Weak Zone Related Seismic Cycles in Progressive Failure Leading to Collapse in Brittle Crust

Until quite recently our understanding of the basic mechanical process responsible for earthquakes and faulting was not well known. It can be argued that this was partly a consequence of the complex nature of fracture in crust and in part because evidence of brittle phenomena in the natural laboratory of the earth is often obliterated or obscured by other geological processes. While it is well understood that the spatial and temporal complexity of earthquakes and the fault structures emerge from geometrical and material built-in heterogeneities, one important open question is how the shearing becomes localized into a band of intense fractures. Here the authors address these questions through a numerical approach of a tectonic plate by considering rockmass heterogeneity both in microscopic scale and in mesoscopic scale. Numerical simulations of the progressive failure leading to collapse under long-range slow driving forces in the far-field show earthquake-like rupture behavior. $En Echelon$ crack-arrays are reproduced in the numerical simulation. It is demonstrated that the underlying fracturing induced acoustic emissions (or seismic events) display self-organized criticality------from disorder to order. The seismic cycles and the geometric structures of the fracture faces, which are found greatly depending on the material heterogeneity (especially on the macroscopic scale), agree with that observed experimentally in real brittle materials. It is concluded that in order to predict a main shock, one must have extremely detailed knowledge on very minor features of the earth's crust far from the place where the earthquake originated. If correct, the model proposed here seemingly provides an explanation as to why earthquakes to date are not predicted so successfully. The reason is not that the authors do not understand earthquake mechanisms very well but that they still know little about our earth's crust.

The degree of predictability of earthquakes in several regions of China: statistical analysis of historical data

The stress release model, a stochastic version of the elastic-rebound theory, is applied to the historical earthquake data from three strong earthquake-prone regions of China, including North China, Southwest China, and the Taiwan seismic regions. The results show that the seismicity along a plate boundary (Taiwan) is more active than in intraplate regions (North and Southwest China). The degree of predictability or regularity of seismic events in these seismic regions, based on both the Akaike information criterion (AIC) and fitted sensitivity parameters, follows the order Taiwan, Southwest China, and North China, which is further identified by numerical simulations. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

青藏高原及邻区面波频散反演--岩石圈-软流层体系结构研究

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau lies in the place of the continent-continent collision between Indian and Eurasian plates. Because of their interaction the shallow and deep structures are very complicated. The force system forming the tectonic patterns and driving tectonic movements is effected together by the deep part of the lithosphere and the asthenosphere. It is important to study the 3-D velocity structures, the spheres and layers structures, material properties and states of the lithosphere and the asthenosphere for getting knowledge of their formation and evolution, dynamic process, layers coupling and exchange of material and energy. Based on the Rayleigh wave dispersion theory, we study the 3-D velocity structures, the depths of interfaces and thicknesses of different layers, including the crust, the lithosphere and the asthenosphere, the lithosphere-asthenosphere system in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and its adjacent areas. The following tasks include: (1)The digital seismic records of 221 seismic events have been collected, whose magnitudes are larger than 5.0 over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and its adjacent areas. These records come from 31 digital seismic stations of GSN , CDSN、NCDSN and part of Indian stations. After making instrument response calibration and filtering, group velocities of fundamental mode of Rayleigh waves are measured using the frequency-time analysis (FTAN) to get the observed dispersions. Furthermore, we strike cluster average for those similar ray paths. Finally, 819 dispersion curves (8-150s) are ready for dispersion inversion. (2)From these dispersion curves, pure dispersion data in 2°×2° cells of the areas (18°N-42°N, 70°E-106°E) are calculated by using function expansion method, proposed by Yanovskaya. The average initial model has been constructed by taking account of global AK135 model along with geodetic, geological, geophysical, receiving function and wide-angle reflection data. Then, initial S-wave velocity structures of the crust and upper mantle in the research areas have been obtained by using linear inversion (SVD) method. (3)Taking the results of the linear inversion as the initial model, we simultaneously invert the S wave velocities and thicknesses by using non-linear inversion (improved Simulated Annealing algorithm). Moreover, during the temperature dropping the variable-scale models are used. Comparing with the linear results, the spheres and layers by the non-linear inversion can be recognized better from the velocity value and offset. (4)The Moho discontinuity and top interface of the asthenosphere are recognized from the velocity value and offset of the layers. The thicknesses of the crust, lithosphere and asthenosphere are gained. These thicknesses are helpful to studying the structural differentia between the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and its adjacent areas and among geologic units of the plateau. The results of the inversion will provide deep geophysical evidences for studying deep dynamical mechanism and exploring metal mineral resource and oil and gas resources. The following conclusions are reached by the distributions of the S wave velocities and thicknesses of the crust, lithosphere and asthenosphere, combining with previous researches. (1)The crust is very thick in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, varying from 60 km to 80 km. The lithospheric thickness in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is thinner (130-160 km) than its adjacent areas. Its asthenosphere is relatively thicker, varies from 150 km to 230 km, and the thickest area lies in the western Qiangtang. India located in south of Main Boundary thrust has a thinner crust (32-38 km), a thicker lithosphere of about 190 km and a rather thin asthenosphere of only 60 km. Sichuan and Tarim basins have the crust thickness less than 50km. Their lithospheres are thicker than the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and their asthenospheres are thinner. (2)The S-wave velocity variation pattern in the lithosphere-asthenosphere system has band-belted distribution along east-westward. These variations correlate with geology structures sketched by sutures and major faults. These sutures include Main Boundary thrust (MBT), Yarlung-Zangbo River suture (YZS), Bangong Lake-Nujiang suture (BNS), Jinshajiang suture (JSJS), Kunlun edge suture (KL). In the velocity maps of the upper and middle crust, these sutures can be sketched. In velocity maps of 250-300 km depth, MBT, BNS and JSJS can be sketched. In maps of the crustal thickness, the lithospheric thickness and the asthenospheric thickness, these sutures can be still sketched. In particular, MBT can be obviously resolved in these velocity maps and thickness maps. (3)Since the collision between India and Eurasian plate, the “loss” of surface material arising from crustal shortening is caused not only by crustal thickening but also by lateral extrusion material. The source of lateral extrusion lies in the Qiangtang block. These materials extrude along the JSJS and BNS with both rotation and dispersion in Daguaiwan. Finally, it extends toward southeast direction. (4)There is the crust-mantle transition zone of no distinct velocity jump in the lithosphere beneath the Qiangtang Terrane. It has thinner lithosphere and developed thicker asthenosphere. It implies that the crust-mantle transition zone of partial melting is connected with the developed asthenosphere. The underplating of asthenosphere may thin the lithosphere. This buoyancy might be the main mechanism and deep dynamics of the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet hinterland. At the same time, the transport of hot material with low velocity intrudes into the upper mantle and the lower crust along cracks and faults forming the crust-mantle transition zone.

反假频重建理论及其在储层预测中的应用

To extend the cross-hole seismic 2D data to outside 3D seismic data, reconstructing the low frequency data to high frequency data is necessary. Blind deconvolution method is a key technology. In this paper, an implementation of Blind deconvolution is introduced. And optimized precondition conjugate gradient method is used to improve the stability of the algorithm and reduce the computation. Then high-frequency retrieved Seismic data and the cross-hole seismic data is combined for constraint inversion. Real data processing proved the method is effective. To solve the problem that the seismic data resolution can’t meet the request of reservoir prediction in the river face thin-layers in Chinese eastern oil fields, a high frequency data reconstruction method is proposed. The extrema of the seismic data are used to get the modulation function which operated with the original seismic data to get the high frequency part of the reconstruction data to rebuild the wide band data. This method greatly saves the computation, and easy to adjust the parameters. In the output profile, the original features of the seismic events are kept, the common feint that breaking the events and adding new zeros to produce alias is avoided. And the interbeded details are enhanced compared to the original profiles. The effective band of seismic data is expended and the method is approved by the processing of the field data. Aim to the problem in the exploration and development of Chinese eastern oil field that the high frequency log data and the relative low frequency seismic data can’t be merged, a workflow of log data extrapolation constrained by time-phase model based on local wave decomposition is raised. The seismic instantaneous phase is resolved by local wave decomposition to build time-phase model, the layers beside the well is matched to build the relation of log and seismic data, multiple log info is extrapolated constrained by seismic equiphase map, high precision attributes inverse sections are produced. In the course of resolve the instantaneous phase, a new method of local wave decomposition --Hilbert transform mean mode decomposition(HMMD) is raised to improve the computation speed and noise immunity. The method is applied in the high resolution reservoir prediction in Mao2 survey of Daqing oil field, Multiple attributes profiles of wave impedance, gamma-ray, electrical resistivity, sand membership degree are produced, of which the resolution is high and the horizontal continuous is good. It’s proved to be a effective method for reservoir prediction and estimation.

三维非均匀各向异性介质中的纵波走时反演研究

Many observations show that seismic anisotropy is very common in the crust and upper mantle of the Earth. Seismic anisotropy can provide some clue about the changing and transporting process inside the earth. in recent years, abundant earthquake travel time data are accumulated, computers become more powerful, and these make the inversion of earthquake travel time data practical. In this thesis we studied the theory of elastic wave in anisotropic media, some formule for travel time inversion were derived. We present an iterative procedure to determine 21 elastic parameters from qP wave travel times. No a priori assumptions about heterogeneity and anisotropy of the model are made. The procedure is suitable for the case when we know nothing about the symmetry of anisotropy of the media, as well as for the case of earthquake travel time inversion which may contain various symmetry of anisotropy. The procedure is tested with a synthetic multiple-source offset VSP experiment. The results proved that the formulae are correct, and the procedure is practical. The results and the related theory indicate that the anisotropic inversion needs more rays than isotropic case. For a 2-D weak anisotropic (WA) medium, we need at least 5 rays in different directions to retrieve the elastic parameters on one grid point, and for a 3-D WA medium we need at least 15 rays in different directions to retrieve the elastic parameters on one grid point. The results also indicate that the starting background velocity has no influence on the final results, at least for the model we specified. Our results also show that insufficient illumination coverage will slow down the convergence rate, and make the results more sensitive to noise. We apply the procedure to a set of field travel time data. The data is from an artificial seismic observation. This observation is for locating micro-seismic events around a tunnel, its purpose is to find out if the digging process and the stress condition around the tunnel can generate micro-cracks. The size of this area is around 100m. The anisotropy derived from qP travel times is the same as the anisotropy showed by apparent velocities, and is also consistent with the anisotropy derived from S-wave splitting phenomena.

环渤海地区地壳和上地幔地震层析成像研究

In Circum-Bohai region (112°~124°E, 34°~42°N ), there exists rich gas-petroleum while inner-plate seismic activity is robust. Although the tectonic structure of this region is very complicated, plenty of geological, geophysical and geochemical researches have been carried out.In this paper, guided by the ideas of "One, Two, Three and Many" and "The depth controls the shallow, the regional constrains the local", I fully take advantage of previous results so as to establish a general image of this region. After collecting the arrival-time of P-wave phases of local events and tele-seismic events recorded by the stations within this region from 1966 to 2004, I process all these data and build an initial model. Then, a tomography image of crust and upper-mantle of this region is obtained. With reference to previous results, we compare the image of various depths and five cross-profiles traverse this region along different direction. And finally, a discussion and conclusion is made.The principle contents is listed as below: 1) in the first chapter, the purpose and meaning of this thesis, the advance in seismic tomography, and the research contents and blue-print is stated; 2) in the second chapter, I introduce the regional geological setting of Circum-Bohai region, describe the tectonic and evolutionary characteristics of principle tectonic units, including Bohai Bay Basin, Yanshan Fold Zone, Taihangshan Uplifted Zone, Jiao-Niao Uplifted Zone and Luxi Uplifted Zone, and primary deep faults; 3) In the third chapter, the previous geophysical researches, i.e., gravity and geomagnetic characters, geothermal flow, seismic activity, physical character of rocks, deep seismic sounding, and previous seismic tomography, are discussed; 4) in the fourth chapter, the fundamental theory and approach of seismic tomography is introduced; 5) in the fifth chapter, the technology and approaches used in this thesis, including collecting and pre-processing of data, the establishment of initial velocity model and relocation of all events; 6) in the sixth chapter, I discuss and analyze the tomography image of various depth and five cross-sections; 7)in the seventh chapter, I make a conclusion of the results, state the existing problems and possible solutions.

Experimental Study of the Earthquake Recurrence Period and the Trend of Post-Seismic Development

In order to study the earthquake recurrence and the characteristics of earthquake series, rupture tests of rock samples and plexiglass samples were made. On rock samples, a number of acoustic emission (AE) and strain measuring points were deployed; the load was one side direct shear. The variation characteristics of AE and strain at different detecting points around the extra large fracture were observed and studied. On plexiglass samples, a series of inclined cracks were prefabricated by a small-scale compressive testing machine. The samples were then loaded on a shockproof platen, when the samples were loaded, the stress intensity factor (SIF) was determined by the laser interferometric technique and shadow optical method of caustics. The fracture conditions such as material toughness around the extra large fracture were also studied. From those experimental results and the theory of fracture mechanics, the earthquake recurrence period and the trend of post-seismic development were studied.

Seismic Responses of a Hemispherical Alluvial Valley to SV Waves: A Three-Dimensional Analytical Approximation

An analytical solution to the three-dimensional scattering and diffraction of plane SV-waves by a saturated hemispherical alluvial valley in elastic half-space is obtained by using Fourier-Bessel series expansion technique. The hemispherical alluvial valley with saturated soil deposits is simulated with Biot's dynamic theory for saturated porous media. The following conclusions based on numerical results can be drawn: (1) there are a significant differences in the seismic response simulation between the previous single-phase models and the present two-phase model; (2) the normalized displacements on the free surface of the alluvial valley depend mainly on the incident wave angles, the dimensionless frequency of the incident SV waves and the porosity of sediments; (3) with the increase of the incident angle, the displacement distributions become more complicated; and the displacements on the free surface of the alluvial valley increase as the porosity of sediments increases.

Population phylogenomic analysis of mitochondrial DNA in wild boars and domestic pigs revealed multiple domestication events in East Asia

Background: Previously reported evidence indicates that pigs were independently domesticated in multiple places throughout the world. However, a detailed picture of the origin and dispersal of domestic pigs in East Asia has not yet been reported. Results:

Reinforcement-related neurons in the primate basal forebrain respond to the learned significance of task events rather than to the hedonic attributes of reward

The objective of this study was to determine if the responses of basal forebrain neurons are related to the cognitive processes necessary for the performance of behavioural tasks, or to the hedonic attributes of the reinforcers delivered to the monkey as