28-04-2023

CEL 213 –
Engineering Geology FORECASTING & PREDICTION
OF EARTHQUAKES

Dr. Srinivasan V
Dept. Of Civil Engg.,
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Earthquake Forecasting And Earthquake Forecasting And

Prediction
• 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.
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.
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Earthquake Forecasting And Forecasting Earthquakes: Earlier Methods

Prediction (3)
Strange Animal Behavior
• Earthquake prediction has had few successes. Stress in the rocks causes tiny hairline fractures. Cracking of the rocks emits
high pitched sounds and minute vibrations imperceptible to humans but
noticeable by many animals.
• Earthquake precursors:
Unusual Weather Conditions and Clouds
• Suspicious animal behavior.
A few scientists claim to have observed clouds associated with a seismic
• Unusual electrical signals. event, sometimes more than 50 days in advance of the earthquake.
Foreshocks
• Many large earthquakes are preceded by small Foreshocks are minor tremors of the earth that precede a larger earthquake
earthquakes called foreshocks originating at approximately the same location. Unusual increase in the
frequency of these foreshocks are sign for an earthquake.

• Chinese authorities used series of foreshocks as an Changes in water level

warning to anticipate the Haicheng earthquake in porosity increases or decreases with changes in strain, causing fluctuations in
1975. ground water level
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Forecasting Earthquakes: Recent Developments Seismic gap

Changes in Seismic Velocities
A segment of an active plate boundary that, relative to rest of the boundary,
Earthquakes are often accompanied by temporal changes in seismic wave has not recently ruptured and is considered to be more likely to produce an
velocities in the region earthquake in the future is called a seismic gap.
Radon Emission
The seismic gap theory states that a segment of a plate boundary that has not
Emission of radon gas as a quake precursor is recently being explored by the ruptured recently has the greatest chance of rupturing in the future relative
geophysicists for developing a worldwide seismic early warning system to other segments that have experienced large earthquakes. This is based on
The Van Method the recognition that tectonic plates move relative to one another at an
approximately constant speed and the assumption that the slip of plate
The method is based on the detection of "seismic electric signals" (SES) via a boundary faults occurs primarily during major earthquakes.
telemetric network of conductive metal rods inserted in the ground.
Researchers have claimed to be able to predict earthquakes of magnitude Some earthquake forecasting models use seismic gap for predictions.
larger than 5 using this method.
Geodetic Measurements
Laser geodimeter measures changes in distance across the fault between
points. Changes in distances may indicate a precursor to an upcoming
earthquake. 7 8
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Prediction of Earthquakes Prediction of Earthquakes

Earthquake prediction is a prediction that an earthquake of a specific

magnitude will occur in a particular place at a particular time range.
Despite considerable research efforts by seismologists, scientifically
reproducible predictions cannot yet be made to a specific day or Seismic hazard map of the San
month. Francisco Bay Area, showing the
probability of a major
Most useful way of predicting a future earthquake is in terms of earthquake occurring by 2032
probabilities. For well-understood faults seismic hazard assessment
maps can estimate the probability that an earthquake of a given size
will affect a given location over a certain number of years.
Experts do advise general earthquake preparedness, especially in areas
known to experience frequent or large quakes, to prevent injury,
death, and property damage if a quake occurs with or without
warning.
Source: USGS public domain
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First Successful Prediction RECURRENCE OF EARTHQUAKES DUE TO STRESSES

Earthquake prediction has taken a scientific turn in late 1970s. DEVELOPED BY TECTONIC FORCES

The first successful prediction was made in China in winter 1975 for the city of
Haicheng (population about 1 million).
Scientists observed changes in land elevation and ground water levels in that
region over a period of time. A regional increase in foreshocks had triggered a
low-level alert.
• 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.

Based on the reports from scientists, Chinese officials had ordered the
evacuation of the city. On February 4, 1975, earthquake of magnitude 7.3
struck the region. Only very small fraction (2,041 people) died in this event. The
number of fatalities and injuries would have exceeded 150,000 if no
earthquake prediction and evacuation had been made.
• 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.

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Sensing the Earthquakes Principle of Seismographs

The energy released during the earthquake travels in the form of seismic waves
Modern Seismographs can sense the occurrence, intensity and duration of these
waves in different directions.
Seismographs are designed so that slight earth vibrations move the instrument.
The suspended mass remains at rest as the spring absorbs some of the motion.
The stylus (pen) affixed to the mass, records the relative motion between itself
and the rest of the instrument, thus recording the ground motion.

Seismogram is the visual record of arrival time and magnitude of shaking associated
with seismic wave, generated by a seismograph.

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Seismogram
MEASURING EARTHQUAKE

Intensity Magnitude

Source: google images

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Magnitude and Intensity Intensity

Intensity
• How Strong Earthquake Feels to Observer How Strong Earthquake Feels to Observer
 Qualitative assessment of the kinds of damage done by
an earthquake Depends On:
 Depends on distance to earthquake & strength of
earthquake
• Distance to Quake
 Determined from the intensity of shaking and damage
from the earthquake • Geology
Magnitude • Type of Building
• Observer!
• Related to Energy Release.
 Quantitative measurement of the amount of energy
released by an earthquake
 Depends on the size of the fault that breaks
 Determined from Seismic Records 17 18

Chronology of Intensity and Magnitude ROSSI-FOREL SCALE 1873 [GIVEN BY ROMAN LETTER FROM I TO X]

scales
• I. Microseismic shock. Recorded by a single seismograph or of the same model. The shock
felt by an experienced observer.

• II. Extremely feeble shock. Recorded by different kinds of seismographs and felt by a small
number of persons at rest.

• III. Very feeble shock. Felt by several persons at rest; strong enough to judge the direction or
• Before 1931 earthquake intensities were often reported duration

using the Rossi-Forel scale • IV. Feeble shock. Felt by persons in motion, disturbance of movable objects, doors, windows,
cracking of ceilings.

• V. Shock of moderate intensity. Felt by everyone; disturbance of furniture, beds, etc., ringing
• In the last quarter of the 19th century the use of intensity of some bells.

became widespread. This scale was developed by an Rossi • VI. Fairly strong shock. General awakening of those asleep; ringing of bells; oscillation of
chandeliers; stopping of clocks; visible disturbance of trees and shrubs; some
(Italian) and Forel (Swiss) scientists. startled persons leaving their dwellings.

• VII. Strong shock. Overthrow of movable objects, fall of plaster; ringing of church bells, but
without damage to any buildings.
• This scale was called Rossi-Forel Scale, with ten degrees of
• VIII. Very strong shock. Fall of chimneys; cracks in the walls of buildings.
intensity. This was the first scale to be widely used
internationally. • IX. Extremely strong shock. Partial or total destruction of some buildings

• X. Shock of extreme intensity. Great disaster; ruins; disturbance of the strata, fissures in the
ground, rock falls from mountains.
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Next phase
• The scale was improved by Mercalli, who published
a modified version, still with ten degrees. Intensity:
• However, even this ten degrees were insufficient for
expressing the whole range of effects.
It is the rating of the effects of an earthquake
at a particular place based on the
• The extension of the scale to twelve degrees was
therefore proposed by Cancani observations of the affected areas, using a
• Then it was named as the Modified Mercalli Scale
descriptive scale like Modified Mercalli Scale.
(MM Scale).

MODIFIED MERCALLI INTENSITY SCALE Isoseismal map

• Maxi. MM Intensity

• I-II Felt by very few people; rarely noticeable.

• III Felt indoors, especially on upper floors, Objects disturbed,

No Damage.

• IV-V Felt by many people, Object disturbed, no structural

damage
• VI-VII Some structural damage, cracks in wall and high rise
structures like building or chimneys
• VII-VIII Felt by everyone. Difficult to stand. Some heavy furniture
moved, some plaster falls. Cracks in walls are formed and
slight damage to high rise buildings or Chimneys.

• IX-X Major damage, collapse of weak buildings and cracking of

strong buildings
• XI-XII Total Damage or nearly total damage
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THE FIRST SEISMOGRAPH

• The first seismograph was invented about
200 yr. ago by the Chinese astronomer
and mathematician Chang Heng. He
called it an "earthquake weathercock.“ • In 1931 Dr. K. Wadati (a
Japanese meteorologist)
• Total eight dragons are mounted around worked on the idea of
the vase with a bronze ball in its mouth.
earthquake scale.
• Whenever there was even a slight earth
tremor, a mechanism inside the
seismograph would open the mouth of • Following his concepts
one dragon. The bronze ball would fall
into the open mouth of one of the toads,
Dr. Charles Richter
making enough noise to alert someone developed the first
that an earthquake had just happened. magnitude scale in 1935.
• It was even possible to tell that from
Which was called Local
which direction the earthquake came by Magnitude (ML)
seeing which dragon's mouth was empty.

• ML : Can be recorded on a special type of

Richter Magnitude
seismograph [Wood-Anderson Torsional Seismologists use a Magnitude scale to express the seismic energy released by
Seismograph], and give best results if an
earthquake is recorded at a distance of 100 each earthquake.
kilometers from the earthquake center.
• < 2-3.5 Generally not felt, "Micro Quake" - Recorded on
local seismographs
• RM- scale can even measure the energy of a
brick dropped from a tabletop
• 3.5-5.4 Often felt, but rarely causes damage.
• However, this instrument has limitations to
measure large magnitude earthquakes taking
place at far distance, as the natural oscillation •  6.0 At most slight damage to well-designed buildings.
of the instrument is about 0.8 sec Can cause major damage to poorly constructed
buildings over small regions.
• It gives accurate energy released by an
earthquake up to ML 6.5
• 6.1-6.9 Can be destructive in areas up to about 100
• However, locally it can measure earthquake of kilometers across where population is there.
M > 8.
• 7.0-7.9 Major earthquake. Can cause serious damage
• The largest earthquake recorded, was of over larger areas.
Alaska in 1964, with a Richter Magnitude of
about 8.6
• 8 or greater Great earthquake. Can cause serious damage in
areas several hundred kilometers across.
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MODIFIED MERCALLI INTENSITY SCALE

AND RICHTER MAGNITUDE Seismic Energy:
• Maxi. Richter
MM Int Mag. • Both the magnitude and seismic moment are related to
the amount of energy that is radiated by an earthquake.
• I-II 1 to 2 Felt by very few people; rarely noticeable.

• III 3 Felt indoors, especially on upper floors, Objects disturbed,

• Richter, working with Dr. Beno Gutenberg, developed a
No Damage. relationship between magnitude and energy.
• IV-V 4 Felt by many people, Object disturbed, no structural
damage • The amount of energy released is related to the Richter
• VI-VII 5 Some structural damage, cracks in wall and high rise Scale:
structures like building or chimneys
• Log E = 11.8 + 1.5 M
• VII-VIII 6 Felt by everyone. Difficult to stand. Some heavy furniture
moved, some plaster falls. Cracks in walls are formed and
slight damage to high rise buildings or Chimneys. – Where Log refers to the logarithm to the base 10, E is the energy
released in ergs, and M is the Richter Magnitude
• IX-X 7 Major damage, collapse of weak buildings and cracking of
strong buildings
• XI-XII 8 and above Total Damage or nearly total damage

Seismologists use a Magnitude scale to express the seismic energy

released by each earthquake.

Local Magnitude - Seismic Energy correlation

Richter Magnitude Energy (ergs) Factor

1 2.0 x 1013 31 x
2 6.3 x 1014
3 2.0 x 1016
31 x
4 6.3 x 1017 Gujarat (2001)
5 2.0 x 1019 31 x
6 6.3 x 1020
7 2.0 x 1022 31 x
8 6.3 x 1023

• The Hiroshima atomic bomb released an amount of energy equivalent to a

magnitude 5.5 earthquake. Richter’s Local Magnitude Scale is shown on the left hand side. The scale on the
right hand side represents the amount of high explosive required to produce the
This figure was produced in cooperation with the US Geological
energy released by the earthquake. Survey, and the University of Memphis private foundations
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• MAGNITUDE:
Earthquake Magnitude
– It is the quantity to measure the size of an earthquake in terms of its energy and is
independent of the place of the observation.

• RICHTER SCALE:
 ML - Local (Richter) magnitude
– Magnitude is measured on the basis of ground motion recorded by an instrument
and applying standard correction for the epicentral distance from recording station.
It is linearly related to the logarithm of amount of energy released by an earthquake
and expressed in Richter Scale.
 MS - Surface wave magnitude
• Ms is defined:
– Ms = log(A/T) + s(distance,depth)
 MB- Body wave magnitude
• where A is maximum displacement, T is the period of the displacement, and s is a
correction term for the distance of the station and the depth of the earthquake. Ms was
developed by Gutenberg and Richter in 1936 as an extension to local magnitude at greater
distances.
 MW - Seismic Moment magnitude

• RM- scale can even measure the negative magnitude i.e. ML= -2 [represents the
energy of a brick dropped from a tabletop]

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• Limitations with Richter Magnitude Scale

• Seismologists developed different methods to
• New scales to measure large earthquakes or record the size of an earthquake
distant quakes (teleseisms) were developed.
• based on body waves (which travel deep within
the structure of the earth)
• Surface-Wave Magnitude - MS
• based on surface waves (which primarily travel
• Body-wave magnitude - Mb along the uppermost layers of the earth)
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Limitations of Ms and Mb • Later in 1966, Aki proposed new scale “seismic moment - Mo”.
• Energy released or radiated from the entire fault is measured rather than
an assumed source of point.

• Surface-wave magnitude scale becomes •

•
Definition of Seismic Moment
Mo = μ S Ū
• Where, m is the Shear Modulus of elasticity [for crust = 3.3 x 1011 dynes/cm2]
saturated at MS = about 7.3 •
•
Ū – the amount of slip along the fault
S – the surface area that ruptured during earthquake (L) and depth of the fault plane
(d)

• Body-wave magnitude Mb = about 6

Later more refined scale was proposed by Advantages of Mo

Hiroo Kanamori, related to seismic moment
known as moment-magnitude scale Mw. • Mo is used for the moderate to large magnitude earthquakes because

…which came out with an empirical relation: • [1] it can be quickly calculated with modern instruments

• [2] it need few parameters like Fault Area, Fault Slip etc. rather then
• MW = 2/3 log10(MO) – 10.7 looking for the amplitudes of particular seismographs

– (MO is in dyne centimeter)

• [3] it can be estimated on the basis of Geodetic and field data also

• [4] it is the only magnitude which can estimates the size a very large
• Moment magnitude (Mw) is now used magnitude earthquake
worldwide for measuring moderate and large
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Accelerogram Comparison between Seismograph

• It is specially designed
instrument that measures and
records the acceleration of
ground during earthquake
• If the ground accelerates at 1 g
then the value is 9.8 m/sec2
and if the acceleration is 0.5g
then the value is about 5
m/sec2
• eg. a earthquake of M 6 to 6.9
can produce acceleration of
about 0.3 to 0.7 g in the near
by areas,
and Accelerograph
• Accelerograph:
• Accelerograph records ground
acceleration.
• The unit of acceleration in
earthquake studies are in terms
of gravity – i.e. if the ground
accelerates at 1g the value is 9.8
m/sec2
• It records very strong ground
motion useful in engineering
design.
• This instruments do not record
unless triggered by strong
ground motion.
• Seismograph:
• The usual seismograph records the
time of the seismic waves
(horizontal axis in seconds) and
ground displacement (vertical axis in
mm)
• The record in form of seismogram is
used to calculate the magnitude,
epicentral distance etc.
• It can record even the smallest
vibration

LOCATION OF EARTHQUAKE
Seismograph

Seismogram
Locating Epicenter

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Locating an Earthquake’s Epicenter
Seismic wave behavior
– P waves arrive first, then S waves, then L and R
– After an earthquake, the difference in arrival times at a seismograph
station can be used to calculate the distance from the seismograph
to the epicenter (D).
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3-circle method: Steps:
1) Read S-P time from 3
seismograms.
north
2) Compute distance for
D1 each event/recording
D2 station pair (D1, D2, D3)
using S-P time formula.
3) Draw each circle of
radius Di on map.
4) Overlapping point is
the event location.
D3
Assumption: Source is
relatively shallow;
epicenter is relatively
close to hypocenter.
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If average speeds for all these waves is known, use the S-P (S minus P)
time formula: a method to compute the distance (D) between a recording
station and an event.
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Determining the Location of an Earthquake Epicenter
 The locations of earthquake epicenters are
determined from the difference in travel
times of the S- and P-waves from the
location of the earthquake to the
observing stations. At an observing
station, the P-wave arrives first followed
after some time by the arrival of the S-
wave.
 For typical crustal rocks P-wave velocities
(Vp) are ~ 6.5 km/sec and S-wave velocities
(Vs) are ~ 3.7 km/sec. Thus, the distance
from the recording station to the
earthquake focus is given by:
 d = {(ts - tp)(VsVp)}/(Vp - Vs)
 tp and ts are the arrival times of the P- and
S-waves, respectively. This distance
defines a circle centered on the location of
the station upon which the earthquake
focus must lie.
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Seismic Travel-time Curve: If the speeds of the seismic waves are not
Locating an Earthquake’s Epicenter: Deep Source known, use Travel-Time curve for that region to get the distance

1. Measure time
between P and S
wave on
seismogram
2. Use travel-time
graph to get
distance to
epicenter

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Courtesy
Prof. Javed Malik – IIT Kanpur

Prof. G Madhavi Latha – IISc Bangalore

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