Search

Located on the Alpine-Himalayan earthquake belt, Iran is one of the seismically active regions of the world. Northern Iran, south of Caspian Basin, a hazardous subduction zone, is a densely populated and developing area of the country. Historical and instrumental documented seismicity indicates the occurrence of severe earthquakes leading to many deaths and large losses in the region. With growth of seismological and tectonic data, updated seismic hazard assessment is a worthwhile issue in emergency management programs and long-term developing plans in urban and rural areas of this region. In the present study, being armed with up-to-date information required for seismic hazard assessment including geological data and active tectonic setting for thorough investigation of the active and potential seismogenic sources, and historical and instrumental events for compiling the earthquake catalogue, probabilistic seismic hazard assessment is carried out for the region using three recent ground motion prediction equations. The logic tree method is utilized to capture epistemic uncertainty of the seismic hazard assessment in delineation of the seismic sources and selection of attenuation relations. The results are compared to a recent practice in code-prescribed seismic hazard of the region and are discussed in detail to explore their variation in each branch of logic tree approach. Also, seismic hazard maps of peak ground acceleration in rock site for 475- and 2,475-year return periods are provided for the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY The 1909 April 14 Taiwan earthquake caused significant damage in Taipei. Most of the information on this earthquake available until now is from the written reports on its macro-seismic effects and from seismic station bulletins. In view of the importance of this event for assessing the shaking hazard in the present-day Taipei, we collected historical seismograms and station bulletins of this event and investigated them in conjunction with other seismological data. We compared the observed seismograms with those from recent earthquakes in similar tectonic environments to characterize the 1909 earthquake. Despite the inevitably large uncertainties associated with old data, we conclude that the 1909 Taipei earthquake is a relatively deep (50-100 km) intraplate earthquake that occurred within the subducting Philippine Sea Plate beneath Taipei with an estimated MW of 7 ± 0.3. Some intraplate events elsewhere in the world are enriched in high-frequency energy and the resulting ground motions can be very strong. Thus, despite its relatively large depth and a moderately large magnitude, it would be prudent to review the safety of the existing structures in Taipei against large intraplate earthquakes like the 1909 Taipei earthquake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study investigates which geological and seismicity covariates are most related to the hazard rate along active faults within mainland Japan. The hazard rate is defined to be the rate of M≥4 earthquakes occurring around the fault. To investigate the relationship between the hazard rate and the covariates we use Cox proportional hazards models. Each model makes use of all available data by including repeat events (large earthquakes) that have occurred along the same fault, and adjusts for the correlation resulting from the recurrent nature of the data. All models show that the recent seismicity rate and length of the fault significantly increase the hazard rate of M≥4 earthquakes. Furthermore, we illustrate how the estimated model can be extended to potentially forecast other periods of interest. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The North Anatolian Fault (NAF) forms the northern boundary of the Anatolian plate and is characterized by a right-lateral strike slip motion. The fault extends between 26° and 40° E longitudes and forms a broad arc roughly parallel to the coast of the Black Sea following a former suture zone. The only visible perturbations to the smooth geometry of the NAF are, at around 34-37°E longitude, two main splay faults named Ezinepazar-Sungurlu Fault and Suluova Fault with several related minor fault segments that bifurcate from the main fault line, possibly due to the convexity of the NAF geometry. These secondary fault structures show remarkable morphological expressions accompanied with elongated basin formations and significant microseismicity. The NAF, together with these splay faults, form a broad wedge-shaped shear zone called Amasya Shear Zone (ASZ) where major growing cities of central Anatolia such as Amasya, Çorum and Tokat are located. These cities, which today have total a population close to 500000 with significant industrial infrastructure, were subject to destructive earthquakes during both historical (such as 1579, 1794 and 1668) and instrumental (such as 1939, 1942a, 1942b, 1943 and 1996) seismic periods. Recent paleoseismological studies revealed the rupture history of NAF in a time span of 2000 years (for a review see Hartleb et al. 2006). However, the historical earthquake database of the study area contains unlocated destructive earthquakes (such as 1579 and 1794 events) which are proposed to be nucleated on the splay faults of the ASZ. This statement reveals that there is an unevaluated seismic hazard potential of the region. In this work, a 6 step procedure is followed for a complete earthquake hazard assessment for the study area: (1) First, the faults of ASZ are mapped in detail with field studies to understand the behavior and segmentation of the major fault systems (SuFS and EzSFS). (2) A detailed catalogue of instrumental seismic activity is prepared to understand the seismicity of the region and to define the local clusters concentrated on the fault segments. (3) Information of historical earthquakes are investigated through the literature and field study in major cities to identify the possible related fault segment, this is accomplished by comparing intensity distributions based on historical data and modeled scenarios. (4) The results of recently published analysis of a local GPS campaign (Yavasoglu et. al., 2009) is used to determine the annual slip rate resolved on the overall shear zone to estimate the earthquake recurrence interval. (5) For each active fault segment, the maximum magnitude of a possible earthquake is calculated with the relations between the rupture length and magnitude (Wells and Coppersmith, 1994). (6) GIS based earthquake scenarios based on attenuation relations (Tüysüz, 2003) are prepared to model the geographic intensity distribution for each calculated earthquake. … [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current practice uses predictive models to extrapolate long-period response spectra based on far-field recordings in moderate and weak earthquakes. However, the spectra are not long enough and the data are often not reliable, which means that the seismic design code cannot accurately define seismic design requirements for long-period structures. The near-field recordings in the main-shock of the Chi-Chi earthquake have a large signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which makes them suitable for studying the long-period acceleration response spectrum up to 20 sec. The acceleration response spectra from 246 stations within 120 km of the causative fault are statistically analyzed in this paper. The influence of distance and site conditions on long-period response spectrum is discussed, and the shapes of the amplification spectra are compared with the standard spectra specified in the seismic design code of China. Finally, suggestions for future revisions to the code are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a study which analyzes the aerial photograph of the Mw 7.6 Kashmir earthquake that struck northern Pakistan on October 8, 2005. The authors of the study note that the rupture broke through the surface. The displacement was evident in Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer images of the region that were taken a week after the event. The rupture surface was confined to a strip a few hundred meters wide in which horizontal slip along the faults measured ∼4 m on average. The authors point out that because of the shallow compact of the earthquake, it can cause intense but localized destruction.