Temas

Conveners: Michael Schmitz (FUNVISIS)
José Eduardo Soares (Brasilia Brazil)

Refraction experiments provide first-order information on the P- and S-wave velocity structure of the crust and lithospheric mantle, including the geometries of all major velocity discontinuities (of the crust), permitting a fine imaging of Moho discontinuity and a control of upper and lower crustal structure and affinity (Vp/Vs). On the other hand, provides important constraints for interpretation of potential and passive seismological data. This session aims to bring together scientists involved in illuminating lithospheric structures of Central and South American plates by means of active seismology. Extensive onshore and offshore acquisition has recently improved knowledge on the structure of Andean subduction zones, deep orogenic structure, intraplate and marginal basins, and stable continental interiors, permitting to better constrain the deformation of the crust due to plate interactions and the evolution of the Central and South American plates as a whole.

Conveners: Dmitry Storchack (ISC)
Lepolt Linkimer (UCR)

Advances in technology and growing number of seismic stations and networks have made it possible to improve earthquake monitoring in the Latin America and the Caribbean region. This session welcomes overviews of national permanent seismic networks and temporary deployments and related research. The session also covers contributions from all aspects of seismic network operations such as: site selection, equipment installation, station geometry, rapid and routine seismic event detection, monitoring and notification, public communication of seismic information, earthquake catalogs, as well as acquisition, processing, archiving, and dissemination of seismic waveforms and parametric datasets and products. Contributions on methods and procedures for improved earthquake location, source, and magnitude determination from national and international seismic networks are encouraged.

Conveners: Wilfried Strauch (CEPREDENAC)
Silvia Chacón (RONMAC-SINAMOT C.Rica)

Christa von Hillenbrandt (Caribbean Tsunami Warning Program, NOAA and IAPSO Since the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and the posterior great Chile and Japan tsunamis in 2010, 2011 and 2015, as well as recent tsunamis in Central America and the Caribbean there has been an increase of the capabilities of the Tsunami Disaster Risk Reduction for the Pacific, Caribbean and Adjacent Regions. In 2015 the Sendai Framework for 2015-2030 was adopted to advance disaster risk reduction thru a better understanding of the risk, strengthening collaborations and partnerships, investments for resilience and enhancing disaster preparedness. This session will include tsunami history, modeling, tsunami hazard and risk assessment, monitoring, early warning and readiness in the region. We welcome contributions from the local, national and regional perspective with a special focus on monitoring and risk modeling for disaster risk reduction applications.

Conveners:
Stanislaw Lasocki
Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
Aderson Farias do Nascimento
Departamento de Geofísica - UFRN - Natal RN, Brasil
Carlos Alberto Vargas Jimenez
Departamento de Geociencias – Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Waldo Taylor Castillo
Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, Costa Rica

Anthropogenic seismicity is an unwanted dynamic response of rock mass to industrial processes, usually to georesources exploration and exploitation. The phenomenon becomes a real problem in areas previously known as aseismic and in association with quite diverse technological processes. The induced earthquakes accompany underground and open-pit mining, both conventional as well as unconventional hydrocarbon exploitation, impoundment of surface reservoirs of liquids, geothermal energy production, underground fluid and gas storage and many other technological processes that perturb the boundary conditions in the affected rock mass. The socio-economic impact of the induced seismicity is very significant. Induced earthquakes can cause material loss, injuries and even fatalities. The anthropogenic seismic hazard is undoubtedly linked to the inducing technology. The successful investigation of the seismicity, that is the result, cannot be done without a simultaneous analysis of conditions of the technological activity that is the cause. On the other hand, whereas the inducing technologies are different, the dynamic reactions of rock mass have much in common. This session will address the whole variety of the anthropogenic seismicity world-widely, and will identify its particularities linked to particular industrial process as well as its common features independent on technologies. We welcome all case studies as well as theoretical, methodological and experimental developments. Central America and the Caribbean there has been an increase of the capabilities of the Tsunami Disaster Risk Reduction for the Pacific, Caribbean and Adjacent Regions. In 2015 the Sendai Framework for 2015-2030 was adopted to advance disaster risk reduction thru a better understanding of the risk, strengthening collaborations and partnerships, investments for resilience and enhancing disaster preparedness. This session will include tsunami history, modeling, tsunami hazard and risk assessment, monitoring, early warning and readiness in the region. We welcome contributions from the local, national and regional perspective with a special focus on monitoring and risk modeling for disaster risk reduction applications.

Jeff Freymueller
Hector Mora
Jim Kellogg
Andres Gorki Ruiz
Peter LaFemina

The motion of the Caribbean plate was difficult to define before the advent of modern space geodesy, because of its geometrically complex plate boundaries and limited spreading centers. Even today, Caribbean plate motion remains challenging to measure because so many potential measurement sites lie close to those boundaries; further research is needed to distinguish between rigid plate motion, long-term deformation, and elastic deformation surrounding active faults. A full understanding will require information from geodesy, earthquake seismology, and geology. Submissions related to all of these topics are solicited for this session

Conveners:
Paul Mann (Univ Houston)
Jay Pulliam (Baylor Univ. US)
Eduardo Camacho (IG Panamá)
Franck Audemard

Recent temporary and permanent installations of geodetic and seismic instrumentation make the Caribbean/Central America region a good place to study tectonic processes. While understanding these processes here may shed light on tectonics globally, it is also critical to mitigating hazards due to the region’s frequent earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis. We welcome presentations that discuss recent studies of the region, as well as, advances in earthquake monitoring, modeling, and early warning. Presentations of prospective studies for purposes of discussion are also encouraged.

Conveners:
Steve Kirby (USGS)
German Prieto (MIT)
Kellin Wang, Pacific Geosicence Centre, Canada

Large intraslab earthquakes at depths of more than a few tens of kilometers have produced much destruction and loss of life in Latin America. Prime examples include the 1930 Oaxaca earthquake under Mexico, the 1939 intraslab event under the Central Valley of Chile, and the 1970 earthquake just offshore of Peru. Offshore intraslab events during pre-instrumental times may have also been mistaken for subduction earthquakes on megathrust boundaries. Another factor that has often made them very destructive is they are often very rich in high-frequency shaking and make structures prone to damage caused by such sources very vulnerable. The convener(s) invite scientific contributions on this topic with the hope that the seismic hazards associated with intraslab events might be better understood and acknowledged.

Conveners:
Yoshiyuki Kaneda
Mari Best

Ocean floor networks equipped with multiple kinds of sensors such as seismometers and pressure gauges are very powerful and significant tools to monitor broad band phenomena in seismogenic zones. For example, DONET (Dense Ocean floor Network for Earthquakes and Tsunamis) has been constructed around the Nankai trough seismogenic zones with 51 observatory nodes. Multiple kinds of sensors such as accelerometers, broadband seismometers, precise pressure gauges, differential pressure gauges and precise thermometers are deployed at each node. Such networks provide the real time earthquake/Tsunami information on crustal activity for disaster mitigation and advanced prediction research. This session will include ocean floor network systems, EEW research and simulation researches using real time data from networks for disaster mitigation.

Conveners:
Aaron Velazco, University of Texas at El Paso

Recent work has shown that small earthquakes, non-volcanic tremor, and even volcanic responses can be triggered from the seismic arrivals caused by large earthquakes, which is called dynamic triggering. Static triggering results in increased stress from fault motion from a nearby large earthquake, and generally is the dominant form of triggering within two fault lengths of a large earthquake. Finally, small earthquakes have been triggered by the injection of waste injection in certain parts of the U.S. Dynamic, static, and induced seismicity result from stress changes near triggered faults and/or volcanoes, and studying any of these triggering phenomena may bring insight of the stress state of faults, the faulting process, and magmatic responses. This session encourages submissions on observations and modeling of triggered phenomena with the hope of learning more about the triggering process and the state of stress of triggered faults and/or volcanoes.

Conveners:
Marcelo Asumpção
Marino Protti

This session will cover a wide spectrum of subjects from modern seismology, regional issues on seismology in the Latin America and Caribbean region and instrumentation, to political and social issues related to seismology.

Conveners: Héctor Mora Páez (Colombia)
Franck A. Audemard M. (Venezuela)
Carlos E. Reinoza G. (Venezuela)

Recent temporary and permanent installations of geodetic networks in the Caribbean and Latin America are to shed light on the rate of activity not only of active tectonic margins but also of intra-continental faults, which may not be always smaller or slower than the plate boundary faults. The North Andean Block (NAB) seems to be an interesting natural laboratory in that sense, but The Greater Antilles region may result to be as amazing, as well as regions undergoing strain partitioning. To better bracket the slip rate of these faults is a critical issue in Seismic Hazard Assessments (SHA). We particularly seek presentations that deals with the design, implementation and follow-up of GPS networks in the region for the observation of active intra-continental faults, but also contributions showing slip-rate results that may have an actual impact on SHA.

Conveners:
Sergio Barrientos
Victor Huerfano

Presently, plate deformation and relative plate motions are subjects of major challenge. Tectonic plate models using geophysical techniques and direct measurements provide sparse data and questions remain. In the Caribbean for example, boundary geometry as well as seismogenic patterns are still unclear. So modern broadband seismic networks as well as high rate continuous GPS data provide valuable information to understand the complexities associated with this region.

Geodetic and Geodynamic networks are established with the intention of monitoring crustal deformations and serving as a major control network, the overall goal is to improve the ability of the networks to detect and measure movements and deformations, based on the geological/geophysical phenomena to be monitored, while satisfying the demand for high accuracy and reliability. In this session we call for abstracts regarding cooperation in geodesy, geodynamics and seismology to establish a broad network of individuals and institutions related to these exciting fields. The session focuses mainly on three themes:

(a) interconnection of geodetic control networks,
(b) problems and opportunities, and
(c) geodynamic investigations.

As an example for the Caribbean, a recent initiative that encourage an International and Regional cooperation of countries in several areas of geosciences is the COCONet project. This successful initiative, which was funded by the US NSF, was established with the aim of developing a large scale geodetic infrastructure to strengthening the collection of data belonging to a region that faces many atmospheric and geologic natural hazards.

Other broader example, is the emergent tsunami warning programs, which, under the umbrella of the UNESCO/Tsunami Program, aims at reducing the loss of lives, and livehoods that could be produced regionally by tsunamis via a broad cooperation between member states and patterns to share good quality data and to improve the warning alerts.

Conveners:
Diego Melgar (UC Berkely)
Sebastián Riquelme (Univ. Chile

High rate GNSS displacements measured during large earthquakes are becoming a fundamental tool for seismology. Large events of the past decade have been recorded by GNSS networks of increasing density in Latin America and elsewhere around the globe. They have expanded our view of all aspects of earthquake seismology, from the fundamentals of the rupture process to the analysis of strong ground motions as well as the development of early warning and rapid response systems. We invite submissions form researchers who produce and utilize high-rate GNSS displacements to study earthquake sources, to assess strong ground motions or who develop earthquake and tsunami warning and rapid response systems. Submissions from researchers who combine GNSS with other standard seismological observations are greatly encouraged.

Conveners:
Andy Newman
Rob Wesson
Lujia Feng (EOS Singapore )
Hector Mora-Paez (Colombian Geol. Survey)

Advances in seismological, geodetic, and geologic observations combined with improved historical records, insightful models, and earthquake theory give us the opportunity to piece together the characteristic controls that dictate the behavior of the subduction megathrust. We seek presentation on any of the above individual or integrated research advances that help to illuminate the processes that control megathrust strain accumulation and failure though an individual or multiple seismic cycles.

Conveners:
Diego Quiros
Larry Brown

Large N, dense, continuously recording areal arrays are now commonplace in the controlled-source surveys used for oil and gas exploration. Such dense arrays are capable of recording the un-aliased seismic wavefield so that the full power of modern wave-equation based processing can be applied for 3D imaging. The dense spacing used in large N deployments also has important applications using uncontrolled sources such as earthquakes and ambient noise. With respect to the former, such arrays offer a) more precise hypocentral locations and source properties to very low magnitudes, b) more accurately defined velocity structure, c) the ability to image geologic structures using high-resolution reflection methods. With respect to the latter, they offer the possibility of imaging and monitoring the subsurface using both natural and man-made noise sources at relatively low cost. In this session we welcome all contributions that employ dense arrays to characterize the Earth, from earthquake detection and characterization to imaging from the near surface to the deep interior to monitoring of active subsurface processes such as volcanism and seismogenesis.

Conveners:
Jeff Marshall (Cal Poly Pomona)
Walter Montero (Universidad de Costa Rica)

This session will explore geomorphic and geologic investigations of active faulting, earthquakes, and tsunami throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, and beyond. We invite contributions from across a broad spectrum of active tectonics research, including geomorphology, structural geology, paleoseismology, geochronology, remote sensing, and computational modeling.

Conveners:
Franck Audemard
Hans Diederix

Conveners:
Sebastián Riquelme (Univ. Chile)
Rocco Malservisi

Conveners:
Jiří Zahradník (Czech Rep.)
Efthimios Sokos (Greece)
Ronnie Quintero (C. Rica

Seismic moment tensors (MTs) play a key role in geodynamic studies. Although being routinely determined by various agencies, a few aspects of the MT determination still require basic research: (i) Centroid position of large earthquakes determined by global agencies may be in error of ~10 km, thus calling for employment o regional stations. (ii) MT's of small earthquakes recorded by just few stations are challenging. (iii) MT solutions should be accompanied by new quality indicators. Contributions on these topics may improve the present seismological practice. Equally welcome are papers and posters on the MT application, e.g. to characterize source complexity of large events, to delineate hidden faults, as well as to discuss MT's in the seismotectonic framework. (Sent by Jiri on Sept. 12)

Conveners:
Maria Belen Benito, Univ. Politécnica de Madrid
Augusto Antonio Gomez Capera, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Milano, Italy
Carlo Meletti, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Pisa, Italy
Mark Petersen, U.S. Geological
Hernando Tavera, Instituto Geofísico del Perú
Herbert Rendon, Fundación Venezolana de Investigaciones Sísmicas

Latin America and the Caribbean are seismically heterogeneous regions with complex tectonic settings that make the elaboration of seismic hazard models challenging. The aim of this session is to promote discussion and to encourage participation of those scientists working on different aspects of the seismic hazard model building and calculation process. The main topics for this session are studies focusing on (1) dataset creation and maintenance of ground-motion, seismic, geodesic, tectonic and related information relevant for modeling hazard; (2) describing the PSHA model construction process and workflows; (3) Faults as independent units in zoning models: challenges and possible solutions, (4) Alternatives to the Poisson models for seismicity (5) GMPEs selection and development, (6) geodetic and tectonic constraints on hazard modeling, (7) uncertainties evaluation and (8) more general contributions in the PSHA context.

Conveners:
Diego Quiros (Cornell University)
Esteban J. Chaves (University of California, Santa Cruz)
Susan Beck (University of Arizona)​

A growing number of theoretical and experimental studies have demonstrated that it is practical to recover structural information by applying seismic interferometry to the Earth’s background seismic field (e.g., seismic coda waves and ambient seismic noise). The developments brought by seismic interferometry have also renovated the interest in monitoring and characterizing the Earth’s background seismic field, and in better understanding the mechanisms creating it.

We welcome all contributions that employ seismic interferometry of ambient seismic noise, seismicity, controlled sources, anthropogenic vibrations, etc, to extract information about the mechanical properties and structure of the Earth. Likewise, we welcome contributions that characterize the Earth’s background seismic sources (Hum, microseisms, and other phenomena) and the different mechanisms generating these seismic wave fields.

Conveners:
Steve Myers (LLNL US)
Ronnie Quintero
Ana Cristina Aguiar

Use of an accurate three-dimensional (3D) model has been shown to improve the prediction of seismic observables, such as phase travel times that are used to locate seismic events. Three-dimensional models are not commonly used in routine seismic analysis because an accurate model may not be available and computational demands may preclude the use of a 3D model on many operational systems. Nonetheless, development of 3D models is becoming more common due to improved data and the maturation of tomographic methods and codes. Also, new computational methods and upgrades to operational computer systems area making routine use of 3D models possible. This session encourages all abstract submissions that show improvements in predicted seismic-phase travel times, amplitudes, and seismic waveforms with the application of tomography inversions that solve for 3D earth velocity models, including case studies that illustrate their effectiveness in conventional seismic analysis.

Conveners:
Carlos Aguirre
Víctor Schmidt

Soil effects and amplification: Different techniques to obtain soil transfer functions, soil effects according to frequency, ambient vibration measurements conducted to evaluate soil effects. Ground motion prediction equations (GMPE): Selection of records. Different functional forms according to zone. Coefficients to be considered. Appropriated site-to-source distance to be considered. Seismic hazard, vulnerability and risk studies: Risk studies in terms of insurance (loss estimates). Capacity and fragility curves according to structural typology: methods, techniques. Results based on probabilistic and deterministic scenarios. Strong motion networks: Seismic monitoring using accelerographs in both free field and structure stations. Dynamic behavior of structures (fundamental period and other modes, damping, transfer function, torsional effects. Real time data processing.

Conveners:
Jake Walters (UT Austin)
Nicholas Voss (University of South Florida, Tampa)
Kazushige Obara (ERI Tokyo)
Ana Cristina Aguiar (LLNL)

Conveners:
Lepolt Linkimer (UCR)
Vadim Levin (Rutgers University)

High elevations and lack of active volcanoes set Talamanca Cordillera apart from the rest of the Central American subduction zone. Considerable uncertainty remains with regards to the processes that have formed and continue to maintain the elevations, the causes for the cessation of volcanism in relatively recent geological time, the geometry of the subducted slab and the nature and the driving forces of seismic activity in the Talamanca region. This session invites contributions that would address the history and the present-day geodynamics of the Talamanca, through structural, seismo-tectonic, and geodynamic studies, as well as the related seismic hazard for the region. Organizers look forward to a fruitful exchange that will help inventory existing constraints, review alternative scenarios, and hopefully pave the way for new endeavors aimed at understanding this region.

Conveners:
Susan Beck
Sergio Barrientos

Subduction zones are the sites of a diverse range of tectonic processes from the largest megathrust earthquakes to arc volcanism to plate deformation. Subduction zones include the entire deformation spectrum from seconds to millions of years. There have been many recent advancements in subduction zone science in part due to increased instrumentation along subduction zones that has led to improved seismic imaging and better characterization of many recent megathrust earthquakes. In this session we invite presentations on earthquake rupture, slow-slip events, seismicity, forearc and backarc deformation, geochemical processes at volcanic arcs, earthquake and volcanic hazards and water in the mantle.

Conveners:
Javier F. Pacheco (OVSICORI-UNA)
Mauricio M. Mora (Universidad de Costa Rica)

The study of volcanic vibrations has been, undoubtly, one of the most amazing challenges from volcano geophysics. Decades of development thanks to the new advances in technology, signal processing techniques, computing tools and geophysics of volcanic phenomena has made volcano seismology the main forecasting tool of volcanic activity. However, none early warning system can be set up without understanding volcanic systems as a whole: from their dormancy, their awakening, eruptive and post-eruptive stages; the structure of the volcanic edifice and feeding system; the nature of the fluids going through cavities; the complex paths of seismic waves along the edifice; location of seismic sources; volcano-tectonic interactions; and many other topics that keep volcano seismologist with their ears attentive to have volcanoes try to say. This is why we keep this session wide open to all kind of contributions that seismologist dedicating to study volcanic activity wants to share, in order to look for new insights to better understand volcano dynamics and contribute to volcanic risk assessment. We look forward to have a rich discussion and hopefully new scientific interactions towards new efforts to understand volcanic processes.