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International audienceWe present forward and adjoint spectral-element simulations of coupled acoustic and (an)elastic seismic wave propagation on fully unstructured hexahedral meshes. Simulations benefit from recent advances in hexahedral meshing, load balancing and software optimization. Meshing may be accomplished using a mesh generation tool kit such as CUBIT, and load balancing is facilitated by graph partitioning based on the SCOTCH library. Coupling between fluid and solid regions is incorporated in a straightforward fashion using domain decomposition. Topography, bathymetry and Moho undulations may be readily included in the mesh, and physical dispersion and attenuation associated with anelasticity are accounted for using a series of standard linear solids. Finite-frequency Fr'echet derivatives are calculated using adjoint methods in both fluid and solid domains. The software is benchmarked for a layercake model. We present various examples of fully unstructured meshes, snapshots of wavefields and finite-frequency kernels generated by Version 2.0 'Sesame' of our widely used open source spectral-element package SPECFEM3D

We study the 30 October 2016 Norcia earthquake (MW 6.5) to retrieve the rupture history by jointly inverting seismograms and coseismic Global Positioning System displacements obtained by dense local networks. The adopted fault geometry consists of a main normal fault striking N155° and dipping 47° belonging to the Mt. Vettore‐Mt. Bove fault system (VBFS) and a secondary fault plane striking N210° and dipping 36° to the NW. The coseismic rupture initiated on the VBFS and propagated with similar rupture velocity on both fault planes. Updip from the nucleation point, two main slip patches have been imaged on these fault segments, both characterized by similar peak‐slip values (~3 m) and rupture times (~3 s). After the breakage of the two main slip patches, coseismic rupture further propagated southeastward along the VBFS, rupturing again the same fault portion that slipped during the 24 August earthquake. The retrieved coseismic slip distribution is consistent with the observed surface breakages and the deformation pattern inferred from interferometric synthetic aperture radar measurements. Our results show that three different fault systems were activated during the 30 October earthquake. The composite rupture model inferred in this study provides evidences that also a deep portion of the NNE trending section of the Olevano‐Antrodoco‐Sibillini thrust broke coseismically, implying the kinematic inversion of a thrust ramp. The obtained rupture history indicates that in this sector of the Apennines, compressional structures inherited from past tectonics can alternatively segment boundaries of NW trending active normal faults or break coseismically during moderate‐to‐large magnitude earthquakes.

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Using finite element models (FEMs), we examine the sensitivity of surface displacements to the location of fault slip, topography, and three‐dimensional variations in elastic moduli in the context of a 2‐D infinite thrust fault. We then evaluate the impact of these factors and fault geometry on surface displacements and estimates of the distribution of coseismic slip associated with the 2005 Mw 8.7 Nias‐Simeulue, Sumatra earthquake. Topographic effects can be significant near the trench, where bathymetric gradients are highest and the fault is closest to the free surface. Variations in Young's modulus can significantly alter predicted deformation. Surface displacements are relatively insensitive to perturbations in Poisson's ratio for shear sources, but may play a stronger role when the source has a dilatational component. If we generate synthetic displacements using a heterogeneous elastic model and then use an elastic half‐space or layered earth model to estimate the slip distribution and fault geometry, we find systematic residuals of surface displacements and different slip patterns compared to the input fault slip model. The coseismic slip distributions of the 2005 earthquake derived from the same fault geometry and different material models show that the rupture areas are narrower in all tested heterogeneous elastic models compared to that obtained using half‐space models. This difference can be understood by the tendency to infer additional sources in elastic half‐space models to account for effects that are intrinsically due to the presence of rheological gradients. Although the fit to surface observations in our preferred 3‐D FEM model is similar to that from a simple half‐space model, the resulting slip distribution may be a more accurate reflection the true fault slip behavior.