Human activity causes vibrations that propagate into the ground as high-frequency seismic waves. Measures to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread changes in human activity, leading to a months-long reduction in seismic noise of up to 50%. The 2020 seismic noise quiet period is the longest and most prominent global anthropogenic seismic noise reduction on record. While the reduction is strongest at surface seismometers in populated areas, this seismic quiescence extends for many kilometers radially and hundreds of meters in depth. This provides an opportunity to detect subtle signals from subsurface seismic sources that would have been concealed in noisier times and to benchmark sources of anthropogenic noise. A strong correlation between seismic noise and independent measurements of human mobility suggests that seismology provides an absolute, real-time estimate of population dynamics.

The direction and rate of movement of the Caribbean plate with respect to North America are determined from the slip vectors of shallow earthquakes and from the configuration of downgoing seismic zones in the Greater and Lesser Antilles. A calibration of the relative plate motion for the northeastern Caribbean using data from other subduction zones indicates an average rate of 3.7±0.5 cm/yr for the past 7 million years (Ma). The direction of plate motion inferred from focal mechanisms (ENE) is nearly the same as that deduced from the configuration of downgoing seismic zones going around the major bend in the arc. With respect to North America, the Caribbean plate is moving at an angular velocity of 0.36°/Ma about a center of rotation near 66°N, 132°W. Vector addition using those data and that for the relative motion of North and South America indicates that the Caribbean is moving at an angular velocity of 0.47°/Ma about a center of rotation near 60°N, 88°W with respect to South America. The presence of intermediate‐depth earthquakes beneath Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands is ascribed to the curvature of the plate boundary and a component of underthrusting that has been going on for at least the past 7 Ma and is likely occurring today. The alternative hypothesis that earthquakes beneath those areas are occurring in materials that were subducted during the Eocene, the last major episode of magmatism, is not tenable from thermal considerations. The lack of recent magmatism in the eastern Greater Antilles is ascribed to the relatively small component of underthrusting. The 2 cm/yr rate of seafloor creation along the mid‐Cayman spreading center for the past 2.4 Ma does not appear to reflect the total Caribbean‐North American plate motion while the 4 cm/yr spreading rate from 6.0 to 2.4 Ma does. Between the mid‐Cayman spreading center and eastern Guatemala, the northern boundary of the Caribbean plate is narrow and follows the southern margin of the Cayman trough. Seismic activity between the spreading center and eastern Hispaniola, however, occurs over a zone about 250 km wide that extends from Cuba to Jamaica and across the entire width of Hispaniola. Individual faults within this broad plate boundary appear to have accommodated differing amounts of motion as a function of geological time while the cumulative plate motion across the zone remained nearly constant. The percentage of total plate motion accommodated near southern Hispaniola and Jamaica is inferred to have increased about 2.4 Ma ago. That change may have been caused by the collision of parts of the Bahama bank and northern Hispaniola. This explanation for the sudden decrease in seafloor creation along the mid‐Cayman spreading center is less catastrophist than the hypothesis that the entire Caribbean plate suddenly changed its velocity with respect to surrounding plates. The Caribbean plate may be regarded as a small buffer plate whose motion is now governed by the movement of the larger North and South American plates which bound it on three sides. Th...

No abstract

The pattern of seismicity and fault plane solutions of earthquakes are used to outline the tectonic features of the southern boundary of Anatolia in the eastern Mediterranean and southeastern Turkey. The results of this study show that this boundary is composed of two distinct parts. One, in southeastern Turkey and Syria, is a wide and complex zone of continental collision. The other, in the Levantine basin of the eastern Mediterranean, is a zone of oceanic subduction. In the region of continental collision three zones of seismicity are observed. Most of the seismic activity in this region follows the Bitlis zone and is associated with a zone of thrusting and mountain building. This appears to be the zone of most active deformation and plate consumption in the plate boundary region between Arabia and Turkey. A less active zone of seismicity to the north of the Bitlis zone is interpreted to have been more active in the past whereas another active zone of seismicity to the south is interpreted to be a zone which may be more active in the future as the main zone of plate consumption jumps to the south. In the subduction zone of the eastern Mediterranean the depth of the subducted slab and the rate of seismicity generally increase from east to west. The zone of present‐day convergence between Africa and Turkey in the Levantine basin can be best outlined by the northern edge of the Mediterranean ridge. The subduction zone in this area sequentially jumps to the south as small continental fragments collide with existing zones of subduction. Deep seismic activity near the Gulf of Antalya is associated with a detached subducted slab north of the Anaximander Mountains that is distinctly different from the seismic trend which is associated with present‐day active subduction. The plate boundary between Africa and Turkey at the center of the Levantine basin appears to have shifted to the south of the Anaximander Mountains and Florence rise. Most of the focal mechanisms of the earthquakes along the entire southern boundary of Anatolia indicate that N to NNW thrusting is the dominant mode of seismic deformation. The present set of data is inconsistent with a major transform fault in the Cyprean arc east of Cyprus and in southeastern Turkey.

The philosophy behind the first method of earthquake forecasting is the assumption that the average statistical properties of the spatial and temporal occurrences of earthquakes with M ≥ 4.0 during the future forecast period are the same as the average properties of those variables over the past 70 or so years. This