The physics of an earthquake
The physics of an earthquake
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地震的物理学
DOI：
10.1088/0031-9120/43/2/001
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发表时间：
2008
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
J. McCloskey
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
J. McCloskey
2004年12月26日（2004年节礼日）苏门答腊-安达曼地震及其海啸将作为我们时代最严重的自然灾害之一留在我们的记忆中。对于地震学家来说，破坏的规模和另一场同样具有破坏性的地震的可能性提出了一系列挑战，即我们如何利用科学不仅了解地震及其后果，而且帮助规划该地区未来的地震。本文简要介绍了这些努力。地震预测可能是不可能的，但地球科学家现在能够通过发展对应力相互作用物理学的理解来确定未来事件特别危险的地方。在确定了这样一个危险的区域，一系列的数值蒙特卡罗模拟描述，使我们能够得到一个想法，什么是未来地震的最可能的后果是通过模拟海啸产生的许多可能的，个别不可预测的，未来的事件。在撰写本文时，该地区又发生了一次地震，它有许多预期的特征，但在其他方面却令人费解。这催生了一系列进一步的理论，这些理论将有助于我们理解这个极其复杂的问题。
The Sumatra–Andaman earthquake of 26 December 2004 (Boxing Day 2004) and its tsunami will endure in our memories as one of the worst natural disasters of our time. For geophysicists, the scale of the devastation and the likelihood of another equally destructive earthquake set out a series of challenges of how we might use science not only to understand the earthquake and its aftermath but also to help in planning for future earthquakes in the region. In this article a brief account of these efforts is presented. Earthquake prediction is probably impossible, but earth scientists are now able to identify particularly dangerous places for future events by developing an understanding of the physics of stress interaction. Having identified such a dangerous area, a series of numerical Monte Carlo simulations is described which allow us to get an idea of what the most likely consequences of a future earthquake are by modelling the tsunami generated by lots of possible, individually unpredictable, future events. As this article was being written, another earthquake occurred in the region, which had many expected characteristics but was enigmatic in other ways. This has spawned a series of further theories which will contribute to our understanding of this extremely complex problem.