Topographic Characteristics of Rupture Surface Associated with the 12 May 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake

Wei, Zhenyu; He, Huaiyu; Shi, Feng; Gao, Xiang; Changpeng, Xu

doi:10.1785/0120090260

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Fault surface topography was scanned in the field using five different types of 3‐D portable LiDAR laser scanners (see Table 1b) that use the time of flight of a light beam to accurately measure distances. The laser scanner records the topography of each exposed fault surface by collecting a cloud of points whose three dimensional coordinates correspond to points on the fault surface [ Renard et al , 2006; Sagy et al , 2007; Candela et al , 2009; Resor and Mee r, 2009; Wei et al , 2010]. The actual point spacing depends on the distance between the target and the scanner and a chosen angular spacing.…”

Section: Fault Roughness Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, the original 3‐D cloud of points (Figure 3) was transformed to 2‐D ( X , Y ) + 1‐D ( Z ) data set [ Renard et al , 2006; Sagy et al , 2007; Candela et al , 2009; Wei et al , 2010] where the Z direction was approximately perpendicular to the mean fault plane ( X , Y ). A set of parallel cuts was taken through the cloud of points to obtain a series of thin bands of points striking at an angle θ from the X axis.…”

Section: Analysis Of Scaling Properties Of Roughness Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Roughness of fault surfaces over nine decades of length scales

Candela¹,

Renard²,

Klinger³

et al. 2012

J. Geophys. Res.

296

338

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[1] We report on the topographic roughness measurements of five exhumed faults and thirteen surface earthquake ruptures over a large range of scales: from 50 mm to 50 km. We used three scanner devices (LiDAR, laser profilometer, white light interferometer), spanning complementary scale ranges from 50 mm to 10 m, to measure the 3-D topography of the same objects, i.e., five exhumed slip surfaces (Vuache-Sillingy, Bolu, Corona Heights, Dixie Valley, Magnola). A consistent geometrical property, i.e., self-affinity, emerges as the morphology of the slip surfaces shows at first order, a linear behavior on a log-log plot where axes are fault roughness and spatial length scale, covering five decades of length-scales. The observed fault roughness is scale dependent, with an anisotropic self-affine behavior described by four parameters: two power law exponents H, constant among all the faults studied but slightly anisotropic (H k = 0.58 AE 0.07 in the slip direction and H ? = 0.81 AE 0.04 perpendicular to it), and two pre-factors showing variability over the faults studied. For larger scales between 200 m and 50 km, we have analyzed the 2-D roughness of the surface rupture of thirteen major continental earthquakes. These ruptures show geometrical properties consistent with the slip-perpendicular behavior of the smaller-scale measurements. Our analysis suggests that the inherent non-alignment between the exposed traces and the along or normal slip direction results in sampling the slip-perpendicular geometry. Although a data gap exists between the scanned fault scarps and rupture traces, the measurements are consistent within the error bars with a single geometrical description, i.e., consistent dimensionality, over nine decades of length scales.

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Section: Fault Roughness Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Analysis Of Scaling Properties Of Roughness Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Roughness of fault surfaces over nine decades of length scales

Candela¹,

Renard²,

Klinger³

et al. 2012

J. Geophys. Res.

296

338

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“…Following the 23 October 2004 Mw 6.6 Chuetsu earthquake in Japan, Kayen et al (2006) quantifi ed damaged infrastructure (e.g., railroads and tunnels) as well as seismically induced surface failures, such as landslides. In response to the 12 May 2008 Mw 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake in China, Wei et al (2010) scanned rupture faces to analyze roughness and length relationships of coseismic freeface striations. In a study of the 6 April 2009, Mw 6.3 L'Aquila earthquake in central Italy, Wilkinson et al (2010) collected repeat scans of a coseismic surface rupture that revealed postseismic deformation totaling >50% of the coseismic displacement.…”

Section: Tls In Neotectonic Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Examples include investigations of earthquake rupture dynamics (e.g., Brodsky et al, 2011;Jones et al, 2009;Renard et al, 2006;Sagy and Brodsky, 2009;Sagy et al, 2007), deformation from surface-rupturing earthquakes (e.g., Gold et al, 2010;Gold et al, 2011;Oldow and Singleton, 2008;Wei et al, 2010;Wilkinson et al, 2010), structural and stratigraphic architecture of sediments and stacked fl ood basalts (e.g., Nelson et al, 2011;Wilson et al, 2009), and fl uid-reservoir characteristics (e.g., Bellian et al, 2007Bellian et al, , 2005Enge et al, 2007;Labourdette and Jones, 2007;Olariu et al, 2008). In addition, repeat or time series TLS scans have been used to capture changes during hillslope denudation (Wawrzyniec et al, 2007) and ocean beach erosion (Pietro et al, 2008), as well as rock-fall volumes (Rabatel et al, 2008;Stock et al, 2011), landslide kinematics (Teza et al, 2007(Teza et al, , 2008, and postseismic deformation (Wilkinson et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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et al. 2012

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Three-dimensional (3D) slip vectors re corded by displaced landforms are difficult to constrain across complex fault zones, and the uncertainties associated with such measure ments become increasingly challenging to assess as landforms degrade over time. We approach this problem from a remote sensing perspective by using terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and 3D structural analysis. We have developed an integrated TLS data collection and point-based analysis workfl ow that incorporates accurate assessments of aleatoric and epistemic uncertainties using experimental surveys, Monte Carlo simulations, and iterative site reconstructions. Our scanning workfl ow and equipment requirements are optimized for single-operator surveying, and our data analysis process is largely completed using new point-based computing tools in an immersive 3D virtual reality environment. In a case study, we measured slip vector orientations at two sites along the rupture trace of the 1954 Dixie Valley earthquake (central Nevada, United States), yielding measurements that are the fi rst direct constraints on the 3D slip vector for this event. These observations are consistent with a previous approximation of net extension direction for this event. We fi nd that errors introduced by variables in our survey method result in <2.5 cm of variability in components of displacement, and are eclipsed by the 10-60 cm epistemic errors introduced by reconstructing the fi eld sites to their preerosion geometries. Although the higher resolution TLS data sets enabled visualization and data interactivity critical for reconstructing the 3D slip vector and for assessing uncertainties, dense topographic constraints alone were not suffi cient to signifi cantly narrow the wide (<26°) range of allowable slip vector orientations that resulted from accounting for epistemic uncertainties.

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“…The paper by Zhou et al (2010) takes one more step because they investigated what would be a safe distance to rebuild, according to ground rupture that was observed in the field. Wei et al (2010) examined another aspect of the surface rupture, the morphology of the seismic scarp, through measurements of the roughness of the scarp surface. They find evidence of large differences in the main direction of the roughness depending on the sites and style of deformation.…”

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confidence: 99%

Introduction to the Special Issue on the 2008 Wenchuan, China, Earthquake

Klinger¹,

Ji²,

Shen³

et al. 2010

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America

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The M w 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake occurred on 12 May 2008 at 14:28 China standard time (06:28 UTC) in the middle of the day. People were caught by surprise because this region, along the edge of the Tibetan plateau, was not listed as a place with a high seismic hazard. Destruction was huge. More than four million inhabitants were left homeless. Casualties numbered more than 80,000 people, and there were major economic losses. This event was one of the deadliest earthquakes in China during the last few centuries, after the Haiyuan earthquake in 1920 and the Tangshan earthquake in 1976, which claimed 200,000 and 250,000 lives, respectively. The Wenchuan earthquake occurred a few months before the beginning of the 2008 Olympic games, held in Beijing, China, and the emergency response from the government of the Republic of China was massive. In part, for efficiency during this tremendous rescue effort, scientists had difficulty gaining access to the field for the first several months. Such difficulties have partly hampered deployment of temporary networks of survey equipment, such as GPS or seismic stations by international teams, as is often the case after a major earthquake.Along with the M w 7.7 Chi-Chi, Taiwan, earthquake in 1999 and the M w 7.6 Kashmir earthquake in 2005, the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake is one of the largest continental thrust earthquakes with excellent field observations that was well recorded by a variety of geophysical networks. Hence, it remains a primary target for understanding strainaccommodation processes in a compressive environment. In addition, the Wenchuan earthquake, which occurred in the Longmen Shan range at the edge of the Tibetan plateau, has called into question certain viewpoints held by the scientific community. GPS results have repeatedly shown almost no signal across the Longmen Shan fault system, and for decades, many scientists have considered that only minor deformation could take place in the area. The Wenchuan earthquake has considerably challenged this belief.Despite all the difficulties of access, the scientific community has put a considerable effort into understanding this event, which is in part reflected in the 34 papers presented in this special volume. It should be stressed that this earthquake has been a unique opportunity for the Chinese earth-sciences community to show the quality and the diversity of the teams active in China, and about 60% of the papers in this volume have a lead author who is Chinese.This special issue of BSSA illustrates the wide scope of the community interested in earthquakes. Two topics dominate this volume: strong-motion studies (nine papers) and surfacerupture studies (six papers). The other 19 papers address various aspects related to the earthquake, from structural geology to engineering aspects or gravity field measurements, among other topics. A large number of strong-motion records (> 60) are available at a considerable range of distances (a few to several hundred kilometers) for the Wenchuan event. These data were used by Bjerrum...

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Topographic Characteristics of Rupture Surface Associated with the 12 May 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake

Cited by 9 publications

References 27 publications

Roughness of fault surfaces over nine decades of length scales

Roughness of fault surfaces over nine decades of length scales

Untitled

Introduction to the Special Issue on the 2008 Wenchuan, China, Earthquake

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