[iris-bulk] (Job) Two Ph.D. Positions Available at ETH Zurich in Seismology

[IRIS]

Two Ph.D. Positions Available at ETH Zurich in Seismology

Two PhD positions, funded by the Swiss Science Foundation, are  
available at the Swiss Seismological Service and the Institute of  
Geophysics, ETH Zurich, in collaboration with the department MTEC,  
ETH Zurich.

Scientific goals and program:
The two PhD students will work synergetically with an active  
interdisciplinaty team of researchers at ETH Zurich and  
internationally (USA). The goal of the two PhDs is to identify and  
locate active faults in seismically active regions by using a  
scientifically rigorous approach based on seismicity. The goal is to  
gain a better understanding of the link between fault structures and  
earthquakes.

One PhD student focuses on the development of high-precision  
earthquake location methods, which improves significantly the present  
earthquake locations, in particular focal depth, and associated  
uncertainties by incorporating secondary arrivals, such as  
reflections from the Moho, and by solving the double-difference  
equations for earthquake location using a non-linear probabilistic  
approach. Non-linear probabilistic earthquake location will allow the  
student to compute a posteriori probability density function, which  
represents the complete, probabilistic solution to the earthquake  
location problem, including the complete information on uncertainty  
and resolution.

The other PhD student focuses on the construction of detailed and  
extensive fault networks from the relocated seismic catalogues and  
their quantified location errors, using a novel image analysis  
technique. The three-dimensional anisotropic dynamic clustering  
iterative method will be developed in such a way that the number and  
the size of the fault planes are controlled by the location  
uncertainty of each earthquake, and by incorporating a priori  
information from seismotectonics, such as focal mechanisms, and from  
structural geology, such as surface traces of faults, to constrain  
our solution.

Both projects exploit the resulting fault networks to analyze its  
statistical properties, the dynamics and triggering of seismicity in  
relation to the structure of fault networks, the issue of off-fault  
seismicity and the complexity of fault networks, and the association  
of earthquakes to faults using Bayesian inference. The physics of  
earthquakes will be addressed with respect to the temporal evolution  
of the fault network and stress field. The methods will be applied to  
natural data sets, which span very different temporal and spatial  
scales: i) the southern California earthquake catalog, ii) the Swiss  
earth-quake catalog, and iii) the earthquake catalog of the Basel  
Deep Heat Mining project.

Requirements:
Candidates with a master level in geophysics, physics, engineering,  
applied mathematics, or computer science will be considered. A  
knowledge of inversion algorithms or advanced statistics is  desired.  
Programming skills in several languages, such as C++, Java, Matlab,  
or scripting languages, are essential. The successful candidate will  
participate in undergraduate teaching and routine work at the Swiss  
Seismological Service. English and German are working languages in  
the research groups. The project involves collaboration with   
institutions in the United States. The candidates can expect to spend  
weeks to months at partner institutions.

Candidates should send a CV and the names of three referees as soon  
as possible to Dr. Stephan Husen (husen at sed.ethz.ch) or Prof. Didier  
Sornette (dsornette at ethz.ch). Starting salary is 34 KCHF per year.  
The positions will remain opened until filled.
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