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Natural gas can be temporarily stored in a variety of underground facilities, such as depleted gas and oil fields, natural aquifers and caverns in salt rocks. Being extensively monitored during operations, these systems provide a favourable opportunity to investigate how pressure varies in time and space and possibly induces/triggers earthquakes on nearby faults. Elaborate and detailed numerical modelling techniques are often applied to study gas reservoirs. Here we show the possibilities and discuss the limitations of a flexible and easily formulated tool that can be straightforwardly applied to simulate temporal pore-pressure variations and study the relation with recorded microseismic events. We use the software POEL (POroELastic diffusion and deformation) which computes the poroelastic response to fluid injection/extraction in a horizontally layered poroelastic structure. We further develop its application to address the presence of vertical impermeable faults bounding the reservoir and of multiple injection/extraction sources. Exploiting available information on the reservoir geometry and physical parameters, and records of injection/extraction rates for a gas reservoir in southern Europe, we perform an extensive parametric study considering different model configurations. Comparing modelled spatiotemporal pore-pressure variations with in situ measurements, we show that the inclusion of vertical impermeable faults provides an improvement in reproducing the observations and results in pore-pressure accumulation near the faults and in a variation of the temporal pore-pressure diffusion pattern. To study the relation between gas storage activity and recorded local microseismicity, we applied different seismicity models based on the estimated porepressure distribution. This analysis helps to understand the spatial distribution of seismicity and its temporal modulation. The results show that the observed microseismicity could be partly linked to the storage activity, but the contribution of tectonic background seismicity cannot be excluded.
The Eastern Mediterranean is the most seismically active region in Europe due to the complex interactions of the Arabian, African, and Eurasian tectonic plates. Deformation is achieved by faulting in the brittle crust, distributed flow in the viscoelastic lower-crust and mantle, and Hellenic subduction, but the long-term partitioning of these mechanisms is still unknown. We exploit an extensive suite of geodetic observations to build a kinematic model connecting strike-slip deformation, extension, subduction, and shear localization across Anatolia and the Aegean Sea by mapping the distribution of slip and strain accumulation on major active geological structures. We find that tectonic escape is facilitated by a plate-boundary-like, translithospheric shear zone extending from the Gulf of Evia to the Turkish-Iranian Plateau that underlies the surface trace of the North Anatolian Fault. Additional deformation in Anatolia is taken up by a series of smaller-scale conjugate shear zones that reach the upper mantle, the largest of which is located beneath the East Anatolian Fault. Rapid north-south extension in the western part of the system, driven primarily by Hellenic Trench retreat, is accommodated by rotation and broadening of the North Anatolian mantle shear zone from the Sea of Marmara across the north Aegean Sea, and by a system of distributed transform faults and rifts including the rapidly extending Gulf of Corinth in central Greece and the active grabens of western Turkey. Africa-Eurasia convergence along the Hellenic Arc occurs at a median rate of 49.8mm yr(-1) in a largely trench-normal direction except near eastern Crete where variably oriented slip on the megathrust coincides with mixed-mode and strike-slip deformation in the overlying accretionary wedge near the Ptolemy-Pliny-Strabo trenches. Our kinematic model illustrates the competing roles the North Anatolian mantle shear zone, Hellenic Trench, overlying mantle wedge, and active crustal faults play in accommodating tectonic indentation, slab rollback and associated Aegean extension. Viscoelastic flow in the lower crust and upper mantle dominate the surface velocity field across much of Anatolia and a clear transition to megathrust-related slab pull occurs in western Turkey, the Aegean Sea and Greece. Crustal scale faults and the Hellenic wedge contribute only a minor amount to the large-scale, regional pattern of Eastern Mediterranean interseismic surface deformation.
Projected changes in compound flood hazard from riverine and coastal floods in northwestern Europe
(2020)
Compound flooding in coastal regions, that is, the simultaneous or successive occurrence of high sea levels and high river flows, is expected to increase in a warmer world. To date, however, there is no robust evidence on projected changes in compound flooding for northwestern Europe. We combine projected storm surges and river floods with probabilistic, localized relative sea-level rise (SLR) scenarios to assess the future compound flood hazard over northwestern coastal Europe in the high (RCP8.5) emission scenario. We use high-resolution, dynamically downscaled regional climate models (RCM) to drive a storm surge model and a hydrological model, and analyze the joint occurrence of high coastal water levels and associated river peaks in a multivariate copula-based approach. The RCM-forced multimodel mean reasonably represents the observed spatial pattern of the dependence strength between annual maxima surge and peak river discharge, although substantial discrepancies exist between observed and simulated dependence strength. All models overestimate the dependence strength, possibly due to limitations in model parameterizations. This bias affects compound flood hazard estimates and requires further investigation. While our results suggest decreasing compound flood hazard over the majority of sites by 2050s (2040-2069) compared to the reference period (1985-2005), an increase in projected compound flood hazard is limited to around 34% of the sites. Further, we show the substantial role of SLR, a driver of compound floods, which has frequently been neglected. Our findings highlight the need to be aware of the limitations of the current generation of Earth system models in simulating coastal compound floods.
A ground motion logic tree for seismic hazard analysis in the stable cratonic region of Europe
(2020)
Regions of low seismicity present a particular challenge for probabilistic seismic hazard analysis when identifying suitable ground motion models (GMMs) and quantifying their epistemic uncertainty. The 2020 European Seismic Hazard Model adopts a scaled backbone approach to characterise this uncertainty for shallow seismicity in Europe, incorporating region-to-region source and attenuation variability based on European strong motion data. This approach, however, may not be suited to stable cratonic region of northeastern Europe (encompassing Finland, Sweden and the Baltic countries), where exploration of various global geophysical datasets reveals that its crustal properties are distinctly different from the rest of Europe, and are instead more closely represented by those of the Central and Eastern United States. Building upon the suite of models developed by the recent NGA East project, we construct a new scaled backbone ground motion model and calibrate its corresponding epistemic uncertainties. The resulting logic tree is shown to provide comparable hazard outcomes to the epistemic uncertainty modelling strategy adopted for the Eastern United States, despite the different approaches taken. Comparison with previous GMM selections for northeastern Europe, however, highlights key differences in short period accelerations resulting from new assumptions regarding the characteristics of the reference rock and its influence on site amplification.
Ongoing and past biome transitions are generally assigned to climate and atmospheric changes (e.g. temperature, precipitation, CO2), but the major regional factors or factor combinations that drive vegetation change often remain unknown. Modelling studies applying ensemble runs can help to partition the effects of the different drivers. Such studies require careful validation with observational data. In this study, fossil pollen records from 741 sites in Europe, 728 sites in North America, and 418 sites in Asia (extracted from terrestrial archives including lake sediments) are used to reconstruct biomes at selected time slices between 40 cal ka BP (calibrated thousand years before present) and today. These results are used to validate Northern Hemisphere biome distributions (>30 degrees N) simulated by the biome model BIOME4 that has been forced with climate data simulated by a General Circulation model. Quantitative comparisons between pollen- and model-based results show a generally good fit at a broad spatial scale. Mismatches occur in central-arid Asia with a broader extent of grassland throughout the last 40 ka (likely due to the over-representation of Artemisia and Chenopodiaceae pollen) and in Europe with over-estimation of tundra at 0 cal ka BP (likely due to human impacts to some extent). Sensitivity analysis reveals that broad-scale biome changes follow the global signal of major postglacial temperature change, although the climatic variables vary in their regional and temporal importance. Temperature is the dominant variable in Europe and other rather maritime areas for biome changes between 21 and 14 ka, while precipitation is highly important in the arid inland regions of Asia and North America. The ecophysiological effect of changes in the atmospheric CO2-concentration has the highest impact during this transition than in other intervals. With respect to modern vegetation in the course of global warming, our findings imply that vegetation change in the Northern Hemisphere may be strongly limited by effective moisture changes, i.e. the combined effect of temperature and precipitation, particularly in inland areas. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Early agriculture can be detected in palaeovegetation records, but quantification of the relative importance of climate and land use in influencing regional vegetation composition since the onset of agriculture is a topic that is rarely addressed. We present a novel approach that combines pollen-based REVEALS estimates of plant cover with climate, anthropogenic land-cover and dynamic vegetation modelling results. This is used to quantify the relative impacts of land use and climate on Holocene vegetation at a sub-continental scale, i.e. northern and western Europe north of the Alps. We use redundancy analysis and variation partitioning to quantify the percentage of variation in vegetation composition explained by the climate and land-use variables, and Monte Carlo permutation tests to assess the statistical significance of each variable. We further use a similarity index to combine pollen based REVEALS estimates with climate-driven dynamic vegetation modelling results. The overall results indicate that climate is the major driver of vegetation when the Holocene is considered as a whole and at the sub-continental scale, although land use is important regionally. Four critical phases of land-use effects on vegetation are identified. The first phase (from 7000 to 6500 BP) corresponds to the early impacts on vegetation of farming and Neolithic forest clearance and to the dominance of climate as a driver of vegetation change. During the second phase (from 4500 to 4000 BP), land use becomes a major control of vegetation. Climate is still the principal driver, although its influence decreases gradually. The third phase (from 2000 to 1500 BP) is characterised by the continued role of climate on vegetation as a consequence of late-Holocene climate shifts and specific climate events that influence vegetation as well as land use. The last phase (from 500 to 350 BP) shows an acceleration of vegetation changes, in particular during the last century, caused by new farming practices and forestry in response to population growth and industrialization. This is a unique signature of anthropogenic impact within the Holocene but European vegetation remains climatically sensitive and thus may continue to respond to ongoing climate change. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
The effect of methods of statistical downscaling of daily precipitation on changes in extreme flow indices under a plausible future climate change scenario was investigated in 11 catchments selected from 9 countries in different parts of Europe. The catchments vary from 67 to 6171 km(2) in size and cover different climate zones. 15 regional climate model outputs and 8 different statistical downscaling methods, which are broadly categorized as change factor and bias correction based methods, were used for the comparative analyses. Different hydrological models were implemented in different catchments to simulate daily runoff. A set of flood indices were derived from daily flows and their changes have been evaluated by comparing their values derived from simulations corresponding to the current and future climate. Most of the implemented downscaling methods project an increase in the extreme flow indices in most of the catchments. The catchments where the extremes are expected to increase have a rainfall dominated flood regime. In these catchments, the downscaling methods also project an increase in the extreme precipitation in the seasons when the extreme flows occur. In catchments where the flooding is mainly caused by spring/summer snowmelt, the downscaling methods project a decrease in the extreme flows in three of the four catchments considered. A major portion of the variability in the projected changes in the extreme flow indices is attributable to the variability of the climate model ensemble, although the statistical downscaling methods contribute 35-60% of the total variance. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
This article presents comparisons among the five ground-motion models described in other articles within this special issue, in terms of data selection criteria, characteristics of the models and predicted peak ground and response spectral accelerations. Comparisons are also made with predictions from the Next Generation Attenuation (NGA) models to which the models presented here have similarities (e.g. a common master database has been used) but also differences (e.g. some models in this issue are nonparametric). As a result of the differing data selection criteria and derivation techniques the predicted median ground motions show considerable differences (up to a factor of two for certain scenarios), particularly for magnitudes and distances close to or beyond the range of the available observations. The predicted influence of style-of-faulting shows much variation among models whereas site amplification factors are more similar, with peak amplification at around 1s. These differences are greater than those among predictions from the NGA models. The models for aleatory variability (sigma), however, are similar and suggest that ground-motion variability from this region is slightly higher than that predicted by the NGA models, based primarily on data from California and Taiwan.
The Mohorovicic discontinuity, Moho for short, which marks the boundary between crust and mantle, is the main first-order structure within the lithosphere. Geodynamics and tectonic evolution determine its depth level and properties. Here, we present a map of the Moho in central Europe across the Teisseyre-Tornquist Zone, a region for which a number of previous studies are available. Our results are based on homogeneous and consistent processing of P-and S-receiver functions for the largest passive seismological data set in this region yet, consisting of more than 40 000 receiver functions from almost 500 station. Besides, we also provide new results for the crustal vP/vS ratio for the whole area.
Our results are in good agreement with previous, more localized receiver function studies, as well as with the interpretation of seismic profiles, while at the same time resolving a higher level of detail than previous maps covering the area, for example regarding the Eifel Plume region, Rhine Graben and northern Alps. The close correspondence with the seismic data regarding crustal structure also increases confidence in use of the data in crustal corrections and the imaging of deeper structure, for which no independent seismic information is available.
In addition to the pronounced, stepwise transition from crustal thicknesses of 30 km in Phanerozoic Europe to more than 45 beneath the East European Craton, we can distinguish other terrane boundaries based on Moho depth as well as average crustal v(P)/v(S) ratio and Moho phase amplitudes. The terranes with distinct crustal properties span a wide range of ages, from Palaeoproterozoic in Lithuania to Cenozoic in the Alps, reflecting the complex tectonic history of Europe. Crustal thickness and properties in the study area are also markedly influenced by tectonic overprinting, for example the formation of the Central European Basin System, and the European Cenozoic Rift System. In the areas affected by Cenozoic rifting and volcanism, thinning of the crust corresponds to lithospheric updoming reported in recent surface wave and S-receiver function studies, as expected for thermally induced deformation. The same correlation applies for crustal thickening, not only across the Trans-European Suture Zone, but also within the southern part of the Bohemian Massif.
Sediment records of three European lakes were investigated in order to reconstruct the regional climate development during the Lateglacial and Holocene, to investigate the response of local ecosystems to climatic fluctuations and human impact and to relate regional peculiarities of past climate development to climatic changes on a larger spatial scale. The Lake Hańcza (NE Poland) sediment record was studied with a focus on reconstructing the early Holocene climate development and identifying possible differences to Western Europe. Following the initial Holocene climatic improvement, a further climatic improvement occurred between 10 000 and 9000 cal. a BP. Apparently, relatively cold and dry climate conditions persisted in NE Poland during the first ca. 1500 years of the Holocene, most likely due to a specific regional atmospheric circulation pattern. Prevailing anticyclonic circulation linked to a high-pressure cell above the remaining Scandinavian Ice Sheet (SIS) might have blocked the eastward propagation of warm and moist Westerlies and thus attenuated the early Holocene climatic amelioration in this region until the final decay of the SIS, a pattern different from climate development in Western Europe. The Lateglacial sediment record of Lake Mondsee (Upper Austria) was investigated in order to study the regional climate development and the environmental response to rapid climatic fluctuations. While the temperature rise and environmental response at the onset of the Holocene took place quasi-synchronously, major leads and lags in proxy responses characterize the onset of the Lateglacial Interstadial. In particular, the spread of coniferous woodlands and the reduction of detrital flux lagged the initial Lateglacial warming by ca. 500–750 years. Major cooling at the onset of the Younger Dryas took place synchronously with a change in vegetation, while the increase of detrital matter flux was delayed by about 150–300 years. Complex proxy responses are also detected for short-term Lateglacial climatic fluctuations. In summary, periods of abrupt climatic changes are characterized by complex and temporally variable proxy responses, mainly controlled by ecosystem inertia and the environmental preconditions. A second study on the Lake Mondsee sediment record focused on two small-scale climate deteriorations around 8200 and 9100 cal. a BP, which have been triggered by freshwater discharges to the North Atlantic, causing a shutdown of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC). Combining microscopic varve counting and AMS 14C dating yielded a precise duration estimate (ca. 150 years) and absolute dating of the 8.2 ka cold event, both being in good agreement with results from other palaeoclimate records. Moreover, a sudden temperature overshoot after the 8.2 ka cold event was identified, also seen in other proxy records around the North Atlantic. This was most likely caused by enhanced resumption of the MOC, which also initiated substantial shifts of oceanic and atmospheric front systems. Although there is also evidence from other proxy records for pronounced recovery of the MOC and atmospheric circulation changes after the 9.1 ka cold event, no temperature overshoot is seen in the Lake Mondsee record, indicating the complex behaviour of the global climate system. The Holocene sediment record of Lake Iseo (northern Italy) was studied to shed light on regional earthquake activity and the influence of climate variability and anthropogenic impact on catchment erosion and detrital flux into the lake. Frequent small-scale detrital layers within the sediments reflect allochthonous sediment supply by extreme surface runoff events. During the early to mid-Holocene, increased detrital flux coincides with periods of cold and wet climate conditions, thus apparently being mainly controlled by climate variability. In contrast, intervals of high detrital flux during the late Holocene partly also correlate with phases of increased human impact, reflecting the complex influences on catchment erosion processes. Five large-scale event layers within the sediments, which are composed of mass-wasting deposits and turbidites, are supposed to have been triggered by strong local earthquakes. While the uppermost of these event layers is assigned to a documented adjacent earthquake in AD 1222, the four other layers are supposed to be related to previously undocumented prehistorical earthquakes.