INTRODUCTION TO SEISMOLOGY

SUBMITTED BY:
RAMEEZ KHALID
M.S CIVIL ENGINEERING (STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING)
ROLL NO. MCVS-023R19-4 (2nd Semester)

SUBMITTED TO:
ENGR. Dr. M. ASLAM

SUBJECT:
SEISMIC DESIGN OF STRUCTURES

DATE OF SUBMISSION:
13th MAY, 2020
 INTRODUCTION TO SEISMOLOGY 2

SEISMOLOGY

Earthquakes primarily occur at the boundaries where the 100 km-thick tectonic plates converge, diverge, or slide past each
other. Although the plates move steadily, their boundaries are often “locked,” and do not move most of the time. However,
on time scales of a few hundred years, the boundary slips suddenly, and the accumulated motion is released in an earthquake.
The earthquakes nicely define the plate boundaries, although some earthquakes also occur in intraplate regions, away from
plate boundaries. Plate tectonic concepts were unknown in the late 1950s.

TECHTONIC PLATES:

Seafloor and continents move around on Earth’s surface, but what is actually moving? What portion of the Earth makes up
the “plates” in plate tectonics? This question was also answered because of technology developed during war times – in this
case, the Cold War. The plates are made up of the lithosphere.

Earthquakes outline the plates.

During the 1950s and early 1960s, scientists set up seismograph networks to see if enemy nations were testing atomic
bombs. These seismographs also recorded all of the earthquakes around the planet. The seismic records could be used to
locate an earthquake’s epicenter, the point on Earth’s surface directly above the place where the earthquake occurs.

Earthquake epicenters outline the plates. Mid-ocean ridges, trenches, and large faults mark the edges of the plates, and this
is where earthquakes occur.

The lithosphere is divided into a dozen major and several minor plates. The plates’ edges can be drawn by connecting the
dots that mark earthquakes’ epicenters. A single plate can be made of all oceanic lithosphere or all continental lithosphere,
but nearly all plates are made of a combination of both.

Engr. RAMEEZ KHALID

May 2, 2020
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The lithospheric plates and their names. The arrows show whether the plates
are moving apart, moving together, or sliding past each other.

PLATE BOUNDRIES:

Three fundamental kinds of plate boundaries can be observed in the oceanic domain, which have three counterparts in
continental areas. In the oceans, we find mid-ocean ridges, trenches, and strike-slip faults. The continental analogues of
these tectonic structures are, respectively, rifts, collision zones, and transcurrent faults.

Mid-ocean ridges are extensional boundaries in the oceanic domain. These features are spreading centers, where new
oceanic crust is passively accreted as a consequence of divergent motion between two tectonic plates. These boundaries are
formed by sequences of ridge segments that are linked together by transform faults.

Transform faults are faults with a pure strike slip kinematics and a strike that reflects the local direction of instantaneous
motion between two plates. Therefore, these faults are always parallel to velocity vectors of relative motion. This relative
motion is clearly left-lateral strike-slip in the case of dextral offset of the spreading segments and vice versa. For example,
all the transform faults imply left lateral strike-slip motion. The adjective “transform” that is attributed to these tectonic
features arises from the fact that they generate active bathymetric discontinuities, as far as the two plates move apart. Such

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discontinuities are called fracture zones and represent linear features that apparently pursue the transform faults toward the
continental margins. Therefore, the latter seem to be “converted” into a different class of faults, characterized by vertical
slip. Furthermore, a specular trace will form on the conjugate plate, reaching the opposite continental margin. Generally,
fracture zone tracks are easily identified on bathymetric or gravity anomaly maps, because age discontinuities are always
associated with bathymetric gaps. Depth to the sea floor increases with the crustal age, so that an age discontinuity always
implies a bathymetric gap. Despite the invariance of the age discontinuity, along a fracture zone track, the difference of
depth across the two sides changes with time, because the rate of sea floor subsidence is not a linear function of time,
especially during the first 100 Myrs. This implies a lateral discontinuity in the amount of subsidence, so that fracture zones
can be assimilated to vertical faults characterized by vertical slip. Therefore, as suggested by their name, transform faults
are converted to a different class of faults, fracture zones, which are not associated with horizontal slip and do not represent
plate boundaries, but simply are active bathymetric gaps associated with discontinuities in the age of the sea floor. Finally,
it is necessary to keep in mind that although transform faults and ridge segments are very different tectonic features, they
are part of unique plate boundaries, namely the mid-ocean spreading centers. In other words, they cannot be considered as
distinct classes of plate boundaries.

 Divergent plate boundaries: the two plates move away from each other.
 Convergent plate boundaries: the two plates move towards each other.
 Transform plate boundaries: the two plates slip past each other.

The type of plate boundary and the type of crust found on each side of the boundary determines what sort of geologic
activity will be found there.

DIVERGENT PLATE BOUNDARIES:

Plates move apart at mid-ocean ridges where new seafloor forms. Between the two plates is a rift valley. Lava flows at the
surface cool rapidly to become basalt, but deeper in the crust, magma cools more slowly to form gabbro. So the entire
ridge system is made up of igneous rock that is either extrusive or intrusive. Earthquakes are common at mid-ocean ridges
since the movement of magma and oceanic crust results in crustal shaking. The vast majority of mid-ocean ridges are
located deep below the sea

Can divergent plate boundaries occur within a continent? What is the result? To understand this let us consider a case for
continental rifts. In continental rifting, magma rises beneath the continent, causing it to become thinner, break, and
ultimately split apart. New ocean crust erupts in the void, creating an ocean between continents. E.g. The Arabian, Indian,
and African plates are drifting apart, forming the Great Rift Valley in Africa. The Dead Sea fills the rift with seawater.

Engr. RAMEEZ KHALID

May 2, 2020
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CONVERGENT PLATE BOUNDARIES:

When two plates converge, the result depends on the type of

lithosphere the plates are made of. No matter what, smashing two
enormous slabs of lithosphere together results in magma
generation and earthquakes.

OCEAN-CONTINENT:

When oceanic crust converges with continental crust, the denser

oceanic plate plunges beneath the continental plate. This process,
called subduction, occurs at the oceanic trenches. The entire
region is known as a subduction zone. The volcanoes of
northeastern California—Lassen Peak, Mount Shasta, and
Medicine Lake volcano—along with the rest of the Cascade
Mountains of the Pacific Northwest are the result of subduction of
the Juan de Fuca plate beneath the North American plate. The
Juan de Fuca plate is created by seafloor spreading just offshore at
the Juan de Fuca ridge.

OCEAN-OCEAN:

When two oceanic plates converge, the older, denser plate will sub
duct into the mantle. An ocean trench marks the location where the
plate is pushed down into the mantle. The line of volcanoes that
grows on the upper oceanic plate is an island arc.

CONTINENT-CONTINENT:

Continental plates are too buoyant to subduct. Since it has nowhere to go but up, this creates some of the world’s largest
mountains ranges. Magma cannot penetrate this thick crust so there are no volcanoes, although the magma stays in the crust.
Metamorphic rocks are common because of the stress the continental crust experiences. With enormous slabs of crust
smashing together, continent-continent collisions bring on numerous and large earthquakes.

Engr. RAMEEZ KHALID

May 2, 2020
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TRANSFORM PLATE BOUNDRY:

Transform plate boundaries are seen as transform faults, where two plates move past each other in opposite directions.
Transform faults on continents bring massive earthquakes.

THEORY OF PLATE TECHTONICS:

In line with other previous and contemporaneous proposals, in 1912 the meteorologist Alfred Wegener amply described
what he called continental drift, expanded in his 1915 book The Origin of Continents and Oceans. The South African Alex
du Toit put together a mass of such information in his 1937 publication Our Wandering Continents, and went further than
Wegener in recognizing the strong links between the Gondwana fragments. Despite much opposition, the view of
continental drift gained support and a lively debate started between “drifters” or “mobilists” (proponents of the theory) and
“fixists” (opponents). During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, the former reached important milestones proposing that
convection currents might have driven the plate movements, and that spreading may have occurred below the sea within the
oceanic crust. Concepts close to the elements now incorporated in plate tectonics were proposed by geophysicists and
geologists (both fixists and mobilists) like Vening-Meinesz, Holmes, and Umbgrove.

CONTINENTAL DRIFT:

By 1915, after having published a first article in 1912, Alfred Wegener was making serious arguments for the idea of
continental drift in the first edition of The Origin of Continents and Oceans. In that book (re-issued in four successive
editions up to the final one in 1936), he noted how the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa looked as
if they were once attached. Wegener was not the first to note this (Abraham Ortelius, Antonio Snider-Pellegrini, Eduard
Suess, Roberto Mantovani and Frank Bursley Taylor preceded him just to mention a few), but he was the first to marshal
significant fossil and paleo-topographical and climatological evidence to support this simple observation (and was supported
in this by researchers such as Alex du Toit). Furthermore, when the rock strata of the margins of separate continents are
very similar it suggests that these rocks were formed in the same way, implying that they were joined initially.

FLOATING CONTINENTS, PALEOMAGNETISM, AND SEISMICITY ZONES:

As it was observed early that although granite existed on continents, seafloor seemed to be composed of denser basalt, the
prevailing concept during the first half of the twentieth century was that there were two types of crust, named “sial”
(continental type crust) and “sima” (oceanic type crust). Furthermore, it was supposed that a static shell of strata was present
under the continents. It therefore looked apparent that a layer of basalt (sial) underlies the continental rocks. Debates
developed around the phenomena of polar wander. Since the early debates of continental drift, scientists had discussed and
used evidence that polar drift had occurred because continents seemed to have moved through different climatic zones
during the past. Furthermore, paleomagnetic data had shown that the magnetic pole had also shifted during time. Reasoning
in an opposite way, the continents might have shifted and rotated, while the pole remained relatively fixed. The first time
the evidence of magnetic polar wander was used to support the movements of continents was in a paper by Keith Runcorn
in 1956.

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May 2, 2020
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MID-OCEANIC RIDGE SPREADING AND CONVECTION:

In 1947, a team of scientists led by Maurice Ewing utilizing the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s research
vessel Atlantis and an array of instruments, confirmed the existence of a rise in the central Atlantic Ocean, and found that
the floor of the seabed beneath the layer of sediments consisted of basalt, not the granite which is the main constituent of
continents. They also found that the oceanic crust was much thinner than continental crust. The new data that had been
collected on the ocean basins also showed particular characteristics regarding the bathymetry. One of the major outcomes
of these datasets was that all along the globe, a system of mid-oceanic ridges was detected. An important conclusion was
that along this system, new ocean floor was being created, which led to the concept of the “Great Global Rift.” This was
described in the crucial paper of Bruce Heezen (1960).

MAGNETIC STRIPING:

Beginning in the 1950s, scientists like Victor Vacquier, using magnetic instruments (magnetometers) adapted from airborne
devices developed during World War II to detect submarines, began recognizing odd magnetic variations across the ocean
floor. This finding, though unexpected, was not entirely surprising because it was known that basalt—the iron-rich, volcanic
rock making up the ocean floor—contains a strongly magnetic mineral (magnetite) and can locally distort compass readings.
This distortion was recognized by Icelandic mariners as early as the late eighteenth century. More important, because the
presence of magnetite gives the basalt measurable magnetic properties, these newly discovered magnetic variations provided
another means to study the deep ocean floor. When newly formed rock cools, such magnetic materials recorded the Earth’s
magnetic field at the time.

After all these considerations, Plate Tectonics (or, as it was initially called “New Global Tectonics”) became quickly
accepted in the scientific world, and numerous papers followed that defined the concepts:

 In 1965, Tuzo Wilson who had been a promotor of the sea floor spreading hypothesis and continental drift from the
very beginning added the concept of transform faults to the model, completing the classes of fault types necessary to
make the mobility of the plates on the globe work out.

 A symposium on continental drift was held at the Royal Society of London in 1965 which must be regarded as the
official start of the acceptance of plate tectonics by the scientific community, and which abstracts are issued as
Blacket, Bullard & Runcorn (1965). In this symposium, Edward Bullard and co-workers showed with a computer
calculation how the continents along both sides of the Atlantic would best fit to close the ocean, which became known
as the famous “Bullard’s Fit”.

 In 1966 Wilson published the paper that referred to previous plate tectonic reconstructions, introducing the concept
of what is now known as the “Wilson Cycle.”

 In 1967, at the American Geophysical Union’s meeting, W. Jason Morgan proposed that the Earth’s surface consists
of 12 rigid plates that move relative to each other.

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 Two months later, Xavier Le Pichon published a complete model based on 6 major plates with their relative motions,
which marked the final acceptance by the scientific community of plate tectonics.

 In the same year, McKenzie and Parker independently presented a model similar to Morgan’s using translations and
rotations on a sphere to define the plate motions.

Engr. RAMEEZ KHALID

May 2, 2020