A validated geomechanical model for the strike-slip restraining bend in Lebanon

Most of the methodologies used to validate complex strike-slip structures mainly rely on comparison with other well-known geological features or analogue laboratory models. This study adopts an approach based on the boundary element method at the regional scale to test the structural interpretation of a complex transpressional mountain range. Lebanon restraining bend represents the most prominent topographic transpressional feature along the Dead Sea Transform (DST). It consists of two mountain ranges: the Mount Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon ranges. We built a 3D geometrical model of the fault surfaces based on previously studied natural examples, structural maps, satellite images, DEM interpretation and experimental analogue models of restraining bend or transpressional structures. Using a boundary element method, we modelled fault deformation response to the regional stress field. The simulation accurately predicts the shape and magnitude of positive and negative topographic changes and fault slip directions throughout the study area. We propose an original approach, which uses implementation of well-known fault geometries, surface and subsurface data, for structural validation in the complex strike-slip domain. Our results, validated by structural evidences, highlight that various structural styles lead to formation of Mt. Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon and Palmyrides structures. Furthermore, this simulation supports the hypothesis that the restraining bend of the DST formed in the widespread crustal weakness zone developed in the Late Jurassic to Early Createceous. We also propose recent Neogene tectonic evolution of the region based on our modelling and integrated with published U/Pb dating of fault zones and tectonostratigraphic evidence.

Great Himalayan earthquakes and the Tibetan plateau

It has been assumed that Himalayan earthquakes are driven by the release of compressional strain accumulating close to the Greater Himalaya. However, elastic models of the Indo-Asian collision using recently imaged subsurface interface geometries suggest that a substantial fraction of the southernmost 500 kilometres of the Tibetan plateau participates in driving great ruptures. We show here that this Tibetan reservoir of elastic strain energy is drained in proportion to Himalayan rupture length, and that the consequent growth of slip and magnitude with rupture area, when compared to data from recent earthquakes, can be used to infer a approximately 500-year renewal time for these events. The elastic models also illuminate two puzzling features of plate boundary seismicity: how great earthquakes can re-rupture regions that have already ruptured in recent smaller earthquakes and how mega-earthquakes with greater than 20 metres slip may occur at millennia-long intervals, driven by residual strain following many centuries of smaller earthquakes.

Measuring the onset of locking in the Peru-Chile trench with GPS and acoustic measurements

The subduction zone off the west coast of South America marks the convergence of the oceanic Nazca plate and the continental South America plate. Nazca-South America convergence over the past 23 million years has created the 6-km-deep Peru-Chile trench, 150 km offshore. High pressure between the plates creates a locked zone, leading to deformation of the overriding plate. The surface area of this locked zone is thought to control the magnitude of co-seismic release and is limited by pressure, temperature, sediment type and fluid content. Here we present seafloor deformation data from the submerged South America plate obtained from a combination of Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers and acoustic transponders. We estimate that the measured horizontal surface motion perpendicular to the trench is consistent with a model having no slip along the thrust fault between 2 and 40 km depth. A tsunami in 1996, 200 km north of our site, was interpreted as being the result of an anomalously shallow interplate earthquake. Seismic coupling at shallow depths, such as we observe, may explain why co-seismic events in the Peruvian subduction zone create large tsunamis.

Analysing the 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquakes with recent instrumentally recorded aftershocks

Although dynamic stress changes associated with the passage of seismic waves are thought to trigger earthquakes at great distances, more than 60 per cent of all aftershocks appear to be triggered by static stress changes within two rupture lengths of a mainshock. The observed distribution of aftershocks may thus be used to infer details of mainshock rupture geometry. Aftershocks following large mid-continental earthquakes, where background stressing rates are low, are known to persist for centuries, and models based on rate-and-state friction laws provide theoretical support for this inference. Most past studies of the New Madrid earthquake sequence have indeed assumed ongoing microseismicity to be a continuing aftershock sequence. Here we use instrumentally recorded aftershock locations and models of elastic stress change to develop a kinematically consistent rupture scenario for three of the four largest earthquakes of the 1811-1812 New Madrid sequence. Our results suggest that these three events occurred on two contiguous faults, producing lobes of increased stress near fault intersections and end points, in areas where present-day microearthquakes have been hitherto interpreted as evidence of primary mainshock rupture. We infer that the remaining New Madrid mainshock may have occurred more than 200 km north of this region in the Wabash Valley of southern Indiana and Illinois--an area that contains abundant modern microseismicity, and where substantial liquefaction was documented by historic accounts. Our results suggest that future large mid-plate earthquake sequences may extend over a much broader region than previously suspected.

Plateau 'pop-up' in the great 1897 Assam earthquake

The great Assam earthquake of 12 June 1897 reduced to rubble all masonry buildings within a region of northeastern India roughly the size of England, and was felt over an area exceeding that of the great 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Hitherto it was believed that rupture occurred on a north-dipping Himalayan thrust fault propagating south of Bhutan. But here we show that the northern edge of the Shillong plateau rose violently by at least 11 m during the Assam earthquake, and that this was due to the rupture of a buried reverse fault approximately 110 km in length and dipping steeply away from the Himalaya. The stress drop implied by the rupture geometry and the prodigious fault slip of 18 +/- 7 m explains epicentral accelerations observed to exceed 1g vertically and surface velocities exceeding 3 m s-1 (ref. 1). This quantitative observation of active deformation of a 'pop-up' structure confirms that faults bounding such structures can penetrate the whole crust. Plateau uplift in the past 2-5 million years has caused the Indian plate to contract locally by 4 +/- 2 mm yr-1, reducing seismic risk in Bhutan but increasing the risk in northern Bangladesh.

Space geodetic observations of nazca-south america convergence across the central andes

Space geodetic data recorded rates and directions of motion across the convergent boundary zone between the oceanic Nazca and continental South American plates in Peru and Bolivia. Roughly half of the overall convergence, about 30 to 40 millimeters per year, accumulated on the locked plate interface and can be released in future earthquakes. About 10 to 15 millimeters per year of crustal shortening occurred inland at the sub-Andean foreland fold and thrust belt, indicating that the Andes are continuing to build. Little (5 to 10 millimeters per year) along-trench motion of coastal forearc slivers was observed, despite the oblique convergence.

Stream Networks and Long-Term Surface Uplift in the New Madrid Seismic Zone

Stream networks are sensitive to low rates of surface uplift and can be used to decipher the history of large earthquakes even where faults do not rupture the surface, as in intraplate seismic zones. Statistical analysis of alluvial network data from topographic maps in the New Madrid seismic zone, in the central United States, shows that stream-segment gradients deviate the most from an estimated natural stream profile where surface uplift is greatest. Evidence of cumulative deformation distilled from stream network patterns represents at least several meters of differential surface uplift during Holocene time, which suggests that more than one cycle of surface deformation occurred.