Charles Lyell and the 1855 Wairarapa Earthquake in New Zealand: Recognition of Fault Rupture Accompanying an Earthquake

摘要

Charles Lyell (1797-1875) was the great advocate of "Huttonian" principles, whereby present Earth activity is regarded as the key to interpreting past rock assemblages. His famous Principles of Geology went through twelve editions between 1830 and 1876, over which time his thoughts on die relationship between earthquakes and faults evolved considerably. The first edition was Charles Darwin's vade mecum on the voyage of the Beagle (1832-1836), constantly referred to (Darwin, 1845). In the course of this voyage Darwin observed up to 3 m of coastal uplift accompanying the great Chilean earthquake of 1835. Few seismologists today would consider anything other than gigantic shear rupture as the cause of this and other subduction earthquakes, despite the fact that they occur offshore along unseen subduction thrust interfaces. In fact, our belief that a large earthquake requires shearing along a large fault can be traced back to observations of fault rupture accompanying the 1855 Wairarapa earthquake in New Zealand, subsequently reported in the 10th edition o?Principles of Physical Geology (1868), where Lyell pronounced.