The 3rd international summer school on Earthquake Science


“Monitoring physical properties associated with tectonic processes”


The Earthquake Research Institute of the University of Tokyo (ERI) and the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) organize an international summer school on Earthquake Science in September 4-8, 2015 at Lake Yamanakako, Japan. We encourage graduate students and postdocs in the field of the international community to participate.

Date
September 4-8, 2015
Venue
Laforet Yamanakako, Yamanashi, Japan 
Scope
International summer school on Earthquake Science
Top-level scientists for key-note lectures
Encourage graduate students' and postdocs' presentations
Full week poster sessions for discussion
Participants
graduate students and postdocs (about 40 persons)

With recent improvements in modern geophysical observations and developments of new powerful analysis techniques, we have now reached a stage where we can detect temporal changes of the Earth’s interior associated with tectonic processes. These temporal changes include changes of elastic media, crustal and volcanic deformation, and variability in seismicity and earthquake source mechanisms. This summer school, in particular, focuses on monitoring of the Earth’s interior using seismic and geodetic methods. The program is divided into the following three sessions.

1. Monitoring seismic velocity structure with seismic interferometry

Probing temporal changes in seismic velocity structure is key for understanding tectonic deformation. Recent developments in seismic interferometry have allowed for use of ambient noise to monitor temporal changes in seismic velocities due to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The technique extracts wave propagation between a pair of stations by cross-correlating seismic ambient noise field. This session aims to introduce the technique, and review of new observations.

2. Monitoring crustal deformation

Recent dense geodetic observations on land (e.g., GPS) enable the monitoring of spatial and temporal variations of crustal deformation associated with tectonic processes (e.g. co-seismic and post-seismic deformations of earthquakes, slow slip events, and magma intrusions). Specifically, “high-rate GPS” allows us to measure time-dependent surface displacements related to megathrust events, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. Satellite geodesy (e.g. inSAR, GRACE) also provides us a finer picture of Earth surface processes and its gravity field. This session aims to introduce recent geodetic methods, new observations, and the physical interpretations resulting from such studies.

3. Monitoring seismicity

Analysis of seismicity and changes to it is a powerful way to identify tectonic processes because of how seismicity is sensitive to slight changes in the mechanical state in depth. The emergence of dense, low-noise, broadband seismic networks worldwide provides better information on the spatial–temporal evolution of earthquakes than ever before. For example, there have been recent observations of earthquakes that are dynamically triggered, seismicity occurring before large earthquakes, and earthquake migration linked to dike intrusions. In addition, anomalous earthquakes such as long/very-long period earthquakes, non-volcanic and volcanic tremor, and repeating earthquakes have been detected. This session focuses on new observations of seismicity changes and quantifying source mechanisms controlling earthquake and volcanic processes.

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