12.510 Introduction To Seismology: Mit Opencourseware

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12.510 Introduction to Seismology

Spring 2008
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04/30/2008
Todays lecture (Part 1)
1. Fault geometry
2. First motions
3. Stereographic fault plane representation
Fault geometry
There are three main types of faults:

1. Normal faults
2. Reverse faults
3. Stike-slip faults
We can think of these three types of faults as forming a set of basis functions. All
faults can be described as a combination of these 3 basis faults.
The fault geometry is described in terms of the orientation of the fault plane and
the direction of slip along the plane. The geometry of this model is shown in gure
2.
The dip angle is the angle between the fault plane and the horizontal.
The slip angle, is the angle between the slip-vector and the horizontal.
The stike angle is used to orientate this system relative to the geographic one. It
is dened as the angle in the plane of the earths surface measured clockwise from
north to the x1 axis.
We can use the slip angle, to specify the type of motion on the fault.
= 0 implies left-lateral (sinstral) fault motion
= 180 implies right-lateral (dextral) fault motion
= 270 implies normal faulting (extension)
= 90 implies reverse faulting
Most earthquakes consist of a combination of these motions and have a slip angle
between these values.
Seismologists refer to the direction of slip in an earthquake and the orientation
on the fault on which it occurs as the focal mechanism. They typically display the
focal mechanisms on maps as a beach-ball symbol. We will talk more about this
Right-lateral strike slip
Left-lateral strike slip
Dip slip (reverse)
Dip slip (normal)
Figure by MIT OpenCourseWare.
Figure 1: Basic types of faulting. Strike-slip motion can be right- or left-lateral. Dip
slip-faulting can occur as either reverse or normal faulting (1)
representation later in the lecture
First Motions
The focal mechanism uses the fact that the pattern of radiated seismic waves depends
on the fault geometry. The simplest motion is the rst motion, or polarity, of body
waves.
The rst motion is compression if the station is located so that material near the
fault moves towards the station, or dilation where the motion is away from the
station. A vertical-component seismogram will record either an upward or downward
rst motion, corresponding to either compression or dilation. Figure 2 illustrates the
rst motion concept for a strike-slip earthquake on a vertical fault. Two vertical
planes are shown in the diagram, which are related to the geometry of the fault
-One of these is the fault plane
-One of these runs perpendicular to the fault plane and is known as the auxiliary
plane.
These planes dene four quadrants. Two of these are compressional and two of these
are dilational. If these perpendicular planes can be found the fault geometry will
be known. One diculty is that the rst motion on the actual fault plane is the
same as that on the auxiliary plane. The rst motions alone are therefore insucient
to resolve which plane is the actual fault plane. This is a fundamental ambiguity
Adapted from Stein and Wysession, 2003
in inverting seismic observations for fault models. Additional geologic or geodetic

information is needed to identify which is the actual fault plane.
Stereographic projections
The fault geometry can be found from the distribution of data on a sphere around the
focus. We can trace rays from the earthquake onto a hemisphere using the eikonal
equation. We can then use a stereographic projection to transform the hemisphere
to a plane. The graphic construction that allows us to do this is called a stereonet
(gure 3)
Consider how planes will appear on this net.
-A vertically dipping, N-S striking plane will plot as a straight line.
-A N-S striking plane with a dierent type will appear as a curve going from top to
bottom.
-A horizontal plane will appear as a perimeter.
-Dierent type of fault will appear dierently on a stereonet (see gure 5). For
example, a four-quadrant checkerboard indicates pure strike-slip motion.
4
Beach Balls
We established earlier that you can represent focal mechanisms using beach ball
diagrams. Using a simple model, faulting will occur on planes, 45 from the maximum
and minimum compressive stresses. It follows that the maximum compressive (P)
and minimum compressive stress (T) axis are found by bisecting the compressional
quadrants respectively.
Note: The tension (T) axis is actually the minimum compressive stress, because
compression occurs at the source. The upward and downward rst motions are
from the observers point of view, but the P and T axes refer to what is happening
at the source.
The beach-ball representation of focal mechanisms is important in tectonic stud
ies.
200701010105A NORTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RI

Date: 2007/ 1/ 1 Centroid Time: 1: 5:16.1 GMT
Lat= 32.75 Lon= -39.78
Depth= 12.0 Half duration= 0.7
Centroid time minus hypocenter time: 2.7
Moment Tensor: Expo=23 -2.790 0.458 2.330 -0.701 -1.890 1.200
Mw = 5.0
mb = 4.8
Ms = 0.0 Scalar Moment = 3.49e+23
Fault plane:
strike=210
dip= 28 slip= - 84
Fault plane:
strike=23
dip= 63 slip= - 93
Figure by MIT OpenCourseWare.
The Harvard-CMT catalogue
Seismologists collect data in real-time when there is an earthquake and produce a

representation of the focal-mechanism of an earthquake as a beach-ball diagram.
These are listed as entries in the Harvard-CMT catalogue. Each entry includes the
following data:
-the location of the earthquake
-the time at which it occurred
-the depth of the earthquake
-the half-duration of the earthquake
Note that there are four dierent measurements of the magnitude of the earth
quake listed in the Harvard-CMT catalogue. Note also that 2 sets of values for the
strike, slip and dip directions of the fault plane are listed. This is because we are
unable to distinguish between the fault plane and the auxiliary plane when these
entries are produced.
12.510 Lecture Notes

4.30.2008 (Part 2)
MOMENT TENSOR
To know the source properties from the observed seismic displacements, the solution of the equation of
motion can be separated as below.
(1)
Where u i is the displacement, f j is the force vector. The Greens function Gij gives the displacement at
point x that results from a unit force function applied at point x o . Internal forces, f , must act in opposing
directions, - f , at a distance d so as to conserve momentum (force couple). For angular momentum
conservation, there also exists a complementary couple that balances the forces (double couple). There are
nine different force couples as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. The nine different force couples for the components of the moment tensor. [Adapted from Shearer 1999]

4.30.2008 (Part 2)
We define the moment tensor M as:
(2)
M ij represents a pair of opposing forces pointing in the i direction, separated in the j direction. Its
magnitude is the product fd [unit: N-m] which is called the seismic moment. For angular momentum
conservation, the condition M ij = M ji should be satisfied, so the moment tensor is symmetric. Therefore
we have only six independent elements. This moment tensor represents the internally generated forces that
can act at a point in an elastic medium.
The displacement for a force couple with a distance d in the x k direction is given by:
(3)
The last term can be replaced by the moment tensor and thus:
(4)
There is a linear relationship between the displacement and the components of the moment tensor that
involves the spatial derivatives of the Greens functions. We can see the internal force f is proportional to
the spatial derivative of moment tensor when equation (1) and (4) are compared.
(5)
Consider right-lateral movement on a vertical fault oriented in the x1 direction and the corresponding
moment tensor is given by:
(6)
Where M o = D s is called the scalar seismic moment. This is a measure of earthquake size and energy
release where: is shear modulus, D = D ( x ) / L is average displacement, and s is area of the fault. M o can

4.30.2008 (Part 2)
be time dependent, so that M o (t ) = D (t ) s(t ) . The right-hand side time dependent terms become the
source time function, x(t), thus the seismic moment function is given by
(7)
We can diagonalize the moment matrix (6) to find principal axes. In this case, the principal axes are at 45 to
the original x1 and x2 axes.
(8)
The principal axes become tension and pressure axis. The above matrix represents that x1 coordinate is the
tension axis, T, and x2 is the pressure axis, P. (Figure 2)
Figure 2. The double-coupled forces and their rotation along the principal axes. [Adapted from Shearer 1999]
*adapted from 5.4.2005 Lecture Notes

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MIT OpenCourseWare

12.510 Introduction to Seismology

There are three main types of faults:

Right-lateral strike slip

Left-lateral strike slip

Dip slip (reverse)

Dip slip (normal)

Figure by MIT OpenCourseWare.

representation later in the lecture

Adapted from Stein and Wysession, 2003

in inverting seismic observations for fault models. Additional geologic or geodetic

200701010105A NORTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RI

The Harvard-CMT catalogue

Seismologists collect data in real-time when there is an earthquake and produce a

12.510 Lecture Notes

12.510 Lecture Notes

12.510 Lecture Notes

*adapted from 5.4.2005 Lecture Notes

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