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Published January 1976 | public
Journal Article

Re-examination of the earth's free oscillations excited by the Kamchatka earthquake of November 4, 1952

Abstract

Benioff's suggestion that the 58-min period sinusoidal oscillation found on a Pasadena strain seismogram after the Kamchatka earthquake of November 4, 1952 may represent the earth's gravest normal mode is re-examined in terms of a slow large-scale post-seismic deformation. The mechanism and the seismic moment of the main shock of the Kamchatka earthquake are determined by using the amplitude and the initial phase of G_2 and R_2 recorded at Pasadena and R_6 recorded at Palisades. By constraining the dip angle and the strike of the fault at 30° (towards NW) and N34°E, respectively, on the basis of the geometry of the Benioff zone, the slip angle is determined as 110° which represents 74% thrust and 26% right-lateral faulting. The direction of the slip angle agrees with the slip direction of the Pacific plate. A seismic moment of 3.5 · 10^(29) dyn cm is obtained. If a fault area of 650 · 200 km^2 is assumed, an average dislocation of 5 m is obtained. Spectral analyses of the Pasadena strain records show that the 58-min sinusoidal oscillation in fact consists of a spectral peak near 54 min which is very close to the _0S_2 mode and other high-frequency peaks which can be correlated to the earth's normal modes. The records from two independent recording galvanometers correlate with each other very well, indicating that the recorded oscillation represents a real strain and not instrumental noise. The phase relation between the NS and EW components is consistent with the strain field associated with _0S_2 mode. Although these results provide positive evidence for a slow post-seismic deformation, the cause of the abrupt termination of the oscillation and the excitation mechanism remain unresolved.

Additional Information

© 1976 Published by Elsevier B.V. Received 10 November 1975, Accepted 18 November 1975, Available online 14 October 2002. I am grateful to Dr. Frank Press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for providing me with useful information for the Palisades record and some of the unpublished results. The present work emerged from the conversations held with Dr. Don L. Anderson to whom I express my sincere thanks. This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grant DES 74-22489 and the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense and was monitored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under Contract No. F44620-72-C-0078.

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023