SYLLABUS: EARTHQUAKE ENGG

MODULE II

Earthquake Basics

What is Earthquake?
Definition: An earthquake is a natural phenomenon like rain. Earthquakes have occurred for billions of years. Descriptions as old as recorded history show the significant effects they have had on peoples lives. Long before there were scientific theories for the cause of earthquakes, people around the world created folklore to explain them. In simple terms, earthquakes are caused by the constant motion of Earths surface. This motion creates build-up and releases energy stored in rocks at and near the Earths surface. Earthquakes are the sudden, rapid shaking of the Earth as this energy is released.

What is Earthquake?

An earthquake may last only a few seconds, but the processes that cause earthquakes have operated within the Earth for millions and millions of years. Until very recently, the cause of earthquakes was an unsolved mystery. It was the subject of fanciful folklore and equally fanciful learned speculation by people throughout the world. In the mid-1960s, many scientific observations and explanations of earthquakes came together in the theory of plate tectonics.

Earths Interior

Earths Interior

Three centuries ago, the English scientist Isaac Newton calculated, from his studies of planets and the force of gravity, that the average density of the Earth is twice that of surface rocks and therefore that the Earth's interior must be composed of much denser material.

Earths Interior

The planet Earth is made up of three main shells: the very thin, brittle crust, the mantle, and the core; the mantle and core are each divided into two parts. Although the core and mantle are about equal in thickness, the core actually forms only 15 percent of the Earth's volume, whereas the mantle occupies 84 percent. The crust makes up the remaining 1 percent. Our knowledge of the layering and chemical composition of the Earth is steadily being improved by earth scientists doing laboratory experiments on rocks at high pressure and analyzing earthquake records on computers.

The Crust
The Crust Because the crust is accessible to us, its geology has been extensively studied, and therefore much more information is known about its structure and composition than about the structure and composition of the mantle and core. Within the crust, intricate patterns are created when rocks are redistributed and deposited in layers through the geologic processes of eruption and intrusion of lava, erosion, and consolidation of rock particles, and solidification and recrystallization of porous rock.

The oceanic crust at the island of Hawaii is about 5 kilometers thick. The thickness of the continental crust under eastern California ranges from 25 kilometers under the Great Valley to 60 kilometers under the Sierra Nevada.

MOHO

The boundary between the crust and mantle is called the Mohorovicic discontinuity (or Moho); it is named in honor of the man who discovered it, the Croatian scientist Andrija Mohorovicic.

The Mantle
The Mantle

Our knowledge of the upper mantle, is derived from analyses of earthquake waves, heat flow, magnetic, and gravity studies; and laboratory experiments on rocks and minerals. Between 100 and 200 kilometers below the Earth's surface, the temperature of the rock is near the melting point; molten rock erupted by some volcanoes originates in this region of the mantle. Below this lowvelocity zone is a transition zone in the upper mantle; it contains two discontinuities caused by changes from less dense to more dense minerals. The chemical composition and crystal forms of these minerals have been identified by laboratory experiments at high pressure and temperature. The lower mantle, below the transition zone, is made up of relatively simple iron and magnesium silicate minerals, which change gradually with depth to very dense forms. Going from mantle to core, there is a marked increase (about 30 percent) in density.

CORE

The core was the first internal structural element to be identified. It was discovered in 1906 by R.D. Oldham, from his study of earthquake records, and it helped to explain Newton's calculation of the Earth's density. The outer core is presumed to be liquid. The inner core is considered to be solid.

Data on Earths Interior

Temperature Profile of Earths Interior

Why so hot the Earths Interior is?

There are three main sources of heat in the deep earth: (1) heat from when the planet formed and accreted, which has not yet been lost; (2) frictional heating, caused by denser core material sinking to the center of the planet; and (3) heat from the decay of radioactive elements.

Earthquake Theories

Plate Tectonics Elastic Rebound Theory

Plate Tectonics

The theory of plate tectonics has done for geology what Charles Darwin's theory of evolution did for biology. It provides geology with a comprehensive theory that explains "how the Earth works." The theory was formulated in the 1960s and 1970s as new information was obtained about the nature of the ocean floor, Earth's ancient magnetism, the distribution of volcanoes and earthquakes, the flow of heat from Earth's interior, and the worldwide distribution of plant and animal fossils.

Plate Tectonics

Earths Plates

Plate Tectonics

The theory states that Earth's outermost layer, the lithosphere, is broken into 7 large, rigid pieces called plates: the African, North American, South American, Eurasian, Australian, Antarctic, and Pacific plates. Several minor plates also exist, including the Arabian, Nazca, and Philippines plates.

Plate Tectonics

The plates are all moving in different directions and at different speeds (from 2 cm to 10 cm per year--about the speed at which your fingernails grow) in relationship to each other. The plates are moving around like cars in a demolition derby, which means they sometimes crash together, pull apart, or sideswipe each other. The place where the two plates meet is called a plate boundary. Boundaries have different names depending on how the two plates are moving in relationship to each other

Effects and Boundaries

Crashing: Convergent Boundaries

Pulling apart: Divergent Boundaries Sideswiping: Transform Boundaries

Crashing: Convergent Boundaries

Places where plates crash or crunch together are called convergent boundaries. Plates only move a few centimetres each year, so collisions are very slow and last millions of years. Even though plate collisions take a long time, lots of interesting things happen. For example, in the drawing, an oceanic plate has crashed into a continental plate.

Convergent Boundary

Convergent Boundary

Looking at this drawing of two plates colliding is like looking at a single frame in a slow-motion movie of two cars crashing into each other. Just as the front ends of cars fold and bend in a collision, so do the "front ends" of colliding plates. The edge of the continental plate in the drawing has folded into a huge mountain range, while the edge of the oceanic plate has bent downward and dug deep into the Earth. A trench has formed at the bend. All that folding and bending makes rock in both plates break and slip, causing earthquakes.

Convergent Boundary

As the edge of the oceanic plate digs into Earth's hot interior, some of the rock in it melts. The melted rock rises up through the continental plate, causing more earthquakes on its way up, and forming volcanic eruptions where it finally reaches the surface. An example of this type of collision is found on the west coast of South America where the oceanic Nazca Plate is crashing into the continent of South America. The crash formed the Andes Mountains, the long string of volcanoes along the mountain crest, and the deep trench off the coast in the Pacific Ocean.

Pulling Apart :Divergent Boundary

Places where plates are coming apart are called divergent boundaries. As shown in the drawing , when Earth's brittle surface layer (the lithosphere) is pulled apart, it typically breaks along parallel faults that tilt slightly outward from each other.

As the plates separate along the boundary, the block between the faults cracks and drops down into the soft, plastic interior (the asthenosphere).
The sinking of the block forms a central valley called a rift. Magma (liquid rock) seeps upward to fill the cracks. In this way, new crust is formed along the boundary. Earthquakes occur along the faults, and volcanoes form where the magma reaches the surface.

Divergent Boundary

Divergent Boundary

Where a divergent boundary crosses the land, the rift valleys which form are typically 30 to 50 kilometers wide. Examples include the East Africa rift in Kenya and Ethiopia, and the Rio Grande rift in New Mexico. Where a divergent boundary crosses the ocean floor, the rift valley is much narrower, only a kilometer or less across, and it runs along the top of a midoceanic ridge. Oceanic ridges rise a kilometer or so above the ocean floor and form a global network tens of thousands of miles long. Examples include the Mid-Atlantic ridge and the East Pacific Rise. Plate separation is a slow process. For example, divergence along the Mid Atlantic ridge causes the Atlantic Ocean to widen at only about 2 centimeters per year.

Side swiping: Transform Boundary

Places where plates slide past each other are called transform boundaries. Since the plates on either side of a transform boundary are merely sliding past each other and not tearing or crunching each other. transform boundaries lack the spectacular features found at convergent and divergent boundaries. Instead, transform boundaries are marked in some places by linear valleys along the boundary where rock has been ground up by the sliding. In other places, transform boundaries are marked by features like stream beds that have been split in half and the two halves have moved in opposite directions.

Transform Plate Boundary

Transform Boundary

Perhaps the most famous transform boundary in the world is the San Andreas fault, shown in the drawing above. The slice of California to the west of the fault is slowly moving north relative to the rest of California. Since motion along the fault is sideways and not vertical, Los Angeles will not crack off and fall into the ocean as popularly thought, but it will simply creep towards San Francisco at about 6 centimetres per year. In about ten million years, the two cities will be side by side!

FAULTS

A fault is a break in the rocks that make up the Earths crust, along which rocks on either side have moved past each other. Not every crack in the ground is a fault. What defines a fault is the movement of the rock on either side. When that movement is sudden, the released energy causes an earthquake. Some faults are tiny, but others are part of great fault systems along which rocks have slid past each other for hundreds of miles. These fault systems are the boundaries of the huge plates that make up the Earth's crust. In the San Francisco Bay region, the Quaternary-active faults are part of the boundary between the Pacific and North American plates.

FAULT

Faults: Terminology

Fault Plane Dip and Hade Strike Hanging wall Foot wall Slip Throw Heave

Types of Faults

Where the crust is being pulled apart, normal faulting occurs, in which the overlying (hanging-wall) block moves down with respect to the lower (foot wall) block. Where the crust is being compressed, reverse faulting occurs, in which the hanging-wall block moves up and over the footwall block reverse slip on a gently inclined plane is referred to as thrust faulting.

Types of Faults

Crustal blocks may also move sideways past each other, usually along nearly-vertical faults. This strike-slip movement is described as sinistral when the far side moves to the left, and dextral, when the far side moves to the right. An oblique slip involves various combinations of these basic movements, as in the 1855 Wairarapa Fault rupture, which included both reverse and dextral movement.

Faults

Faults can be as short as a few metres and as long as 1000km. The fault rupture from an earthquake isnt always a straight or continuous line. Sometimes there can be short offsets between parts of the fault, and even major faults can have large bends in them.

Types of Faults

Elastic Rebound Theory

After the devastating 1906 San Francisco, California earthquake, a fault trace was discovered that could be followed along the ground in a more or less straight line for 270 miles. It was found that the earth on one side of the fault had slipped compared to the earth on the other side of the fault up to 21 feet.

Elastic Rebound Theory

It was concluded by Prof. H. F. Reid, this earthquakes must have involved an elastic rebound of previously stored elastic stress.

The gradual accumulation and release of stress and strain is referred as elastic rebound theory of earthquakes.

Elastic Rebound theory

Suppose continuously increasing shear force are acting on two blocks of an unstrained existing fault. [fig a] Further assume that these stresses are trying to move the western block northward and the eastern block southward. Because of friction, there is no movement initially but the blocks are distorted so that lines originally straight across the fault have become oblique. [fig b]

Elastic Rebound Theory

The weakest part of the fault sleeps suddenly when the strain becomes more than what the fault can support. The rupture from the weakest part extends rapidly along the fault plane, allowing the blocks on either side of it to jerk in to a less strained condition. The half arrows besides the fault in fig c, show the extent of this sudden displacement, called the elastic rebound. The accumulated energy in the strained volume of the rock is suddenly released in the form of seismic waves and a part is converted in to heat or other forms.

Seismic Waves

Body waves: Travel through the earth in all directions and to all depths. Surface waves: Whose propagation is limited to a volume of the rock within a few seismic wavelengths of the earths surface.

Body Waves

Compressional Waves(P): These are similar to sound waves. The mass particle motion of a P wave is in the direction of the propagation of the wave. These waves cause a momentary volume change in the material through which they pass, but no momentary shape change occurs in the material.

Body Waves

Shear waves(S): These waves move in a direction perpendicular to the direction of particle motion. They are also called secondary waves and travel more slowly than P waves. They do not change the instantaneous volume of the materials through which they pass, but as they pass through materials, they distort the instantaneous shape of those materials. The velocity of S waves is directly related to the shear strength of the materials. They do not propogate through fluids.

Surface Waves

A disturbance at the free surface of a medium propagates away from its source partly as seismic surface waves. They are also known as L waves. L waves are subdivided in to two types depending upon the motion of the particles, as Rayleigh Waves(Lr) and Love waves(Lq)

Surface waves

Lord Rayleigh described the propagation of Rayleigh waves along the free surface of semi infinite elastic half space. In the homogeneous half space, vertical and horizontal components of particle motion are 90 degrees out of phase in such a way that as the wave propagates, the particle motion describes a retrograde ellipse in the vertical plane, with its major axis vertical and minor axis in the direction of wave propagation. The resulting particle motion can be regarded as combination of P- and SV- vibrations.

Surface waves

Love waves: A.E.H. Love explained the mechanism of generation of love waves in horizontal soil layer overlying the half space. When the angle of reflection at the base of soil layer is more than critical angle, SH- waves trapped in the soil layer.

Compressional Wave (P-Wave) Animation

Deformation propagates. Particle motion consists of alternating compression and dilation. Particle motion is parallel to the direction of propagation (longitudinal). Material returns to its original shape after wave passes.

Shear Wave (S-Wave) Animation

Deformation propagates. Particle motion consists of alternating transverse motion. Particle motion is perpendicular to the direction of propagation (transverse). Transverse particle motion shown here is vertical but can be in any direction. However, Earths layers tend to cause mostly vertical (SV; in the vertical plane) or horizontal (SH) shear motions. Material returns to its original shape after wave passes.

Rayleigh Wave (R-Wave) Animation

Deformation propagates. Particle motion consists of elliptical motions (generally retrograde elliptical) in the vertical plane and parallel to the direction of propagation. Amplitude decreases with depth. Material returns to its original shape after wave passes.

Love Wave (L-Wave) Animation

Deformation propagates. Particle motion consists of alternating transverse motions. Particle motion is horizontal and perpendicular to the direction of propagation (transverse). To aid in seeing that the particle motion is purely horizontal, focus on the Y axis (red line) as the wave propagates through it. Amplitude decreases with depth. Material returns to its original shape after wave passes.

Characteristics of Seismic Waves

Table 2: Seismic Waves Type (and names) P,Compressional , Primary, Longitudinal Particle Motion Alternating compressions (pushes) and dilations (pulls) which are directed in the same direction as the wave is propagating (along the raypath); and therefore, perpendicular to the wavefront Alternating transverse motions (perpendicular to the direction of propagation, and the raypath); commonly polarized such that particle motion is in vertical or horizontal planes Typical Velocity VP ~ 5 7 km/s in typical Earths crust; >~ 8 km/s in Earths mantle and core; 1.5 km/s in water; 0.3 km/s in air Other Characteristics P motion travels fastest in materials, so the P-wave is the first-arriving energy on a seismogram. Generally smaller and higher frequency than the S and Surface-waves. P waves in a liquid or gas are pressure waves, including sound waves.

S, Shear, Secondary, Transverse

VS ~ 3 4 km/s in typical Earths crust; >~ 4.5 km/s in Earths mantle; ~ 2.5-3.0 km/s in (solid) inner core

S-waves do not travel through fluids, so do not exist in Earths outer core (inferred to be primarily liquid iron) or in air or water or molten rock (magma). S waves travel slower than P waves in a solid and, therefore, arrive after the P wave.

Characteristics of Seismic Waves

L, Love, Surface waves, Long waves Transverse horizontal motion, perpendicular to the direction of propagation and generally parallel to the Earths surface VL ~ 2.0 - 4.5 km/s in the Earth depending on frequency of the propagating wave Love waves exist because of the Earths surface. They are largest at the surface and decrease in amplitude with depth. Love waves are dispersive, that is, the wave velocity is dependent on frequency, with low frequencies normally propagating at higher velocity. Depth of penetration of the Love waves is also dependent on frequency, with lower frequencies penetrating to greater depth. Rayleigh waves are also dispersive and the amplitudes generally decrease with depth in the Earth. Appearance and particle motion are similar to water waves.

R, Rayleigh, Surface waves, Long waves, Ground roll

Motion is both in the direction of propagation and perpendicular (in a vertical plane), and phased so that the motion is generally elliptical either prograde or retrograde

VR ~ 2.0 - 4.5 km/s in the Earth depending on frequency of the propagating wave

You can download the animations separately to run more efficiently: (http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/waves/WaveDemo.htm). A complete PowerPoint presentation on the Seismic wave animations is also available at: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/waves/WaveDemo.ppt

Demonstrate the AmaSeis software for displaying and analyzing seismograms; software available at:
http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~ajones/
A tutorial on AmaSeis and links to seismograms that can be downloaded and viewed in AmaSeis available at:
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/as1lessons/UsingAmaSeis/UsingAmaSeis.htm

The IRIS Seismographs in Schools program: http://www.iris.edu/hq/sis

Animation of Eq waves

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/wav es/WaveDemo.htm

Intensity and Magnitude of Earthquake

Intensity: Definition MSK scale Mercalli scale

Magnitude of Earthquake

Earthquake magnitude is a measure of the amount of energy released during an earthquake. Depending on the size, nature and location of an earthquake, seismologists use different methods to estimate magnitude. Since magnitude is the representative of the earthquake itself, thus there is only one magnitude per earthquake.

Richter Magnitude

Richter collected the recordings of seismic waves from a large number of earthquakes and constructed a diagram of peak ground motion versus distance. Seismic waves are the vibrations from earthquakes that travel through the Earth; they are recorded on instruments called seismographs. Seismographs record a zig-zag trace that shows the varying amplitude of ground oscillations beneath the instrument. Sensitive seismographs, which greatly magnify these ground motions, can detect strong earthquakes from sources anywhere in the world. The time, locations, and magnitude of an earthquake can be determined from the data recorded by seismograph stations.

Richter Scale

The Richter magnitudes are based on a logarithmic scale (base 10). What this means is that for each whole number you go up on the Richter scale, the amplitude of the ground motion recorded by a seismograph goes up ten times. Using this scale, a magnitude 5 earthquake would result in ten times the level of ground shaking as a magnitude 4 earthquake. To give you an idea how these numbers can add up, think of it in terms of the energy released by explosives: a magnitude 1 seismic wave releases as much energy as blowing up 6 ounces of TNT. A magnitude 8 earthquake releases as much energy as detonating 6 million tons of TNT. Pretty impressive, huh? Fortunately, most of the earthquakes that occur each year are magnitude 2.5 or less, too small to be felt by most people.

Richter Scale

Richter Scale
Richter suggested zero magnitude for an earthquake that would produce a record with amplitude of 1.0 micro m at a distance of 100 Km from the epicenter on WA seismograph with 1.25 Hz natural frequency and 2800 magnification factor The logarithmic form of Richter scale is ML : log10A - log10Ao Where Ao is the amplitude for zero magnitude earthquakes at a different epicentral distances and A is the recorded amplitude in micro m.

Seismotectonics of India

To be continued