Lecture 3: Earthquakes & instrumentation

Asst. Prof. Deepa Mele Veedu

WL 226, 8 Aug 2023, Tue. ES665A: Physics of earthquakes

 Class reschedule
3 holidays fall on Tuesdays and Thursdays
So, 3 lectures are rescheduled from 3:30 - 5 pm as below:

Actual class Rescheduled class

15 Aug, Tue. (Independence day) 19 Aug, Sat.
7 Sept, Thu. (Janmashtami) 9 Sept, Sat.
28 Sept, Thu. (Id-e-Milad) 30 Sept, Sat.

Attendance for 3 days will be given to all students irrespective of their absence/presence

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No overlap/clash between holidays and lectures

Durga Pooja; Fri, 20 Oct, 2023 – Tue, 24 Oct, 2023 (Google search)
During mid-sem recess

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 Course management
All students must send the below information to the TAs asap
1. Full name
2. Roll number
3. Email id
4. WhatsApp number (Group among students and 2 TAs - no instructor)

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 Students’ info
Fill the google form asap
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfPsAnecAj_68Nqc5zJB16HWTGBzqdS7e9CNJm14aGup5swhA/viewform

1. Name
2. Roll Number
3. Email id
4. WhatsApp number
5. Bachelor's and master's degree – subject and university.
6. The program you are enrolled in and your current year and semester.
7. If you are doing a project, who do you work with, and what is your research eld?
8. Which Opera ng System do you use (Windows/Linux/Mac)?
9. Have you used Bash script, LaTeX, Generic Mapping Tools (GMT), Seismic Analysis Code,
Matlab, Python, Gnuplot?
10.Have you taken any of these courses (Mathema cs for Earth Sciences, Experimental Rock
mechanics and rock physics, Ac ve Tectonics and Paleo seismology, Advance Structural
Geology, Microstructures in Earth Sciences, Natural Hazards, Geodynamics) from the ES dept,
IIT Kanpur?
11.Have you taken any course on earthquakes so far from any ins tute? If yes, kindly write.
12.What do you expect from this ES665A course? Why do you plan to enrol in this course?

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 Students’ info
Fill the google form asap
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfPsAnecAj_68Nqc5zJB16HWTGBzqdS7e9CNJm14aGup5swhA/viewform

Total 49 students
16 students - not lled the form; TAs won’t be able to add them in the WhatsApp
group for communication

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 Recording attendance
• TAs will pass an A4 sheet paper, students need to ll the information and sign.
• Vacant seats will be counted and subtracted from total seats to get the actual

number of students in the classroom.

• Number of signatures should match the number of students in the classroom.
• No forgery (if happens, it will be reported to doaa).

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Myths about the cause of earthquakes
 Myths about the cause of earthquakes
Myths about earthquakes evolved in many cultures to explain the catastrophic earthquakes
before the science behind them was well-understood.

India
Elephants held up the Earth. When one grew tired and lowered
and shook its head, an earthquake occurred.

Ancient Greece
In Greek Mythology, when the God Poseidon became angry, he
would hit the ground with his trident which caused earthquakes

China
A giant frog held up the Earth. When it twitched, it produced an
earthquake.

Japan
A giant cat sh lived beneath the Earth's surface and when it
thrashed about, it caused an earthquake.

East Africa
A sh carries a rock on its back and a cow stands on the rock,
balancing the Earth on one of its horns. When her neck begins to
hurt, she tosses the Earth from one horn to another and causes
an earthquake.

No evidence!
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 Current understanding
Tectonic plates move due to convection in the mantle, which is caused by the heat within
the earth mainly due to the decay of radioactive isotopes.

Earthquakes are caused by the movement of tectonic plates. Although these plates are
always moving, some parts on the fault interface get locked and when the stress on the
rock overcomes the friction, rock blocks move producing earthquakes, and energy travels
in waves through and close to the earth’s surface.

Evidence for plate tectonics will be discussed in future lectures.

 Plate tectonics and layers of the Earth
• Theory of plate tectonics in the 1960s
- It con rmed the forces acting on faults

What are tectonic plates?

• Layers of the Earth

- Crust

- Mantle

- Core

• Lithosphere (crust and

uppermost solid mantle)

• Asthenosphere (molten
upper mantle below
lithosphere)

The Earth's lithosphere is broken into a number of large of

tectonic plates which move over the asthenosphere
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Tectonic plate motion loads the fault system
• Tectonic plates move slowly
~4cm/yr
- a few cm/yr; as slow as our nger nail growth
• Plate motion is driven by the convection in the mantle
• Convection is caused by the heat within the earth
• Major part of heat is due to the decaying radioactive elements
• Essentially, the plate motion loads the fault systems to produce earthquakes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryrXAGY1dmE 12
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Tectonic plate motion loads the fault system

Spring slider system

(a few mm-cm/sec)

Biaxial experiments (10 micro-m/s) Numerical modeling (a few cm/yr)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryrXAGY1dmE 13
Recording earthquakes
 Development in recording
132 AD
• First seismoscope invented
• Zhang Heng
• China
• One of early China’s
most important
achievements

• Zhang Heng, Chinese mathematician, astronomer, and geographer. His seismoscope for
registering earthquakes was apparently cylindrical in shape, with eight dragons’ heads
arranged around its upper circumference, each with a sphere in its mouth. Below were eight
frogs, each directly under a dragon’s head.

• When an earthquake occurred, a sphere is released from a dragon’s mouth, probably by an internal
pendulum that moved back and forth according to the direction of vibration, and was caught by a
frog’s mouth, which produced noise.

• Made no record of ground motion but simply indicated that ground shaking had occurred and the
direction of the location of an earthquake.
132 AD Seismoscope
132 AD Seismoscope
132 AD Seismoscope
1841, David Milne, First idea of Seismograph
1841
• Idea that one could use machines
to measure seismic activity
• David Milne
• United Kingdom
• He named a machine designed by
James David Forbes a “seismometer”
 1880, John Milne, Modern Seismograph
1880
• Developed modern seismograph
• With Alfred Ewing and Thomas Gray
• United Kingdom
• He promoted the establishment
of seismological stations worldwide

After a quake hit Yokohama in 1880, Milne, along with British colleagues James Alfred Ewing
and Thomas Gray, initiated the founding of the Seismological Society of Japan, the world’s
rst seismological society (SSJ).

The society funded the invention of seismographs to detect and measure the strength of
earthquakes.

Milne's instruments permitted him to detect different types of earthquake waves.

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1897, First Seismograph installed in the U.S
1897
• Installed at the Lick observatory near San Francisco.
• It was able to record the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906.
 1869, Seismometer on Moon
1869
• Apollo 11 astronauts (Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin) placed the rst
seismometer on the Moon
• Moonquakes have been recorded to last up to 10 minutes
• Largest earthquakes end within 2 minutes
• Moonquakes are produced as a result of meteoroids hitting the surface or by the
gravitational pull of the Earth squeezing and stretching the moon's interior.

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What is inside the geophone of RaspberryShake
RS1D indoor unit and how it works?

A spring-mounted wire coil moving past a magnet.

This creates the electrical signal which is recorded.
 How a geophone works?

A spring-mounted wire coil moving past a magnet.

This creates the electrical signal which is recorded.
Assignment 1
Use of graphics to explain earthquake science
1. Observational seismology 3. Biaxial shear experiments

2. Analog modeling 4. Numerical modeling

Photographs to graphics
1. Observational seismology

2. Biaxial shear experiments

 Paid - Vector Graphics Software
The most common type of editable vector le is the Adobe Illustrator (. ai) le.
In Adobe Illustrator, one can save the le as .pdf. Then, open the .pdf in Adobe Illustrator for
editing.

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 Paid - Vector Graphics Software
The most common type of editable vector le is the Adobe Illustrator (. ai) le.
In Adobe Illustrator, one can save the le as .pdf. Then, open the .pdf in Adobe Illustrator for
editing.

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 Free - Vector Graphics Softwares

• Better to choose a software that works on desktop/in your computer not web-based.
• The exported le should be editable when shared.
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 Free - Vector Graphics Software - Inkscape

• Better to choose a software that works on desktop/in your computer not web-based.
• The exported le should be editable when shared.
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Why we learn vector graphics in this course?
Why we learn vector graphics?

Diagrammatic representation
of the key structural
features of the DNA
double helix.
 Photo showing X-ray Rosalind Franklin
diffraction pattern of DNA

Taken in 1952, this is the rst X-ray image of DNA, which led to the discovery of its molecular
structure by Watson and Crick. Image was taken by Rosalind Franklin using a technique
called X-ray crystallography, it revealed the helical shape of the DNA molecule.
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Watson and Crick, 1953, Nature
The DNA double helix. This
drawing appeared in
Watson and Crick’s report1
of the structure of DNA,
and was produced by
Crick’s wife, Odile.
Watson and Crick
working on a physical
structure of the double
helix

A sketch of the double

helix in the
background

The Nobel Prize in

1962 was awarded to
James Watson,
Francis Crick and
Maurice Wilkins for
their discovery of the
molecular structure of
DNA
 Why we learn vector graphics?

A sketch and a diagrammatic representation of the key structural features of the DNA
double helix. Vector graphics helps to edit it faster.
Utility of vector graphics

Problem: Bicycle theft

Utility of vector graphics
Patent: Anti-theft locking system/device
Utility of vector graphics
Patent: Anti-theft locking system/device

GPS tracking
Utility of vector graphics
Patent: Anti-theft locking system/device
Utility of vector graphics
Technical drawing for
mass manufacturing
 Assignment 1

Schematic of a seismograph and

its working principle

Schematic of an experimental setup and

how the experiments were conducted
Selected examples
Selected examples
Selected examples
Selected examples
Selected examples
Deadline for Assignment 1:
19 Aug 2023, Sat.

Next lecture:
10 Aug 2023, Thu.
Thank you!