The Tejon Pass Earthquake of 22 October 1916: An M 5.6 Event on the Lockwood Valley and San Andreas Faults, Southern California

On 22 October 1916, a moderate earthquake occurred in the vicinity of Tejon Pass and was felt over much of southern California. An intriguing aspect of this event involves reports of ground cracks that formed during the earthquake. We evaluate the reports of ground cracking and attempt to precisely locate the cracks with respect to active faults; we infer that the earthquake produced minor fault rupture along a newly discovered trace of the easternmost Lockwood Valley fault (formerly mapped as the easternmost Big Pine fault) and/or along the San Andreas fault. We also re-evaluate and present new intensity data, and we use a grid-search algorithm (derived from empirical analysis of modern earthquakes) to find the magnitude most consistent with the reported intensities. Although previous authors have attempted to use intensity data to constrain the magnitude of this event, the algorithm we use provides an alternative and statistically more robust determination of the magnitude. Our results suggest M 5.6 (-0.3/+0.2) (at 95% confidence) for the 1916 event, which is consistent with earlier work. The 1916 earthquake appears to have been a rare and remarkable event in terms of its size and location and the production of minor surface rupture

Foreshocks and Aftershocks of the Great 1857 California Earthquake

The San Andreas fault is the longest fault in California and one of the longest strike-slip faults anywhere in the world, yet we know little about many aspects of its behavior before, during, and after large earthquakes. We conducted a study to locate and to estimate magnitudes for the largest foreshocks and aftershocks of the 1857 M 7.9 Fort Tejon earthquake on the central and southern segments of the fault. We began by searching archived first-hand accounts from 1857 through 1862, by grouping felt reports temporally, and by assigning modified Mercalli intensities to each site. We then used a modified form of the grid-search algorithm of Bakun and Wentworth, derived from empirical analysis of modern earthquakes, to find the location and magnitude most consistent with the assigned intensities for each of the largest events. The result confirms a conclusion of Sieh that at least two foreshocks (“dawn” and “sunrise”) located on or near the Parkfield segment of the San Andreas fault preceded the mainshock. We estimate their magnitudes to be M ≈ 6.1 and M ≈ 5.6, respectively. The aftershock rate was below average but within one standard deviation of the number of aftershocks expected based on statistics of modern southern California mainshock-aftershock sequences. The aftershocks included two significant events during the first eight days of the sequence, with magnitudes M ≈ 6.25 and M ≈ 6.7, near the southern half of the rupture; later aftershocks included a M ≈ 6 event near San Bernardino in December 1858 and a M ≈ 6.3 event near the Parkfield segment in April 1860. From earthquake logs at Fort Tejon, we conclude that the aftershock sequence lasted a minimum of 3.75 years

Recent and Long-Term Behavior of the Brawley Fault Zone, Imperial Valley, California: An Escalation in Slip Rate?

The Brawley fault zone (bfz) and the Brawley Seismic Zone constitute the principal transfer zone accommodating strain between the San Andreas and Imperial faults in southernmost California. The bfz ruptured along with the Imperial fault in the 1940 M_w 6.9 and the 1979 M_w 6.4 earthquakes, although in each case only minor slip apparently occurred on the bfz; several other episodes of slip and creep have been documented on the bfz historically. Until this study, it has been unclear whether the past few decades reflect average behavior of the fault. Two trenches were opened and a series of auger holes were bored across three strands of the bfz at Harris Road to compare the amount of slip observed historically with the displacements observed in the paleoseismic record. Evidence is presented, across the westernmost strand of the bfz and across the entire bfz at Harris Road, to show that both the average vertical slip rate observed in modern times (since 1970) and the vertical creep rate (excluding coseismic slip) observed during the 1970s are significantly higher than the long-term average. Across the westernmost strand, the long- term vertical rate is 1.2 (+1.5/−0.5) mm/yr, and the average rate since about a.d. 1710 is determined to be no greater than 2.0 mm/yr; in contrast, the average vertical rate between 1970 and 2004 across that strand was at least 4.3 mm/yr, and the 1970s vertical aseismic creep rate was 10 mm/yr. Likewise, across the entire bfz, the long- term vertical rate is 2.8 (+4.1/−1.4) mm/yr, whereas the rate between 1970 and 2004 was at least 7.2 mm/yr, and the 1970s aseismic creep rate was 10 mm/yr. The long-term strike-slip rate cannot be determined across any strands of the bfz but may be significant. In contrast to the commonly accepted higher sedimentation rates inferred for the entire Imperial Valley, we find that the average sedimentation rate on the downthrown side of the bfz adjacent to Mesquite Basin, in the millennium preceding the onset of agricultural influences, was at most 3.5 mm/yr. Finally, a creep event occurred on the bfz during our study in 2002 and is documented herein

Uplift and subsidence associated with the great Aceh-Andaman earthquake of 2004

Rupture of the Sunda megathrust on 26 December 2004 produced broad regions of uplift and subsidence. We define the pivot line separating these regions as a first step in defining the lateral extent and the downdip limit of rupture during that great M_w ≈ 9.2 earthquake. In the region of the Andaman and Nicobar islands we rely exclusively on the interpretation of satellite imagery and a tidal model. At the southern limit of the great rupture we rely principally on field measurements of emerged coral microatolls. Uplift extends from the middle of Simeulue Island, Sumatra, at ~2.5°N, to Preparis Island, Myanmar (Burma), at ~14.9°N. Thus the rupture is ~1600 km long. The distance from the pivot line to the trench varies appreciably. The northern and western Andaman Islands rose, whereas the southern and eastern portion of the islands subsided. The Nicobar Islands and the west coast of Aceh province, Sumatra, subsided. Tilt at the southern end of the rupture is steep; the distance from 1.5 m of uplift to the pivot line is just 60 km. Our method of using satellite imagery to recognize changes in elevation relative to sea surface height and of using a tidal model to place quantitative bounds on coseismic uplift or subsidence is a novel approach that can be adapted to other forms of remote sensing and can be applied to other subduction zones in tropical regions

Persistent termini of 2004- and 2005-like ruptures of the Sunda megathrust

To gain insight into the longevity of subduction zone segmentation, we use coral microatolls to examine an 1100-year record of large earthquakes across the boundary of the great 2004 and 2005 Sunda megathrust ruptures. Simeulue, a 100-km-long island off the west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia, straddles this boundary: northern Simeulue was uplifted in the 2004 earthquake, whereas southern Simeulue rose in 2005. Northern Simeulue corals reveal that predecessors of the 2004 earthquake occurred in the 10th century AD, in AD 1394 ± 2, and in AD 1450 ± 3. Corals from southern Simeulue indicate that none of the major uplifts inferred on northern Simeulue in the past 1100 years extended to southern Simeulue. The two largest uplifts recognized at a south-central Simeulue site—around AD 1422 and in 2005—involved little or no uplift of northern Simeulue. The distribution of uplift and strong shaking during a historical earthquake in 1861 suggests the 1861 rupture area was also restricted to south of central Simeulue, as in 2005. The strikingly different histories of the two adjacent patches demonstrate that this boundary has persisted as an impediment to rupture through at least seven earthquakes in the past 1100 years. This implies that the rupture lengths, and hence sizes, of at least some future great earthquakes and tsunamis can be forecast. These microatolls also provide insight into megathrust behavior between earthquakes, revealing sudden and substantial changes in interseismic strain accumulation rates

Measuring the neck transfer function of laryngectomy patients

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, February 1999.Includes bibliographical references (p. 92-93).by Geoffrey S. Meltzner.S.M

Perceptual and acoustic impacts of aberrant properties of electrolaryngeal speech.

Thesis (Ph. D.)—Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, 2003.Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-171).This electronic version was prepared by the author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Ph. D

A 15 year slow-slip event on the Sunda megathrust offshore Sumatra

In the Banyak Islands of Sumatra, coral microatoll records reveal a 15 year-long reversal of interseismic vertical displacement from subsidence to uplift between 1966 and 1981. To explain these coral observations, we test four hypotheses, including regional sea level changes and various tectonic mechanisms. Our results show that the coral observations likely reflect a 15 year-long slow-slip event (SSE) on the Sunda megathrust. This long-duration SSE exceeds the duration of previously reported SSEs and demonstrates the importance of multidecade geodetic records in illuminating the full spectrum of megathrust slip behavior at subduction zones