Vol 53, No 3 (2017)

Siberian traps are the result of huge basalt eruptions which took place about 250 Ma ago over a vast territory of Siberia. The genesis of Siberian traps is attributed to a mantle plume with a center in the region of Iceland or beneath the central Urals in terms of their present coordinates. The eruption mechanism is associated with delamination—replacement of the mantle lithosphere by the deep magma material. The receiver function analysis of the records from the Norilsk seismic station (NRIL) allows comparing these hypotheses with the factual data on the depth structure of the region of Siberian traps. The S-wave velocity section place the seismic lithosphere/asthenosphere boundary (LAB) at a depth of 155–190 km, commensurate with the data for the other cratons. The mantle lithosphere has a high S-wave velocity characteristic of cratons (4.6–4.8 km/s instead of the typical value 4.5 km/s). The seismic boundary, which is located at a depth around 410 km beneath the continents is depressed by ~10 km in the region of the NRIL station. The phase diagram of olivine/wadsleyite transformation accounts for this depression by a 50–100°С increase in temperature. At the depths of 350–400 km, the S-wave velocity drops due to partial melting. A new reduction in the S-wave velocities is observed at a depth of 460 km. The similar anomalies (deepening of the 410-km seismic boundary and low shear wave velocity at depths of 350–400 and 460–500 km, respectively) were previously revealed in the other regions of the Meso-Cenozoic volcanism. In the case of a differently directed drift of the Siberian lithosphere and underlying mantle at depths down to 500 km, these anomalies are barely accountable. In particular, if the mantle at a depth ranging from 200 to 500 km is fixed, the anomalies should be observed at the original locations where they emerged 250 Ma ago, i.e. thousands of km from the Siberian traps. Our seismic data suggest that despite the low viscosity of the asthenosphere, the mantle drift at depths ranging from 200 to 500 km is correlated with the drift of the Siberian lithospheric plate. Furthermore, the position of the mantle plume beneath the Urals is easier to reconcile with the seismic data than its position beneath Iceland because of the Siberian traps being less remote from the Urals.

With the use of the modified version of the original algorithmic Formalized Clustering and Zoning (FCAZ) system, the areas prone to the probable emergence of the epicenters of significant earthquakes are recognized in the joint region of the Crimea and western part of the Northern Caucasus. The selection of this region is justified by the tectonic structure and the presence of the active junction zone of the meganticlinoria. The reliability of the obtained recognition is substantiated by the comparative analysis of the actual and random FCAZ-recognition. For the first time, the problem of recognizing the locations of the probable emergence of the earthquakes' epicenters is solved for two different magnitude thresholds. This allows us to interpret the areas prone to the probable emergence of the epicenters of significant earthquakes as fuzzy sets.

The distribution of the hypocenters of great seismic events with M ≥ 7.0 and, consequently, the seismic energy released in their sources is asymmetric along the Earth radius. According to our estimates, 90% of the energy is released relatively close to the Earth’s surface, at the average depth of 50 km. The bulk of the remaining 10% is associated with seismic events that take place at large depths, on average 630–640 km above the boundary between the transition zone and lower mantle. These very deep earthquakes (depth ≥350 km) significantly differ from the shallow events. Their sources, in contrast to the shallow focus events, are located inside the plate. The examination of seven seismic zones described in the present study, except for the Honsu-Kamchatka zone which accommodates both the shallow and deep M ≥ 7.0 earthquakes, shows that the linear distribution of the hypocenters of deep earthquakes is considerably shorter than that of the shallow earthquakes, which, in turn, determines the length of the seismic zones at depth. In the zones of the Solomon Islands and the Izu–Bonin–Mariana arc, there are no seismic events with M ≥ 7.0 deeper than 450 km. In the zones of Indonesia, Philippines, Tonga–Kermadec, and Chile–Peru, the mentioned length’s shortening at the top of the lower mantle (660-km discontinuity) relative to the length of the zone observed close to the surface is unequivocal. The relationship between the lithospheric plates is supported by the spatial distribution of the hypocenters. The position of the foci of very deep (≥500 km) earthquakes indicates where the descending lithospheric plates conflict with the upper boundary of the lower mantle, and where in some cases they cross it. This passage generates the compression and elongation inside the slab. A comparison of the time distribution of the shallow and deep seismic events suggests the absence of direct relationship between these two different earthquake activities. For studying the fairly uncommon deep earthquakes, important additional information was provided by the largest of the deep earthquakes, the May 24, 2013 M 8.3 event beneath the Sea of Okhotsk, in an area where significant deep earthquakes have already occurred. Based on our studies of the records provided by the Russian and Hungarian national seismological networks, we concluded that this seismic event was preceded by an earthquake swarm, which consisted of 58 M ≥ 5 events between May 15 and 24, 2013 in the higher part of the sinking slab east of Kamchatka within the segment of increased historical seismicity. Most probably, the interaction of two distinct active source zones took place. The aftershock activity beneath the Sea of Okhotsk was moderate: thirteen events with magnitudes above М ≥ 4.0 were observed by June 27, 2013. Nevertheless, the unusually small number of aftershocks determined a fault area (2.64 × 10⁴ km²), generally similar to that in the case of the assumed shallow M 8.3 event.

Understanding the processes that occur in the transition from the Pacific Ocean to Eurasia is key to constructing the tectonic models of the Earth’s shells and the convection models of the upper mantle. The electromagnetic methods permit estimating the temperature and fluid content (and/or carbon (graphite) content) in the Earth’s interior. These estimates are independent of the traditionally used estimates based on seismic methods because the dependence of electrical conductivity on the physical properties of the rock is based on different principles than the behavior of the elastic waves. The region is characterized by a complicated geological structure with intense three-dimensional (3D) surface heterogeneities, which significantly aggravate the retrieval of the information about the deep horizons in the structure of the Earth’s mantle from the observed electromagnetic (EM) fields. The detailed analysis of the nature of the deep electrical conductivity and structural features of the transition from the Pacific to Eurasia included numerical modeling of the typical two- and three-dimensional models has been carried out. Based on this analysis, the approaches that increase the reliability of the interpretation of the results of the EM studies are suggested.

In (Molodenskii M.S. et al., 2016), the data from horizontal pendulums recording the tilts in the closest vicinity of the Great Tohoku earthquake of March 11, 2011 in Japan were analyzed. A significantly improved method for statistical analysis of the observational data enabled the authors to reveal a slow growth in tidal tilts during a period of six years before the earthquake, which was superseded by an instantaneous drop in the amplitudes at the time of the earthquake. After this, during the subsequent four years, the tidal amplitudes have remained at a significantly lower level than their average values before the earthquake. These changes in tidal amplitudes testify to the nonlinear character of the tidal response of the medium in the presence of large tectonic stresses: as is well known, the linear relationship between stresses and strains in a real medium is only the case for stresses that are far below the yield stress. When the stresses approach the failure limit, two counteracting effects come into play: (1) the shear moduli in some areas decrease as a result of the avalanche growth of the crack formation processes, and (2) the moduli increase due to the compression in the other areas. Irrespective of which particular effect of these two is predominant, in either case the linearity of the relationship between the stresses and strains should be violated. This violation cannot but affect the amplitudes of the tidal tilts and strains characterizing this relationship in the presence of fairly low additional tidal stresses (i.e., the derivative of the off-diagonal stress tensor components with respect to the same components of the strain tensor). Since there is presently a sufficiently dense network of the horizontal pendulums recording the tilts (the global IRIS network and the particularly dense F-NET network in Japan), monitoring the changes in the amplitudes of tidal tilts can be considered as a key instrument for capturing the signs of the approach of tectonic stresses to their critical values. The increase in tidal amplitudes before the Tohoku earthquake and their drop at the moment of the earthquake, which were revealed by us, as well as the constancy of the amplitudes during four years after the event, unambiguously indicate that the accumulation of tectonic stresses caused the growth in tidal amplitudes, whereas the stress release by the earthquake caused their diminution. This does not however mean that stress accumulation is accompanied by a decrease in the elastic moduli and that the release of stresses is accompanied by the growth of elastic moduli all over the source area. As was shown in (Molodenskii M.S. et al., 2012), even in the simplest model of spatially homogeneous variations of elastic modules, the variations in tidal tilts are an odd function of the distance from the epicenter. Therefore, irrespective of whether the elastic moduli decrease or increase, the amplitudes of tidal tilts should decrease in some areas and increase in other areas. Hence, the very fact of the growth of tidal tilt amplitudes with time cannot be considered as a sign of the growth of tectonic stresses. To be positive about the latter, one should make sure that the consistent (unidirectional) changes have been observed during a sufficiently long time interval and that their magnitudes were significantly larger than the measurement errors. Hence, it is important to reliably estimate the errors of the observational data.

The collections of Carboniferous rocks from sections of the Russian Platform (Gzhelian, Moscovian, Bashkirian, and Visean stages) are studied. The new mean paleomagnetic poles are obtained from the Gzhelian, Moscovian, and Visean layers of the Carboniferous of the Russian Platform. In the redbed Gzhelian and Moscovian rocks, the natural remanent magnetization (NRM) components with the inclination shallowing are revealed, which is due to the presence of the large hematite particles or particle aggregates associated with the interaction between the magnetic and clay particles. Based on the obtained determinations and the results contained in the World paleomagnetic database, the trajectory of the apparent polar wander path (APWP) for the East European Platform is constructed in the interval from the Devonian to Early Permian. The Carboniferous kinematics of the East European Platform is estimated.