We examined the spatial relationship between seismicity and upper crustal structure in the Wakayama region, northwestern Kii Peninsula, Japan, by investigating microearthquake focal mechanisms and the local stress field. The focal mechanisms of most events studied fall into three categories: (1) normal faulting with N–S-oriented T-axes mainly occurring at shallow depths, (2) reverse faulting wi...

S U M M A R Y We invert for the state of stress in the southern California crust using a catalogue of high quality earthquake focal mechanisms (1981–2010). The stress field is best resolved where seismicity rates are high and sufficient data are available to constrain the stress field across most of the region. From the stress field, we determine the maximum horizontal compressive stress (SHmax...

Seismic hazard in continental rifts varies as a function of strain accommodation by tectonic or magmatic processes. The nature of faulting in the Sevier Desert, located in eastern Basin and Range of central Utah, and how this faulting relates to the Sevier Desert Detachment low-angle normal fault, have been debated for nearly four decades. Here, we show that the geodetic signal of extension acr...

Seismological data from recent subduction earthquakes suggest that megathrust earthquakes induce transient stress changes in the upper plate that shift accretionary wedges into an unstable state. These stress changes have, however, never been linked to geological structures preserved in fossil accretionary complexes. The importance of coseismically induced wedge failure has therefore remained l...

Many estimates of seismic risk depend crucially on how well the date of faulting events can be determined from the stratigraphic position of fault strands exposed in exploratory trenches. However, fault strands cut by trenches may seem to die out where they are in fact only poorly expressed, or they may actually die out. Such ambiguity can lead to misinterpretation of the time of the most recen...

The evaluation of the structural efficiency of airport infrastructures is a complex task. Faulting is one of the most important indicators of rigid pavement performance. The aim of our study is to provide a new method for faulting detection and computation on jointed concrete pavements. Nowadays, the assessment of faulting is performed with the use of laborious and time-consuming measurements t...

In Summer 1998, a 400 km long seismic refraction profile (INDEPTH III) was shot in Central Tibet. Apart from recording the signals of 11 shots along the line, the stations also recorded a number of local earthquakes more or less in the extension of the line. Record sections and travel time data from both shots and earthquakes were compiled and interpreted jointly. The following peculiarities ar...

S U M M A R Y The Crandall Canyon Mine, Utah, collapse in 2007 August resulted in a total of nine fatalities. We processed data from the ALOS satellite acquired before and after the collapse to quantify surface subsidence associated with the collapse to better understand the collapse process. The deformation shows a steep V-shaped pattern of subsidence with slight asymmetry.We compare the fit o...