Many volcanic arcs display fast seismic shear-wave velocities parallel to the strike of the trench. This pattern of anisotropy is inconsistent with simple models of corner flow in the mantle wedge. Although several models, including slab rollback, oblique subduction, and deformation of water-rich olivine, have been proposed to explain trench-parallel anisotropy, none of these mechanisms are con...

Wave propagation in heterogeneous media is not only characterized by reflection, transmission and conversion of seismic energy but also by effects such as scattering and tunneling and can be observed on many scales. We investigate elastic wave propagation in the lower crust of the earth. It is remarkable that distance and time scales in a deep crustal reflection problem can be easily transforme...

[1] We perform travel-time tomography to estimate detailed seismic velocity structures in the crust of the Pacific slab from northeastern (NE) Japan to the Kanto district, Japan, and reveal that the depth extent of the low-velocity (hydrated) oceanic crust varies along the arc. The low-velocity oceanic crust is subducting to depths of 120–150 km beneath Kanto, which is 40–70 km deeper compared ...

The specific bio-species and their spatial patterns play crucial roles in regulating eco-hydrologic process, which is significant for large-scale habitat promotion and vegetation restoration in many dry-land ecosystems. Such effects, however, are not yet fully studied. In this study, 12 micro-plots, each with size of 0.5 m in depth and 1 m in length, were constructed on a gentle grassy hill-slo...

[1] We examine waveforms and data used to construct coda magnitude in southern California to estimate the spatial variation of coda Q and its dependence on frequency. Our analysis combined with independent borehole data suggests that coda is mainly generated by multiple scattering in the upper few kilometers of the crust where large impedance contrasts occur because of surface layering or fract...