Research Development and Perspective on Slow Slip, Tremors, and Slow Earthquakes

Seismological and geodetic observations indicate that slow slip sometimes occurs in active fault zones beneath the seismogenic depth, and large slow slip can result in transient ground motion. Slow earthquakes, on the other hand, emit tremor-like signals within a narrow frequency band, and usually produce no catastrophic consequences. In general, slow slip and slow earthquakes probably correspond to deformation processes associated with releasing elastic energy in fault zones, and understanding their mechanisms may help improve our understanding of fault zone dynamic processes. This article reviews the research progress on slow slip and slow earthquakes over the last decade. Crustal motion and tremor activities associated with slow slip and slow earthquakes have been investigated extensively, mainly involving locating sources of slow slip and slow earthquakes and numerical modeling of their processes. In the meantime, debates have continued about slow slip and slow earthquakes, such as their origins, relationship, and mechanisms.

A review of tidal triggering of global earthquakes

Earthquake prediction remains a challenging and difficult task for scientists all over the world.The tidal triggering of earthquakes is being proven by an increasing number of investigations,most of which have shown that earthquakes are positively correlated with tides,and thus,tides provide a potential tool for earthquake prediction,especially for imminent earthquakes.In this study,publications concerning the tidal triggering of earthquakes were compiled and analyzed with regard to global earthquakes,which were classified into three main types:tectonic,volcanic,and slow earthquakes.The results reveal a high correlation between tectonic earthquakes and tides(mainly for semidiurnal and diurnal tides;14-day tides) before and after the occurrence of significant earthquakes.For volcanic earthquakes,observations of volcanoes on the seafloor and land indicate that volcanic earthquakes in near-shore volcanic areas and mid-ocean ridges have a strong correlation with tidal forces,mostly those with semidiurnal and diurnal periods.For slow earthquakes,the periodicity of the tremor duration is highly correlated with semidiurnal and diurnal tides.In conclusion,the tidal triggering of these three types of earthquakes makes a positive contribution to earthquake preparation and understanding the triggering mechanism,and thus,the prediction of these types of earthquakes should be investigated.However,there are still several inadequacies on this topic that need to be resolved to gain a definitiveanswer regarding the tidal triggering of all earthquakes.The main inadequacies are discussed in this paper from our point of view.

Abnormal Phenomena of Volume Strain before Large Earthquakes

This paper studies the imminent anomalies observed by the Sacks volume strainmeter in Erzhangying station and Tiantanghe station before 80 earthquakes with Ms≥ 7. 0 which took place from January 2011 to April 2014 all over the world. Then, preconditions for anomaly identification are put forward for complex earthquake cases. Statistical results show that volume strain observation has a better earthquake reflecting ability for earthquakes with magnitudes larger than 7. 0 and epicentral distance within 8000kin. In addition, these results also reflect that the volume strain observation can better reflect precursory anomalies of such earthquakes. Based on categorization and description of those anomalies, we divide the anomalies into three types, that is, earth tide distortion type, abrupt change type and slow earthquake type. Furthermore, the paper makes a statistical analysis of these types and preliminarily discusses their mechanical properties as well. According to research, volume strain anomaly has an indicative significance to future strong earthquakes in the world.

Analysis of Sacks Body Strain Interference at Beida No.200 Station in Changping and Earthquake Case Study

The relationship between Sacks body strain deformation at Beida No. 200 station in Changping and tidal solids,atmospheric pressure and water level is analyzed in this paper. Sacks body strain deformation data before the M_S8. 0 Wenchuan earthquake is studied based on the analysis of the interference. The short-impending anomaly of the body strain deformation is considered to be reliable. The anomaly characteristics conclude:( 1) The trend anomaly as extensional change of the body strain deformations on a quasi 1 year time scale before the Wenchuan earthquake was recorded, and the accumulative amount was about 4000 × 10^(-9). Correspondingly,the short-term precursor of earthquake was manifested as an extensional abrupt change.( 2) The extensional intermittent anomalous abrupt change was recorded by body strainmeters between March1 and May 7 in 2008.( 3) Four compressional abrupt changes were recorded in the intermittent distortions recorded between April 13 and May 11.( 4) High frequency components were increased in the distortion process in May 1 to 3,5,7,and 9 to 12,caused by slow earthquakes before the Wenchuan earthquake according to wavelet analysis. The abnormal phenomena are summarized and the mechanics discussed in this paper. Strain solid tide distortions in body strain observations,the continuous repeated extensional and compressional abrupt changes accompanying these distortions,and the increase of high frequency components can be regarded as the index of short term and impending earthquake prediction,based on analysis of interference factors such as air pressure and water level.

A combination of tides and nontidal variations in ocean bottom pressure may generate interannual slip fluctuations in the transition zone along a subduction plate interface

The tidal triggering of earthquakes has been studied for many years.The discovery of slow earthquakes in the early 2000s,including slow slip,has urged scientists to investigate the tidal responses of these earthquakes due to their sensitivity to weak stress perturbations.Previous studies have shown that slow earthquakes correlate with diurnal and semidiurnal tides and seasonal variations in surface loads more clearly than ordinary earthquakes.However,little is known about long-term responses to external stresses.In this paper,based on a widely accepted frictional law for faults,a mechanism is proposed by which nontidal variations in ocean bottom pressure,when combined with tides,pro mote the occurrence of slow earthquakes.Because slow earthquakes accompany a slip on the plate interface,this mechanism allows one to estimate slip modulations.A one-degree-of-freedom slip model is constructed and applied to Ise Bay in the Tonankai region of southwestern Japan,where large-scale ocean mass redistributions have occurred.The model calculated with parameters determined from the observation of tectonic tremors is quantitatively consistent with the slip during 1997-2013 inferred from GNSS data,suggesting that the decrease in the sea-level change in approximately 2006 could cause the accele ration of a slip observed after that.This result implies that the decreases in sea level in approximately 1996 and 2014 could also cause subsequent slip accelerations.These three slip acceleration periods temporally coincide with the increases in background seismicity in a shallower portion of the plate interface.These changes in seismicity are common to shallow earthquakes in the Tokai area,and a similar model can reproduce them.Further studies are expected to reveal causality between shallow earthquakes and long-term slip fluctuations based on modeling that considers changes in the frictional property along the plate interface.

An Algorithm for Detecting Low-frequency Seismic Events and Preliminary Applications

An algorithm for detecting low-frequency seismic events is developed and applied to the detection of low-frequency events before the 2008 Wenchuan and the 2013 Lushan earthquakes. Continuous vertical-component waveforms of some broadband stations in the few months before the Wenchuan and Lushan earthquakes are processed by applying a bandpass filter in 2- 8Hz,and then converted to envelopes with a smoothing time of 10 s window and a median filter with a 20 min window. As a result,teleseismic,long-period noise and local small earthquakes are removed,the filtered amplitude is obviously larger than that of the noise and lasts for a dozen minutes to several hours during a few days in a few stations before the Wenchuan and Lushan earthquakes,respectively. The waveform and envelope are similar to that of a non-volcanic tremor( NVT). There are suspected NVT before the two earthquakes. Preliminary application demonstrates that this algorithm is potentially useful for extracting NVT signals from continuous seismic waveforms.