mainshock as a point source was investigated through an extensive finitefault modeling of broadband velocity and accelerometer data, which placed the location of major moment release updip and about 47 seconds after the initial firstarrival hypocentral parameters

ShakeMap implementation in Italy

Since 2005, the Italian Civil Protection (Dipartimento della Protezione Cilvile, DPC) has funded several projects driven toward fast assessment of ground motion shaking in Italy - the final goal being that of organizing the emergency and direct the search and rescue (SAR) teams. To this end, the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) has started to determine shakemaps using the USGS-ShakeMap package within 30 minutes from event occurrence and adopting a manually revised location. In this paper we present the INGV implementation of USGS-ShakeMap for earthquakes occurring in Italy and immediately neighboring areas. Emphasis is put on data acquisition, the adopted ground motion predictive relations and the site corrections for the local amplifications of the ground motion. Finally, two examples of shakemaps are shown - the first determined for a recent medium size earthquake, the other for the large Irpinia, 1980, M6.9 event. For both events, the maps are compared to the available macroseismic data

Lick Spectral Indices for Super Metal-rich Stars

The Lick Fe5015, Fe5270, Fe5335, Mgb and Mg2 indices are presented for 139 candidate SMR stars of different luminosity class studied in Malagnini et al. (2000). Evidence is found for a standard (i.e. [Mg/Fe]~0) Mg vs. Fe relative abundance. Both the Worthey et al. (1994) and Buzzoni et al. (1992, 1994) fitting functions are found to suitably match the data at super-solar metallicity regimes. See http://www.merate.mi.astro.it/~eps/home.html for further details.Comment: 16 pages with 11 figures (Aastex format). To appear in the Nov. '01 issue of the PAS

Far-Ultraviolet Continuum of G-Type Stars: A Signature of the Temperature Minimum Region*

The main results of a program of systematic comparison between observed and computed UV spectral energy distributions of field G-type stars are illustrated. We constructed the UV observed energy distributions for 53 G stars, starting from the IUE Uniform Low Dispersion Archive (ULDA) and computed the corresponding theoretical fluxes by using the atmospheric parameters from the Catalogue of [Fe/H] Determinations (1996 edition) and a Kurucz grid of model fluxes. From the comparison between observations and classical models, a UV excess shortward of 2000 A is evident for all the program stars. The UV continuum in the region 1600-2000 A can be described by synthetic fluxes computed from semiempirical models based on the temperature minimum concept. Values for the Tmin/Teff ratio on the order of 0.80 are suitable for the interpretation of the observed fluxes. The residual discrepancies shortward of 1600 A are suggested to be effects of the chromosphere, on the basis of a comparison with the Maltby et al. semiempirical model of the Sun

Energy radiation from intermediate to large magnitude earthquakes: implications for dynamic fault weakening

The amount of energy radiated from an earthquake can be measured using recent methods based on earthquake coda signals and spectral ratios. Such methods are not altered by either site or directivity effects, with the advantage of a greatly improved accuracy. Several studies of earthquake sequences based on the above measurements showed evidence of a breakdown in self-similarity in the moment to energy relation. Radiated energy can be also used as a gauge to estimate the average dynamic stress drop on the fault. Here we compute the dynamic stress drop, infer the co-seismic friction and estimate the co-seismic heating resulting from the frictional work during events from different main shock-aftershock earthquake sequences. We relate the dynamic friction to the maximum temperature rise estimated on the faults for each earthquake. Our results are strongly indicative that a thermally triggered dynamic frictional weakening is present, responsible for the breakdown in self-similarity. These observations from seismic data are compatible with recent laboratory evidence of thermal weakening in rock friction under seismic slip-rates, associated to various physical processes such as melting, decarbonation or dehydration

SYNTHESIS OF STELLAR Mg AND Fe ABSORPTION INDICES FOR STELLAR POPULATION STUDIES. II. THE EXTENDED AND UP-TO-DATE COLLECTION

This paper is mainly concerned with the prediction of absorption-line spectral features in cool stars, to be used as input in stellar population synthesis projects. From a detailed comparison with the solar intensity spectrum, we have re-ned the main parameters of atomic and molecular absorption lines that are prominent in the 4850E5400 wavelength interval. This line list was used to compute an extensive Ae library of synthetic stellar spectra at high resolution in the temperature range K, T eff \ 4000E8000 surface gravity interval log g \ 1.0E5.0 dex, metallicities ((M/H)) from (1.0 to )0.5 dex, and micro- turbulent velocity m \ 2k m s~1. The computations were performed by using the latest release of KuruczIs model atmospheres and numerical codes. The library contains a total of 693 synthetic spectra, from which iron and magnesium indices were obtained, together with the corresponding "" pseudocontinuum II Nuxes. We illustrate the behavior of -ve "" Lick-like II spectral indices, namely, Mg b, Fe5270, and Mg 1 ,M g 2 , Fe5335, in terms of the main atmospheric parameters, namely, e†ective temperature, surface gravity, and metallicity. The trend of the indices with microturbulent velocity is also illustrated by means of an addi- tional set of spectra computed at di†erent microturbulent velocities. Transformation equations of the theoretical grid into the Lick/IDS observational database are presented, showing the full consistency of our grid with the empirical database. Subject heading: galaxies: stellar content E stars: atmospheres E stars: late-typ

Site amplification estimates in the Garigliano valley, central Italy, based on dense array measurements of ambient noise

A frequency-domain formulation of the Aki (1957, 1965) autocorrelation method has been applied to seismic noise recorded by a 100-m wide circular array deployed on soft Holocene sediments in the Garigliano river valley, where a large amplification of ground motion during earthquakes was experienced (Rovelli et al., 1988). The application of this method to ambient noise recordings demonstrates that microtremors in the valley are dispersive and dominated by surface waves. By assuming that the vertical component reflects Rayleigh wave motion, we obtain a dispersion curve that is interpreted in terms of a layered shear-wave velocity structure. Layer thicknesses are constrained by the stratigraphic information provided by a deep hole drilled in the area, and shear velocities are estimated by means of a trial-and-error approach to achieve a satisfactory fit of the ambient noise dispersion. The best-fit velocity model is used to compute a theoretical transfer function, which is then compared with an average spectral ratio obtained from earthquake weak ground motions recorded at two stations, one in the valley and the other on a limestone reference site. An overall agreement is found between the theoretical curve and the observed spectral ratios. The discrepancies that do exist may be ascribed to the assumption of 1-D inhomogeneity which considerably simplifies the theoretical transfer function. Our results show that the spatial-correlation method can be useful to infer velocity structure down to depths of hundreds of meters, when generalized geological informations are available, and can thus provide useful constraints for theoretical methodologies for the prediction of site response

Characteristics of high frequency ground motions in the Maule region (Chile), obtained from aftershocks of the 2010 Mw 8.8 earthquake

The Mw 8.8 Maule earthquake occurred off the coast of central Chile on 2010 February 27, and was followed by thousands of aftershocks. In this study, we modeled 172 aftershocks recorded by more than 100 temporary broadband stations deployed between March 2010 and January 2011. Each of these earthquakes is characterized by a well-determined hypocentral location and well-constrained focal mechanism and moment magnitudes in the range M 3.7 to 6.2. Most of these earthquakes are characterized by shallow, eastward-dipping, thrust-type focal mechanisms consistent with faulting at or near the plate interface, where the Nazca plate is subducting beneath the South America plate at approximately 74 mm/yr. This study provides a unique opportunity to quantify high-frequency earthquake ground motion in a subduction zone due to the quality and quantity of observations in the frequency and distance range of 0.2-30 Hz and 40-500 km, respectively. The analysis was done using a two-step modeling procedure. A regression is performed to characterize source duration and excitation, source-receiver distance dependence, and station site effects. A point source forward model is then constructed in terms of geometrical spreading, duration, site effects and source scaling to match the regression results. This procedure provides the necessary point source parameters for stochastic finite-fault modeling of peak ground motions for future earthquakes in this subduction zone

foF2 prediction in Rome observatory

A prediction procedure of the hourly values of the critical frequency of the F2 ionospheric layer, foF2, based on the local geomagnetic index ak, is presented. The geomagnetic index utilised is the time-weighted accumulation magnetic index ak(τ) based on recent past history of the index ak. It is utilised an empirical relationship between the log(NmF2(t)/ NmF2M), where NmF2(t) is the hourly maximum electron density at the F2 peak layer and NmF2M is its 'quiet' value, and the time weighted magnetic index. The prediction of foF2 is calculated during periods of severe magnetic activity in the current solar cycle 23 in Rome observatory