The total capacity of Three Gorges Reservoir(TGR) and Danjiangkou Reservoir(DJR) is large and has significant seasonal fluctuations, which give rise to crustal instability. In this research, we focus on studying the temporal and spatial variation of crustal deformation in Hubei Province caused by reservoir impoundment of TGR and DJR.The Digital Elevation Model, historical hydrological information, GPS monitoring data and load-induced deformation model are combined to monitor the crustal deformation. The modeled results indicate that in the trapezoidal area between the TGR and DJR, the average vertical deformations at different latitudes have different variation tendencies. The vertical deformation modulus and fluctuation amplitude are larger at the latitude of 33 N/32.5 N from 2003 to 2006 and at the latitude of 31 N/32.5 N from 2008 to 2014, while the latter are much larger than the former. Moreover, from2008 to 2014, the frequency and the intensity of seismic activities are all enhanced significantly in this region. The modeled results at the GPS sites are consistent with the vertical displacement of GPS monitoring results in trends and the waveform. It can be inferred that the seasonal deformation is elastic. The horizontal deformation components have the same variation trends with that at each GPS monitoring station,which demonstrates that the whole region is moving toward the southeast. The spatial variation of crustal deformation demonstrates that the impoundment of TGR in2003 causes significant vertical displacements, with the maximum modulus of 32 mm downward located in Xiangjiang River's estuary. When the water storage increases, the maximum value will become larger, and the location will move toward the upstream.Besides, the earthquakes occurred more frequently in the region with maximum deformation modulus.
The Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) is used to analyze the time series from nine superconducting gravimeter (SG) stations and 22 broadband seismometers to investigate the anomalous signals prior to the great 2010 Maule earthquake. The results show that seven SG time series and 20 broadband seismometer time series have anomalous signals lasting about one to three days before the earthquake occurrence. The anomalous signals appear around the frequency bands 0.07Hz and 0.15Hz in SG records while around the frequency band 0.13Hz-0.2Hz in seismic records, and the reason why they appear in different bands might be attributed to the intrinsic nature and different sensitivities of different kinds of instruments. Because more than 87% records have the anomalous signals prior to the earthquake, and no typhoon event is found in our chosen time window, we may conclude that the anomalous signals might be precursory signals of the great 2010 Maule event. However, we do not rule out other possible excitation sources.
The 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake,occurred on 11 March,2011,is a great earthquake with a seismic magnitude Mw9. 1,before which an Mw7. 5 earthquake occurred. Focusing on this great earthquake event,we applied Hilbert-Huang transform( HHT) analysis method to the one-second interval records at seven superconducting gravimeter( SG) stations and seven broadband seismic( BS) stations to carry out spectrum analysis and compute the energy-frequency-time distribution. Tidal effects are removed from SG data by T-soft software before the data series are transformed by HHT method. Based on HHT spectra and the marginal spectra from the records at selected seven SG stations and seven BS stations we found anomalous signals in terms of energy. The dominant frequencies of the anomalous signals are respectively about 0. 13 Hz in SG records and 0. 2 Hz in seismic data,and the anomalous signals occurred one week or two to three days prior to the event. Taking into account that in this period no typhoon event occurred,we may conclude that these anomalous signals might be related to the great earthquake event.
In this study,we selected 18 SG(superconducting gravimeter)records from 15 GGP stations with 99 vertical and 69 horizontal components of IRIS broad-band seismograms during 2004 Sumatra Earthquake to detect the splitting of higher-degree Earth’s free oscillations modes(_0S_4,_0S_7~_0S_(10),_2S_4,_1S_5,_2S_5,_1S_6)and 12 inner-core sensitive modes(_(25)S_2,_(27)S_2,_6S_3,_9S_3,_(13)S_3,_(15)S_3,_(11)S_4,_(18)S_4,_8S_5,_(11)S_5,_(23)S_5,_(16)S_6)by using OSE(optimal sequence estimation)method which only considers self-coupling.Results indicate that OSE can completely isolate singlets of high-degree modes in time-domain,effectively resolve the coupled multiplets independently,and reduce the possibility of mode mixing and end effect,showing that OSE could improve some signals’signal-to-noise ratio.Comparing the results of SG records with seismic data sets suggests that the number of SG records is inadequate to detect all singlets of higher modes.Hence we mainly selected plentiful seismograms of IRIS to observe the multiplets of higher modes.We estimate frequencies of the singlets using AR method and evaluate the measurement error using bootstrap method.Besides,we compared the observations with the predictions of PREM-tidal model.This study demonstrates that OSE is effective in isolating singlets of Earth’s free oscillations with higher modes.The experimental results may provide constraints to the construction of 3D Earth model.
According to the space-geodetic data recorded at globally distributed stations over solid land spanning a period of more than 20-years under the International Terrestrial Reference Frame 2008,our previous estimate of the average-weighted vertical variation of the Earth's solid surface suggests that the Earth's solid part is expanding at a rate of 0.24 ± 0.05 mm/a in recent two decades.In another aspect,the satellite altimetry observations spanning recent two decades demonstrate the sea level rise(SLR) rate 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/a,of which1.8 ± 0.5 mm/a is contributed by the ice melting over land.This study shows that the oceanic thermal expansion is 1.0 ± 0.1 mm/a due to the temperature increase in recent half century,which coincides with the estimate provided by previous authors.The SLR observation by altimetry is not balanced by the ice melting and thermal expansion,which is an open problem before this study.However,in this study we infer that the oceanic part of the Earth is expanding at a rate about 0.4 mm/a.Combining the expansion rates of land part and oceanic part,we conclude that the Earth is expanding at a rate of 0.35 ± 0.47 mm/a in recent two decades.If the Earth expands at this rate,then the altimetry-observed SLR can be well explained.
