Plate-Tectonic Analysis of Shallow Seismicity: Apparent Boundary Width, Beta, Corner Magnitude, Coupled Lithosphere Thickness, and Coupling in Seven Tectonic Settings

Bird, Peter; Kagan, Yan Y.

doi:10.1785/0120030107

Cited by 249 publications

(371 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…BIRD and KAGAN (2004) found that the main difference between earthquakes in different geological settings were with their estimates of a and M C for each setting. In the case of subduction zone earthquakes, BIRD and KAGAN (2004) argued that there is no statistically significant justification for subdividing the subduction zone setting into smaller subsets (e.g., subduction zones subducting old crust versus subduction zones subducting new crust). The only effect they noticed was that a increases with the rate of subduction (i.e., how fast the plates were moving closer together).…”

Section: Earthquake Frequencymentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Cooler temperatures would also lead to higher densities, lower buoyancy and potentially weaker coupling which may also influence the maximum magnitude and/or rate of seismic moment release. On the other hand, other studies suggest there is little dependence of subduction zone seismicity (rate or maximum magnitude) on plate age (BIRD and KAGAN, 2004;NISHENKO, 1991;PACHECO et al, 1993), in which case there is no basis for inferring that magnitude 9 earthquakes cannot occur off Java. WELLS et al (2003) have argued that the presence of sedimentary basins between the trench and the coast (the forearc of the subduction zone) correlates with regions of increased megathrust earthquake slip, and since Java and Sumatra both have well developed forearc basins (see, e.g., the seismic reflection profiles of KOPP, 2002), it might be argued that both can host very large earthquakes.…”

Section: Javamentioning

confidence: 98%

“…For steps 1-3 we used the results of BIRD and KAGAN (2004). In this paper they classified earthquakes from the PACHECO and SYKES (1992) catalogue according to the nearest plate margin to the earthquake which is appropriate for that earthquake's focal mechanism.…”

Section: Earthquake Frequencymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From BIRD and KAGAN's (2004) data we can calculate their estimate of a for all subduction zones lumped together (based on the Pacheco catalogue and the maximum probability method described in BIRD and KAGAN (2004)). According to their catalogue, on average 0.5 events greater than M w 8.0 happen per year somewhere on one of the world's subduction zones.…”

Section: Earthquake Frequencymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Essentially, this implies that earthquakes of a given magnitude are more likely to occur somewhere on a large, fast-moving subduction zone than on a small and/or slowly converging subduction zone. This is motivated by the observation that earthquakes more frequently occur (have a higher a) on faster moving subduction zones than small ones because the rate at which the faults are loaded to failure is faster on rapidly converging subduction zones than on slowly moving subduction zones (BIRD and KAGAN, 2004). We believe it is also reasonable to assume that an earthquake is more likely to occur on a longer subduction zone than a smaller one because there are simply more places for an earthquake to happen on a large fault than a small one.…”

Section: Earthquake Frequencymentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Assessment for Western Australia

Burbidge

Cummins

Mleczko

et al. 2008

Pure appl. geophys.

104

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Abstract-The occurrence of the Indian Ocean Tsunami on 26 December, 2004 has raised concern about the difficulty in determining appropriate tsunami mitigation measures in Australia, due to the lack of information on the tsunami threat. A first step in the development of such measures is a tsunami hazard assessment, which gives an indication of which areas of coastline are most likely to experience tsunamis, and how likely such events are. Here we present the results of a probabilistic tsunami hazard assessment for Western Australia (WA). Compared to other parts of Australia, the WA coastline experiences a relatively high frequency of tsunami occurrence. This hazard is due to earthquakes along the Sunda Arc, south of Indonesia. Our work shows that large earthquakes offshore of Java and Sumba are likely to be a greater threat to WA than those offshore of Sumatra or elsewhere in Indonesia. A magnitude 9 earthquake offshore of the Indonesian islands of Java or Sumba has the potential to significantly impact a large part of the West Australian coastline. The level of hazard varies along the coast, but is highest along the coast from Carnarvon to Dampier. Tsunamis generated by other sources (e.g., large intraplate events, volcanoes, landslides and asteroids) were not considered in this study.

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Section: Earthquake Frequencymentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Javamentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Earthquake Frequencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Earthquake Frequencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Earthquake Frequencymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

A Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Assessment for Western Australia

Burbidge

Cummins

Mleczko

et al. 2008

Pure appl. geophys.

104

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A geodetic plate motion and Global Strain Rate Model

Kreemer

Blewitt

Klein

2014

Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst.

785

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We present a new global model of plate motions and strain rates in plate boundary zones constrained by horizontal geodetic velocities. This Global Strain Rate Model (GSRM v.2.1) is a vast improvement over its predecessor both in terms of amount of data input as in an increase in spatial model resolution by factor of $2.5 in areas with dense data coverage. We determined 6739 velocities from time series of (mostly) continuous GPS measurements; i.e., by far the largest global velocity solution to date. We transformed 15,772 velocities from 233 (mostly) published studies onto our core solution to obtain 22,511 velocities in the same reference frame. Care is taken to not use velocities from stations (or time periods) that are affected by transient phenomena; i.e., this data set consists of velocities best representing the interseismic plate velocity. About 14% of the Earth is allowed to deform in 145,086 deforming grid cells (0.25 longitude by 0.2 latitude in dimension). The remainder of the Earth's surface is modeled as rigid spherical caps representing 50 tectonic plates. For 36 plates we present new GPS-derived angular velocities. For all the plates that can be compared with the most recent geologic plate motion model, we find that the difference in angular velocity is significant. The rigid-body rotations are used as boundary conditions in the strain rate calculations. The strain rate field is modeled using the Haines and Holt method, which uses splines to obtain an self-consistent interpolated velocity gradient tensor field, from which strain rates, vorticity rates, and expected velocities are derived. We also present expected faulting orientations in areas with significant vorticity, and update the no-net rotation reference frame associated with our global velocity gradient field.Finally, we present a global map of recurrence times for M w 57.5 characteristic earthquakes.

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Estimated likelihood of observing a large earthquake on a continental low-angle normal fault and implications for low-angle normal fault activity

Styron

Hetland

2014

Geophys. Res. Lett.

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The lack of observed continental earthquakes that clearly occurred on low‐angle normal faults (LANFs) may indicate that these structures are not seismically active or that these earthquakes are simply rare events. To address this, we compile all potentially active continental LANFs (24 in total) and calculate the likelihood of observing a significant earthquake on them over periods of 1–100 years. This probability depends on several factors including the frequency‐magnitude distribution. For either a characteristic or Gutenberg‐Richter distribution, we calculate a probability of about 0.5 that an earthquake greater than M6.5 (large enough to avoid ambiguity in dip angle) will be observed on any LANF in a period of 35 years, which is the current length of the global centroid moment tensor catalog. We then use Bayes' Theorem to illustrate how the absence of observed significant LANF seismicity over the catalog period moderately decreases the likelihood that the structures generate large earthquakes.

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Plate-Tectonic Analysis of Shallow Seismicity: Apparent Boundary Width, Beta, Corner Magnitude, Coupled Lithosphere Thickness, and Coupling in Seven Tectonic Settings

Cited by 249 publications

References 45 publications

A Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Assessment for Western Australia

A Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Assessment for Western Australia

A geodetic plate motion and Global Strain Rate Model

Estimated likelihood of observing a large earthquake on a continental low-angle normal fault and implications for low-angle normal fault activity

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