The 10 January 2018 MW7.5 Swan island, Honduras earthquake occurred on the Swan island fault, which is a transform plate boundary between the North American and Caribbean plates. Here we back-project the rupture process of the earthquake using dense seismic stations in Alaska, and find that the earthquake ruptured at least three faults (three stages) for a duration of ~40 s. The rupture speed for the longest fault (stage 3) is as fast as 5 km/s, which is much faster than the local shear wave velocity of ~4 km/s. Supershear rupture was incidentally observed on long and straight strike-slip faults. This study shows a supershear rupture that occured on a strike-slip fault with moderate length, implying that supershear rupture might commonly occur on large strike-slip earthquakes. The common occurrence of supershear rupture on strike-slip earthquakes will challenge present understanding of crack physics, as well as strong ground motion evaluation in earthquake engineering. 相似文献
By tracking and monitoring the profile configuration, topography, and hydrodynamic factors of an artificial cobble beach in Tianquan Bay, Xiamen, China over three consecutive years after its completion, we analyzed the evolution of its profile configuration and plane morphology, and its storm response characteristics. The evolution of the profile configuration of the artificial cobble beach in Tianquan Bay can be divided into four stages. The beach was unstable during the initial stage after the beach nourishment the profile configuration changed obviously, and an upper concave composite cobble beach formed gradually, which was characterized by a steep upper part and a gentle lower part. In the second stage, the cobble beach approached dynamic equilibrium with minor changes in the profile configuration. At the third stage the beach was in a high-energy state under the influence of Typhoon Meranti, and the response of the artificial cobble beach differed significantly from that of the low-tide terrace sandy beach. Within a short time, there was net onshore transport of cobbles in the cross-shore direction. The beach face was eroded, the beach berm was accumulated, and the slope of the beach was steepened considerably. In the alongshore direction, there was notable transport of cobbles on the beach from east to west along the shore, and the total volume of the beach decreased by 4.5×103 m~3, which accounted for 50% of the total amount of beach volume lost within three years. The fourth stage was the restoration stage after the typhoon, characterized by a little gentler profile slope and the increase in width and the decrease in height of beach berm. Because of the action of waves and the wave-driven longshore current caused by the specific terrain and landform conditions along the coast(e.g., coastal headlands, near-shore artificial structures, and reefs), the coastline of the artificial cobble beach gradually evolved from being essentially parallel to the artificial coast upon completion to a slightly curved parabolic shape, and three distinct erosion hotspots were formed on the west side of the cape and the artificial drainpipe, and the reefs. Generally, the adoption of cobbles for beach nourishment on this macro-tidal coast beach with severe erosion has yielded excellent stability and adaptability. 相似文献
In thermal-related engineering such as thermal energy structures and nuclear waste disposal, it is essential to well understand volume change and excess pore water pressure buildup of soils under thermal cycles. However, most existing thermo-mechanical models can merely simulate one heating–cooling cycle and fail in capturing accumulation phenomenon due to multiple thermal cycles. In this study, a two-surface elasto-plastic model considering thermal cyclic behavior is proposed. This model is based on the bounding surface plasticity and progressive plasticity by introducing two yield surfaces and two loading yield limits. A dependency law is proposed by linking two loading yield limits with a thermal accumulation parameter nc, allowing the thermal cyclic behavior to be taken into account. Parameter nc controls the evolution rate of the inner loading yield limit approaching the loading yield limit following a thermal loading path. By extending the thermo-hydro-mechanical equations into the elastic–plastic state, the excess pore water pressure buildup of soil due to thermal cycles is also accounted. Then, thermal cycle tests on four fine-grained soils (natural Boom clay, Geneva clay, Bonny silt, and reconstituted Pontida clay) under different OCRs and stresses are simulated and compared. The results show that the proposed model can well describe both strain accumulation phenomenon and excess pore water pressure buildup of fine-grained soils under the effect of thermal cycles.
