As ice retreated from southern coastal Maine from 15,000 to 13,000 years ago, the ocean inundated coastal areas where the earth’s crust had been temporarily depressed by the weight of glacial ice. A thick veneer of glacial-marine clay and silt – the Presumpscot Formation – was deposited in coastal Maine lowlands. Due to its fine-grained character, shear waves from seismic events travel slowly t...

In a large set of twin pairs, we compared twins born after IVF to naturally conceived twins with respect to birth characteristics, growth, attainment of motor milestones, and emotional and behavioral problems. Twin families were registered with the Netherlands Twin Register. We included 1534 dizygotic (DZ) twins born after IVF, 5315 naturally conceived (NC) DZ twins, and 1504 control NC DZ twin...

BACKGROUND An earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale struck the Niigata-Chuetsu region of Japan at 5.56 P.M. on the 23rd of October, 2004. The earthquake was followed by sustained occurrence of numerous aftershocks, which delayed reconstruction of community lifelines. Even one year after the earthquake, 9,160 people were living in temporary housing. Such a devastating earthquake and life...

In a spirit akin to the sandpile model of selforganized criticality, we present a simple statistical model of the cellular-automaton type which simulates the role of an asperity in the dynamics of a one-dimensional fault. This model produces an earthquake spectrum similar to the characteristic-earthquake behaviour of some seismic faults. This model, that has no parameter, is amenable to an alge...

Human response to any adverse situation can be greatly enhanced through training and mind-body experience. Earthquake is one such phenomenon where human response to minimise injuries/deaths is constrained due to disorientation of the victims. People in regions with frequent earthquakes often exhibit better response due to past experience. Training of the mind and body can also be achieved in a ...

We present a new method for estimating earthquake detection probabilities that avoids assumptions about earthquake occurrence, for example, the event-size distribution, and uses only empirical data: phase data, station information, and network-specific attenuation relations. First, we determine the detection probability for each station as a function of magnitude and hypocentral distance, using...

Over 2000 earthquakes happen every year in Japan, so that this country is often called earthquake-ridden (Government of Japan, 2006). There exists a serious problem to prevent the occurrence of earthquake-induced disasters, such as fire, short-circuits, gas leakage, etc. With the recent advent of nation-wide telecommunication networks, real-time earthquake information can be received at every h...

S U M M A R Y On November 8 1997 a M w 7.6 earthquake occurred in the Manyi region of northern Tibet, near the western end of the Kunlun Fault. Over 7 m of left-lateral slip occurred on a 200-kmlong fault. Here we use InSAR observations of post-seismic surface deformation following the Manyi earthquake to investigate possible causal mechanisms. Time-series of deformation are constructed from 26...

We report on the experimental observation of spontaneously nucleated ruptures occurring on frictionally held bimaterial interfaces with small amounts of wave speed mismatch. Rupture is always found to be asymmetric bilateral. In one direction, rupture always propagates at the generalized Rayleigh wave speed, whereas in the opposite direction it is subshear or it transitions to supershear. The l...