Earthquake energy budget and coseismic fault temperature from seismological observations
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: Earth Sciences
Abstract
How do earthquakes happen? Understanding the nature of earthquakes is a key fundamental question in Geociences that holds many implications for society. Earthquakes are typically associated with a sudden release of energy that has slowly accumulated over hundreds to thousands of years, being strongly controlled by friction in faults buried several kilometers beneath our feet under quite extreme conditions. For example, the amount of heat produced in just a few seconds is such that it can dramatically change the nature of the fault zone near the sliding surface. Moreover, there is abundant evidence of substantial frictional weakening of faults (i.e., fault strength weakens with increasing slip or slip rate) during earthquakes. However, there are still many open questions related to earthquake source processes: How similar are earthquakes in different temperature-pressure conditions? What is the earthquake's energy budget, which controls the intensity of ground motions? What are the physical mechanisms responsible for fault weakening? Recent progress in seismological imaging methods, theoretical fracture mechanics and rupture dynamics simulations can help solve these questions. Huge volumes of freely available seismic and geodetic data from around the world now allow the routine calculation of earthquake models where earthquakes are typically described as single space-time points. Time is now ripe for systematically building robust, more detailed seismic models bearing information on earthquake's physics by using recently developed sophisticated modelling tools along with high-quality images of the 3-D Earth's interior structure enabled by high performance computing facilities. Moreover, it is now possible to model ruptures theoretically in detail using both analytical fracture mechanics calculations and numerical rupture dynamics simulations, and, for example, estimate the fault temperature during the rupture process, which is the most direct way to quantify friction. However, systematic quantitative links between these calculations and seismological observations are still lacking. This project addresses these issues through a coordinated effort involving seismology and rock mechanics aiming at estimating fault temperature rise during earthquakes from new macroscopic seismic source models. We will use advanced seismic source imaging methods to build a new set of robust kinematic, static and dynamic earthquake source parameters for a large selected set of global earthquakes (e.g., average fault length, width, rupture speed and time history, stress drop, radiated and fracture energy). These solutions will then be used as input parameters to estimate fault temperature using analytical and numerical rupture dynamics calculations. This will lead to an improved understanding of how local fault processes occurring at scales from few microns to tens of centimetres translate into macroscopic seismological properties, how energy is partitioned during earthquakes and which are the mechanisms responsible for fault weakening. Ultimately this project will shed new light on many basic questions in earthquake science such as the similarity of earthquakes in different P-T conditions and the potential geological record left by ruptures (e.g., melt). More broadly, this project will benefit hazard models and any studies relying on accurate earthquake source parameters such as studies in seismic tomography, active tectonics and microseismicity (e.g., associated with hydraulic fracturing).
Planned Impact
The goal of this project is to substantially advance our fundamental understanding of how faults slip during global large magnitude earthquakes. New source models based on seismic and geodetic data will be constructed, which will be used together with rupture dynamics calculations to better constrain earthquake physics. Given the fundamental nature of this project, the main non-academic beneficiaries of this project will be:
(1) In the short-term: school children, teachers and the wider public. Earthquakes offer great potential to spark the interest of these users in Geosciences (and, more generally, in STEM subjects) and thus contribute to the UK's skillbase, notably in geophysics, an area with high industry demand and listed in the Home Office shortage occupation list (the high-level training of a PDRA in Geophysics within the project will also contribute to this).
(2) In the long-term: government agencies and private companies responsible for earthquake monitoring and for seismic hazard and risk assessment, as a key element for assessing seismic hazard is to accurately predict ground motions, which requires a good understanding of earthquake physics (see letter of support from our impact partner USGS). Moreover, the geophysics industry working on microseismicity may also benefit from this project as a clearer understanding of the relationships between macroscopic source parameters and the frictional behaviour of faults is useful for improved seismicity monitoring efforts in shale gas extraction, geological carbon dioxide sequestration, etc (see letter of support from our impact partner Pinnacle). Although this project will principally investigate global large-magnitude earthquakes, much of the learning achieved might be useful for smaller event regional studies.
A-level students and teachers will benefit from this project through the co-production of new learning materials, a short animated educational movie on the earthquake source processes investigated in the project, as well as from other activities (e.g., visits to UCL, notably to the rock mechanics laboratory, and focus group discussions). Beyond subject knowledge, they will also benefit by engaging with the scientific process, understanding how new data are gathered and interpreted, and how new ideas are proposed. More generally, the wider public will benefit from the project's participation in high-visibility popular science exhibits and shows, science cafes and debates.
Government agencies and private sector geophysics companies working on seismic hazard/risk and microseismicity will benefit from this project by actively following the project's development (see letters of support from our impact partners) and by participating in a final project workshop where the main scientific results will be presented and discussed, and where a reflection on the project's long-term impact for specific users will be undertaken. The conclusions of the workshop will be published in a journal accessible to the wide academic and non-academic community, such as the RAS journal 'Astronomy and Geophysics', the AGU Eos newspaper and/or journals of geophysics societies with wide visibility in industry (e.g., Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) - The Leading Edge (TLE) or European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE) - First Break (FB)).
(1) In the short-term: school children, teachers and the wider public. Earthquakes offer great potential to spark the interest of these users in Geosciences (and, more generally, in STEM subjects) and thus contribute to the UK's skillbase, notably in geophysics, an area with high industry demand and listed in the Home Office shortage occupation list (the high-level training of a PDRA in Geophysics within the project will also contribute to this).
(2) In the long-term: government agencies and private companies responsible for earthquake monitoring and for seismic hazard and risk assessment, as a key element for assessing seismic hazard is to accurately predict ground motions, which requires a good understanding of earthquake physics (see letter of support from our impact partner USGS). Moreover, the geophysics industry working on microseismicity may also benefit from this project as a clearer understanding of the relationships between macroscopic source parameters and the frictional behaviour of faults is useful for improved seismicity monitoring efforts in shale gas extraction, geological carbon dioxide sequestration, etc (see letter of support from our impact partner Pinnacle). Although this project will principally investigate global large-magnitude earthquakes, much of the learning achieved might be useful for smaller event regional studies.
A-level students and teachers will benefit from this project through the co-production of new learning materials, a short animated educational movie on the earthquake source processes investigated in the project, as well as from other activities (e.g., visits to UCL, notably to the rock mechanics laboratory, and focus group discussions). Beyond subject knowledge, they will also benefit by engaging with the scientific process, understanding how new data are gathered and interpreted, and how new ideas are proposed. More generally, the wider public will benefit from the project's participation in high-visibility popular science exhibits and shows, science cafes and debates.
Government agencies and private sector geophysics companies working on seismic hazard/risk and microseismicity will benefit from this project by actively following the project's development (see letters of support from our impact partners) and by participating in a final project workshop where the main scientific results will be presented and discussed, and where a reflection on the project's long-term impact for specific users will be undertaken. The conclusions of the workshop will be published in a journal accessible to the wide academic and non-academic community, such as the RAS journal 'Astronomy and Geophysics', the AGU Eos newspaper and/or journals of geophysics societies with wide visibility in industry (e.g., Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) - The Leading Edge (TLE) or European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE) - First Break (FB)).
Organisations
- University College London (Lead Research Organisation)
- Paris Institute of Earth Physics (Collaboration)
- University of Chile (Collaboration)
- California Institute of Technology (Collaboration)
- University College London (Collaboration)
- University of California, Riverside (Collaboration)
- Royal Observatory of Belgium (Collaboration)
- Portuguese Institute of Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA) (Collaboration)
- Russian Academy of Sciences (Collaboration)
- University of La Rochelle (Collaboration)
- SWANSEA UNIVERSITY (Collaboration)
- California Institute of Technology (Project Partner)
- University of California, Riverside (Project Partner)
- Pinnacle - Halliburton (Project Partner)
- Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (Project Partner)
- United States Geological Survey (Project Partner)
Publications
Kendall E
(2021)
Constraints on the Upper Mantle Structure Beneath the Pacific From 3-D Anisotropic Waveform Modeling
in Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth
Attanayake J
(2017)
Crustal structure beneath Portugal from teleseismic Rayleigh Wave Ellipticity
in Tectonophysics
Berbellini A
(2017)
Crustal structure of northern Italy from the ellipticity of Rayleigh waves
in Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors
Berbellini A
(2020)
Crustal structure of the Azores Archipelago from Rayleigh wave ellipticity data
in Geophysical Journal International
Frietsch M
(2021)
Data-Driven Two-Fault Modeling of the Mw 6.0 2008 Wells, Nevada Earthquake Suggests a Listric Fault Rupture
in Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth
García-Pérez T
(2021)
Effects of topography and basins on seismic wave amplification: the Northern Chile coastal cliff and intramountainous basins
in Geophysical Journal International
Jones G
(2023)
Extraction and applications of Rayleigh wave ellipticity in polar regions
in Annals of Glaciology
Faccenda M
(2019)
Extrinsic Elastic Anisotropy in a Compositionally Heterogeneous Earth's Mantle.
in Journal of geophysical research. Solid earth
Chang S
(2017)
Improving Global Radial Anisotropy Tomography: The Importance of Simultaneously Inverting for Crustal and Mantle Structure
in Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America
Chang S
(2019)
Inference on Water Content in the Mantle Transition Zone Near Subducted Slabs From Anisotropy Tomography
in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems
Description | We have developed two new techniques to image earthquakes. We found that these are more robust than previous related techniques that relied on an iterative scheme that can be very prompt to errors; this work is now under review for publication. We have also studied thoroughly a sequence of earthquakes in the Azores archipelago (mid-Atlantic ridge) and could quantify the errors associated with them. In addition, we studied the impact of using only distant versus near field data. This is very important because mid-oceanic events are often only studied with distance data. Thus, our work is an excellent opportunity to study the impact of such approach on the solutions. This work has now been published (Frietsch et al., 2018). Moreover, we are currently now applying one of the techniques that we developed to a series of deep earthquakes, whose mechanism remain poorly understood. We hope to publish this work next year. Finally, we confirmed that understanding the Earth structure where earthquakes occurr is very important and thus, as a results of a changing landscape of the research programme, we have devised a new efficient method to determine local Earth structure using ambient noise (Berbellini et al., 2019). This will be useful to better characterise in a cheap, fast way the Earth structure around active earthquake areas (amongst other applications). Another by-product of this project has also been the characterisation of water content in the deep Earth, whereby we expanded some of the earthquake source analysis tools to this exciting, hot topic (Chang et al., 2019). |
Exploitation Route | In the future we will apply our technique to a large number of earthquakes. The retrieved parameters may be very useful for the wide Earth sciences community, such as geologists studying active tectonics, and, more generally, any researcher that needs earthquake source parameters for their research work. |
Sectors | Environment |
Description | The earthquake source models generated in this project (e.g., Frietsch et al., 2019) and, importantly, the crustal structure models of the Azores (Ferreira et al., 2020) are now being used routinely by IPMA - the Portuguese seismic monitoring agency to study seismicity in the Azores region, leading to much improved models, which in turn will enhance seismic hazard assessments in the region. |
Sector | Environment |
Impact Types | Policy & public services |
Description | ANR - French National Research Agency |
Geographic Reach | Europe |
Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
Impact | New attributed researched funding enhanced skills in geology and geophysics, which have strong industry demand. |
Description | ANR - French National Research Agency |
Geographic Reach | Europe |
Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
Description | Participation in a advisory committee - UK representative in the EU COST action TIDES (2017) |
Geographic Reach | Europe |
Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
Description | Participation in scientific advisory board of the UK's mineralogical society |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
Description | Participation in scientific advisory committee of GEOSCOPE, the French global seismic network |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
Impact | With GEOSCOPE's data being freely available, it is being used by national agencies for earthquake monitoring and forecasts, as well as for the training of highly skilled geophysicists. |
Description | Impact - UCL (PhD studentship) |
Amount | £65,467 (GBP) |
Organisation | University College London |
Sector | Academic/University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 09/2014 |
End | 09/2017 |
Description | Mechanics of dyke intrusion in oblique-slip tectonic settings: Unravelling the causes of the March 2022 rare seismic swarm in Sao Jorge Island, Azores |
Amount | £13,544 (GBP) |
Funding ID | NE/X006298/1 |
Organisation | Natural Environment Research Council |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 07/2022 |
End | 03/2023 |
Description | Upward man |
Amount | € 2,843,038 (EUR) |
Funding ID | 101001601 |
Organisation | European Research Council (ERC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | Belgium |
Start | 03/2021 |
End | 03/2026 |
Title | Ambient noise imaging of shallow Earth structure |
Description | We developed a new tool to image the shallow structure of the Earth and demonstrated its applicability to image ice and shallow crustal structure. Our publication on this tool is currently in revision and we are also currently preparing our software to distribute it openly to the scientific community. |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2017 |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | We are currently finalizing our tool and its distribution, so there have been no notable impacts yet. |
Title | New earthquake source imaging method |
Description | We have developed two new methods to constrain earthquake source models. |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | No impacts yet as the method has not been used in real data applications yet. |
Title | Codes for the quantitative analysis of global seismic tomography models |
Description | Varimax algorithms to perform quantitative statistical analyses of global seismic tomography models |
Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | No impacts yet. |
URL | https://gitlab.univ-lr.fr/odeviron/varimax/ |
Title | Codes to constrain seismic crustal structure using Rayleigh wave ellipticity data |
Description | A series of algorithms is now freely distributed to determine seismic crustal structure using Rayleigh wave ellipticity data |
Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | No impact yet. |
URL | http://github.com/berbellini/DOP-E |
Title | Database of local seismic amplification beneath N. America and S. Africa |
Description | We have built a database of local seismic amplification measurements beneath N. America and S. Africa. We are still finishing testing these new measurements, but preliminary tests look very positive. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | No impacts yet. |
Title | Database of seismic surface wave amplitudes |
Description | Massive dataset of surface wave amplitudes, which will be key to obtain improved models of attenuation in the Earth's mantle as proposed in this NERC project. We have organised the database into a user-friendly format and logged some issues identified (e.g., repeated ad inconsistent data). |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | We will present a poster at the fall AGU meeting in December 2014. Other than that, no other notable impacts have been achieved yet because the project has started recently and hence there hasn't been enough time to apply and model the data. |
Title | Model of upper mantle seismic structure beneath the Pacific ocean |
Description | New tomography images of the seismic structure beneath the Pacific ocean including both Vs isotropic structure and radial anisotropy. |
Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | This new seismic model brings new insights into the geodynamics and mineralogy of the upper mantle beneath the Pacific and hence is having an impact in various disciplines beyond seismology. |
URL | http://ds.iris.edu/ds/products/emc-spacific-rani/ |
Title | Seismic models of earthquakes in the Azores |
Description | Series of earthquake source models in the Azores region published by Frietsch et al., 2018 |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2018 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | We have influenced the way IPMA - the Portuguese seismic monitoring agency - analyses and monitors earthquakes in the Azores region. |
Description | Analysis of broadband seismic data for deep earthquakes in South America (Dr Sergio Ruiz, University of Chile) |
Organisation | University of Chile |
Country | Chile |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | My group is systematically analysing global earthquakes recorded in South America. |
Collaborator Contribution | Dr Ruiz is contributing with his extensive knowledge of seismicity in South America and experience analysing earthquakes in the region. |
Impact | No outputs yet. |
Start Year | 2020 |
Description | Analysis of seismic broadband data from Kamchatka in collaboration with Prof. Danila Chebrov |
Organisation | Russian Academy of Sciences |
Country | Russian Federation |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | We are analysing data provided by this collaborator recorded in Kamchatka, which is crucial to understand deep earthquakes in the region. |
Collaborator Contribution | They provided us broadband seismic data that are not freely available online, but which are crucial to better image and understand deep earthquakes due to the proximity of the seismic stations to deep earthquakes in the Kuril subduction zone. |
Impact | No outputs yet. |
Start Year | 2019 |
Description | Caltech - Prof. Hiroo Kanamori |
Organisation | California Institute of Technology |
Country | United States |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | This project is building new earthquake source models, which will be interpreted using earthquake physics, in collaboration with Prof. Hiroo Kanamori from Caltech. |
Collaborator Contribution | Prof. Kanamori will give crucial advice to the project based on his extensive knowledge and experience in earthquake physics. |
Impact | No outcomes yet, the work is in progress. |
Start Year | 2016 |
Description | IPGP Paris - Dr Martin Vallee |
Organisation | Paris Institute of Earth Physics |
Country | France |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | We are analysing together high-frequency source time functions. My group is providing accurate spatial constraints on the earthquake source. |
Collaborator Contribution | Dr Vallee is contributing with his automated algorithms to estimate source time functions using a deconvolution approach. |
Impact | No outputs yet, the project is ongoing. |
Start Year | 2016 |
Description | Sharing data and experience in earthquake source modelling with IPMA (Portuguese seismic monitoring agency) |
Organisation | Portuguese Institute of Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA) |
Country | Portugal |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | My team performed seismic source inversions for earthquakes in the Azores archipelago using IPMA's data. |
Collaborator Contribution | The IPMA team made their data available to us and hosted one of our PhD students as well as myself in their institute to understand how they collect, process and analyse their data. |
Impact | A joint publication has resulted from this collaboration: Frietsch, M., Ferreira, A.M.G., Vales, D., Carrilho, F. (2018). On the robustness of seismic moment tensor inversions for mid-ocean earthquakes: the Azores archipelago. Geophysical Journal International, 215 (1), 564-584. doi:10.1093/gji/ggy294 |
Start Year | 2016 |
Description | Transfer of machine learning techniques from cosmology to seismology |
Organisation | University College London |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Provided expertise on seismic source characterisation into a project using machine learning techniques to characterise microseismicity in a faster and more robust way, including uncertainty quantification. |
Collaborator Contribution | Provided expertise in machine learning techniques. |
Impact | Research paper by Mancini et al., Solid Earth, 2021: https://se.copernicus.org/articles/12/1683/2021/se-12-1683-2021.pdf |
Start Year | 2019 |
Description | Univ. California Riverside - Gareth Funning |
Organisation | University of California, Riverside |
Country | United States |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | We are currently analysing seismic and InSAR data jointly, whereby my team leads the seismic analysis and this collaborator contributes with his strong expertise and experience in geodesy studies. |
Collaborator Contribution | Contributed to the InSAR analysis. |
Impact | No outputs yet, the project is ongoing. |
Start Year | 2016 |
Description | Using statistical methods for the quantitative analysis of global seismic tomography models |
Organisation | Royal Observatory of Belgium |
Country | Belgium |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Expertise in global seismic tomography models and in their interpretation. Collection of models in unified format, which was provided to the collaborators. |
Collaborator Contribution | Expertise and statistical analysis (including free open codes) tools for the quantitative analysis of global seismic tomography models. |
Impact | Research paper by Viron et al., Solid Earth, 2021 (see list of publications). |
Start Year | 2019 |
Description | Using statistical methods for the quantitative analysis of global seismic tomography models |
Organisation | University of La Rochelle |
Country | France |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Expertise in global seismic tomography models and in their interpretation. Collection of models in unified format, which was provided to the collaborators. |
Collaborator Contribution | Expertise and statistical analysis (including free open codes) tools for the quantitative analysis of global seismic tomography models. |
Impact | Research paper by Viron et al., Solid Earth, 2021 (see list of publications). |
Start Year | 2019 |
Description | Using upper crustal models to constrain ice sheet flow information |
Organisation | Swansea University |
Department | Swansea University Medical School |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Seismological expertise and codes to constrain uppermost crustal structure. |
Collaborator Contribution | Knowledge of the geology and shallow seismic structure of Greenland, key contributions to the interpretation of the seismic results. |
Impact | Multidisciplinary collaboration combining seismology and glaciology. So far the main output has been the paper by Jones et al., Nature Comms., 2021 (see list of publications) as well as two successful Masters theses at UCL. |
Start Year | 2019 |
Description | Development of animated movie on earthquake source processes |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | We have been working with an animation company to build an animated movie around the project's topic. We expect to broadcast it in festivals as well as in a session open to the wide public at UCL in 2020. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Interview for international women's day |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Launch of book "Women in science" (in which I am featured) by Lisbon's Science Museum in international women's day. This was a live event on youtube including an interview with the portuguese minister of science, and I was selected as one of the interviewees (3/100). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | School visits to UCL - "taster" classes |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | We organised fours sets of outreach events for groups of school students and teachers (primary and secondary schools), with about 70 students attending in total. We did some demonstrations around earthquakes and seismometers, and for the more advanced students we did a demonstration using our work-in-progress "Build your planet" web-based outreach tool. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015,2016,2017,2018,2019 |
Description | Speaker at podcast Geology Bites |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | Podcast dedicated to my research work, which includes a website with pictures and text supporting the podcast (https://www.geologybites.com/ana-ferreira) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.geologybites.com/ana-ferreira |