74,950 research outputs found

    Coulomb stress transfer and fault interaction over millennia on non-planar active normal faults: TheMw 6.5-5.0 seismic sequence of 2016-2017, central Italy

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    In order to investigate the importance of including strike-variable geometry and the knowledge of historical and palaeoseismic earthquakes when modelling static Coulomb stress transfer and rupture propagation, we have examined the August-October 2016 A.D. and January 2017 A.D. central Apennines seismic sequence (Mw 6.0, 5.9, 6.5 in 2016 A.D. (INGV) and Mw 5.1, 5.5, 5.4, 5.0 in 2017 A.D. (INGV)).We model both the coseismic loading (from historical and palaeoseismic earthquakes) and interseismic loading (derived from Holocene fault slip-rates) using strike-variable fault geometries constrained by fieldwork. The inclusion of the elapsed times from available historical and palaeoseismological earthquakes and on faults enables us to calculate the stress on the faults prior to the beginning of the seismic sequence. We take account the 1316-4155 yr elapsed time on the Mt. Vettore fault (that ruptured during the 2016 A.D. seismic sequence) implied by palaeoseismology, and the 377 and 313 yr elapsed times on the neighbouring Laga and Norcia faults respectively, indicated by the historical record. The stress changes through time are summed to show the state of stress on the Mt. Vettore, Laga and surrounding faults prior to and during the 2016-2017 A.D. sequence. We show that the build up of stress prior to 2016 A.D. on strike-variable fault geometries generated stress heterogeneities that correlate with the limits of the main-shock ruptures. Hence, we suggest that stress barriers appear to have control on the propagation and therefore the magnitudes of the main-shock ruptures

    Coseismic Throw Variation Across Along-Strike Bends on Active Normal Faults: Implications for Displacement Versus Length Scaling of Earthquake Ruptures

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    Fault bends, and associated changes in fault dip, play a key role in explaining the scatter in maximum offset versus surface rupture length fault scaling relationships. Detailed field measurements of the fault geometry and magnitude of slip in the 2016–2017 Central Italy earthquake sequence, alongside three examples from large historical normal-faulting earthquakes in different tectonic settings, provide multiple examples in which coseismic throw increases across bends in fault strike where dip also increases beyond what is necessary to accommodate a uniform slip vector. Coseismic surface ruptures produced by two mainshocks of the 2016–2017 Central Italy earthquake sequence (24 August 2016 Mw 6.0 and 30 October 2016 Mw 6.5) cross a ~0.83-km amplitude along-strike bend, and the coseismic throws for both earthquakes increase by a factor of 2–3, where the strike of the fault changes by ~28o and the dip increases by 20–25o. We present similar examples from historical normal faulting earthquakes (1887, Sonora earthquake, Mw 7.5; 1981, Corinth earthquakes, Mw 6.7–6.4; and 1983, Borah Peak earthquake, Mw 7.3). We demonstrate that it is possible to estimate the expected change in throw across a bend by applying equations that relate strike, dip, and slip vector to horizontal strain conservation along a nonplanar fault for a single earthquake rupture. The calculated slip enhancement in bends can explain much of the scatter in maximum displacement (Dmax) versus surface rupture length scaling relationships. If fault bends are unrecognized, they can introduce variation in Dmax that may lead to erroneous inferences of stress drop variability for earthquakes, and exaggerate maximum earthquake magnitudes derived from vertical offsets in paleoseismic data sets

    The Benefits of Being Economics Professor A (and not Z)

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    Alphabetic name ordering on multi-authored academic papers, which is the convention in the economics discipline and various other disciplines, is to the advantage of people whose last name initials are placed early in the alphabet. As it turns out, Professor A, who has been a first author more often than Professor Z, will have published more articles and experienced afaster growth rate over the course of her career as a result of reputation and visibility. Moreover, authors know that name ordering matters and indeed take ordering seriously: Several characteristics of an author group composition determine the decision to deviate from the default alphabetic name order to a significant extent.performance measurement, incentives, economists, name ordering

    Final word on Jersey Dutch

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    In this article, William Z. Shetter compares and contrasts the dialects that developed between different Dutch colonies in the New World. He explores in-depth the nuances of Jersey Dutch, and provides theories to explain how Dutch and colonial languages blended. The article is reprinted from American Speech, December 1958, Volum XXXIII, No. 4

    A shallow earthquake swarm close to hydrocarbon activities: discriminating between natural and induced causes for the 2018–19 Surrey, UK earthquake sequence

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    Earthquakes induced by subsurface industrial activities are a globally emotive issue, with a growing catalogue of induced earthquake sequences. However, attempts at discriminating between natural and induced causes, particularly for anomalously shallow seismicity, can be challenging. An earthquake swarm during 2018–19 in south-east England with a maximum magnitude of ML 3.2 received great public and media attention because of its proximity to operating oilfields. It is therefore vital and timely to provide a detailed characterisation of the earthquake sequence at present, and to decide based on current evidence, whether the earthquakes were likely natural or induced. We detected 168 low-magnitude earthquakes and computed detailed source parameters of these events. Most earthquakes occurred at a shallow depth of 2.3 km, >1 km deeper than the geological formations targeted by the oilfields, and laterally >3 km away from the drillsites. We combine the east-west trending cluster of the seismicity with 2-D seismic reflection profiles to find the causative fault system for the earthquakes. A b-value close to unity and strike-slip faulting mechanisms are consistent with tectonic reactivation along a pre-existing fault. Overall, we find no indicators in the earthquake parameters that would strongly suggest an induced source. Nor do we find any clear trends between seismicity and drilling activities based on operational logs provided by the operators. Injected volumes are near-zero and monthly production amounts are many orders of magnitude smaller than other reported cases of extraction-induced seismicity. On balance, and based on the available evidence, we find it currently unlikely that nearby industrial activities induced the seismic swarm. Most likely, the Surrey earthquakes offer a uniquely detailed insight into shallow seismicity within sedimentary basins. Nevertheless, selfreporting of injection and production times and volumes by operators, and the lack of easily- and publicly-available oilfield operational data continues to be a point of concern for local residents

    Logarithmic variance profiles and the corresponding f-1 spectra of temperature fluctuations in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection

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    We report experimental results for the temperature variance 2(z) and the corresponding frequency spectra P(f) in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection (RBC) in a cylindrical sample of aspect ratioT= D/L = 1:00 (D = 1:12 m is the diameter and L = 1:12 m the height). The measurements were conducted in the Rayleigh-number range 1011 < Ra < 1:35 1014 and Pr ' 0:8. For Ra = 1:35x1014, 2(z) could be described well by a logarithmic dependence on the vertical position z in a range of z 1 < z < z 2 with z 1 ' 70 and z 2 = 0:1L. Here L=(2Nu) is the thickness of a thin thermal sublayer adjacent to the horizontal plate where the heat flux (denoted by the Nusselt number Nu) is carried mostly by thermal diffusion. In the log layer, we found that the temperature spectra had a significant frequency range over which P(f) f with close to 1. As Ra decreased, increased so that the log layer became thinner. At Ra = 2:05 1011, z 2 < z 1 and therefore there was no range for a log layer. Correspondingly, the temperature spectrum near the horizontal plate did not have the f1 scaling form either

    Statistics of the subgrid scales after the shock-turbulence interaction

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    The interaction of a normal shock with isotropic turbulence (IT) represents a basic problem for studying some of the phenomena associated with high speed flows, such as hypersonic flight, supersonic combustion and Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF). In general, in practical applications, the shock width is much smaller than the turbulence scales and the upstream turbulent Mach number is modest. In this case, recent high resolution shock-resolved Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) (Ryu and Livescu, J. Fluid Mech., 756, R1, 2014) show that the interaction can be described by the Linear Interaction Approximation (LIA). By using LIA to alleviate the need to solve the shock, DNS post-shock data can be generated at much higher Reynolds numbers than previously possible. Here, such results with Taylor Reynolds number around 180180 are used to investigate the properties of the subgrid scales (SGS). In particular, it is shown that the shock interaction decreases the asymmetry of the SGS dissipation PDF as the shock Mach number increases, with a significant enhancement in size of the regions and magnitude of backscatter

    Transition to turbulence in a qblique shock-wave/boundary-layer interaction at M=15

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    Direct numerical simulations are carried out for different forcing techniques to trigger transition during the interaction between an oblique shock-wave and a laminar boundary-layer at M = 1.5. Three forcing methods are used: a) forcing of oblique unstable modes, whose shape and behaviour are determined by the local linear stability theory, b) broadband free-stream acoustic disturbances, and c) a cold plasma flow control device. While the oblique-mode breakdown is dominant for low-amplitude forcing, long streaky structures drive the transition process in a high-amplitude disturbance environment. LES are also performed on the experimental setup by the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM) from Novosibirsk State University with cold plasma actuation. As well as the disturbance type, the effect of Reynolds number and forcing amplitude will be investigated

    Triangular Constellations in Flows

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    Particles advected on the surface of a fluid can exhibit fractal clustering. The local structure of a fractal set is described by its dimension DD, which is the exponent of a power-law relating the mass N{\cal N} in a ball to its radius ε\varepsilon: NεD{\cal N}\sim \varepsilon^D. It is desirable to characterise the {\em shapes} of constellations of points sampling a fractal measure, as well as their masses. The simplest example is the distribution of shapes of triangles formed by triplets of points, which we investigate for fractals generated by chaotic dynamical systems. The most significant parameter describing the triangle shape is the ratio zz of its area to the radius of gyration squared. We show that the probability density of zz has a phase transition: P(z)P(z) is independent of ε\varepsilon and approximately uniform below a critical flow compressibility βc\beta_{\rm c}, which we estimate. For β>βc\beta>\beta_{\rm c} the distribution appears to be described by two power laws: P(z)zα1P(z)\sim z^{\alpha_1} when 1zzc(ε)1\gg z\gg z_{\rm c}(\varepsilon), and P(z)zα2P(z)\sim z^{\alpha_2} when zzc(ε)z\ll z_{\rm c}(\varepsilon)

    Preferential concentration of particles in compressible turbulence

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    The behavior of particles in compressible turbulence has been seldom investigated to date despite its importance in many natural and industrial flows. Direct numerical simulations of particle-laden compressible isotropic turbulence are performed to study the preferential concentration of particles and the underling mechanisms. It turns out that heavy particles tend to concentrate in regions of low enstrophy and high fluid density (i.e, strain regions between vortex rings), especially the particles of Kolmogorov scale, which show the largest number density. Due to the compressibility, fluid particles do not distribute uniformly as in incompressible case, but show a tendency to bunch up in high density zones. The preliminary result might give some insights into compressible turbulent transport, dispersion and mixing as well as the subgrid-scale modeling for large-eddy simulation of particle-laden compressible flows
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