An energy-duration procedure for rapid determination of earthquake magnitude and tsunamigenic potential

We introduce a rapid and robust, energy-duration procedure, based on the Haskell, extendedsource model, to obtain an earthquake moment and a moment magnitude, MED. Using seismograms at teleseismic distances (30!–90!), this procedure combines radiated seismic energy measures on the P to S interval of broadband signals and source duration measures on highfrequency, P-wave signals. The MED energy-duration magnitude is scaled to correspond to the Global Centroid-Moment Tensor (CMT) moment-magnitude, MCMT w , and can be calculated within about 20 min or less after origin time (OT). The measured energy and duration values also provide the energy-to-moment ratio, !, used for identification of tsunami earthquakes. The MED magnitudes for a set of recent, large earthquakes match closely MCMT w , even for the largest, great earthquakes; these results imply that the MED measure is accurate and does not saturate. After the 2004 December 26 Sumatra-Andaman mega-thrust earthquake, magnitude estimates available within 1 hr of OT ranged from M = 8.0 to 8.5, the CMT magnitude, available about 3 hr after OT, was MCMT w = 9.0, and, several months after the event, Mw = 9.1–9.3 was obtained from analysis of the earth normal modes. The energy-duration magnitude for this event is MED = 9.2, a measure that is potentially available within 20 min after OT. After the 2006 July 17, Java earthquake, the magnitude was evaluated at M = 7.2 at 17 min after OT, the CMT magnitude, available about 1 hr after OT, was MCMT w = 7.7; the energy-duration results for this event give MED = 7.8, with a very long source duration of about 160 s, and a very low ! value, indicating a possible tsunami earthquake

Rupture Process of the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman Earthquake from Tsunami Waveform Inversion

The aim of this work is to infer the slip distribution and rupture velocity along the rupture zone of the 26 December 2004 Sumatra–Andaman earthquake from available tide gage records of the tsunami. We selected waveforms from 14 stations, distributed along the coast of the Indian Ocean. Then we subdivided the fault plane into 16 subfaults (both along strike and downdip) following the geometry and mechanism proposed by Banerjee et al. (2005) and computed the corresponding Green’s functions by numerical solution of the shallow-water equations through a finitedifference method. The slip distribution and rupture velocity were determined simultaneously by means of a simulated annealing technique. We compared the recorded and synthetic waveforms in the time domain, using a cost function that is a trade-off between the L1 and L2 norms. Preliminary tests on a synthetic dataset, together with a posteriori statistical analysis of the model ensemble enabled us to assess the effectiveness of the method and to quantify the model uncertainty. The main finding is that the best source model features a nonuniform distribution of coseismic slip, with high slip values concentrated into three main patches: the first is located in the southern part of the fault, off the coast of the Aceh Province; the second between 6.5 N and 11 N; and the third at depth, between 11 N and 14 N. Furthermore, we estimated that the rupture propagated at an average speed of 2.0 km/sec

A global search inversion for earthquake kinematic rupture history: Application to the 2000 western Tottori, Japan earthquake

We present a two-stage nonlinear technique to invert strong motions records and geodetic data to retrieve the rupture history of an earthquake on a finite fault. To account for the actual rupture complexity, the fault parameters are spatially variable peak slip velocity, slip direction, rupture time and risetime. The unknown parameters are given at the nodes of the subfaults, whereas the parameters within a subfault are allowed to vary through a bilinear interpolation of the nodal values. The forward modeling is performed with a discrete wave number technique, whose Green’s functions include the complete response of the vertically varying Earth structure. During the first stage, an algorithm based on the heat-bath simulated annealing generates an ensemble of models that efficiently sample the good data-fitting regions of parameter space. In the second stage (appraisal), the algorithm performs a statistical analysis of the model ensemble and computes a weighted mean model and its standard deviation. This technique, rather than simply looking at the best model, extracts the most stable features of the earthquake rupture that are consistent with the data and gives an estimate of the variability of each model parameter. We present some synthetic tests to show the effectiveness of the method and its robustness to uncertainty of the adopted crustal model. Finally, we apply this inverse technique to the well recorded 2000 western Tottori, Japan, earthquake (Mw 6.6); we confirm that the rupture process is characterized by large slip (3-4 m) at very shallow depths but, differently from previous studies, we imaged a new slip patch (2-2.5 m) located deeper, between 14 and 18 km depth

Simulation of tsunamis induced by volcanic activity in the Gulf of Naples (Italy)

International audienceThe paper explores the potential of tsunami generation by pyroclastic flows travelling down the flank of the volcano Vesuvius that is found south of Naples in Italy. The eruption history of Vesuvius shows that it is characterised by large explosive eruptions of plinian or subplinian type during which large volume of pyroclastic flows can be produced. The most remarkable examples of such eruptions occurred in 79 AD and in 1631 and were catastrophic. Presently Vesuvius is in a repose time that, according to volcanologists, could be interrupted by a large eruption, and consequently proper plans of preparedness and emergency management have been devised by civil authorities based on a scenario envisaging a large eruption. Recently, numerical models of magma ascent and of eruptive column formation and collapse have been published for the Vesuvius volcano, and propagation of pyroclastic flows down the slope of the volcanic edifice up to the close shoreline have been computed. These flows can reach the sea in the Gulf of Naples: the denser slow part will enter the waters, while the lighter and faster part of the flow can travel on the water surface exerting a pressure on it. This paper studies the tsunami produced by the pressure pulse associated with the transit of the low-density phase of the pyroclastic flow on the sea surface by means of numerical simulations. The study is divided into two parts. First the hydrodynamic characteristics of the Gulf of Naples as regards the propagation of long waves are analysed by studying the waves radiating from a source that is a static initial depression of the sea level localised within the gulf. Then the tsunami produced by a pressure pulse moving from the Vesuvius toward the open sea is simulated: the forcing pulse features are derived from the recent studies on Vesuvian pyroclastic flows in the literature. The tsunami resulting from the computations is a perturbation involving the whole Gulf of Naples, but it is negligible outside, and persists within the gulf long after the transit of the excitation pulse. The size of the tsunami is modest. The largest calculated oscillations are found along the innermost coasts of the gulf at Naples and at Castellammare. The main conclusion of the study is that the light component of the pyroclastic flows produced by future large eruptions of Vesuvius are not expected to set up catastrophic tsunamis

Rupture process of the 2007 Niigata-ken Chuetsu-oki earthquake by non-linear joint inversion of strong motion and GPS data

We image the rupture history of the 2007 Niigata-ken Chuestu-oki (Japan) earthquake by a nonlinear joint inversion of strong motion and GPS data, retrieving peak slip velocity, rupture time, rise time and slip direction. The inferred rupture model contains two asperities; a small patch near the nucleation and a larger one located 10÷15 km to the south-west. The maximum slip ranges between 2.0 and 2.5 m and the total seismic moment is 1.6×1019 Nm. The inferred rupture history is characterized by rupture acceleration and directivity effects, which are stable features of the inverted models. These features as well as the source-to-receiver geometry are discussed to interpret the high peak ground motions observed (PGA is 1200 gals) at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant (KKNPP), situated on the hanging-wall of the causative fault. Despite the evident source effects, predicted PGV underestimates the observed values at KKNPP by nearly a factor of 10

Rupture Process of the April 18, 1906 California Earthquake from near-field Tsunami Waveform Inversion

The April 18, 1906 M8 California earthquake generated a small local tsunami that was recorded in the near-field by the Presidio, San Francisco tide-gage, located near the Golden Gate. We investigate the causative, tsunamigenic seismic source by forward modeling and nonlinear inversion of the Presidio marigram. We use existing seismological and geological observations to fix the fault system geometry and the surface slip on the onland portions of the San Andreas fault (SAF). We perform synthetic inversions to show that the single, near-field marigram constrains the main features of the rupture on the portion of the SAF system offshore of the Golden Gate. Finally we perform nonlinear inversions for the slip distribution and the timing of the rupture of the 1906 earthquake. Our results, in agreement with previous studies, identify a dilatational step-over and show a bi-lateral rupture, possibly originating or propagated through the step-over region. We find that little or no co-seismic slip on normal faults in the step-over region is required to fit the marigram, and we obtain adequate fits when allowing delays in the source initiation times of up to 3 minutes on the various fault segments. We constrain slip to be of about 5-6 meters for the onshore portion of the SAF to the northwest of the Golden Gate, in agreement with 1906 surface observations of fault offset. Our results favour the hypothesis of a vertical dip for a currently aseismic SAF to the southeast of the Golden Gate, under the San Francisco Peninsula

The 28 December 1908 Messina Straits Earthquake (Mw 7.1): A Great Earthquake throughout a Century of Seismology

Early in the morning on 28 December 1908, just a few days after Christmas, a severe earthquake struck the Messina Straits, a rather narrow sound that separates Calabria, in southern Italy, from Sicily. The shaking was distinctly felt in Albania, Montenegro, and the Greek Ionian islands, about 400 km to the east and northeast of the Straits; in Malta, about 250 km to the south; and as far as Ustica Island, about 220 km to the west. The earthquake was catastrophic in the epicentral area and was immediately followed by fires and a large tsunami. Messina (Sicily) and Reggio Calabria (Calabria), two significant cities located less than 10 km apart on the two facing shores of the straits, were almost completely destroyed, and buildings were severely damaged over an area in excess of 6,000 km2

Using geophysical data inversion to constrain earthquake dynamics: a study on dynamically consistent source time functions.

Earthquake kinematic models are often used to retrieve the main parameters of the causative dynamic rupture process. These models are usually obtained through the inversion of seismograms and geodetic data and they can be used as boundary conditions in dynamic modeling to calculate the traction evolution on the fault. Once traction and slip time histories are inferred at each point on the fault plane, it is feasible to estimate the dynamic and breakdown stress drop, the strength excess and the slip weakening distance (Dc). However the measure of these quantities can be biased by the adopted parametrization of kinematic source models. In this work we focus our attention on the importance of adopting source time functions (STFs) compatible with earthquake dynamics to image the kinematic rupture history on a finite fault. First, we compute synthetic waveforms, through a forward modeling, to evaluate the effects of STFs on the ground motion and on the radiated energy. Therefore, adopting different STFs, we perform kinematic inversion of strong motion and GPS data, using a new non linear two-stages search algorithm (Piatanesi et al., 2007) . We have quantitatively verified that the chioce of STFs affects ground motion time histories within the frequency band commonly used in kinematic inversion and that the inferred peak slip velocity and rise time strongly change among the inverted models. These differences has a dramatic impact when kinematic models are used to infer dynamic traction evolution. The shape of the slip weakening curve, the ratio between Dc and the final slip and the dynamic stress drop distribution are remarkably affected by the assumed STFs. We recommend the adoption in kinematic inversions of source time functions that are compatible with earthquake dynamics

Source process of the September 12, 2007 MW 8.4 Southern Sumatra earthquake from tsunami tide gauge record inversion

We infer the slip distribution and average rupture velocity of the magnitude MW 8.4 September 12, 2007, southern Sumatra earthquake from available tide-gauge records of the ensuing tsunami. We select 9 waveforms recorded along the west coast of Sumatra and in the Indian Ocean. Slip distribution and rupture velocity are determined simultaneously by means of a non linear inversion method. We find high slip values (∼10 m) into a patch 100 km long and 50 km large, between 20 and 30 km of depth, about 100 km north-west from the epicenter. We conclude this earthquake did not rupture the whole area of the 1833 event, indicating some slip has still to occurr. Our estimate of rupture velocity is of 2.1±0.4 km/sec. The relatively large depth of the main slip patch is the likely explanation for the low damaging observed tsunami

A Kinematic Source-Time Function Compatible with Earthquake Dynamics

We propose a new source-time function, to be used in kinematic modeling of ground-motion time histories, which is consistent with dynamic propagation of earthquake ruptures and makes feasible the dynamic interpretation of kinematic slip models. This function is derived from a source-time function first proposed by Yoffe (1951), which yields a traction evolution showing a slip-weakening behavior. In order to remove its singularity, we apply a convolution with a triangular function and obtain a regularized source-time function called the regularized Yoffe function. We propose a parameterization of this slip-velocity time function through the final slip, its duration, and the duration of the positive slip acceleration (Tacc). Using this analytical function, we examined the relation between kinematic parameters, such as peak slip velocity and slip duration, and dynamic parameters, such as slip-weakening distance and breakdown-stress drop. The obtained scaling relations are consistent with those proposed by Ohnaka and Yamashita (1989) from laboratory experiments. This shows that the proposed source-time function suitably represents dynamic rupture propagation with finite slip-weakening distances