<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0"><channel><ttl>3600</ttl><title>The Sound of Seismic</title><link>http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/index.html</link><language>en-us</language><copyright>None; all Sound of Seismic audio and video animations are placed in the Public Domain by John N. Louie, author.</copyright><itunes:subtitle>Listen to Earthquakes and Other Earth Sounds</itunes:subtitle><itunes:author>John N. Louie</itunes:author><itunes:summary>Examples of earth sounds recorded by seismometers, plus video animations
of earthquake wave propagation. Seismometers are different from microphones and hydrophones in that they are sensitive to lower frequencies than people can hear, and they record a single direction of ground vibration. The sounds are usually sped up by factors of 10 to 100 to make them audible. More at crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds</itunes:summary>
<itunes:new-feed-url>http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/sound-of-seismic.xml</itunes:new-feed-url><itunes:owner><itunes:name>John N. Louie</itunes:name><itunes:email>louie@seismo.unr.edu</itunes:email></itunes:owner><itunes:image href="http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/mine.jpg" /><itunes:category text="Science"/><itunes:category text="Education"/><item><title>Gold Mine Blast</title><itunes:author>John Louie and the INC Transect Team</itunes:author><itunes:subtitle>400 Ears to the Ground Across Nevada</itunes:subtitle><itunes:summary>In August 2004 a UNR group set out a line of 400 seismometers extending from Fresno, Calif. north across the Sierra Nevada range, the Long Valley volcanic caldera, and central Nevada to the Idaho border. These seismometers monitored earthquakes in the caldera, and several large (&gt;100,000 lb ANFO) mining blasts at huge open-pit gold mines in northern Nevada for one week. This record of 411 seismograms lets you hear the data from one of these mining blasts sped up 100 times, from the south end at Fresno at the start, to the Idaho border with Nevada at the end, more than 500 km (300 miles) north. Listen for the ``heartbeat'' each 2.4 seconds as the recording travels north and S wave follows P wave. More at crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/blast.html</itunes:summary><enclosure url="http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/2004-232-20-56.mp3" length="9244021" type="audio/x-mp3" /><guid>http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/2004-232-20-56.mp3</guid><pubDate>Tue, 14 Mar 2006 12:00:00 GMT</pubDate><itunes:duration>7:41</itunes:duration><itunes:keywords>seismic,seismogram,earth,Nevada,Sierra,blast,mine,geophysics,quake,earthquake</itunes:keywords><itunes:explicit>clean</itunes:explicit></item> <item><title>Gold Mine Blast Video</title><itunes:author>John Louie and the INC Transect Team</itunes:author><itunes:subtitle>A Shot Heard Across Nevada</itunes:subtitle><itunes:summary>In August 2004 a UNR group set out a line of 400 seismometers extending from Fresno, Calif. north across Nevada to Idaho. These seismometers recorded earthquakes and several large (&gt;100,000 lb ANFO) mining blasts at huge open-pit gold mines in northern Nevada for one week. This video by Shane Smith and Chris Lopez shows one of these blasts, the source for the previous episode. This open-pit gold mine is more than 400 m (1400 ft) deep and over 2 km (1.5 mi) wide. Blasting is done almost every weekday, since for these deposits gold production depends on crushing and processing huge volumes of ore. More at crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/blast.html</itunes:summary><enclosure url="http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/Barrick2004-229.m4v" length="8282762" type="video/x-m4v" /><guid>http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/Barrick2004-229.m4v</guid><pubDate>Wed, 15 Mar 2006 12:00:00 GMT</pubDate><itunes:duration>1:20</itunes:duration><itunes:keywords>seismic,seismogram,earth,blast,gold,Nevada,mine,geophysics,quake,earthquake</itunes:keywords><itunes:explicit>clean</itunes:explicit></item> <item><title>Simulated Earthquake in Southern Nevada</title><itunes:author>John Louie</itunes:author><itunes:subtitle>Audio with All Regional Basins</itunes:subtitle><itunes:summary>The Collaboratory for Computational Geosciences (crack.seismo.unr.edu/ccog) is modeling synthetic earthquake motions through complex geological structures. The synthetic seismograms put us a few steps closer toward being able to accurately anticipate the ground shaking and other effects of likely earthquakes. The sounds presented here are predictions of ground shaking for seismic recording stations in southern Nevada, many in the Las Vegas urban area.
The synthetic recordings have been speeded up by a factor of 200, so you hear each of 23 stations' 200-second recordings in just one second. Since the time sampling of the synthetic is at just 40 Hz, the waves have a maximum frequency of 20 Hz. In practice, the mechanics of the finite-difference computation yield an upper frequency limit to the waves of only 0.5 Hz, or 2 seconds period. The objectives of the modeling process here are similar to those of a music synthesizer, or the rendering of audio from MIDI instruction codes. Our work emphasizes the accurate representation of the propagation, so we develop detailed geological and geophysical model volumes, where an acoustic engineer strives to accurately represent the concert-hall environment.
Sped up by a factor of 200, you will hear the waves at about 100 Hz. In the left channel you will hear the NW component of ground vibration, and the NE component in the right channel. The vertical, up-down component has been added to both channels. The recordings proceed approximately in the order of station distance from the earthquake, starting at the epicenter. Every second you listen to the same absolute time interval, and continually step away from the epicenter.
At the beginning of the recordings you will hear the sharp thumps of the body waves arriving first. You may hear muted echoes from the sides of the computation box. But the energy soon converts to drawn-out horizontal vibrations of energy trapped in the soft sedimentary basins that are sprinkled through this region like the holes in Swiss cheese. This trapped energy has the highest amplitude and presents the greatest shaking hazard to Las Vegas. Though the trapped energy sounds like noise, these synthetics have clean linear wave propagation with no noise or stochastic effects added.
We present two different models here, to explore the role of all the various basins in the region. The first model has all the basins known from geological and geophysical studies. The second model only has the Las Vegas basin. Certainly you can hear a substantial difference between the models for the stations not in Las Vegas. But our research question is whether there are important differences between the predictions of these models within the Las Vegas basin.</itunes:summary><enclosure url="http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/NTS-LV-h+z.mp3" length="784835" type="audio/x-mp3" /><guid>http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/NTS-LV-h+z.mp3</guid><pubDate>Wed, 5 Apr 2006 12:00:00 GMT</pubDate><itunes:duration>23</itunes:duration><itunes:keywords>seismic,seismogram,earth,Las Vegas,Nevada,basin,ground motion,geophysics,quake,earthquake</itunes:keywords><itunes:explicit>clean</itunes:explicit></item> <item><title>Simulated Earthquake in Southern Nevada</title><itunes:author>John Louie</itunes:author><itunes:subtitle>Video with All Regional Basins</itunes:subtitle><itunes:summary>The Collaboratory for Computational Geosciences (crack.seismo.unr.edu/ccog) is modeling synthetic earthquake motions through complex geological structures. The synthetic seismograms put us a few steps closer toward being able to accurately anticipate the ground shaking and other effects of likely earthquakes. The videos presented here are predictions of ground shaking for seismic recording stations in southern Nevada, many in the Las Vegas urban area.
The initially sharp and coherent earthquake energy soon converts to drawn-out horizontal vibrations of energy trapped in the soft sedimentary basins that are sprinkled through this region like the holes in Swiss cheese. This trapped energy has the highest amplitude and presents the greatest shaking hazard to Las Vegas. Though the trapped energy looks like noise, these synthetics have clean linear wave propagation with no noise or stochastic effects added.
The movies showing the wave propagation illustrate the trapping and amplification well. As in the graphic on the right, each frame of the movies present a map of 3-component ground motions for the tilted region on the map. The movie frames are 300 km wide from NW to SE and 200 km high from SW to NE. The movies proceed at two and a half times the real modeled time. The three primary computer display colors of red, green, and blue (RGB) are used to represent the three directional components of ground vibration X, Y, and Z, respectively. Each color is given an intensity related to the intensity of shaking motion in the respective direction. A black color indicates very little ground motion; red is motion in the X direction (horizontal on the screen); green is motion in Y (vertical on the screen); and blue is motion in Z (in and out of the screen). Where shaking directions combine, the colors combine according to the rules of colored light- yellow indicates combined horizontal motion (relative to the ground) of X and Y, adding red and green light, so could be north-south or east-west. White color, adding red, green, and blue all together, indicates high-intensity shaking on all components, including up and down. With these colors, P waves will be mostly blue, S waves red, green, or yellow; and the Rayleigh surface wave is identifiable by having blue up-down motion between the red, green, or yellow radial motions (elliptical particle motions).
We present two different models here, to explore the role of all the various basins in the region. The first model has all the basins known from geological and geophysical studies. The second model only has the Las Vegas basin. Certainly you can see a substantial difference between the models for the stations not in Las Vegas. But our research question is whether there are important differences between the predictions of these models within the Las Vegas basin.</itunes:summary><enclosure url="http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/NTS-LV-2s-3C.m4v" length="2251671" type="video/x-m4v" /><guid>http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/NTS-LV-2s-3C.m4v</guid><pubDate>Wed, 5 Apr 2006 12:00:00 GMT</pubDate><itunes:duration>40</itunes:duration><itunes:keywords>seismic,seismogram,earth,Las Vegas,Nevada,basin,ground motion,geophysics,quake,earthquake</itunes:keywords><itunes:explicit>clean</itunes:explicit></item> <item><title>Simulated Earthquake in Southern Nevada</title><itunes:author>John Louie</itunes:author><itunes:subtitle>Audio with No Regional Basins</itunes:subtitle><itunes:summary>The Collaboratory for Computational Geosciences (crack.seismo.unr.edu/ccog) is modeling synthetic earthquake motions through complex geological structures. The synthetic seismograms put us a few steps closer toward being able to accurately anticipate the ground shaking and other effects of likely earthquakes. The sounds presented here are predictions of ground shaking for seismic recording stations in southern Nevada, many in the Las Vegas urban area.
The synthetic recordings have been speeded up by a factor of 200, so you hear each of 23 stations' 200-second recordings in just one second. Since the time sampling of the synthetic is at just 40 Hz, the waves have a maximum frequency of 20 Hz. In practice, the mechanics of the finite-difference computation yield an upper frequency limit to the waves of only 0.5 Hz, or 2 seconds period. The objectives of the modeling process here are similar to those of a music synthesizer, or the rendering of audio from MIDI instruction codes. Our work emphasizes the accurate representation of the propagation, so we develop detailed geological and geophysical model volumes, where an acoustic engineer strives to accurately represent the concert-hall environment.
Sped up by a factor of 200, you will hear the waves at about 100 Hz. In the left channel you will hear the NW component of ground vibration, and the NE component in the right channel. The vertical, up-down component has been added to both channels. The recordings proceed approximately in the order of station distance from the earthquake, starting at the epicenter. Every second you listen to the same absolute time interval, and continually step away from the epicenter.
At the beginning of the recordings you will hear the sharp thumps of the body waves arriving first. You may hear muted echoes from the sides of the computation box. But the energy soon converts to drawn-out horizontal vibrations of energy trapped in the soft sedimentary basins that are sprinkled through this region like the holes in Swiss cheese. This trapped energy has the highest amplitude and presents the greatest shaking hazard to Las Vegas. Though the trapped energy sounds like noise, these synthetics have clean linear wave propagation with no noise or stochastic effects added.
We present two different models here, to explore the role of all the various basins in the region. The first model has all the basins known from geological and geophysical studies. The second model only has the Las Vegas basin. Certainly you can hear a substantial difference between the models for the stations not in Las Vegas. But our research question is whether there are important differences between the predictions of these models within the Las Vegas basin.</itunes:summary><enclosure url="http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/NTS-LV-noregbasin-h+z.mp3" length="542834" type="audio/x-mp3" /><guid>http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/NTS-LV-noregbasin-h+z.mp3</guid><pubDate>Wed, 5 Apr 2006 12:00:00 GMT</pubDate><itunes:duration>23</itunes:duration><itunes:keywords>seismic,seismogram,earth,Las Vegas,Nevada,basin,ground motion,geophysics,quake,earthquake</itunes:keywords><itunes:explicit>clean</itunes:explicit></item> <item><title>Simulated Earthquake in Southern Nevada</title><itunes:author>John Louie</itunes:author><itunes:subtitle>Video with No Regional Basins</itunes:subtitle><itunes:summary>The Collaboratory for Computational Geosciences (crack.seismo.unr.edu/ccog) is modeling synthetic earthquake motions through complex geological structures. The synthetic seismograms put us a few steps closer toward being able to accurately anticipate the ground shaking and other effects of likely earthquakes. The videos presented here are predictions of ground shaking for seismic recording stations in southern Nevada, many in the Las Vegas urban area.
The initially sharp and coherent earthquake energy soon converts to drawn-out horizontal vibrations of energy trapped in the soft sedimentary basins that are sprinkled through this region like the holes in Swiss cheese. This trapped energy has the highest amplitude and presents the greatest shaking hazard to Las Vegas. Though the trapped energy looks like noise, these synthetics have clean linear wave propagation with no noise or stochastic effects added.
The movies showing the wave propagation illustrate the trapping and amplification well. As in the graphic on the right, each frame of the movies present a map of 3-component ground motions for the tilted region on the map. The movie frames are 300 km wide from NW to SE and 200 km high from SW to NE. The movies proceed at two and a half times the real modeled time. The three primary computer display colors of red, green, and blue (RGB) are used to represent the three directional components of ground vibration X, Y, and Z, respectively. Each color is given an intensity related to the intensity of shaking motion in the respective direction. A black color indicates very little ground motion; red is motion in the X direction (horizontal on the screen); green is motion in Y (vertical on the screen); and blue is motion in Z (in and out of the screen). Where shaking directions combine, the colors combine according to the rules of colored light- yellow indicates combined horizontal motion (relative to the ground) of X and Y, adding red and green light, so could be north-south or east-west. White color, adding red, green, and blue all together, indicates high-intensity shaking on all components, including up and down. With these colors, P waves will be mostly blue, S waves red, green, or yellow; and the Rayleigh surface wave is identifiable by having blue up-down motion between the red, green, or yellow radial motions (elliptical particle motions).
We present two different models here, to explore the role of all the various basins in the region. The first model has all the basins known from geological and geophysical studies. The second model only has the Las Vegas basin. Certainly you can see a substantial difference between the models for the stations not in Las Vegas. But our research question is whether there are important differences between the predictions of these models within the Las Vegas basin.</itunes:summary><enclosure url="http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/NTS-LV-noregbasin.m4v" length="3902207" type="video/x-m4v" /><guid>http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/NTS-LV-noregbasin.m4v</guid><pubDate>Wed, 5 Apr 2006 12:00:00 GMT</pubDate><itunes:duration>1:20</itunes:duration><itunes:keywords>seismic,seismogram,earth,Las Vegas,Nevada,basin,ground motion,geophysics,quake,earthquake</itunes:keywords><itunes:explicit>clean</itunes:explicit></item> <item><title>Singing Sands</title><itunes:author>John Louie</itunes:author><itunes:subtitle>Sand Mountain, Nevada: a booming dune</itunes:subtitle><itunes:summary>On Oct. 4, 1999 a crew from the UNR Geological Sciences program met Dr. Franco Nori of the University of Michigan, Dr. Nick Lancaster of the Desert Research Institute, and documentary filmmaker Brando Quilici at Sand Mountain about 90 minutes east of Reno. Dr. Nori had written an article for the Sept. 1997 Scientific American about booming and squeaking sand dunes; Dr. Lancaster had spent time tracking sand-dune movements in sub-Saharan Africa. Brando Quilici was preparing a segment on Sand Mountain for a video titled Burning Sands, which played on the Discovery Channel in 2000. Louie's professional seismic recording equipment was in repair at the time, so he recorded two geophones wired into the sound input of his laptop (as shown for about 1 second in Burning Sands). The left channel of the recording below is from a horizontal geophone (sensitive to horizontal particle motion) at the base of the dune's slip face. The right channel is from a vertical geophone at the dune crest. This recording in not speeded up, and you can hear the crew conversing, through the geophones. The recording begins with Dr. Nori plowing sand down the slip face near the crest (strong in the right ear), and proceeds as he sleds down the face past the lower geophone 100 feet away (strong in the left ear). Starting at about 45 seconds into the recording you will hear the booming strongly. It is a strong resonance at about 70 Hz frequency. Good headphones or a subwoofer are necessary to hear this low frequency well.  More at crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/sand.html</itunes:summary><enclosure url="http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/sand11.mp3" length="1175746" type="audio/x-mp3" /><guid>http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/sand11.mp3</guid><pubDate>Sat, 17 Jun 2006 01:00:00 GMT</pubDate><itunes:duration>1:10</itunes:duration><itunes:keywords>sand,dune,seismometer,Fallon,Carson,Nevada,mountain,boom,booming,squeaking,desert,burning</itunes:keywords><itunes:explicit>clean</itunes:explicit></item> <item><title>New Zealand Earthquakes</title><itunes:author>John Louie</itunes:author><itunes:author>S. Bannister</itunes:author><itunes:author>S. Henrys</itunes:author><itunes:author>R. Robinson</itunes:author><itunes:subtitle>Earthquake aftershocks below North Island, New Zealand</itunes:subtitle><itunes:summary>Russell Robinson, Stuart Henrys, and Stephen Bannister of GNS Science in Wellington, New Zealand have kindly provided this set of earthquake recordings. In February 1990 a magnitude 6.2 earthquake occurred deep below the southeast coast of the North Island, the first of two large earthquakes near the town of Weber east of Dannevirke in the Manawatu district. It was followed by hundreds of aftershocks having magnitudes up to 5.5. This recording presents 164 of the aftershocks as they were heard at one seismic recording station. You will hear all the events in rapid sequence, without the true time intervals between them. Some quiet space was created between each event to prevent clicks due to the splicing. The main shock was at a depth of 30 km, 10 km below the interface between the subducting Pacific Plate and the overriding Australian Plate. Its aftershocks are similarly deep. You will hear for each earthquake its sharp P-wave arrival rapidly followed by the less sharp S-wave arrival. The effect is like an echo, except that the S-wave echo is louder than the primary wave. The recording has been speeded up by a factor of 50, so each event passes in just 0.4 second instead of the true 20 seconds. The recoding below proceeds not in the chronological order of the earthquakes, but in the order of the travel time to a certain spot on the plate interface. Any echo off this ``bright spot'' will have less amplitude than the primary, and make the event sound more reverberatory. In order of distance to the bright spot, the reverberation should become clearer toward the end of the recording. More at crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/weber.html</itunes:summary><enclosure url="http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/WTA-refloff.mp3" length="526375" type="audio/x-mp3" /><guid>http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/sounds/WTA-refloff.mp3</guid><pubDate>Sat, 17 Jun 2006 01:00:00 GMT</pubDate><itunes:duration>32</itunes:duration><itunes:keywords>Weber,Dannevirke,Manawatu,Palmerston North,Hikurangi,subduction,plate,tectonics,Pacific,Australian,New Zealand,seismogram,earthquake,aftershock</itunes:keywords><itunes:explicit>clean</itunes:explicit></item> <item><title>Death Valley Earthquake Scenarios for Las Vegas</title><itunes:author>John Louie</itunes:author><itunes:subtitle>The hazard depends on the direction the fault ruptures</itunes:subtitle><itunes:summary>The Collaboratory for Computational Geosciences (crack.seismo.unr.edu/ccog) at the College of Science, University of Nevada (www.unr.edu/cos), is modeling synthetic earthquake motions through complex geological structures. The simulations are teaching us what we need to know in order to accurately anticipate the ground shaking and other effects of likely earthquakes.
This narrated video presents two scenarios for the same M7.5 earthquake affecting Las Vegas. In the first, epicenter of the earthquake is at the southeast end of the fault near the resort of Furnace Creek, Calif., and the fault rupture propagates northwest, away from the city. In the second scenario, the epicenter of the earthquake is at the northwest end of the fault, at Ubehebe Crater, and the rupture is toward Las Vegas to the southeast.
The one-minute video presents the the geologic and geotechnical data that went into the model, shows the wave propagation from both rupture scenarios, and compares the peak ground shaking from each scenario in Las Vegas. The direction of the fault rupture and the location of the earthquake's epicenter turn out to be the most important effects on the level of ground-shaking hazard in Las Vegas. To see additional earthquake scenarios affecting Nevada cities, please visit crack.seismo.unr.edu/ma .
The computations were set up and run by undergraduate Geological Sciences and Engineering students in the fall Geophysics and Geodynamics course at the Univ. of Nevada, Reno. Student Liz Lennox set up the Death Valley scenarios. John Louie (crack.seismo.unr.edu/~louie), the course instructor, prepared the animations and narrated the video.
The narrated video includes the sound of the synthetic seismic waves, sped up by a factor of ten and used to modulate pink noise, for clarity. The noise modulation makes the waves sound a little like ocean waves lapping at a beach. On the left channel is the sound of a station in Amargosa Valley, close to Death Valley. On the right channel is a station in Las Vegas Valley, at the Community College of Southern Nevada, Cheyenne Campus. Being closer to the earthquake, you will hear sounds on the left channel earlier than on the right. Additional sound effects were added for illustration.
The wave-propagation animations each last 12 seconds, and they are sped up by a factor of ten over the 120 sec of wave propagation that is simulated. The the initially coherent earthquake energy soon converts to drawn-out horizontal vibrations of energy trapped in the soft sedimentary basins that are sprinkled through this region like the holes in Swiss cheese- each basin rings like a gong. This trapped energy has the highest amplitude and presents the greatest shaking hazard to Las Vegas. Though the trapped energy looks like noise, these synthetics have clean viscoelastic wave propagation with no noise or stochastic effects added.
The animations showing the wave propagation illustrate the trapping and amplification well. As in the graphic on the right, each frame of the movies present a map of 3-component ground motions for the region on the map. The movie frames are 281 km wide from NW to SE and 251 km high from SW to NE. The three primary computer display colors of red, green, and blue (RGB) are used to represent the three directional components of ground vibration X, Y, and Z, respectively. Each color is given an intensity related to the intensity of shaking motion in the respective direction. Where there is no color, and you can just see the gray shaded-relief of the basin model, there is very little ground motion; red is motion in the X direction (East, horizontal on the screen); green is motion in Y (North, vertical on the screen); and blue is motion in Z (in and out of the screen). Where shaking directions combine, the colors combine according to the rules of colored light- yellow indicates combined horizontal motion (relative to the ground) of X and Y, adding red and green light, so could be north-south or east-west. White color, adding red, green, and blue all together, indicates high-intensity shaking on all components, including up and down. With these colors, P waves will be mostly blue, S waves red, green, or yellow; and the Rayleigh surface wave is identifiable by having blue up-down motion between the red, green, or yellow radial motions (elliptical particle motions).
The wave propagation movies were created with the help of the software listed at crack.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/convimage/ .</itunes:summary><enclosure url="http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/ma/scenarios/FurnaceCr-scenario.m4v" length="13564691" type="video/x-m4v" /><guid>http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/ma/scenarios/FurnaceCr-scenario.m4v</guid><pubDate>Thu, 25 Oct 2007 17:00:00 GMT</pubDate><itunes:duration>66</itunes:duration><itunes:keywords>seismic,seismogram,earth,Death Valley,Las Vegas,Nevada,basin,ground motion,geophysics,quake,earthquake</itunes:keywords><itunes:explicit>clean</itunes:explicit></item> <item><title>Scenario Shaking Animations for the M6.0 Wells Earthquake, Nevada</title><itunes:author>John Louie</itunes:author><itunes:subtitle>Annotated video shows effects of varying rupture directivity</itunes:subtitle><itunes:summary>The Collaboratory for Computational Geosciences (crack.seismo.unr.edu/ccog) at the College of Science, University of Nevada (www.unr.edu/cos), is modeling synthetic earthquake motions through complex geological structures. The simulations are teaching us what we need to know in order to accurately anticipate the ground shaking and other effects of likely earthquakes.
This annotated video (from a Powerpoint presentation) presents two scenarios for the ground shaking generated by the February 21, 2008 magnitude 6.0 earthquake near Wells, Nevada. The two scenarios are: 1) Rupture directivity toward the west;
2) Rupture directivity toward the east. For the Wells event, eastward rupture directivity produced a remarkable match between the computed scenario and recorded data.
To see additional earthquake scenarios affecting Nevada cities, please visit crack.seismo.unr.edu/ma .
The wave-propagation animations each last 10 seconds, and they are sped up by a factor of ten over the 100 sec of wave propagation that is simulated. The the initially coherent earthquake energy soon converts to drawn-out horizontal vibrations of energy trapped in the soft sedimentary basins that are sprinkled through Nevada like the holes in Swiss cheese- each basin rings like a gong. This trapped energy has the highest amplitude and presents the greatest shaking hazard. Though the trapped energy looks like noise, these synthetics have clean viscoelastic wave propagation with no noise or stochastic effects added.
The animations showing the wave propagation illustrate the trapping and amplification well. Each frame of the animations presents a map of 3-component ground motions for the region on the map. The Wells computation map covers a larger area 226 km (138 mi) wide E-W and 226 km (138 mi) high N-S, with a spatial precision of 300 meters and computed shaking frequency of 0.5 Hz.
The three primary computer display colors of red, green, and blue (RGB) are used to represent the three directional components of ground vibration X, Y, and Z, respectively. Each color is given an intensity related to the intensity of shaking motion in the respective direction. Where there is no color, and you can just see the gray shaded-relief of the basin model, there is very little ground motion; red is motion in the X direction (East, horizontal on the screen); green is motion in Y (North, vertical on the screen); and blue is motion in Z (in and out of the screen). Where shaking directions combine, the colors combine according to the rules of colored light- yellow indicates combined horizontal motion (relative to the ground) of X and Y, adding red and green light, so could be north-south or east-west. White color, adding red, green, and blue all together, indicates high-intensity shaking on all components, including up and down. With these colors, P waves will be mostly blue, S waves red, green, or yellow; and the Rayleigh surface wave is identifiable by having blue up-down motion between the red, green, or yellow radial motions (elliptical particle motions).</itunes:summary><enclosure url="http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/ma/scenarios/Wells-scenarios.m4v" length="10593718" type="video/x-m4v" /><guid>http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/ma/scenarios/Wells-scenarios.m4v</guid><pubDate>Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:37:00 PDT</pubDate><itunes:duration>121</itunes:duration><itunes:keywords>seismic,shaking,PGV,seismogram,earth,Elko,Wells,Nevada,basin,ground motion,geophysics,quake,earthquake</itunes:keywords><itunes:explicit>clean</itunes:explicit></item> <item><title>Scenario Shaking Animations for the M5.0 West Reno-Mogul Earthquake, Nevada</title><itunes:author>John Louie</itunes:author><itunes:subtitle>Annotated video shows effects of varying geologic basin models</itunes:subtitle><itunes:summary>The Collaboratory for Computational Geosciences (crack.seismo.unr.edu/ccog) at the College of Science, University of Nevada (www.unr.edu/cos), is modeling synthetic earthquake motions through complex geological structures. The simulations are teaching us what we need to know in order to accurately anticipate the ground shaking and other effects of likely earthquakes.
This annotated video presents two scenarios for the ground shaking generated by the April 25, 2008 magnitude 5.0 West Reno-Mogul, Nevada earthquake. The two scenarios are: 1) Basins from a regional database; and 2) Basins from a detailed local database. For the West Reno-Mogul event, neither computed scenario successfully matched the peak ground velocities of shaking (PGV) recorded during the actual event.
To see additional earthquake scenarios affecting Nevada cities, please visit crack.seismo.unr.edu/ma .
The wave-propagation animations each last 10 seconds, and they are sped up by a factor of ten over the 100 sec of wave propagation that is simulated. The the initially coherent earthquake energy soon converts to drawn-out horizontal vibrations of energy trapped in the soft sedimentary basins that are sprinkled through Nevada like the holes in Swiss cheese- each basin rings like a gong. This trapped energy has the highest amplitude and presents the greatest shaking hazard. Though the trapped energy looks like noise, these synthetics have clean viscoelastic wave propagation with no noise or stochastic effects added.
The animations showing the wave propagation illustrate the trapping and amplification well. Each frame of the animations presents a map of 3-component ground motions for the region on the map. The West Reno-Mogul computation map was 34.8 km (21.3 mi) wide E-W and 39.8 km (24.3 mi) high N-S, with a spatial precision of 80 meters and computed shaking frequency of 1.0 Hz.
The three primary computer display colors of red, green, and blue (RGB) are used to represent the three directional components of ground vibration X, Y, and Z, respectively. Each color is given an intensity related to the intensity of shaking motion in the respective direction. Where there is no color, and you can just see the gray shaded-relief of the basin model, there is very little ground motion; red is motion in the X direction (East, horizontal on the screen); green is motion in Y (North, vertical on the screen); and blue is motion in Z (in and out of the screen). Where shaking directions combine, the colors combine according to the rules of colored light- yellow indicates combined horizontal motion (relative to the ground) of X and Y, adding red and green light, so could be north-south or east-west. White color, adding red, green, and blue all together, indicates high-intensity shaking on all components, including up and down. With these colors, P waves will be mostly blue, S waves red, green, or yellow; and the Rayleigh surface wave is identifiable by having blue up-down motion between the red, green, or yellow radial motions (elliptical particle motions).</itunes:summary><enclosure url="http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/ma/scenarios/MogulM5-scenarios.m4v" length="12729113" type="video/x-m4v" /><guid>http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/ma/scenarios/MogulM5-scenarios.m4v</guid><pubDate>Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:45:00 PDT</pubDate><itunes:duration>186</itunes:duration><itunes:keywords>seismic,shaking,PGV,seismogram,earth,Reno,Sparks,Mogul,Nevada,basin,ground motion,geophysics,quake,earthquake</itunes:keywords><itunes:explicit>clean</itunes:explicit></item> 

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