Earthquake Seismology: Fundamentals

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• Earthquakes
• What, Where and How?
• Global Seismic Network
• Types of Plate Boundaries
  • Sea Floor Spreading
  • Mid Atlantic Ridge
  • Internal Heat Engine
  • Plates Geometry
  • Measuring Plate Motions
  • Velocities through Arabian Plate
• Microearthquakes in Western Arabia
• Crustal Earthquakes in NW Arabia
• 2002 Earthquake, Mw=5.0, UAE
• Fault Growth
• Elastic Rebound
• Location of Earthquake
  • Exercise1 on Earthquake Location
  • Exercise2 on Epicenter Location/Magnitude

• Richter's Local Magnitude
• Earthquake Magnitudes
• Magnitude Saturation
• What causes saturation?
• Are Mb and Ms still useful?
• What is the better estimate of M?
• Moment magnitude
• Strength of Earthquake
• Magnitude-Energy Correlation

• Magnitude
  • Exercise on Earthquake Magnitude
• How to compute the energy released due to an earthquake
• Earthquake Damage
• Magnitude-Intensity

• Mercalli Scale of Earthquake Intensity

• Data Acquisition for Earthquake

  • Example: Palm Spring Earthquake, M5.6, July 8, 1986

• Relationship between Intensity and Distance
• Animated Example of Intensity: Hayward Fault
• Damage Scenario
  • Earthquake Planning Scenario: Example for Verdugo Fault

• Fault Geometry
• Typing of Faults
• Focal Mechanism
• First Motions: P-wave
• Faults Initial Ground Motions and Z-component seismograms for P-waves
• Initial P-wave Radiation Pattern
• Actual/Auxiliary Fault Interpretation
  • Case Work: Fault interpretation

• Elements: Focal Mechanism or Beachball
• First Motions and Azimuth
• Stresses Driven Faulting  
• Radiation Patterns: Strike-Slip Fault and Dip-Slip Fault
• Cross-sections of Dip-Slip Faulting and Beach Ball
• Ambiguity: Strike (shear fault) and dipping plane (Dip-slip faulting)
• Contribution of Focal Mechanism to World-Stress Map

• Beach Ball Representation of Typical Faults
  • Example 1: Plotting Planes of Strike and Dipping
  • Example 2: Plotting Station Locations
• Fault Interpretation based on Beach Ball
  • Practice 1: Basic Interpretation for Reverse Oblique
  • Practice 2: Understanding Dipping Plane and Strike
• Mapping the Fault Mechanism
  • Interactive Mapping Tool of Cornell University
  • Interactive Mapping and Data Analysis

• What is the Focal Sphere and how it is projected?
• Fault-Plane Solution derived Cross sections of Dip-Slip Faults
  • Learn how to select Regional data of focal mechanism
  • What is CMT?
  • Global Seismotectonic zones and their relation to earthquake depths seismicity patterns through the Continental Margins
  • Seismicity through the plates of convergent and divergent
    • Example: Mid-Ocean Ridge System  and Transform Plate Boundary  
  • Seismicity through the trunscurrent fault
  • Seismicity through the Transform fault
  • Recommended Site for Fault Plane Solutions
• Compiling Data: Example from 2004 Sumatra Earthquake
• What types of Earthquake Software for solutions of Focal Mechanisms? FOCMEC Teleseismic Body-Wave Inversion What are the sources of Seismic Data?
• Downloading Seismological Data: Example from IRISH Channel Problem in Defining Fault Strike