Lab.

Section: _____

Name:________________________________ Student Number: _______________________________

YORK UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE & ENGINEERING (2011)
EATS 1010 3.0 SEISMOLOGY Bring a ruler, circle drawing compass, calculator, and red pen or pencil to the laboratory. PART 1. EARTHQUAKE EPICENTRES The most advanced drilling methods allow geologists to obtain samples from only the upper ten kilometres of the Earth. Most of our knowledge of the Earth's interior, therefore, has come from the study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves emanating from the earthquake source region. The point on the Earth's surface directly above the origin or focus of an earthquake is the epicentre. At seismic recording stations, shock waves are analyzed to locate the epicentre. When many epicentres are mapped the locations of active earthquake zones become clear. Since these zones demarcate the boundaries of the tectonic plates, it is important to understand how epicentres are located. Each earthquake produces two types of shock waves that travel through the Earth: Primary, or Pwaves and Secondary, or S-waves. The P-waves travel about 70% faster than the S-waves and are the first to arrive at a distant seismic recording station. After the slower S-waves arrive the time interval between the arrival times of the P- and S-waves is measured. The larger the time interval, the greater the distance is between the epicentre and the recording station. When the distance to the earthquake is known from three different locations, triangulation is used to pinpoint the epicentre. In this part of the Laboratory Exercise you will use seismograms to determine relative distances to earthquake epicentres, seismic travel time curves to determine the actual distance to epicentres and triangulation to locate the epicentres. PROCEDURE: 1. Study the three seismograms from Sydney, Tokyo and Honolulu on page 7 (Figure 1). List the three seismic stations, starting with the farthest station and ending with the closest station. Laboratory Exercise #5

Page2 2. Determine the distance from each seismic station to the epicentre. To do this, for each station determine the time interval between the P- and S-wave arrivals from the seismogram and find the matching time interval between the two curves on the seismic travel-time graph (Figure 2). Reading vertically down from the matching time interval on Figure 2 gives the distance to the epicentre. Tokyo:________ km Honolulu: _________ km Sydney: ___________ km

Use the map scale (Figure 3) to set a drafting compass to the proper length for the distance from Sydney to the epicentre. Place the compass point at Sydney and draw an arc using the distance as the radius. Repeat this procedure for Tokyo and Honolulu. The intersection of the three arcs marks the epicentre of the earthquake. Epicentre location: Longitude _____________, Latitude _______________ 3. What geographic feature(s) is(are) located at the epicentre? ___________________________________________________

PART 2. EARTHQUAKES AND TRANSFORM FAULTS A distinctive feature of the mid-ocean ridge system is the large number of sharp fractures that cut across it at right angles. They break the submarine mountain range into parts that are offset by as much as 640 km. These fractures look like the long recognized strike-slip or transcurrent type of fault. Along transcurrent faults the rocks on either side move in opposite directions all along the fault line. But if sea-floor spreading at the mid-ocean ridge is responsible for the fault, movement along the fault lines would only occur between the offset mid-ocean ridge segments. This new kind of fault was named a transform fault by Tuzo Wilson in 1965. To determine the identity of the faults, the earthquake epicentres in the mid-ocean ridge area are plotted. If the epicentres prove to be only between the offset portions of the ridge, the fault would be a transform fault. Since transform faults result from sea-floor spreading, their existence would lend further support to the general theory of plate tectonics. PROCEDURE: Listed below are the locations of 27 earthquake epicentres according to latitude and longitude. They are representative of those occurring in the equatorial Atlantic area.

Page3 Epicentres in the Equatorial Atlantic Ocean 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 4. 1640'N, 4640'W 1600'N, 4640'W 1515'N, 4600'W 1445'N, 4515'W 1325'N, 4445'W 1245'N, 4430'W 1035'N, 4330'W 1035'N, 4200'W 945'N, 4110'W 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 900'N, 4050'W 800'N, 3830'W 735'N, 3730'W 715'N, 3550'W 700'N, 3430'W 500'N, 3300'W 440'N, 3245'W 045'N, 3000'W 100'N, 2815'W 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 030'N, 2635'W 110'S, 2430'W 015'S, 1915'W 005'S, 1830'W 000'S, 1730'W 145'S, 1630'W 115'S, 1500'W 215'S, 1330'W 230'S, 1230'W

With a red pen or pencil mark the location of each epicentre, listed above, on the mid-ocean ridge map (Figure 4). How many earthquakes occurred at the mid-ocean rift? ___________________ How many earthquakes occurred along the fracture zone? ____________________ How many earthquakes occurred elsewhere? ____________________ Do any earthquakes in the fracture zones occur outside the offset portions of the ridge axis? _______________________

5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

How does the earthquake data confirm that the fracture zones are Transform faults, as opposed to transcurrent faults? ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

10.

Describe the relationship between a transform fault and its associated spreading centre. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

Page4 11. Why do the fracture zones mapped on Figure 4 extend outside the offset portions of the ridge axis? ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

PART 3. SEISMIC DYNAMICS In this exercise, you will discover how to determine the direction that the ground initially moves, along a fault, at the onset of an earthquake. This, in addition to the epicentre locations, helps us to decide whether the offset fractures associated with the mid-ocean ridge are transform faults or not. There are two types of faults across which ground motion is entirely horizontal, transcurrent and transform faults. The type is determined by the direction of the rock movement along the fracture.

N
COMPRESSION | DILATATION

| (D) | | | | E | | | | |

(C)

(D)
DILATATION

(C)
COMPRESSION

| COMPRESSION | (C) | | | | E | | | | (C) | (D) COMPRESSION | DILATATION

DILATATION

(D)

TRANSCURRENT
If the ridge offset were caused by the familiar strike-slip, or transcurrent fault, movements along the fracture would occur in the directions shown.

TRANSFORM
Transform fault movements, due to sea-floor spreading from the ridge, would produce movements opposite to transcurrent faults.

Page5 Suppose you stood facing north at the earthquake site E in the diagram above. Now consider how the blocks of rock on opposite sides of the fault (the horizontal dashed E-W line) move along the fracture during an earthquake. At the transcurrent fault, rocks to your left-front and right-rear would be compressed (C) initially due to the direction of initial ground motion. Rocks to your rightfront and left-rear would be dilated (D) (i.e., opened or stretched out). In contrast, the motion of the transform fault would compress rocks to your right-front and left-rear and dilate rocks to your immediate left-front and right-rear. When an earthquake occurs, the energy is transmitted from the focus in all directions. As it reaches a seismic station the first P-wave indicates the first motion of the earthquake. If the deflection on the seismograph is upwards, the first wave had a compress ional origin. If it is down, it had a dilatational origin. The earthquakes first motion, C or D, and the direction to the focus are collected from many seismic stations. Each station becomes a point plotted on a sphere with the earthquake focus at the centre. A sphere is used because the seismic waves spread outward from their source in the form of a sphere. Each point on the sphere is labeled with a C if the first motion is compress ional or with a D if the first motion is dilatational. If ground movement is horizontal, these points always yield a pattern with the sense of first motions neatly divided into four quadrants. The two planes which separate the first motions into four quadrants are the only possible orientations that a fault line can have and still produce the arrangements of first motions plotted. Thus, one of the planes will coincide with the orientation of the fault plane along which the slippage occurred. After deciding which of the two planes coincides with the fault plane, by studying the pattern of compressions and dilatations on both sides of that plane we can determine whether the fault is a transform fault or a transcurrent fault. PROCEDURE: 12. Sketch four seismograms in the space below.

1.

3.

2.

4.

Page6 Where 1 and 3 are the seismograms that show a dilatational first motion, and 2 and 4 are the seismograms that show compress ional first motion Explain your choices: _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________

13.

Look at the first motion spheres in Figure 5. In which quadrants do we find all of the dilations for earthquake #1 (Possible quadrants are NE, SE, SW, or NW). ______________________

14.

Based on the location of dilations and compressions on the sphere representing earthquake #1, draw one arrow on each side of planes A and B which would produce the conditions represented by the clusters of C's and D's (Figure 5). Repeat this procedure for earthquakes 2, 3 and 4. Locate earthquake #1 on the map of Figure 6. To determine the direction of rock movement on both sides of the fracture complete the following: a. In the first motion sphere for earthquake #1, which plane strikes in the same direction as the Romanche fracture zone? ________________________________________ b. Draw arrows near the epicentre of earthquake #1 to show the direction of rock motion along the plane. Do these arrows correspond to the direction of movement if the ridge is a spreading centre? __________________________ d. Repeat the above procedure (i.e. steps a, b and c) for each of earthquakes 2, 3 and 4. Does rock motion in the other two fracture zones correspond to the motion expected if the ridge is a spreading centre? ______________________________________

15.

c.