E-PSCI 203: Earthquakes and Faulting

 

Earthquakes and Faulting - EPS 203 - Spring 2018

Instructors: Marine A. Denolle

                    mdenolle@fas.harvard.edu

                    (phone 617 496 2708) Rm. 211 Geology Museum

 

Brendan Meade

                    meade@fas.harvard.edu

                    (phone 617 495 8921) Rm. 221 Geology Museum

 

John H. Shaw

                    shaw@eps.harvard.edu

                    (phone 617 495 8008) Rm. 215 Geology Museum

 

Lectures: Tuesday & Thursday, 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm, Geology Museum (24 Oxford St.) Rm. 204

 

Website: https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/37101

 

Course description: Introduction to earthquake in the context of global tectonics, source mechanisms, types of natural and induced earthquakes. Faults in the field, dating earthquakes, materials of fault cores. Observations, introduction to the theory, infrastructure response to earthquake ground motion. Introduction to hazard and to earthquake risk analysis.

 

Texts:  None

 

Prerequisites:  Instructors’ permission

 

Academic integrity:

Please read Harvard’s policy on academic integrity, in the Undergraduate Handbook. The relevant section is available at: http://handbook.fas.harvard.edu/book/academic-integrity. Also, please read Harvard’s guide to using sources (http://usingsources.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do), which includes a section on “Avoiding Plagiarism”. It is your responsibility as a student to read and understand the provisions of the Harvard College Honor Code. Cases of suspected Honor Code violation will be referred to the Honor Council.

Additional note on integrity:

Course materials are the property of the instructional staff, Harvard University, or other copyright holders, and are provided for your personal use. You may not distribute them or post them on websites.

Collaboration and academic honesty policy:

We encourage collaboration in lab and section activities. However, it is expected that all assignments and lab reports submitted for academic credit will be the student’s own work. If you use the work of others in preparing your responses, this must be properly acknowledged as outlined in the Harvard College Student Handbook.  Absolutely no collaboration or use of auxiliary materials is allowed during exams.  All exams must be completed independently with no aids.

Accommodations for students with disabilities:

Students needing academic adjustments or accommodations because of a documented disability must present their Faculty Letter from the Accessible Education Office (AEO) and speak with the professor by the end of the second week of the term. Failure to do so may result in the Course Head's inability to respond in a timely manner. All discussions will remain confidential, although Faculty are invited to contact AEO to discuss appropriate implementation.

 

Grading policy:               

Based on problem sets and labs.

 

Lectures:

 

Week 1

January 23 - Introduction and history of earthquake science (Meade)

January 25 - What we’ve learned from recent earthquakes (All)

 

Week 2

January 30 - Earthquake catalogs (Denolle)

February 1 - Earthquake/Faulting styles in tectonic environments (Shaw)

 

Week 3

February 6 - Empirical laws and phenomenology (Denolle)

February 8 - Fault zone characteristics/structure (Shaw)

 

Week 4

February 13 - Kinematics of earthquakes (Denolle)

February 15 - Dynamic modeling of earthquakes (Denolle)

 

Week 5

February 20 - Observations and modeling of earthquake nucleation (Denolle)

February 22 - Quasi-static dislocation theory and slip estimation (Meade)

 

Week 6

February 27 - Laptop lab: Dislocation software and how to get geodetic data (Meade)

March 1 - Kinematic earthquake cycle models and viscoelastic rheology (Meade)

 

Week 7

March 6 - Paleoseismicity and geologic slip rate constraints (Shaw)

March 8 - Overview and discussion of comparative slip rates (Shaw and Meade)

 

Spring break

 

Week 8

March 20 - Earthquake cycle dynamics: rate state friction and stress rotations (Denolle and Meade?)

March 22 - Representing the 3D geometry of active faults (Shaw)

 

Week 9

March 27 - 3D fault representation Lab (Plesch, Shaw) - Rm. 103c

March 29 - 3D fault representation Lab (Plesch, Shaw) - Rm. 103c

 

Week 10

 

April 3 - Ground motions (Denolle)

April 5 - Wave propagation in homogeneous whole space and half space. Seismic attenuation (Denolle)

 

Week 11

April 10 - 3D wave propagation, simulations, velocity models, anisotropy (Denolle and Shaw)

April 12 - Empirical ground motions: GMPE and seismic noise (Denolle)

 

Week 12

April 17 - Seismic Risk (Denolle, Shaw, and Meade)

April 19 - Earthquake insurance and securities (Meade)

 

Week 13

April 24 -  Frontiers, paradoxes, and unresolved issues in earthquake sciences (Denolle, Shaw, and Meade)