Interior of Earth

& Seismic
Waves: Related
Hazard
Interior of Earth

Moho

Gutenberg
Lehmann
The reason for the higher temperature in oceanic lithosphere (OL) is
because the thickness of the OL is ~100 km and the average
geothermal gradient in OL is ~1300 C/100 km or 13 C/km. Whereas,
the Continental lithosphere (CL) is ~200 km thick, so the average
geothermal gradient in CL is ~1350 C/200 km or 6.7 C/km.
Seismic Waves
Body waves: P & S Waves
Vp = [(K + 4/3𝝁 )/𝝆 ]
Vs = [(𝝁)/ 𝝆 ]
K= Bulk Modulus
𝝁 = Rigidity (Shear Modulus)
𝝆 = Density
 Seismic waves
Body waves Surface waves
P-wave Love wave
S-wave Rayleigh wave
P-waves
Compressional or Primary
waves

Motion is in the same

direction as the direction of
wave propagation.

Fastest wave, arrives first

Speed of 6-6.5 km/sec

Pushes and pull the ground

Produces sound (motion like

sound wave)

Can propagate through Solid,

Liquid and Gas medium
 S-waves

Transvers or Shear or
Secondary waves

Motion is perpendicular to the

direction of wave propagation.

arrives later

Speed 3-3.5 km/sec

Moves ground up and down

Can propagate only through Solid

Figure 10.26
Figure 10.25
P-waves

1430 1430

1030-1430: P-wave shadow zone

1030-1800: S-wave shadow zone

 l P and S waves radiate from an
P- and S-wave paths from earthquake focus in all
an earthquake directions. This diagram shows
the simple labeling scheme
seismologists use to describe
the various paths the waves
take.
l PcP and ScS are
compressional (P) and shear
(S) waves that bounce off the
core.
l PP and SS waves are internally
reflected from Earth's surface.
l A PKP wave is transmitted
through the liquid outer core,
and a PKIKP wave traverses
the solid inner core.
l Surface waves propagate along
Earth's outer surface, like
waves on the surface of a pond
 P-, S-, and surface-wave
paths: from focus to seismograph
a
21 September 1999 Taiwan
Love-wave
Rayleigh-wave
Seismic Waves
Wave type Motion Name
body waves longitudinal P wave
transverse S wave
surface waves horizontal transverse Love wave
vertical elliptical Rayleigh wave
Earthquakes
What are earthquakes?
Stress and Strain

• With increasing stress, a rock deforms elastically, then plastically,

before ultimately failing or breaking in an earthquake. A completely
brittle rock fails at its elastic limit.
How Rocks Deform???

An undeformed sample
Under conditions representative of the
shallow crust, the marble is brittle.

An undeformed sample
 Under conditions representative of
the deeper crust, marble is ductile.

An undeformed sample
 min

max

inter

Differential Stress

Uniform Stress
 Development of different textures in
rocks of the same composition
different stresses

Granite, consisting of
quartz, feldspar, and mica
(the dark mineral) will
crystallized under a uniform
stress and mica grains will
be randomly oriented.

Whereas, under a
differential stress. Major as
well as Minor grains will be
oriented parallel to one
another and perpendicular
to the maximum stress
direction, giving the rock a
distinct foliation
Granite Granite-Gneiss
Conjugate joints/fractures
Earthquake Forecasting and
Prediction (1)
Forecasting identifies both earthquake-
prone areas and man-made structures that
are especially vulnerable to damage from
shaking.

Earthquake prediction refers to attempts to

estimate precisely (??) when the next
earthquake on a particular fault is likely to
occur.
 Earthquake Forecasting and
Prediction (2)
Earthquake forecasting is based largely on elastic
rebound theory and plate tectonics.
The elastic rebound theory suggests that if fault
surfaces do not slip easily past one another,
energy will be stored in elastically deformed rock,
just as in a steel spring that is compressed.
Currently, seismologists use plate tectonic motions
and Global positioning System (GPS)
measurements to monitor the accumulation of
strain in rocks near active faults.
Elastic Rebound Theory

• (b) Rocks near a fault are slowly bent elastically

• (c) until the fault breaks during an earthquake,
• (d) when the rocks on each side slip past each
other, relieving the stress.
Figure 10.19
Offset
A. This diagram shows displacement and surface rupture length on a fault. Beyond the ends of the rupture, the fault does not break
or offset.
B. A fence near Point Reyes, north of San Francisco, was offset approximately 2.6 meters in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake on
the San Andreas Fault.
◼ A: Photograph of Mee Ranch alignment array looking northeast; numbers are located to right of
monuments. Car for scale. B: Example of alignment-array offset analysis from Mee Ranch. Upper
panel shows monument locations in fault-centered reference frame. Y-axis represents local trace
of San Andreas fault (SAF). Best-fit lines are shown for monuments on each side of fault;
vertical gray bar represents maximum offset. Lower panel shows residuals from best-fit lines plus
1s uncertainties propagated from location covariances (From Titus etal., 2005, Geology)
Creep along San Andreas Fault
Hayward fault
 A Fault Creeps

• This curb in Hayward, California, has been offset by creep along the
Hayward Fault. The right photo shows further offset of the same
curb two years later.
A Giant Crack in the Earth
The San Andreas Fault and other major faults nearby appear
as a series of straight valleys slicing through the Coast
Ranges in this shaded relief map of California. In the view
from the air, streams jog abruptly (yellow arrows) where
they cross the San Andreas Fault in the Carrizo Plain north
of Los Angeles. The 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake caused 9.5
meters of this movement.
Earthquake under a City
This map of northwestern Washington shows the Seattle Fault and related major recent active fault zones in the Seattle area. The Seattle
Fault runs east-west through the interchange of I-90 (foreground) and I-5 (middle right) at the southern edge of Seattle.
 Earthquake Forecasting and
Prediction (3)
• Earthquake prediction has had few
successes.
• Earthquake precursors:
• Suspicious animal behavior.
• Unusual electrical signals.
• Many large earthquakes are preceded by
small earthquakes called foreshocks
• Chinese authorities used series of
foreshocks as an warning to anticipate the
Haicheng earthquake in 1975.
 Major and Great Earthquakes in the
Himalayan Region

Note the Quiescence MAGNITUDE 1897 - 1952 1953 - 2001

of Major Earthquakes
M >= 7.5 14 0
7.5 > M >= 7.0 11 7
7.0 > M >= 6.5 19 21
 An Early Case for Recurrence interval of a
Great Earthquake
The Great 1897 Shillong Plateau earthquake (M = 8.7 )

Sukhijia et al. (1999) have reported the result of paleo-liquefaction evidence on the
periodicity of large pre-historic earthquake in Shillong Plateau.

Carbon Dating Ages of Organic Samples representing seismic events in Shillong Plateau
A Successful Case of Earthquake Forecasting
A moderate magnitude Earthquake Forecast in
North-East India ( 06 August 1988, Earthquake)
Global effort towards establishing precursory
patterns that precede major or great
earthquakes.
Precursory swarm and quiescence preceding
Major Earthquakes
Similar exercise was carried out by Gupta and
Singh (1986, 1989) in the vicinity of Indo-Burma
Border.
August 6, 1988 Earthquake
• Gupta and Singh (1986) discovered one
such region shown in the image aside and
predicted an earthquake that may occur at
any time from then onwards.

• Also emphasized that should the predicted

earthquake doesn’t occur till the end of
1990 then this forecast could be
considered as a False Alarm.

• However, it turned out a True Alarm.

Figure 10.20
 Earthquake Focus and Hypocenter

Hypocenter (Focus) = point on fault plane where slip initiated

Epicenter = point on ground surface vertically above focus
 RECURRENCE OF EARTHQUAKES DUE STRESSES
DEVELOPED BY TECTONIC FORCES
Triggering Stresses?
Small part of stresses are released which were
accumulated slowly when the earth's plates moved
toward or past each other.
Since the earthquake drops the stress on the fault
which slipped, the earthquake will not recur until the
stress rebuilds, typically hundreds to thousands of
years.
But an earthquake will occur elsewhere, at the sites
other than the slipped fault
The areas where the stress is building up will be the
sites for the next earthquakes to occur, both of large
and small magnitude.
LOCATION OF EARTHQUAKE
Seismograph
(instrument)

Seismogram
A. Although many seismograph stations now record earthquake waves digitally, a recording
drum seismograph, is especially useful for visualizing the nature of earthquake waves: their
amplitude, wavelength, and frequency of vibration. Different seismographs are used to
measure, for example, B. horizontal versus C. vertical motion and small versus large
earthquakes.
 The Richter Scale

• An earthquake of magnitude 6 registers with 10 times the amplitude as an

earthquake of magnitude 5 from the same location and on the same
seismograph. That difference is an increase in 1 on the Richter scale.

• The horizontal axis on these seismograms is time, and the vertical axis is the
ground motion recorded.
Locating Earthquakes

❖ The difference in arrival time between the P and S waves reveals the
distance from a seismograph to an earthquake. This plot shows records
from seismographs at different distances from a single earthquake.

❖ Circles of distance to the earthquake drawn from at least three

seismograph stations locate the earthquake on a map, in this case in the
Mexico trench.