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International audience; Editors of JGR-Solid Earth express their appreciation to those who served as peer reviewers for the journal in 2021.

International audience; As faults grow over time and become more “mature,” some of their geometrical and mechanical properties evolve, and these changes modify earthquake behavior. It is thus of prime importance to know the degree of structural maturity of a fault that is likely to produce large earthquakes. Although this concept is extensively used, there is no common definition or metric to measure the structural maturity of a fault. We analyzed the heterogeneity of the surface traces of 13 large seismogenic faults whose maturity is known qualitatively. We measured the corrugations and step-over segmentation of the traces from ∼100 m to the fault length scale. Corrugations and some properties of the segmentation are found to vary with fault structural maturity. We provide scaling relationships that quantify the structural maturity of a fault based on its surface trace. These results should help in parameterizing source faults in earthquake models.

International audience; Our planet is in crisis! The latest report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR6) confirms that human influence is causing widespread, rapid, and intensifying changes in our weather and climate that are affecting every region on Earth in multiple ways. With every additional ton of carbon we emit, the frequency and intensity of storms, floods, droughts, and fires become greater and the effects on the environment and on human health and civilization become more severe.As geoscientists and journal editors, most of us have been accustomed to being on the leading edge of human knowledge and understanding of climate change, where we deal in objectivity, uncertainty, and debate, but now we find ourselves at the core of this climate crisis. It is no longer scientific discoveries at stake, but also humanity itself. This is an uncomfortable place for many of us. We are trained to be dispassionate observers and cautious thinkers, yet the alarming rate of recent climate change impels us to turn our attention directly toward mitigating this impending crisis.We are making a plea for collective action: we must make the switch to a green economy, put a just and effective price on carbon now, and consider a portfolio of other equitable public investments in climate solutions. These actions will ensure that the true costs and risks of burning fossil fuels are accounted for and global carbon emissions are rapidly reduced. Rich countries must lead the way in making drastic cuts to carbon emissions and in helping low- and middle-income countries to develop sustainably. We are running out of time.For decades, American Geophysical Union (AGU) journals have been at the forefront of documenting human-caused climate change and warning of a worsening climate crisis. Over 2,000 publications from AGU journals are cited in the new IPCC AR6 report. But we too can do more than just document and scientifically explain the ongoing crisis—our profession must help lead the way to solutions.Finding solutions and adapting to change have become not only necessary, but essential in ensuring safe, sustainable, and healthy human communities in the future. The geosciences have an essential role to play in these efforts by pivoting toward more cross-sector, solution-based science. To help lead this vision, the AGU is adding a new publication forum for community science in partnership with associations outside the geosciences. This forum will enhance interactions among AGU's existing, more disciplinary journals and give local communities a voice in leading solutions to global challenges.We are scientists, but we also have families and loved ones alongside our fellow citizens on this planet. The time to bridge the divide between scientist and citizen, head and heart, is now. The lead-up to the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference, COP26, being held in Glasgow in November, is our “last best chance” to urge world leaders to come together and commit to keeping climate change and its devastating impacts in check.

International audience; The editors of JGR: Solid Earth announce that Plain Language Summaries will be required for all manuscripts.

International audience; Faults form dense, complex multi‐scale networks generally featuring a master fault and myriads of smaller‐scale faults and fractures off its trace, often referred to as damage. Quantification of the architecture of these complex networks is critical to understanding fault and earthquake mechanics. Commonly, faults are mapped manually in the field or from optical images and topographic data through the recognition of the specific curvilinear traces they form at the ground surface. However, manual mapping is time‐consuming, which limits our capacity to produce complete representations and measurements of the fault networks. To overcome this problem, we have adopted a machine learning approach, namely a U‐Net Convolutional Neural Network, to automate the identification and mapping of fractures and faults in optical images and topographic data. Intentionally, we trained the CNN with a moderate amount of manually created fracture and fault maps of low resolution and basic quality, extracted from one type of optical images (standard camera photographs of the ground surface). Based on a number of performance tests, we select the best performing model, MRef, and demonstrate its capacity to predict fractures and faults accurately in image data of various types and resolutions (ground photographs, drone and satellite images and topographic data). MRef exhibits good generalization capacities, making it a viable tool for fast and accurate mapping of fracture and fault networks in image and topographic data. The MRef model can thus be used to analyze fault organization, geometry, and statistics at various scales, key information to understand fault and earthquake mechanics.

presented at 2020 AGU Fall Meeting; Tectonic faults are the source of earthquakes. They commonly form dense multi-scale networks including a master fault and multiple secondary faults and fractures. Documenting the organization and hierarchy of fault networks is among key information to understand the earthquake process. Generally, faults are identified through the traces they form at the ground surface. So far, these traces have been mapped manually, in the field or in remote sensing images. Yet this manual mapping requires tremendous time and relies on expert knowledge, which may not be available. Here, we explore U-net and Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) abilities to automate fracture and fault identification and mapping in remote sensing optical images. We use expert mapping to teach the models how faults look like in the images, and hence conduct supervised learning. U-net is made of different convolutional layers that extract key features from the images and learn from the expert mapping how to identify the faults. GAN consists of two networks, a Generator and a Discriminator. The Generator has the U-net architecture. It recognizes the fault patterns in the images and generates synthetic faults maps. The Discriminator, whose architecture is that of half of the U-net, discriminates the expert and the synthetic maps, and sends its feedback to the Generator. This allows the Generator to progressively minimize the difference between the synthetic and the expert maps. To identify and map faults at the greatest resolution, we have developed a new loss function based on a combination of Mean Squared Error and Recall. We used two criteria to measure and compare the generalization performance of the GAN and U-net architectures. The qualitative and quantitative comparison of the two methods demonstrates the superiority of U-net for fault and fracture mapping in remote optical images. Machine learning with U-net has thus the potential to greatly assist geophysicists in documenting seismogenic faults.

We develop a novel method based on Deep Convolutional Networks (DCN) to automate the identification and mapping of fracture and fault traces in optical images. The method employs two DCNs in a two players game: a first network, called Generator, learns to segment images to make them resembling the ground truth; a second network, called Discriminator, measures the differences between the ground truth image and each segmented image and sends its score feedback to the Generator; based on these scores, the Generator improves its segmentation progressively. As we condition both networks to the ground truth images, the method is called Conditional Generative Adversarial Network (CGAN). We propose a new loss function for both the Generator and the Discriminator networks, to improve their accuracy. Using two criteria and a manually annotated optical image, we compare the generalization performance of the proposed method to that of a classical DCN architecture, U-net. The comparison demonstrates the suitability of the proposed CGAN architecture. Further work is however needed to improve its efficiency.

International audience

Measuring fault offsets preserved at the ground surface is of primary importance to recover earthquake and long‐term slip distributions and understand fault mechanics. The recent explosion of high‐resolution topographic data, such as Lidar and photogrammetric digital elevation models, offers an unprecedented opportunity to measure dense collections of fault offsets. We have developed a new Matlab code, 3D_Fault_Offsets, to automate these measurements. In topographic data, 3D_Fault_Offsets mathematically identifies and represents nine of the most prominent geometric characteristics of common sublinear markers along faults (especially strike slip) in 3‐D, such as the streambed (minimum elevation), top, free face and base of channel banks or scarps (minimum Laplacian, maximum gradient, and maximum Laplacian), and ridges (maximum elevation). By calculating best fit lines through the nine point clouds on either side of the fault, the code computes the lateral and vertical offsets between the piercing points of these lines onto the fault plane, providing nine lateral and nine vertical offset measures per marker. Through a Monte Carlo approach, the code calculates the total uncertainty on each offset. It then provides tools to statistically analyze the dense collection of measures and to reconstruct the prefaulted marker geometry in the horizontal and vertical planes. We applied 3D_Fault_Offsets to remeasure previously published offsets across 88 markers on the San Andreas, Owens Valley, and Hope faults. We obtained 5,454 lateral and vertical offset measures. These automatic measures compare well to prior ones, field and remote, while their rich record provides new insights on the preservation of fault displacements in the morphology.

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The Mw 7.8 2016 Kaikoura earthquake ruptured the Kekerengu-Needle fault resulting in the loading of its eastern continuation, the Wairarapa fault. Since the most recent earthquake on Wairarapa occurred in 1855 and is one of the strongest continental earthquakes ever observed, it is critical to assess the seismic potential of the Wairarapa fault, which might be prone to break. Using Lidar data, we examine its bare-earth morphology and reveal ~650 mostly undiscovered offset geomorphic markers. Using a code we developed in earlier work, we automatically measure the lateral and vertical offsets of these markers providing more than 7000 well constrained measurements. The data document the lateral and vertical slip profiles of the 1855 earthquake for the first time and show its total slip reached ~20 m at surface. Modeling the entire offset dataset reveals 7 prior earthquakes ruptured the entire fault, each similarly producing 16.9 ± 1.4 m dextral slip and ~0.6 m vertical slip at surface in the same central bend zone of the fault. Thus, the Wairarapa fault repeatedly produced giant earthquakes and is likely able to produce a similarly strong forthcoming event. The extreme large size of the Wairarapa earthquakes questions our understanding of earthquake physics.

International audience; Based on the review of the available stratigraphic, tectonic, morphological, geodetic, and seismological data, along with new structural observations, we present a reappraisal of the potential seismogenic faults and fault systems in the inner northwest Apennines, Italy, which was the site, one century ago, of the devastating Mw ~6.5, 1920 Fivizzano earthquake. Our updated fault catalog provides the fault locations, as well as the description of their architecture, large-scale segmentation, cumulative displacements, evidence for recent to present activity, and long-term slip rates. Our work documents that a dense network of active faults, and thus potential earthquake fault sources, exists in the region. We discuss the seismogenic potential of these faults, and propose a general tectonic scenario that might account for their development.

Members of the editorial board of JGR-Solid Earth express their appreciation to those who served as peer reviewers for the journal in 2020.

Earthquake slip distributions are asymmetric along strike, but the reasons for the asymmetry are unknown. We address this question by establishing empirical relations between earthquake slip profiles and fault properties. We analyze the slip distributions of 27 large continental earthquakes in the context of available information on their causative faults, in particular on the directions of their long-term lengthening. We find that the largest slips during each earthquake systematically occurred on that half of the ruptured fault sections most distant from the long-term fault propagating tips, i.e., on the most mature half of the broken fault sections. Meanwhile, slip decreased linearly over most of the rupture length in the direction of long-term fault propagation, i.e., of decreasing structural maturity along strike. We suggest that this earthquake slip asymmetry is governed by along-strike changes in fault properties, including fault zone compliance and fault strength, induced by the evolution of off-fault damage, fault segmentation, and fault planarity with increasing structural maturity. We also find higher rupture speeds in more mature rupture sections, consistent with predicted effects of low-velocity damage zones on rupture dynamics. Since the direction(s) of long-term fault propagation can be determined from geological evidence, it might be possible to anticipate in which direction earthquake slip, once nucleated, may increase, accelerate, and possibly lead to a large earthquake. Our results could thus contribute to earthquake hazard assessment and Earthquake Early Warning.

International audience; The modern optical satellite sensors capture images in stereo and tri-stereo acquisition modes. This allows reconstruction of high-resolution (30-70 cm) topography from the satellite data. However, numerous areas on the Earth exhibit complex topography with a lot of "discontinuities". One case is tectonic fault sites, which form steep topographic escarpments enclosing narrow, deep corridors that mask parts of the ground. Built with common approaches (stereo or tri-stereo), a digital surface model (DSM) would not recover the topography in these masked zones. In this work, we have settled on a new methodology, based on the combination of multiple satellite Pleiades images taken with different geometries of acquisition (pitch and roll angles), with the purpose to generate fully-resolved DSMs at very high-resolution (50 cm). We have explored which configurations of satellites (i.e., number of images and ranges of pitch and roll angles) allow to best measure the topography inside deep and narrow canyons. We have collected seventeen Pleiades Images with different configurations over the Valley of Fire fault zone, USA, where the fault topography is complex. We have also measured sixteen ground control points (GCPs) in the zone. From all possible combinations of 2 to 17 Pleiades images, we have selected 150 combinations and have generated the corresponding DSMs. The calculations are done by solving an energy minimization problem that searches for a disparity map minimizing the energy, which depends on the likelihood for pixels to belong to a unique point in 3D as well as regularization terms. We have statistically studied which combinations of images deliver DSMs with the best surface coverage, as well as the lowest uncertainties on geolocalisation and elevation measures, by using the GCPs. Our first results suggest that an exceeding time between our acquisitions leads to DSM with a low covered area. We conclude that Stereo and Tri-Stereo acquisition in one-single pass of the satellite will systematically generate a better DSM than multi-date acquisition. We also conclude that in some cases, multi-date acquisitions with 7-8 images can improve the DSM robustness compared to multi-date acquisitions with fewer images.

International audience; The present thematic issue is dedicated to the West African Craton (WAC) and its margins (Fig. 1). The project was launched during the "First West African Craton and Margins International Workshop", which took place in Dakhla (Morocco) on 24-29th April 2017. The aim of this meeting was to confront the results of different teams working on various topics, mainly in the northwestern parts of the WAC and their Pan-African to Present margins. The workshop, organized basically by one of us (O. S.) and the University Hassan II of Casablanca, met with great success. Indeed, the Moroccan part of the WAC and the adjoining Oulad Dlim massif (aka Adrar Souttouf) are under the spotlights. Mapping programs, metallogenic prospection, and academic research backed on petrological and geochronological analyses have been intensely focused on the formerly Spanish Rio de Oro, which became Moroccan in 1975. These recent (and ongoing) studies have greatly improved our understanding of the geological structure and tectonic-stratigraphic evolution of the area.

International audience; Tectonically controlled landforms develop morphologic features that provide useful markers to investigate crustal deformation and relief growth dynamics. In this paper, we present results of morphotectonic experiments obtained with an innovative approach combining tectonic and surface processes (erosion, transport, and sedimentation), coupled with accurate model monitoring techniques. This approach allows for a qualitative and quantitative analysis of landscape evolution in response to active deformation in the three end-member geological settings: compression, extension, and strike–slip.Experimental results outline first that experimental morphologies evolve significantly at a short time scale. Numerous morphologic markers form continuously, but their lifetime is generally short because erosion and sedimentation processes tend to destroy or bury them. For the compressional setting, the formation of terraces above an active thrust appears mainly controlled by narrowing and incision of the main channel through the uplifting hanging-wall and by avulsion of deposits on fan-like bodies. Terrace formation is irregular even under steady tectonic rates and erosional conditions. Terrace deformation analysis allows retrieving the growth history of the structure and the fault slip rate evolution. For the extensional setting, the dynamics of hanging-wall sedimentary filling appears to control the position of the base level, which in turn controls footwall erosion. Two phases of relief evolution can be evidenced: the first is a phase of relief growth, and the second is a phase of upstream propagation of topographic equilibrium that is reached first in the sedimentary basin. During the phase of relief growth, the formation of triangular facets occurs by degradation of the fault scarp, and their geometry (height) becomes stationary during the phase of upstream propagation of the topographic equilibrium. For the strike–slip setting, the complex morphology of the wrench zone, composed of several interacting fault segments, enhances the interactions with the drainage network. Because of the widening of the main fault zone toward the surface, a significant amount of distributed deformation is observed along the wrench zone. Locally, where two terminations of fault segments interact, less than a quarter of the far field displacement can remain measurable using fault offsets, leading to a systematic underestimation of the real fault slip rate.These different experimental examples illustrate the great potential of the approach coupling deformation mechanisms and erosion–transport–sedimentation processes to investigate qualitatively and quantitatively the morphotectonic evolution of tectonically controlled landscapes.

Knowing the slip amplitudes that large earthquakes produced in prehistorical times is one key to anticipate the magnitude of large forthcoming events. It is long known that the morphology is preserving remnants of paleoearthquake slips in the form of fault-offset landforms. However, the measured offsets that can be attributed to the most recent paleoearthquakes are generally few along a fault, so that they rarely allow recovering the slip distributions and largest slips of these earthquakes. We acquired ~1 m resolution airborne lidar data on a 30 km stretch of a fast-slipping strike-slip fault (eastern Hope Fault, New Zealand) located in a region of high alluvial dynamics where landforms are rapidly evolving. Data analysis reveals >200 offset landforms; only 30% allow a good to moderate quality offset measurement. From these good to moderate quality measures, we recover the slip-length distributions and largest slips of the four most recent large paleoearthquakes and find evidence of 4–6 prior events. The record suggests that large earthquake slip recurred in multiples of about 4 m along the 30 km stretch. Although they have larger uncertainties, the more numerous lower-quality offsets that we also measured reveal a similar earthquake slip record. This shows that, although offset landforms are partly degraded in dynamically active landscapes, they store valuable information on paleoearthquake slips. This information might be recovered provided that the morphology is analyzed at high resolution and " continuously " over a significant fault length. Remote lidar data are powerful to perform such analyses.

International audience; Foreword Vulnerability of intertropical littoral areas The coastal zone is of very high importance for human development and human wellbeing. Half of the global urban population lives in the coastal zone, where it has access to both continental and marine ecosystem services and to maritime transport. These urban populations coexist with rural and traditional coastal populations, some of which still possess good traditional ecological knowledge of the coastal ecosystems. Marine biodiversity and favourable environmental conditions sustain fisheries and aquaculture , represent a source of inspiration for humankind and provide numerous opportunities for recreation and tourism. In addition, coastal areas provide nursery functions for juvenile fish and invertebrates, which is important for the fish and crayfish stocks exploited offshore. Located at the interface between marine energy and continental processes , the coastal landscapes are dynamic environments. Nevertheless, the destruction of habitats and the increasing exploitation of the coastal zone represent serious threats to the ecosystems. Moreover, human land use and modifications in the watersheds have strong impacts on the coastal zone primarily by contributing to their pollution and nutrient over-enrichment. Damming and creation of reservoirs upstream also heavily modify the hydrology of the watersheds and often dramatically reduce the delivery of sediments to the coastal zone. In addition to these regional and local anthropogenic impacts, the coastal zone is vulnerable to global change among which sea level rise and climate change are particularly important drivers. Many coastal zones extend along giant faults and subduction zones, which makes them particularly exposed to earthquakes and tsunami hazards. Other forms of natural hazards are caused by hurricanes and cyclones that develop at sea and whose trajectories often hit the coastlines. The question on how to combine the conservation of the highly valuable coastal ecosystems and their sustainable exploitation with the strong socioeconomic development in the coastal zone is a major challenge for humankind in the 21 st century. This requires both a high degree of political will and appropriate governance together with sound scientific knowledge. Hence, many international and national organisations for research and development work in the coastal zone to contribute to the objectives of sustainable development. The French IRD is one of them, as it develops research in tropical and subtropical countries in partnership with their respective national institutions. This thematic issue provides a collection of results that illustrates the involvement of IRD, of its partners, and of other national and international groups working in the field of tropical and subtropical coastal environments.

International audience; Natural earthquake slip profiles have a generic triangular shape which the available rupture dynamics models fail to reproduce. Long-term faults are embedded in long-damaged crustal material, and the properties of the long-term damage vary both across and along the faults. We examine the effects of the predamaged state of the medium on the earthquake slip distributions. We simulate long-term damage by the decrease in the elastic modulus of the medium around the fault. We model the dynamic crack-like rupture of a slip-weakening planar, right-lateral strike-slip fault, and search which geometries and elastic properties of the long-term damage produce a triangular slip profile on the rupture. We find that such a profile is produced only when a laterally heterogeneous preexisting damage zone surrounds the ruptured fault. The highest on-fault slip develops in the most compliant region of the damage zone, and not necessarily above the earthquake hypocenter. The coseismic slip decreases in zones of stiffer damage. The amount of coseismic slip dissipated in the damage zone is large, at least 25-40% of maximum on-fault slip, and can occur over large distances from the fault. Our study thus emphasizes that off-fault preexisting damage should be considered for an accurate description of earthquake ruptures. It also motivates a reformulation of the available earthquake source inversion models since most of them do not include the inelastic deformations that occur in the near field of the earthquake ruptures.

We analyze new GPS data spanning 11 years at 92 stations in eastern Iran. We use these data to analyze the present-day kinematics and the slip rates on most seismogenic faults in eastern Iran. The east Lut, west Lut, Kuhbanan, Anar, Dehshir, and Doruneh faults are confirmed as the major faults and are found to currently slip laterally at 5.6 ± 0.6, 4.4 ± 0.4, 3.6 ± 1.3, 2.0 ± 0.7, 1.4 ± 0.9, and 1.3 ± 0.8 mm/yr, respectively. Slip is right-lateral on the ~NS striking east Lut, west Lut, Kuhbanan, Anar, and Dehshir faults and left-lateral on the ~EW Doruneh fault. The ~NS faults slice the eastern Iranian crust into five blocks that are moving northward at 6–13 mm/yr with respect to the stable Afghan crust at the eastern edge of the collision zone. The collective behavior of the ~NS faults might thus allow the Arabian promontory to impinge northward into the Eurasian crust. The ~NS faults achieve additional NS shortening by rotating counterclockwise in the horizontal plane, at current rates up to 0.8°/Ma. Modeling the GPS and available geological data with a block rotation model suggests that the rotations have been going on at a similar rate (1 ± 0.4°/Ma) over the last 12 Ma. We identify large strains at the tips of the rotating east Lut, west Lut, and Kuhbanan faults, which we suspect to be responsible for the important historical and instrumental seismicity in those zones.

We recover the Holocene earthquake history of seven seismogenic normal faults in the Fucino system, central Italy. We collected 800 samples from the well-preserved limestone scarps of the faults and modeled their 36Cl concentrations to derive their seismic exhumation history. We found that > 30 large earthquakes broke the faults in synchrony over the last 12 ka. The seven faults released strain at the same periods of time, 12-9 ka, 5-3 ka, and 1.5-1 ka. On all faults, the strain accumulation and release occurred in 3-6 ka supercycles, each included a 3-5 ka phase of slow (≤ 0.5-2 mm/yr) strain accumulation in relative quiescence, followed by a cluster of three to four large earthquakes or earthquake sequences that released most of the strain in

[1] Past earthquake slips on faults are commonly determined by measuring morphological offsets at current ground surface. Because those offsets might not always be well preserved, we examine whether the first 10 m below ground surface contains relevant information to complement them. We focus on the Te Marua site, New Zealand, where 11 alluvial terraces have been dextrally offset by the Wellington fault. We investigated the site using pseudo-3D Ground Penetrating Radar and also produced a high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM) of the zone to constrain the surface slip record. The GPR data reveal additional information: (1) they image the 3D stratigraphic architecture of the seven youngest terraces and show that they are strath terraces carved into graywacke bedrock. Each strath surface is overlain by 3–5 m of horizontally bedded gravel sheets, including two pronounced and traceable reflectors; (2) thanks to the multilayer architecture, terrace risers and channels are imaged at three depths and their lateral offsets can be measured three to four times, constraining respective offsets and their uncertainties more reliably; and (3) the offsets are better preserved in the subsurface than at the ground surface, likely due to subsequent erosion-deposition on the latter. From surface and subsurface data, we infer that Te Marua has recorded six cumulative offsets of 2.9, 7.6, 18, 23.2, 26, and 31 m (± 1–2 m). Large earthquakes on southern Wellington fault might produce 3–5 m of slip, slightly less than previously proposed. Pseudo-3D GPR thus provides a novel paleoseismological tool to complement and refine surface investigations.

In places where sedimentation and erosion compete at fast rates, part of the record of past earthquakes on faults may be buried, hence hidden, in the first few metres below the surface. We developed a novel form of palaeoseismology, of geophysical type, based on the use of a dense pseudo-3-D Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey to investigate such possible buried earthquake traces, on a long, fast-slipping strike-slip fault (Hope fault, New Zealand), at a site (Terako) where marked alluvial conditions prevail. We first used LiDAR data to analyse the ground surface morphology of the 2 km2 site at the greatest resolution. Nineteen morphological markers were observed, mainly alluvial terrace risers and small stream channels that are all dextrally offset by the fault by amounts ranging between 3 and 200 m. The measurements document about 10 past earthquake slip events with a mean coseismic slip of 3.3 +/- 1 m, with the most recent earthquake event having a slip of 3 +/- 0.5 m. We then investigated a detailed area of the site (400 x 600 m2) with pseudo-3-D GPR. We measured 56, similar to 400 m long, 510 m spaced GPR profiles (250 MHz), parallel to the fault and evenly distributed on either side. The analysis revealed the existence of a palaeosurface buried at about 3 m depth, corresponding to the top of alluvial terraces of different ages. That buried surface is incised by a dense network of stream channels that are all dextrally offset by the fault. We measured 48 lateral offsets in the buried channel network, more than twice than at the surface. These offsets range between 6 and 108 m, as observed at the surface, yet provide a more continuous record of the fault slip. The similarity of the successive slip increments suggests a slip per event averaging 4.4 +/- 1 m, fairly similar to that estimated from surface data. From the total surface and buried 67 offset collection, we infer that a minimum of 30 large earthquakes have broken the Hope fault at the Terako site in the last about 67 kyr, with an average coseismic slip of 3.2 +/- 1 m, a minimum average recurrence time of about 200 yr, and a magnitude of at least Mw 7.07.4. Our study therefore confirms that part of the record of past earthquakes may indeed reside in the first few metres below the surface, where it may be explored with geophysical, GPR-based palaeoseismology. Developing such a new palaeoseismological tool should provide rich information that may complement surface observations and help to document the past earthquakes on faults.

Evaluating the timing and size of past earthquakes is a constant challenge in palaeoseismology. Here, we show that rare earth element (REE) concentrations can be used to constrain the number and slips of major past earthquakes. We focus on one of the rare faults worldwide – the Magnola normal fault, Italy – whose Holocene earthquake history is precisely known. We analysed 42 samples from along the 10 m that form the surface of the well-preserved seismically exhumed fault scarp and seven samples extracted from the fault plane section buried in the ground. We show that the first metre of soil contaminates the scarp rocks, producing a marked concentration ‘peak’ in REE. Similar peaks are recognized on the exhumed scarp, at positions that coincide with the transitions between the known past ruptures. We conclude that the REE peaks locate palaeoground levels and are excellent markers for the large earthquakes that exhumed the scarp.

International audience; We use fault maps and fault propagation evidences available in the literature to examine geometrical relations between parent faults and off-fault splays. The population includes 47 worldwide crustal faults with lengths from millimetres to thousands of kilometres and of different slip modes. We show that fault splays form adjacent to any propagating fault tip, whereas they are absent at non-propagating fault ends. Independent of fault length, slip mode, context, etc., tip splay networks have a similar fan shape widening in direction of long-term propagation, a similar relative length and width (∼ 30 and ∼ 10% of parent fault length, respectively), and a similar range of mean angles to parent fault (10–20°). We infer that tip splay networks are a genetic and a generic property of faults indicative of their long-term propagation. Their generic geometrical properties suggest they result from generic off-fault stress distribution at propagating fault ends.

SUMMARY A new detailed palaeomagnetic study of Tertiary volcanics, including extensive K-Ar and 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dating, helps constrain the deformation mechanisms related to the opening processes of the Afar depression (Ethiopia and Djibouti). Much of the Afar depression is bounded by 30 Myr old flood basalts and floored by the ca 2 Myr old Stratoid basalts, and evidence for pre-2 Ma deformation processes is accessible only on its borders. K-Ar and 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dating of several mineral phases from rhyolitic samples from the Ali Sabieh block shows indistinguishable ages around 20 Myr. These ages can be linked to separation of this block in relation to continental breakup. Different amounts of rotation are found to the north and south of the Holhol fault zone, which cuts across the northern part of the Ali Sabieh block. The southern domain did not record any rotation for the last 8 Myr, whereas the northern domain experienced approximately 12 ± 9 ◦ of clockwise rotation. We propose to link this rotation to the counter-clockwise rotation observed in the Danakil block since 7 Ma. This provides new constraints on the early phases of rifting and opening of the southern Afar depression in connection with the propagation of the Aden ridge. A kinematic model of propagation and transfer of extension within southern Afar is proposed, with particular emphasis on the previously poorly-known period from 10 to 4 Ma.

Recent measurements of slip profiles on normal faults have found that they are usually triangular in shape. This has been explained to be a consequence of on-fault processes such as slip-dependent friction. However, the recent observation that cumulative slip profiles on normal faults and fault systems in Afar are both triangular and self-similar excludes this explanation and requires some form of off-fault deformation. Here, we use elastic modelling to show that large triangular zones of off-fault damage can explain the observed triangular slip profiles provided damage is anisotropic in the form of cracks sub-parallel to the fault. Our modelling suggests that these triangular damage zones result from the enlargement of the crack tip damage area as the fault (or system) lengthens. Our modelling also demonstrates that different types of ‘barriers’ can cause the slip profiles to terminate abruptly at one or both fault ends, as observed in Afar and elsewhere.

International audience; Understanding how natural faults are segmented along their length can provide useful insights into fault growth processes, stress distribution on fault planes, and earthquake dynamics. We use cumulative displacement profiles to analyze the two largest scales of segmentation of 900 normal faults in Afar, East Africa. We build upon a prior study by Manighetti et al. (2009) and develop a new signal processing method aimed at recovering the number, position, displacement, and length of both the major (i.e., longest) and the subordinate, secondary segments within the faults. Regardless of their length, age, geographic location , total displacement, and slip rate, 90% of the faults contain two to five major segments, whereas more than 70% of these major segments are divided into two to four secondary segments. In each hierarchical rank of fault segmentation, most segments have a similar proportional length, whereas the number of segments slightly decreases with fault structural maturity. The along-strike segmentation of the Afar faults is thus generic at its two largest scales. We summarize published fault segment data on 42 normal, reverse, and strike-slip faults worldwide, and find a similar number (two to five) of major and secondary segments across the population. We suggest a fault growth scenario that might account for the generic large-scale segmentation of faults. The observation of a generic segmentation suggests that seismogenic fault planes are punctuated with a deterministic number of large stress concentrations, which are likely to control the initiation, arrest and hence extent and magnitude of earthquake ruptures.

Active normal faults cut the uplifted reef platforms of Grande-Terre and Marie-Galante and the volcanic rocks of Basse-Terre in the Lesser Antilles arc. New marine geophysical data shows that such faults extend offshore, forming two distinct sets. One set bounds graben perpendicular to the arc, attesting to ∼ north–south extension. The ‘en echelon’ faults of the other set, roughly along the volcanic arc, accommodate a component of sinistral motion. The active Soufriere volcano lies inside the western termination of the Marie-Galante graben. Historical and instrumental earthquakes with magnitude ⩾5.5 may have ruptured the Marie-Galante graben bounding faults.

We investigate fault growth in Afar, where normal fault systems are known to be currently growing fast and most are propagating to the northwest. Using digital elevation models, we have examined the cumulative slip distribution along 255 faults with lengths ranging from 0.3 to 60 km. Faults exhibiting the elliptical or “bell-shaped” slip profiles predicted by simple linear elastic fracture mechanics or elastic-plastic theories are rare. Most slip profiles are roughly linear for more than half of their length, with overall slopes always

International audience; A detailed geophysical survey of the Ghoubbet Al Kharab (Djibouti) clarifies the small‐scale morphology of the last submerged rift segment of the propagating Aden ridge before it enters the Afar depression. The bathymetry reveals a system of antithetic normal faults striking N130°E, roughly aligned with those active along the Asal rift. The 3.5 kHz sub‐bottom profiler shows how the faults cut distinct layers within the recent, up to 60 m thick, sediment cover on the floor of the basin. A large volcanic structure, in the centre of the basin, the ‘Ghoubbet’ volcano, separates two sedimentary flats. The organization of volcanism and the planform of faulting, with en echelon subrifts along the entire Asal–Ghoubbet rift, appear to confirm the westward propagation of this segment of the plate boundary. Faults throughout the rift have been active continuously for the last 8400 yr, but certain sediment layers show different offsets. The varying offsets of these layers, dated from cores previously retrieved in the southern basin, imply Holocene vertical slip rates of 0.3–1.4 mm yr−1 and indicate a major decrease in sedimentation rate after about 6000 yr BP, and a redistribution of sediments in the deepest troughs during the period that preceded that change.

Temporal coincidence between continental flood basalts and breakup has been noted for almost three decades. Eight major continental flood basalts have been produced over the last 300 Ma. The most recent, the Ethiopian traps, erupted in about 1 Myr at 30 Ma. Rifting in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and possibly East African rift started at about the same time. A second trap-like episode occurred around 2 Ma and formation of true oceanic crust is due in the next few Myr. We find similar relationships for the 60 Ma Greenland traps and opening of the North Atlantic, 65 Ma Deccan traps and opening of the NW Indian Ocean, 132 Ma Parana traps and South Atlantic, 184 Ma Karoo traps and SW Indian Ocean, and 200 Ma Central Atlantic Margin flood basalts and opening of the Central Atlantic Ocean. The 250 Ma Siberian and 258 Ma Emeishan traps seem to correlate with major, if aborted, phases of rifting. Rifting asymmetry, apparent triple junctions and rift propagation (towards the flood basalt area) are common features that may, together with the relative timings of flood basalt, seaward dipping reflector and oceanic crust production, depend on a number of plume- and lithosphere- related factors. We propose a mixed scenario of `active/passive' rifting to account for these observations. In all cases, an active component (a plume and resulting flood basalt) is a pre-requisite for the breakup of a major oceanic basin. But rifting must be allowed by plate-boundary forces and is influenced by pre-existing heterogeneities in lithospheric structure. The best example is the Atlantic Ocean, whose large-scale geometry with three large basins was imposed by the impact points of three mantle plumes.

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Following a sequence of earthquakes in the Asal Rift in November 1978, the deformation resulting from dyke emplacement and associated faulting was measured geodetically and using teleseismic data. Using this information we have computed the resulting Coulomb stress changes, which can explain the features of the distribution of seismicity for the following six weeks. A further major shock then occurred. When this event is included in the modelling, the distribution of all the seismicity within a radius of 40 km in the following 4 years is predicted. The study confirms that increases of Coulomb stress as small as 0.3 bars are sufficient to trigger earthquakes and shows that dykes as well as fault slip can result in stress changes that influence the seismicity distribution over a broad region.

International audience; The temporal evolution of the mantle melting processes in the Asal Rift is evaluated from the chemical composition of 56 new lava flows sampled along 10 km of the rift axis and 9 km off-axis (i.e., erupted within the last 620 kyr). Petrological and primary geochemical results show that most of the samples of the inner floor of the Asal Rift are affected by plagioclase accumulation. Trace element ratios and major element compositions corrected for mineral accumulation and crystallization show a symmetric pattern relative to the rift axis and preserved a clear signal of mantle melting depth variations. While FeO, Fe8.0, Zr/Y, and (Dy/Yb)N decrease from the rift shoulders to the rift axis, SiO2, Na/Ti, Lu/Hf increase and Na2O and Na8.0 are constant across the rift. These variations are qualitatively consistent with shallow melting beneath the rift axis and deeper melting for off-axis lava flows. Na8.0 and Fe8.0 contents show that beneath the rift axis, melting paths are shallow, from 81 ± 4 to 43 ± 5 km. These melting paths are consistent with adiabatic melting in normal-temperature fertile asthenosphere, beneath an extensively thinned mantle lithosphere. On the contrary, melting on the rift shoulders (from 107 ± 7 to 67 ± 8 km) occurred beneath thicker lithosphere, requiring a mantle solidus temperature 100 ± 40°C hotter. In this geodynamic environment, the calculated rate of lithospheric thinning appears to be 4.0 ± 2.0 cm yr-1, a value close to the mean spreading rate (2.9 ± 0.2 cm yr-1) over the last 620 kyr.

International audience; We use 36Cl surface exposure dating to determine the slip release pattern over the last ~ 15 kyr for the Velino-Magnola fault, a major active normal fault in Central Italy. We sampled the fault at five well-separated sites along its length, and modeled the 36Cl concentrations measured in the 376 samples. We find that the fault broke in at least 9 large earthquakes that occurred in two 5-6 ka-long supercycles. Each cycle included a 4-5 ka-long phase of relative quiescence, followed by a cluster of at least 3 large earthquakes or earthquake sequences that released most of the accumulated strain in ~ 1 ka. All 9 identified events broke the entire fault and produced maximum surface slips of 2-3 m. Though the Velino-Magnola fault seems presently in a stage of relative quiescence, it may re-enter a phase of paroxysmal seismic activity in a few hundred of years

In August 1989, an earthquake sequence including ten events with 6:3 ! M ! 5:5 in the first two days produced widespread ground deformation in the Dobi graben of central Afar. Numerous surface breaks with complex geometry, including fresh scarplets with vertical throws up to 30 cm high and open fissures up to 30 cm wide, were observed. Coseismic slip incremented the deformation (normal faulting, block tilting, and counterclockwise rotation of basaltic slices) accumulated in the last 2 m.y. in the transfer zone between the Dobi and Hanle grabens. By combining maps of surface ruptures, relative event relocations with the local Djibouti network, published focal mechanisms, and source sizes, we tentatively relate most of the main- shocks of the sequence to slip on individual faults. The largest shocks at 11h16 on 20 August 1989 (MS 6:2) and at 1h09 on 21 August 1989 (MS 6:3) ruptured southern segments of the southwestern bounding fault of the graben. A dozen other faults also slipped along the edges of, and inside, the graben. On average, triggered seismic fault- ing propagated about 35 km northwestward along the graben in about 20 hr. Slip on the main faults was coupled with slip on secondary antithetic faults branching from them at depth. Although the Dobi earthquakes ruptured part of the fault array between the Asal rift (1978 sequence) and the Serdo region (1969 sequence), an approximately 50-km-long gap subsists along the Der'ela half-graben. We infer the patterns of sur- face faulting in the Dobi sequence, which coinvolved bookshelf-faulting about both horizontal and vertical axes, to typify the complexity of coseismic stress release in central Afar and in other active zones of distributed extension (e.g., Iceland, Abruzzi, Basin and Range). Online Material: Additional photos and descriptions of surface effects of the Dobi earthquake sequence.

Cosmic-ray exposure dating of preserved, seismically exhumed limestone normal fault scarps has been used to identify the last few major earthquakes on seismogenic faults and recover their ages and displacements through the modelling of the content of in situ [36Cl] cosmonuclide of the scarp rocks. However, previous studies neglected some parameters that contribute to 36Cl accumulation and the uncertainties on the inferred earthquake parameters were not discussed. To better constrain earthquake parameters and to explore the limits of this palaeoseismological method, we developed a Matlab® modelling code (provided in Supplementary information) that includes all the factors that may affect [36Cl] observed in seismically exhumed limestone fault scarp rocks. Through a series of synthetic profiles, we examine the effects of each factor on the resulting [36Cl], and quantify the uncertainties related to the variability of those factors. Those most affecting the concentrations are rock composition, site location, shielding resulting from the geometry of the fault scarp and associated colluvium, and scarp denudation. In addition, 36Cl production mechanisms and rates are still being refined, but the importance of these epistemic uncertainties is difficult to assess. We then examine how pre-exposure and exposure histories of fault-zone materials are expressed in [36Cl] profiles. We show that the 36Cl approach allows unambiguous discrimination of sporadic slip versus continuous creep on these faults. It allows identification of the large slip events that have contributed to the scarp exhumation, and provides their displacement with an uncertainty of +/- ~25 cm and their age with an uncertainty of +/-0.5-1.0 kyr. By contrast, the modelling cannot discriminate whether a slip event is a single event or is composed of multiple events made of temporally clustered smaller size events. As a result, the number of earthquakes identified is always a minimum, while the estimated displacements are maximum bounds and the ages the approximate times when a large earthquake or a cluster of smaller earthquakes have occurred. We applied our approach to a data set available on the Magnola normal fault, Central Italy, including new samples from the buried part of the scarp. Reprocessing of the data helps to refine the seismic history of the fault and quantify the uncertainties in the number of earthquakes, their ages and displacements. We find that the Magnola fault has ruptured during at least five large earthquakes or earthquake clusters in the last 7 ka, and may presently be in a phase of intense activity.

AB: The accurate prediction of near-source strong-ground motions in future earthquakes is a major challenge for seismologists and earthquake engineers. Such a prediction is however difficult, partly because ground motions are highly variable while the reasons for such a variability are basically ignored. In particular, though source effects are likely an important factor, the major properties of the earthquake source that control the ground motions are not clearly defined. Manighetti et al. (2007) have suggested that some of the large earthquake source properties are intimately controlled by intrinsic properties of the long-term faults broken by the earthquakes, such as the fault structural maturity. Following that suggestion, we examine the dependency of the strong ground motion variability on the long-term fault maturity. We analyze the near-field ground motions recorded at rock sites for 30 large (M 5.6-7.8) crustal earthquakes of various mechanisms. On the other hand, the structural maturity of the broken faults is determined and defined into three classes (mature, intermediate, immature) based on the combined knowledge of the age, slip rate, cumulative slip and length of the faults. The ground motions are determined in the period range 0-2 seconds and compared to the empirical attenuation equation of Boore et al. (1997). Residuals between observed and predicted ground motions are calculated following the methods of Kagawa et al. (2004; residuals not weighted by the number of records per earthquake) and of Spudich et al. (1999; residuals weighted by the number of records per earthquakes). Whatever the method, the strong motions produced by earthquakes on immature and mature faults are found to be larger and lower, respectively, than those predicted from the empirical law. Strong motions on immature faults result to be systematically larger by a factor of about 1.15 than those on mature faults. When earthquakes are distinguished from their focal mechanism, a same order difference is observed, with ruptures on reverse faults producing larger strong motions than earthquakes on strike-slip faults. Yet, when only strike-slip earthquakes are considered, a large difference in strong motion amplitude (averaging a factor 1.1) is still observed between immature and mature faults. By contrast, whether they produce surface breaks or not, earthquakes on faults of similar structural maturity produce ground motions of similar amplitude. We conclude that the strong ground motions generated in the near-field by earthquakes occurring on immature faults are higher than the strong motions generated by earthquakes on mature faults. The effect of fault structural maturity is of the same magnitude than that classically attributed to focal mechanism. The later effect may actually be only apparent, simply resulting from the maturity control. The structural maturity of long-term faults is thus an important parameter that should be considered in seismic hazard assessment.

article i nfo Article history: Earthquakes are sensitive to the along-strike segmentation of the faults they break, especially in their initiation, propagation and arrest. We examine that segmentation and search whether it shows any specific properties. We focus on the largest-scale fault segmentation which controls the largest earthquakes. It is well established that major segments within faults markedly shape their surface cumulative slip-length profiles; segments appear as large slip bumps separated by narrow, pronounced slip troughs (inter-segments). We use that property to examine the distribution (location, number, length) of the major segments in 927 active normal faults in Afar (East Africa) of various lengths (0.3-65 km), cumulative slips (1-1300 m), slip rates (0.5-5 mm/yr), and ages (10 4 -10 6 yr). This is the largest fault population ever analyzed. To identify the major bumps in the slip profiles and determine their number, location and length, we analyze the profiles using both the classical Fourier transform and a space-frequency representation of the profiles, the S-transform, which is well adapted for characterizing local spectral properties. Our work reveals the fol- lowing results: irrespective of their length, 70% of the slip profiles have a triangular envelope shape, in conflict with the elastic crack concept. Irrespective of their length, the majority of the faults (at least 50-70%) have a limited number of major segments, between 2 and 5 and more commonly equal to 3-5. The largest- scale segmentation of the faults is thus self-similar and likely to be controlled by the fault mechanics. The slip deficits at the major inter-segment slip troughs tend to smooth as the faults accumulate more slip resulting in increased connection of the major segments. The faults having accumulated more slip therefore generally appear as un-segmented (10-30%). Our observations therefore show that, whatever the fault on which they initiate, large earthquakes face the same number of major segments to potentially break. The number of segments that they eventually break seems to depend on the slip history (structural maturity) of the fault.