Robust inversion analysis of local gravity anomalies caused by geological dislocation model of faults

Theoretical analysis and practical observations show that fault dislocations can change the gravity field around the fault. Gravity changes which were caused by the repeated dislocations over a long period of time were superimposed on the Bougeur gravity anomalies. These anomalies became the evidence of historical movement of fault as well as provide a way for the study of paleo earthquakes. This paper investigates inversion methods for the geological dislocation modeling of faults using the local Bouguer's gravity anomalies. To remove the effects of the irrelevant part of gravity anomalies to fault movements, we propose the robust nonlinear inversion method and set up the corresponding algorithm. Modeling examples indicate that the Marquardt's and Baye's least squares solutions depart from the true solution due to the attraction of gross errors in the data. The more seriously the data is contaminated, the more seriously the solutions are biased. In contrast, the proposed robust Marquardt's and Baye's inversion solutions can still maintain consistency with the solution without gross errors, even though 50 percent of the data is contaminated. This indicates that the proposed robust methods are effective. Using the proposed methods, we invert the geological dislocation models of the faults around the Erhai Lake in West Yunnan. The results show that the Northern Cangdong fault and the Erhai fault are normal dip slip faults with about 4 to 5 km dislocations; and that the Southern Cangdong fault has a less dip slip compared with the former two. A satisfactory fitting between the theoretical values of the inversion solution and the actual local gravity field is achievable.

Analysis of main shock of thrust fault earthquake by catastrophe theory

The relationship between work and energy increment of a thrust fault system with quasi-static deformation can be decomposed into two parts： volume strain energy and deviation stress energy. The relationship between work and energy increment of the deviation stress of a simplified thrust fault system is analyzed based on the catastrophe theory. The research indicates that the characteristics displayed by the fold catastrophe model can appropriately describe the condition of earthquake generation, the evolvement process of main shock of thrust fault earthquake, and some important aftershock proper- ties. The bigger the surrounding press of surrounding rock is, the bigger the maximum principal stress is, the smaller the incidences of the potential thrust fault surface are, and the smaller the ratio between the tangential stiffness of surrounding rock and the slope is, which is at the inflexion point on the softened zone of the fault shearing strength curve. Thus, when earthquake occurrs, the larger the elastic energy releasing amount of sur- rounding rock is, the bigger the earthquake magnitude is, the larger the half distance of fault dislocation is, and the larger the displacement amplitude of end face of surrounding rock is. Fracturing and expanding the fault rock body and releasing the volume strain energy of surrounding rock during the earthquake can enhance the foregoing effects to- gether.

Gravity changes and surface deformations due to faults with different geometry

Based on the formulae of the gravity changes and surface deformations raised by the dislocation of a point source,the gravity changes and deformations caused by the dislocations of fault with arbitrary geometry are computed by using numerical method. The results show that both of the dislocation and the geometry of the fault plane are the basic elements that determine the gravity and deformation effects. Gravity changes, vertical deformations and apparent vertical deformations induced by the dislocation are alike in their characteristic patterns. The similarities and differences of these patterns provide us a probability in acquiring the gravity and deformation anomalies due to faulting from the observed data. Thus the geometric and kinematic features of the earthquake-generating faults can be appropriately distinguished and evaluated.

Finite element simulation for elastic dislocation of the North-Tehran fault:The effects of geologic layering and slip distribution for the segment located in Karaj

The present study uses the finite element method for simulating the crustal deformation due to the dislocation of a segment of the North-Tehran fault located in the Karaj metropolis region.In this regard,a geological map of Karaj that includes the fault segment is utilized in order to create the geometry of finite element model.First,finite element analysis of homogeneous counterpart of the fault’s domain with two different sections was performed,and the results were compared to those of Okada’s analytical solutions.The fault was modeled with the existing heterogeneity of the domain having been considered.The influences of both uniform and non-uniform slip distributions were investigated.Furthermore,three levels of simplification for geometric creation of geological layers’boundaries were defined in order to evaluate the effects of the geometric complexity of the geological layering on the displacement responses obtained with the finite element simulations.In addition to the assessment of slip distribution,layering complexity and heterogeneity,the results demonstrate both the capability and usefulness of the proposed models in the dislocation analysis for the Karaj segment of North-Tehran fault.

Simulation of surface displacement and strain field of the 2011 Japan Mw9. 0 earthquake

Based on dislocation theory of 0kada, we adopted a finite-element fault model inverted by Gavin Hayes from seismic data for the 2011 Japan Mw9.0 earthquake, and obtained the corresponding surface displacement and strain fields. The calculated displacement field is consistent with the observed GPS results in the trend of changes. Also the surface displacement and strain fields both show large variations in space.

Characteristics of tectonic deformation field about strike－slip earthquake－generating structure in the Chinese mainland

This paper is the second one of the serial papers about the study on strike slip earthquake-generating structure in the interior of the Chinese mainland. In the first part of the paper,the deformation field model of strike slip earthquake-generating structure is elucidated.It puts forward that a strike slip fault is not dominated by horizontal displacement everywhere along the whole belt,its deformation characteristics is different from section to section, only the central main body shows strike slip feature,the two ends take vertical deformation as the major feature.In the second part,through the discussion of deformation field characteristics about strike slip earthquake-generating fault for several clearly investigated large earthquakes with M≥7.0 that occurred recently in the Chinese mainland, it is further confirmed that although each of these earthquakes possesses its own complicated features,they also share the common feature that the earthquake-generating faults have the deformation field characteristics similar to those of the above-mentioned strike slip earthquake-generating structure.

Effective Stacking Fault Energy in Face-Centered Cubic Metals

As a typical configuration in plastic deformations, dislocation arrays possess a large variation of the separation of the partial dislocation pairs in face-centered cubic（fcc） metals. This can be manifested conveniently by an effective stacking fault energy（SFE）. The effective SFE of dislocation arrays is described within the elastic theory of dislocations and verified by atomistic simulations. The atomistic modeling results reveal that the general formulae of the effective SFE can give a reasonably satisfactory prediction for all dislocation types, especially for edge dislocation arrays. Furthermore, the predicted variation of the effective SFE is consistent with several previous experiments, in which the measured SFE is not definite, changing with dislocation density. Our approach could provide better understandings of cross-slip and the competition between slip and twinning during plastic deformations in fcc metals.