The active North Ligurian domain: new geophysical insight from the SEFASILS cruise

<p>The first leg of the SEFASILS cruise took place in November 2018 onboard the RV Pourquoi-Pas ? Up-to-date multichannel and wide-angle seismic data were acquired offshore Monaco, from margin to basin, aiming at providing a renewed vision of the complex North Ligurian backarc system. The compressive and extensive tectonic phases that have closely alternated in time and space over the last 45 My have yielded fairly contrasting structures, whose understanding is rendered even more challenging by the strong overprint of the Messinian salt tectonics. There is ample evidence of a compressive reactivation of the North Ligurian margin since 5 Ma at least, especially to the East, along the Gulf of Genoa. Such deformation is associated with some notable seismicity originating from faults and mechanisms that remain poorly apprehended. Yet, this seismicity peaked at one historical Mw ~6.6-6.9 destructive event (1887 Ligurian earthquake). The main objective of the SEAFASILS effort is a better characterization of the crustal structures, and chiefly, of the active crustal faults and their potential interplay with salt tectonics beneath the margin and the northernmost part of the basin, both featuring seismicity. Linking these aspects with broader-scale lithospheric processes within the Southern Alps/Northern Apennines, addressed in the AlpArray initiative, is also of great importance. Here we present preliminary results of these seismic investigations, with time and prestack depth migrated MCS data. Emphasis was put on the construction of some suitable velocity models to get optimal focusing of structures from surface to depth. Some active crustal tomographic velocities derived from the dense OBS deployment providing complementary insight will also be presented.</p>

THE IDEA OF APPLICATION THE DEGREE OF A CONTINUOUS MAPPING FOR EARTHQUACKE PREDICTION

The paper describes the possibility of constructing continuous mappings and calculating the degree of mapping with reference to the prediction earthquakes. At the beginning of the article, a definition of the degree of mapping is given. Then several approaches to the construction of possible vector fields are described. It is assumed that the fixed point of these vector fields will be destructive earthquake. In the first approach, the vector fields under consideration describe the geological behavior of the Earth, namely its motion and the plane of discontinuity in the epicenters of earthquakes. In the second approach fields connect foreshocks that are earthquakes that precede the destructive event. At the end of the article, examples of the successful and unsuccessful application of second approach are given. The study based on data from catalog of the NEIC (National Earthquake Information Center).

Hybrid Reassemblage: An Exploration of Craft, Digital Fabrication and Artifact Uniqueness

Digital fabrication, and especially 3D printing, is an emerging field that is opening up new possibilities for craft, art and design. The process, however, has important limitations; in particular, digitally designed artifacts are intrinsically reproducible. In stark contrast, traditional craft artifacts are individually produced by hand. The authors combine digital fabrication and craft in their work involving object destruction and restoration: an intentionally broken crafted artifact and a 3D printed restoration. The motivation is not to restore the original work but to transform it into a new object in which both the destructive event and the restoration are visible and the re-assembled object functions as a memorial.

WRITING WAR: AUTOBIOGRAPHY, MODERNITY AND WARTIME NARRATIVE IN NATIONALIST CHINA, 1937–1946

ABSTRACTThe Sino-Japanese War of 1937–45 was perhaps the single most destructive event in twentieth-century Chinese history. However, there has been relatively little attention paid to how war was experienced in the Nationalist-controlled area (‘Free China’) under Chiang Kaishek. Two autobiographical texts are examined here, one a sequence of reportage from the early war years by the journalist Du Zhongyuan, and one a biji (notebook) written immediately after the war's end by the social scientist Xu Wancheng. By choosing particular modern or anti-modern genres and styles to write in, the authors expressed a wider sentiment about the war's ambiguous role in modernising China. Du's work hopes to create modernity from destruction; Xu's suggests that modern warfare has created chaos.