Lecture 5: Tectonic and non-tectonic earthquakes,

fault anatomy, fault types, seismic waves, seismogram

Asst. Prof. Deepa Mele Veedu

WL 226, 17 Aug 2023, Thu. ES665A: Physics of earthquakes

Assignment 1 info: Excel 2 tabs
 Assignment 1 info: Folders with
gure names and references
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 Assignment 1: Speci c instructions
Please submit the below by 19th Aug 2023, 23:59
1. An editable le of your scienti c diagram and
2. A Word document (1-2 pages) describing the diagram
• If it is a seismic/creep instrument, write different parts of the device
and the working principle
• If it is an experimental setup, write the parts of the machine and how
they conduct the experiments
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 Assignment 1: Speci c instructions
1. Assignment 1 has two parts and carries total 20 points.
• Submit the scienti c diagram in an editable default le format (example .ai le in the
case of Adobe Illustrator, .svg le in the case of Inkscape, .dwg le in the case of
CAD, .cdr le in the case of CorelDraw) and also submit the exported .pdf le (4
points).
• The diagram should match the raster le assigned to you (6 points).

• The description on the working principle/experimental procedure should be written/

rephrased by you (not copied directly from the reference) (8 points).
• The word le should also include a sentence on the software that was used to create
the vector graphics and the software version (E.g., Adobe Illustrator 2023, Inkscape
2023, etc.) (2 points).

2. All the les should be submitted by 19 Aug 2023, 23:59. A delay in submission will result
in -10 points/day.
3. If interested to earn bonus points, kindly email the instructor about it after submitting
the assignment1 by the deadline.
4. All assignments should be sent to the instructor (mvdeepa@iitk.ac.in) NOT TAs.
5. If the le size is too large to email, please upload it in DropBox or OneDrive or
similar and email the link. The link should be accessible to the instructor by the
deadline.
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Minus points:
1 day late for Already assigned
submission: -10

Bonus Points
more graphics: +10
Google form:

Total 52 students
11 more remaining to ll the form below
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfPsAnecAj_68Nqc5zJB16HWTGBzqdS7e9CNJm14aGup5swhA/viewform
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Earthquakes commonly occur where tectonic plates meet.
Earthquakes occur where plates are subducting, spreading, slipping, or colliding.
About 80% of earthquakes occur where plates are pushed together, called convergent
boundaries.
 Distribution of earthquakes
1. Circum-Paci c Seismic Belt: The world's greatest earthquake belt, the circum-Paci c seismic belt, is
found along the rim of the Paci c Ocean, where about 80% of our planet's largest earthquakes occur.
It has earned the nickname "Ring of Fire”.

• The belt exists along boundaries of tectonic plates, where plates of oceanic crust are sinking
(or subducting) beneath another plate. Earthquakes in these subduction zones are caused by slip
between plates and rupture within plates.

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 Distribution of earthquakes
2. Mid Continental Belt: The Alpine-Himalayan earthquake belt. It is 15,000 kilometers along the
southern margin of Eurasia. It stretches from Java and Sumatra, through the Indochinese Peninsula,
the Himalayas, the mountains of Iran, Anatolia, the Mediterranean, and out into the Atlantic.

• This belt accounts for about 17% of the world's largest earthquakes, including some of the most
destructive one.

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 Distribution of earthquakes
3. Mid-Oceanic Ridge: The third prominent belt follows the submerged mid-oceanic Ridge. The ridge
marks where two tectonic plates are spreading apart (a divergent plate boundary). 3% of seismicity is
from MORS.

• Most of the Mid-Oceanic Ridge is deep underwater and far from human development.

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 Elastic rebound theory (Reid, 1911)
• Explains how a tectonic earthquake occur.

• As rocks on opposite sides 1. Original position 2. Deformation

of a fault are subjected to
tectonic forces, stress is
generated and deformation
occur.

• When the stresses exceed

fault’s frictional resistance,
a sudden movement occurs
4. Rocks rebound to
along the fault. This 3. Rupture and release of energy
original shape
releases the accumulated
strain energy and the rocks
snap back.

• Earthquake happens when the accumulated strain energy is released and the rock blocks across a
fault is moved. And, we experience earthquakes as a sudden shaking of the ground due to seismic
waves passing through the earth.
 San Andreas Fault
SAF crosses California from Cape Mendocino in the north to the Salton Sea in the south

The entire San Andreas fault system

is more than 750 miles (1200 km)
long and extends to several km
deep within the Earth. In detail, the
fault is a complex zone of crushed
and broken rock from a few hundred
feet to a mile wide.

Kanpur to Mumbai ~1200km

 San Andreas Fault

• One of the largest faults in the world

• It is the boundary between the Paci c Plate (that includes the Paci c Ocean) and North
American Plate (that includes North America).
• These two plates are moving horizontally, slowly sliding past one another.
• The Paci c Plate is moving northwest with respect to the North American Plate at
approximately 46 millimeters per year.
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What type of earthquakes are related to SAF?
Tectonic earthquakes
Tectonic earthquakes
The most common earthquakes on the Earth are the tectonic earthquake. They are due to tectonic loading (plates
subducting, diverging, sliding past each other)

Non-Tectonic earthquakes?
Volcanic Earthquakes
▪ Con ned to areas of active volcanoes.
▪ Volcanic earthquakes produced by stress changes in solid rock due to the injection or withdrawal of
magma (molten rock).
▪ As the tectonic plates near subduction zones move, magma underground may be forced in and out of these
chambers.The movement of this magma causes ground shaking and measurable seismic activity.
▪ Seismic activity occurs as a precursor to most large eruptions. Volcano tectonic seismicity is an important tool in
being able to predict the eruptions of volcanoes.

Human Induced Earthquakes

1. In the areas of intense mining activity, sometimes the roofs of underground mines collapse causing minor
tremors. These are called collapse earthquakes.
2. Ground shaking may also occur due to the explosion of chemical or nuclear devices. Such tremors are called
explosion earthquakes.
3. The earthquakes that occur in the areas of large reservoirs are referred to as reservoir induced earthquakes.
(E.g., Koyna dam earthquakes due to water load in the dam)
4. Hydraulic fracturing or fracking for enhanced recovery of oil and gas can also induce earthquakes (E.g.,
Oklahoma, USA) - are fracking induced earthquakes

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San Andreas Fault generates Tectonic earthquakes
(non-volcanic; not human induced)
What type of fault is San Andreas Fault?

based on the direction of motion

Understanding faults and types of fault settings
relating to earthquakes
 What is a fault?

A fault is a fracture across which rock blocks have moved due to an earthquake.

Hanging wall block

Footwall block
 Anatomy of a fault
The 5 main parts of a fault are:
1. Fault plane - the planar surface between two rock blocks created by an earthquake.
2. Foot wall block - the rock block below the fault plane.
3. Hanging wall block - the rock block that hangs over the fault plane.
4. Fault trace - the crack on the earth’s surface that indicates where a fault is.
5. Fault scarp - the vertical part that is visible during tectonic activity.

Hanging wall block

Footwall block
Types of faults
Types of faults
Normal fault

Reverse fault

Strike-slip fault
 Normal fault

Normal fault • The rock mass above the fault plane (i.e., hanging wall
block) moves down.

• Normal faults or dip-slip faults occur where the crust is

being pulled apart (extensional forces), at a divergent
plate boundary; results in extension.

• Examples: Basin & Range faults (alternating parallel

mountains and valleys), CA

Zion National Park Utah www.geo.tcu.edu

 Reverse fault

Reverse fault
• Hanging wall block moves up

• Reverse fault occur due to compressional forces, at

convergent plate boundaries; results in shortening.

• Commonly found in collision zones like the Himalayas

(E.g., Main Central Thrust) and Sunda megathrust in a
subduction zone

Cape peninsula, South Africa www.geo.tcu.edu

 Strike-slip fault

Strike-slip fault • Are vertical (or nearly vertical) fractures where the
blocks have mostly moved horizontally.

• The fault motion of a strike-slip fault is caused by

shearing forces.

• Examples: San Andreas Fault, Great Sumatran Fault

Left-lateral strike-slip fault

Tarlay fault, Myanmar www.geo.tcu.edu

Right-lateral strike-slip fault Left-lateral strike-slip fault

What type of fault is this?

Zip National Park, Utah www.geotripperimages.com

 What type of fault is this?

Normal fault

Zip National Park, Utah www.geotripperimages.com

 What type of fault is this?

Cape peninsula, South Africa www.http://geologicalintroduction.baf .co.uk

fl
 What type of fault is this?

Reverse fault (thrust fault)

Cape peninsula, South Africa www.http://geologicalintroduction.baf .co.uk

fl
More exercises
More exercises
 More exercises

Piqiang fault

Satellite image of a fault in the Taklamakan Desert. The two colorful ridges (at bottom left
and top right) used to form a single continuous line, but have been split apart by movement
along the fault.
More exercises
 Quantifying some aspects of a fault
• Footwall block
• Inclined fault plane on which earthquake happens.
• Strike is the direction of the line formed by the intersection of a fault and the horizontal plane
• Strike angle is the angle between strike line and the North direction.
• Dip angle is a the angle between fault plane and the horizontal surface that is perpendicular to strike
• The slip vector indicates the direction in which the hanging wall (upper side) moves with respect to the
foot wall (lower side). The slip vector always lies in the fault plane.
• Slip angle - angle between slip vector and horizontal.
 Slip angles for fault types
• For example, slip angle is -90 for normal fault; +90 for reverse fault; zero for a left-lateral strike-slip
fault; 180 for a right-lateral strike-slip fault.
 Ripples in a pond

A wave is a disturbance that propagates from the place where it was created. Waves transfer energy
from one place to another. In the above example, the kinetic energy driven by the stone gets
transferred to the water particles. Hence, transverse waves are created. In a transverse wave, the
particles are displaced perpendicular to the direction the wave.
 Earthquakes
• Earthquakes are caused by the sudden release of accumulated strain energy,
which generates waves that travel through the interior and close to the surface of the
Earth and are recorded on instruments called seismographs.

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 Seismic wave, seismograph,
seismogram, seismic network

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 Seismic waves: P and S wave
Seismic waves - waves of energy that travel through earth that cause the ground shaking.

• Seismic wave travel within the earth; many types

• Broadly categorized as Body waves (travel through the
the interior of earth and Surface waves (travel close to
earth’s surface)

• P wave - body wave

• P waves (primary or pressure wave):
Fastest; rst wave to arrive in seismogram;
longitudinal waves; particle motion is parallel to wave
direction.

• S wave - body wave

• S waves (secondary or shear wave):
Second to arrive in seismogram; also called transverse waves; particle motion is
perpendicular to wave direction.
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 Seismic waves: Surface waves
Surface waves: slower than body waves (P and S)
Two types: Rayleigh and love waves

Rayleigh wave

Love wave

Which type of seismic wave causes hazardous ground shaking (the most damage)?
Particle motion and direction of P wave

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/waves
Particle motion and direction of S wave

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/waves
Particle motion and direction of Rayleigh wave

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/waves
Particle motion and direction of Love wave

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/waves
Seismic wave types

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P, S, and surface wave arrival time in a seismogram

Seismogram from 1906 San Francisco 7.9 Mw earthquake

On a seismogram of an earthquake, the P-wave is the rst signal to arrive, followed

by the slower S-wave, then the surface waves.
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 Seismograph

• A seismograph is a device for measuring the movement of the earth, and consists of a ground-motion detection
sensor, called a seismometer, coupled with a recording system. A simple seismometer that is sensitive to up-
down motions of the earth can be understood by visualizing a weight hanging on a spring. The spring and weight are
suspended from a frame. Frame moves along with the earth’s surface. But, the weight stays still due to inertia.

• As the earth moves, the relative motion between the weight and the frame provides a measure of the vertical
ground motion. If a recording system is installed, such as a rotating drum attached to the frame, and a pen attached to
the mass, this relative motion between the weight and frame can be recorded to produce a history of ground motion,
called a seismogram.

• Here, the seismographs operate on the principle of inertia - stationary objects, such as the weight in the above
picture, remain stationary unless acted upon by a force. The weight thus tends to remain stationary while the frame
and drum are moving. Seismometers used in earthquake studies are designed to be highly sensitive to ground
movements.

• A vertical seismograph measures records up-and-down movement.

• A seismogram is the recording of the ground shaking at the speci c location of the instrument. On a seismogram, the
horizontal axis = time (measured in seconds) and the vertical axis= ground displacement (usually measured in
millimeters).
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 Modern seismometers do not use paper and pen
Modern seismometers are electronic, and instead of using a pen and drum, the relative motion between the weight and
the frame generates an electrical voltage that is recorded digitally.

A spring-mounted wire coil moving past a magnet.

This creates the electrical signal which is recorded
 One component Seismogram
Record of the movements along one axis (vertical)
 Three component Seismogram
Record of the movements along three axes
Three component Seismogram
Three component Seismogram
 Seismic network

• Locations of seismic recording stations that are part of the Global Seismic Network (GSN) - a cooperative federation
of international seismology organizations that share data.

• The data from many of these seismometers are available for rapid analysis following most large earthquakes. They
can be downloaded from IRIS Website.

• Earthquake origin time (when the rupture began), location (latitude and longitude), depth, and faulting
parameters such as as strike, dip, and slip directions are available.

• The US Geological Survey (USGS) routinely locates earthquakes. Seismology group at Harvard also provide a quick
estimate of the faulting parameters - often within a few hours of the earthquake. There are other sources as well.
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Downloading earthquake catalogs

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Available earthquake data
IRIS - Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology

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Thank you!

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