stress drop for three m 4 3 4 7 1992 1994 parkfield ca earthquakes in a previous paper fletcher and spudich 1998 we determined the slip distribution for the three m 4 3 to 4 7 parkfield events that occurred between oct 20 1992 and dec 20 1994 the rupture characteristics of these events are of particular interest because they are the largest events to occur at parkfield since the 1966 mainshock to further investigate the rupture process of these events we compute the static stress change or stress drop caused by the slip using a boundary integral method from quin and das 1989 adapted for the forward modeling case of computing stresses from a static slip distribution we find that the initial phase at or very near the hypocenter has the largest stress change in all cases this peak has a value of about 3 8 mpa for the oct 20 1992 event which also has the smallest magnitude of the three at 4 3 and about 45 mpa for the other nov 14 1993 and 60 mpa for the dec 20 1994 event the rest of the stress release is comparatively small and smooth for the nov 14 1993 event which is the deepest event and the most impulsive the pattern of stress release of the other two events oct 20 1992 and dec 20 1994 is more complex with a greater spatial extent the spatial distribution of stress is approximately similar to the spatial distribution of slip but with the larger initial peak in stress drop at the hypocenter

the key frictional parameters controlling spatial variations in the speed of postseismic slip propagation on a subduction plate boundary abstract we investigate relations between the postseismic slip process effective normal stress and friction parameters for a rate and state dependent law using 3 d numerical simulations of a subduction zone the results show that the postseismic propagation speed largely depends on a a rather than a b a b or d c where a and b are the frictional parameters describing the friction law is the effective normal stress and d c is the characteristic slip distance the duration of the postseismic slip is found to depend on d c and a b considering that postseismic slip propagates faster in shallower regions than in deeper regions for both our numerical simulations and observation off sanriku and that frictional parameter a is not likely to be several times smaller than that estimated from rock laboratory experiments we conclude that effective normal stress mainly controls the spatial variations in the speed of postseismic slip propagation for large earthquakes off sanriku moreover the effective normal stress much lower than lithostatic stress due to high pore pressure may explain the speed of aseismic slip propagation in other subduction zones as well as off sanriku

redistribution of dynamic stress during coseismic ruptures evidence for fault interaction and earthquake triggering we investigate the spatiotemporal evolution of dynamic stress outside a rupturing extended fault the dynamic stress variations caused by a coseismic rupture in a half space are computed by using the discrete wavenumber and reflectivity methods after a transient phase the stress time history evolves to the final static stress value we compare the static stress changes resulting from this model with those computed from a static dislocation model we have applied this method to study the interactions between the first two normal faults which ruptured during the 1980 ms 6 9 irpinia earthquake these two subevents are separated in time by nearly 20 s while the third and last subevent occurred 40 s after the rupture onset we compute the dynamic stress changes caused by the rupture of the first subevent our modeling results show that the dynamic stress peak on the second subevent fault plane is reached between 7 s and 8 s after the rupture initiation on the main fault on the average the static stress level on the second subevent 20 s fault plane is reached nearly after 14 s the dynamic rupture did not jump from a rupturing segment to the adjacent one immediately but the triggering of the 20 s subevent is delayed by roughly 10 s with respect to the instant of occurrence of the dynamic stress peak induced by the 0 s event the dynamic stress pulse propagates along the strike direction of the second subevent fault plane at an average velocity of nearly 3 4 km s the delayed triggering of the second subevent can be interpreted in terms of the frictional properties of the faults in particular rate and state dependent frictional law can explain a delayed instability after a sudden change in stress using the estimated values of the subevent triggering delay and the shear stress change we attempt to constrain the parameter a on the 20 s fault the values here inferred agree well with those resulting from previous studies

change in the probability for earthquakes in southern california due to the landers magnitude 7 3 earthquake the landers earthquake in june 1992 redistributed stress in southern california shutting off the production of small earthquakes in some regions while increasing the seismicity in neighboring regions up to the present this earthquake also changed the ratio of small to large events in favor of more small earthquakes within about 100 kilometers of the epicenter this implies that the probabilistic estimate for future earthquakes in southern california changed because of the landers earthquake the location of the strongest increase in probability for large earthquakes in southern california was the volume that subsequently produced the largest slip in the magnitude 7 1 hector mine earthquake of october 1999

stressing of locked patches along a creeping fault an analysis is presented of the stressing of locked patches along a fault zone which is creeping elsewhere the model consists of strike slip faulted elastic lithospheric plates loaded in a manner equivalent to imposition of a remotely uniform tectonic shear stress the fault zone has an inhomogeneous strength distribution both depth wise and along strike it is modeled as being composed of locked patches and freely slipping parts treated as cracks the solution is given with the use of the line spring model which analyzes the problem by thickness averaged plane stress theory for lithospheric plates which slip along a discontinuity cut at the plate boundary as a boundary condition thickness averaged stress and slip at each local section along the cut was related to one another by the result of an antiplane strain analysis of slip for the crack or crack pair which describes the slipping and locked depth ranges at that section the analysis indicates that the slip distribution along creeping parts of the fault as well as the stress distribution along locked patches depends strongly on the geometry of these zones the model is used to examine stress concentrations associated with a slip deficient seismic gap along strike and to study the effect of local irregularities in the margin of a locked region it is also used to simulate slip and stressing processes associated with the creeping portion of the san andreas fault in central california between the presently locked zones of the great 1906 and 1857 ruptures and to constrain the nature of an apparently locked zone at the southeastern end which ruptures in characteristic parkfield earthquakes near fault creep and broadscale displacement data along the fault since the 1966 parkfield earthquake and inferences from seismicity distributions are used limitations of the modeling procedure at short spatial wavelengths prohibit an accurate description of the parkfield locked patch but results suggest that it may be localized and occupy a small fraction of area of the normal seismogenic zone an effective remote stressing rate of order 0 3 10 6 shear modulus yr is inferred together with a less well constrained 30 to 40 km lithospheric thickness for consistency with the displacement data results enable estimates of stress accumulation along the locked 1857 rupture zone and the build up of fracture energy release capability of order 107 j m2 in 150 yr at its lower margin

effects of loading velocity stiffness and inertia on the dynamics of a single degree of freedom spring slider system numerical simulation of the nonlinear dynamics of a single degree of freedom spring slider system can provide useful insight into the effects of loading velocity friction environment elastic stiffness and inertia on the stress drop and dynamic behavior of earthquakes in our numerical simulations using a rate and state dependent friction law we varied the loading velocity by 7 orders of magnitude the stiffness by 2 orders of magnitude the mass by 5 orders of magnitude and the velocity weakening parameter b a by a factor of 160 four stability regimes were identified in the load point velocity stiffness space when inertia was taken into account for cyclic stick slip instabilities the stress drop amplitude increases with decreasing load point velocity with decreasing stiffness with increasing velocity weakening parameter b a and with decreasing mass simple scaling relations for the static stress drop dynamic stress drop static friction and shear fracture energy with the natural logarithm of load point velocity were observed using the scaling relation for static stress drop we infer the normalized velocity weakening parameter b a with respect to normal stress to range from 0 0011 to 0 0039 for triaxial experiments on saw cut westerly granite specimens sandwiched with a simulated gouge layer of ultrafine quartz at pressures from 10 mpa to 100 mpa unless we take b a throughout the seismogenic layer to be much higher than experimental measurements the effect of loading velocity by itself is not sufficient to account for the increase of stress drop with increasing earthquake recurrence time inferred from seismological data to the extent that our simple system can be treated as an analog for earthquakes our study shows that the velocity weakening parameter b a controls the magnitude of the static stress drop far more than the loading velocity if velocity weakening increases systematically with increasing healing time then the coupled effect of loading velocity variation and change in friction environment can account for the seismological observations

interseismic deformation and creep along the central section of the north anatolian fault turkey insar observations and implications for rate and state friction properties 1 we present high resolution measurements of interseismic deformation along the central section of the north anatolian fault naf in turkey using interferometric synthetic aperture radar data from the advanced land observing satellite and envisat missions we generated maps of satellite line of sight velocity using five ascending advanced land observing satellite tracks and one descending envisat track covering the naf between 31 2 e and 34 3 e the line of sight velocity reveals discontinuities of up to 5 mm yr across the ismetpasa segment of the naf implying surface creep at a rate of 9 mm yr this is a large fraction of the inferred slip rate of the naf 21 25 mm yr the lateral extent of significant surface creep is about 75 km we model the inferred surface velocity and shallow fault creep using numerical simulations of spontaneous earthquake sequences that incorporate laboratory derived rate and state friction our results indicate that frictional behavior in the ismetpasa segment is velocity strengthening at shallow depths and transitions to velocity weakening at a depth of 3 6 km the inferred depth extent of shallow fault creep is 5 5 7 km suggesting that the deeper locked portion of the partially creeping segment is characterized by a higher stressing rate smaller events and shorter recurrence interval we also reproduce surface velocity in a locked segment of the naf by fault models with velocity weakening conditions at shallow depth our results imply that frictional behavior in a shallow portion of major active faults with little or no shallow creep is mostly velocity weakening

mapping the rupture process of moderate earthquakes by inverting accelerograms we present a waveform inversion method that uses recordings of small events as green s functions to map the rupture growth of moderate earthquakes the method fits p and s waveforms from many stations simultaneously in an iterative procedure to estimate the subevent rupture time and amplitude relative to the green s function event we invert the accelerograms written by two moderate parkfield earthquakes using smaller events as green s functions the first earthquake m 4 6 occurred on november 14 1993 at a depth of 11 km under middle mountain in the assumed preparation zone for the next parkfield main shock the second earthquake m 4 7 occurred on december 20 1994 some 6 km to the southeast at a depth of 9 km on a section of the san andreas fault with no previous microseismicity and little inferred coseismic slip in the 1966 parkfield earthquake the inversion results are strikingly different for the two events the average stress release in the 1993 event was 50 bars distributed over a geometrically complex area of 0 9 km2 the average stress release in the 1994 event was only 6 bars distributed over a roughly elliptical area of 20 km2 the ruptures of both events appear to grow spasmodically into relatively complex shapes the inversion only constrains the ruptures to grow more slowly than the s wave velocity but does not use smoothness constraints

the role of mineral composition on the frictional and stability properties of powdered reservoir rocks national natural science foundation of china 41672268 41772286 u s department of energy doe de fe0023354

post seismic and interseismic fault creep i model description we present a model of localized aseismic fault creep during the full interseismic period including both transient and steady fault creep in response to a sequence of imposed coseismic slip events and tectonic loading we consider the behaviour of models with linear viscous non linear viscous rate dependent friction and rate and state dependent friction fault rheologies both the transient post seismic creep and the pattern of steady interseismic creep rates surrounding asperities depend on recent coseismic slip and fault rheologies in these models post seismic fault creep is manifest as pulses of elevated creep rates that propagate from the coseismic slip these pulses feature sharper fronts and are longer lived in models with rate state friction compared to other models with small characteristic slip distances in rate state friction models interseismic creep is similar to that in models with rate dependent friction faults except for the earliest periods of post seismic creep our model can be used to constrain fault rheologies from geodetic observations in cases where the coseismic slip history is relatively well known when only considering surface deformation over a short period of time there are strong trade offs between fault rheology and the details of the imposed coseismic slip geodetic observations over longer times following an earthquake will reduce these trade offs while simultaneous modelling of interseismic and post seismic observations provide the strongest constraints on fault rheologies

numerical simulation of three dimensional faulting processes with heterogeneous rate and state dependent friction abstract miyatake t 1992 numerical simulation of three dimensional faulting processes with heterogeneous rate and state dependent friction in t mikumo k aki m ohnaka l j ruff and p k p spudich editors earthquake source physics and earthquake precursors tectonophysics 211 223 232 numerical simulations of three dimensional faulting processes with heterogeneous rate and state dependent friction were carried out by using a multi mass spring model the rate and state dependent friction law proposed by dieterich and later developed by ruina has much capability to simulate a wide variety of source processes e g precursory slip post seismic slip co seismic slip creep events and earthquake cycles since the original equation is a stiff ordinary equation which has rapidly decaying solutions and is difficult to solve we modified the equation so that numerical computation are made stable this rate and approximate state dependent friction law is applied to a single degree of freedom elastic system to compare its dynamical behaviours with those of the original friction law and found that our friction law was a good approximation of the original formula then we apply this modified friction law to a multi mass spring model to simulate a whole earthquake source process in this paper we studied mainly the effect of heterogeneity of frictional parameters three types of barriers i e a strong barrier a weak barrier and a relaxation barrier can be simulated by certain frictional parameters for each case large mainshocks occurred repeatedly in the case of a weak barrier the barrier region slipped with some delay time during the mainshock i e the occurrence of a multiple shock in the case of a strong barrier the barrier region was left unslipped during the mainshock a small part of this barrier region slipped sequentially as small aftershocks and eventually the entire barrier region slipped as the largest aftershock a fault with a relaxation barrier was also left unslipped during the mainshock similarly to a strong barrier case but a small part of the barrier slipped as creep events

the brittle plastic transition and the depth of seismic faulting a simple rheological model of shearing of the lithosphere that has gained wide acceptance is a two layer model with an upper brittle zone in which deformation takes place by frictional sliding on discrete fault surfaces and a lower plastic zone in which deformation takes place by bulk plastic flow the two are separated by an abrupt brittle plastic transition which is assumed to be indicated by the lower limit of seismicity experimental studies however as well as the deformation structures of mylonites indicate that a broad transitional field of semi brittle behavior lies between these extremes this is a field of mixed mode deformation with a strength that can be expected to be considerably higher than that predicted from the extrapolation of high temperature flow laws for quartzofeldspathic rocks the semi brittle field lies between t1 the onset of quartz plasticity at about 300 c and t2 feldspar plasticity at about 450 c a model is presented in which the transition t1 does not correspond to a transition to bulk flow but to a change from unstable velocity weakening friction to stable velocity strengthening friction t1 thus marks the depth limit of earthquake nucleation but large earthquakes can propagate to a greater depth t3 t3 t2 which corresponds to the lower limit of dynamic frictional behavior in the semi brittle field and approximately to the peak in strength the zone between t1 and t3 is one of alternating behavior with flow occurring m the interseismic period and with co seismic dynamic slip occurring during large earthquakes this zone is characterized by mylonites interlaced by pseudotachylytes and other signs of dynamic faulting the transition t1 is also marked by a change in the generation mechanism of fault rocks from abrasive wear above which produces cataclastites to adhesive wear below which is proposed as an important generation mechanism of mylonites in the upper part of the semi brittle field

frictional properties of sedimentary rocks and natural fault gouge from the longmen shan fault zone sichuan china in this paper we report friction experiments performed on samples collected from the region hit by the 2008 wenchuan earthquake in the longmen shan fault zone lfz of sichuan southwestern china the materials tested consisted of simulated gouges prepared from intact clay rich mudstone and sandstone a calcite limestone plus a natural fault gouge from a trenched surface rupture cutting the mudstone and sandstone the clay rich samples including the natural gouge were dominated by illite and quartz in our experiments we sheared 1 mm thick gouge layers between saw cut driver blocks using a triaxial testing machine at conditions corresponding to 2 km depth in the lfz temperature was varied from 25 c to 150 c and to investigate the velocity dependence of friction we stepped the shear displacement rate between 1 22 and 0 122 m s our results show that the natural gouge was more illite rich and much weaker than the protolith mudstone and sandstone and showed a steady state friction coefficient of 0 4 compared with 0 6 for the latter the limestone gouge displayed values of 0 6 0 7 all samples except the limestone showed stable velocity strengthening slip the limestone showed velocity strengthening at 25 c 50 c but quasi static oscillations at 100 c 150 c along with velocity weakening behavior at 150 c we apply our results to discuss the role of the sedimentary rocks studied during events such as the wenchuan earthquake and argue that the clay rich sediments of the region may have a damping effect upon ruptures propagating from depth whereas the limestone may accelerate propagation producing significant stress drops

detection of a locked zone at depth on the parkfield california segment of the san andreas fault the parkfield california segment of the san andreas fault is transitional in character between the creeping segment of the fault to the northwest and the locked carrizo plain segment to the southeast the rate of shallow fault slip decreases from 25 30 mm yr northwest of the epicenter of the 1966 parkfield earthquake to zero at the southeastern end of the 1966 rupture zone data from a network of trilateration lines spanning the san andreas fault near parkfield and extending to the pacific coast near san luis obispo shed light on the rate of fault slip at depth since the 1966 earthquake in this study average rates of line length change and shallow fault slip were inverted to determine the slip rate at depth on the parkfield fault segment the fault is taken to be a vertical surface with unknown distribution of strike slip displacement in an elastic half space a striking result of the inversions is that all solutions providing acceptable fits to the data exhibit a locked zone essentially coincident with the rupture surface of the 1966 parkfield earthquake the data require that the locked zone extend nearly as far north as the 1966 epicenter however the vertical extent of the locked zone is not well resolved over much of the parkfield segment the fault is slipping faster at the earth s surface than it is at seismogenic depths in order to fit the trilateration measurements it is necessary to include a component of contraction normal to the trend of the san andreas the inversion results suggest a spatially uniform normal strain of 0 06 strain yr the orientation of the contraction is compatible with geologic and seismic evidence of active folding and reverse faulting in the region the magnitude of the contraction is consistent with convergence rates inferred from global plate motion models

frictional constraints on crustal faulting we consider how variations in fault frictional properties affect the phenomenology of earthquake faulting in particular we propose that lateral variations in fault friction produce the marked heterogeneity of slip observed in large earthquakes we model these variations using a rate and state dependent friction law where we differentiate velocity weakening behavior into two fields the strong seismic field is very velocity weakening and the weak seismic field is slightly velocity weakening similarly we differentiate velocity strengthening behavior into two fields the compliant field is slightly velocity strengthening and the viscous field is very velocity strengthening the strong seismic field comprises the seismic slip concentrations or asperities the two intermediate fields weak seismic and compliant have frictional velocity dependences that are close to velocity neutral these fields modulate both the tectonic loading and the dynamic rupture process during the interseismic period the weak seismic and compliant regions slip aseismically while the strong seismic regions remain locked evolving into stress concentrations that fail only in main shocks the weak seismic areas exhibit most of the interseismic activity and aftershocks but can also creep seismically this mixed frictional behavior can be obtained from a sufficiently heterogeneous distribution of the critical slip distance the model also provides a mechanism for rupture arrest dynamic rupture fronts decelerate as they penetrate into unloaded complaint or weak seismic areas producing broad areas of accelerated afterslip aftershocks occur on both the weak seismic and compliant areas around a fault but most of the stress is diffused through aseismic slip rapid afterslip on these peripheral areas can also produce aftershocks within the main shock rupture area by reloading weak fault areas that slipped in the main shock and then healed we test this frictional model by comparing the seismicity and the coseismic slip for the 1966 parkfield 1979 coyote lake and 1984 morgan hill earthquakes the interevent seismicity and aftershocks appear to occur on fault areas outside the regions of significant slip these regions are interpreted as either weak seismic or compliant depending on whether or not they manifest interevent seismicity

constraint of fault parameters inferred from nonplanar fault modeling 1 we study the distribution of initial stress and frictional parameters for the 28 june 1992 landers california earthquake through dynamic rupture simulation along a nonplanar fault system we find that observational evidence of large slip distribution near the ground surface requires large nonzero cohesive forces in the depth dependent friction law this is the only way that stress can accumulate and be released at shallow depths we then study the variation of frictional parameters along the strike of the fault for this purpose we mapped into our segmented fault model the initial stress heterogeneity inverted by peyrat et al 2001 using a planar fault model simulations with this initial stress field improved the overall fit of the rupture process to that inferred from kinematic inversions and also improved the fit to the ground motion observed in southern california in order to obtain this fit we had to introduce an additional variations of frictional parameters along the fault the most important is a weak kickapoo fault and a strong johnson valley fault

breaking of a single asperity rupture process and seismic radiation the problem of spontaneous shear rupture of a single circular asperity on an infinite fault plane is studied initially the fault plane is broken everywhere except at a circular asperity an applied displacement at infinity results in a stress concentration along the bounding edge of the asperity the frictional stress on the broken part of the fault plane is taken to be a constant once a point on the asperity breaks the stress there drops to the same value as on the main fault surface the rupture is started by relaxing the shear stress at a point on the asperity edge and is then allowed to propagate spontaneously using a critical stress level fracture criterion the rupture process is calculated numerically it is found that for asperities of constant strength the rupture first propagates around the edge of the asperity and then inward a phenomenon best described by the well known term of classic military maneuver the double encircling pincer movement in the appendix the expressions for the far field seismic radiation due to the rupture of such an asperity are derived it is shown that the nth cartesian component of the far field displacement at x t for p sv and sh waves using the notation of aki and richards 1980 is given by un x t dni 4 c2r s0 i3 t r c ds thus the far field pulses can be directly found from the stress drops on the fault plane this formula is also true for crack or dislocation problems the directivity function dni for displacement for the asperity problem is found to be that for the double couple modified by some factor in particular the fault plane is a nodal plane for sv waves for the rupturing of asperities on a finite fault these directivity functions are applicable only to the initial part of observed pulses at a receiver provided the receiver is not located on the fault plane outside the broken part of the main crack edge in which case it is inapplicable for all time

on the mechanics of earthquake afterslip we propose a model for earthquake afterslip based on rate and state variable friction laws in the model afterslip is attributed to the interaction of a velocity weakening region at depth within which earthquakes nucleate with an upper region of velocity strengthening frictional behavior the existence of this upper region is supported by independent seismologic observations and the results of laboratory friction experiments in our model afterslip is the result of relaxation of a stress perturbation within the velocity strengthening region which arises when an earthquake propagates into that region from below we derive the stress perturbation and its decay from the friction constitutive law using a simple 1 degree of freedom approximation for the elastic interaction between the fault and its surroundings this approximation is based on thickness averaged displacements and slip velocities within the velocity strengthening region which is assumed to slip as a rigid block coseismic and postseismic slip are coupled through the thickness averaged stiffness k of the velocity strengthening region we assume k to be inversely proportional to the thickness of this region which means that thicker velocity strengthening regions have a greater tendency to arrest coseismic slip we model the afterslip time histories of the 1966 parkfield and 1987 superstition hills earthquakes and relate the model parameters to physical parameters which may govern the rheologic behavior of the faults in accord with field observations our model predicts 1 that afterslip on some faults scales with the thickness of the unconsolidated sedimentary cover and 2 that proportionally more afterslip occurs for earthquakes in which coseismic surface slip is small compared with coseismic slip at depth velocity strengthening frictional behavior is to be expected for faults within poorly consolidated sediments and for those that contain significant gouge zones about 500 m within their shallow regions 3 5 km combining our results with those of recent laboratory friction studies indicates that relatively young faults with little accumulated fault gouge should exhibit little afterslip

physical and transport property variations within carbonate bearing fault zones insights from the monte maggio fault central italy the physical characterization of carbonate bearing normal faults is fundamental for resource development and seismic hazard here we report laboratory measurements of density porosity vp vs elastic moduli and permeability for a range of effective confining pressures 0 1 100 mpa conducted on samples representing different structural domains of a carbonate bearing fault we find a reduction in porosity from the fault breccia 11 7 total and 6 2 connected to the main fault plane 9 total and 3 5 connected with both domains showing higher porosity compared to the protolith 6 8 total and 1 1 connected with increasing confining pressure p wave velocity evolves from 4 5 km s to 5 9 km s in the fault breccia is constant at 5 9 km s approaching the fault plane and is low 4 9 km s in clay rich fault domains we find that while the fault breccia shows pressure sensitive behaviour a reduction in permeability from 2 10 16 m2 to 2 10 17 m2 the cemented cataclasite close to the fault plane is characterized by pressure independent behaviour permeability 4 10 17 m2 our results indicate that the deformation processes occurring within the different fault structural domains influence the physical and transport properties of the fault zone in situ vp profiles match well the laboratory measurements demonstrating that laboratory data are valuable for implications at larger scale combining the experimental values of elastic moduli and frictional properties it results that at shallow crustal levels m 1 earthquakes are less favoured in agreement with earthquake depth distribution during the l aquila 2009 seismic sequence that occurred on carbonates

evidence of instantaneous dynamic triggering during the seismic sequence of year 2000 in south iceland 1 we analyze the coseismic stress perturbation during the 17 june 2000 south iceland seismic sequence the main shock ms 6 6 was followed by three large events within a few tens of seconds 8 26 and 30 s located within 80 km the aim of this paper is to investigate short term fault interaction and instantaneous triggering this happens when a fault perturbed by a stress change fails before the end of the transient stress perturbation we compute the shear normal and coulomb stress changes as functions of time in a stratified elastic half space by using discrete wave number and reflectivity methods we calculate dynamic stresses caused by the main shock at the hypocenters of these three subsequent events our numerical results show that the onset of the last two events is slightly delayed with respect to the arrival time of the second positive peak of coulomb stress variation while the first event occurred after the first positive stress peak we have also analyzed the response of a spring slider system representing a fault governed by a rate and state dependent friction law perturbed by shear and normal stress variations caused by the main shock the fault response to the computed stress perturbations is always clock advanced we have found suitable constitutive parameters of the modeled fault that allow the instantaneous dynamic triggering of these three earthquakes if the initial sliding velocity is comparable with the tectonic loading velocity we obtained failure times close to the observed origin times for low values of the initial effective normal stress

earthquake rupture propagation inferred from the spatial distribution of fault rock frictional properties abstract the frictional properties of fault rocks that rupture during earthquakes are expected to affect the nucleation and propagation of seismic slip but these properties and their variation under in situ earthquake conditions are typically unknown here we present experimental results on the variation of frictional properties of fault rocks from the alhama de murcia fault amf in se spain which ruptured in the 2011 lorca earthquake in the epicentral area the fault zone is characterized by the presence of abundant phyllosilicate rich gouges that surround more competent fractured lenses of the phyllitic basement measurements of lineaments and orientations of r shears in the gouges are consistent with cmt solutions of the 2011 lorca earthquake suggesting that the bulk of displacement on the amf was accommodated within similar gouges at depth in order to evaluate the frictional properties of the fault rocks of the amf we performed rotary shear experiments under hydrothermal conditions of samples obtained from surface outcrops of the amf zone progressively simulating deeper levels in the crust by stepping temperature effective normal stress and fluid pressure a negative velocity dependence of friction expressed as a negative value of the rate and state friction rsf parameter a b and which is a prerequisite for the nucleation of an instability was observed only for samples derived from competent lenses under hydrothermal conditions gouge derived samples exhibited only velocity strengthening properties i e positive values of a b which increase with deeper conditions in particular with increasing effective normal stress combined with our outcrop observation of the anastomosing nature of gouges surrounding more competent lenses of fractured protolith our results suggest that the 2011 lorca earthquake nucleated in the competent lenses followed by propagation of slip into the frictionally weaker gouges the inferred upward propagation direction of the 2011 lorca earthquake is consistent with propagation of the rupture into the velocity strengthening gouges which at shallower levels provide a smaller barrier to seismic slip due to lower values of effective normal stress and a b our results suggest that the spatial variation of the frictional properties along the amf was an important factor controlling the nucleation and propagation of seismic slip which together with the shallow hypocenter close to the city of lorca led to serious damage we infer that understanding of such variations in frictional properties may significantly improve seismic hazard evaluations in tectonically active regions

use of seismic stratigraphy for minnelusa exploration northeastern wyoming while minnelusa sands have yielded significant reserves in wyoming s powder river basin geologic complexities have made these sands an elusive target this paper briefly describes the development of a technique which was used successfully in the exploration of minnelusa sands this tehnique can be applied to many stratigraphic exploration programs sonic logs which are key logs in defining minnelusa sands in the c h field were used to construct synthetic seismograms these synthetics were then organized in cross section form to define whether a change in minnelusa sands would yield an identifiable change on the synthetics the idealized seismic response did show an obvious lateral change from upper sand to no upper sand conditions and a pilot seismic line was shot using a vibroseis source this line which was shot through the c h field successfully showed the updip limits of the upper minnelusa sands a subsequent seismic program was acquired and other leads and prospects were identified includi

constitutive behavior and stability of frictional sliding of granite an understanding of the frictional sliding on faults that can lead to earthquakes requires a knowledge of both constitutive behavior of the sliding surfaces and its mechanical interaction with the loading system we have determined the constitutive parameters for frictional sliding of initially bare surfaces of westerly granite using a recently developed high pressure rotary shear apparatus that allows long distances of sliding and therefore a greater assurance of attaining steady state behavior from experiments conducted at room temperature and normal stresses of 27 84 mpa several important results have been found 1 a gouge layer 100 to 200 m thick was developed from the initially bare rock surfaces after 18 to 70 mm of sliding 2 the steady state frictional resistance attained after about 10 mm of sliding is proportional to the negative of the logarithm of the sliding velocity 3 abrup changes in the velocity of sliding result in initial changes in the frictional resistance which have the same sign as the velocity change and are followed by a gradual decay to a new steady state value over a characteristic distance of sliding this velocity weakening behavior is essentially identical with that found by several previous workers on the same material at lower normal stress 4 our results are well described by a two state variable constitutive law the values of the constitutive parameters are quite similar to those found previously at low normal stress but the characteristic distance is about an order of magnitude smaller than that found at 10 mpa normal stress with thicker layers of coarser gouge 5 we have approximated our results with a one state variable constitutive law and compared the results with the predictions of existing nonlinear stability analysis in addition we have extended the stability analysis to systems possessing two state variables with such formulations good agreement is found between the experimentally observed and theoretically predicted transitions between stable and unstable sliding these results allow a better understanding of the instabilities that lead to earthquakes

linearized inversion for fault rupture behavior application to the 1984 morgan hill california earthquake we present a technique to infer the rupture history of an earthquake from near source records of ground motion unlike most previous studies each point on the fault is assumed to slip only once when the rupture front passes with a spatially variable slip intensity in this parameterization the data are linearly related to slip intensity but nonlinearly related to rupture time we perform a linearized inversion for slip intensity and rupture time by iteratively perturbing an assumed starting model the inverse problem for the model perturbation is solved using a tomographic back projection technique smoothing and inequality constraints are applied to ensure that the resulting solution is stable and feasible asymptotic ray theory is used to calculate theoretical seismograms and partial derivatives with respect to model parameters in test cases with noisy synthetic data sets we found that it is possible to distinguish between rupture models having variable slip amplitude and models having variable rupture velocity provided the station coverage is adequate we apply the technique to recordings of the april 24 1984 morgan hill earthquake the results indicate that slip amplitude on the fault plane was extremely variable and that the rupture front did not propagate uniformly away from the hypocenter in particular rupture was delayed on a 12 km2 section of the fault approximately 14 km to the southeast of the hypocenter the rupture front surrounded the region which subsequently failed with a component of rupture propagation back toward the hypocenter similar behavior has been observed in dynamic rupture models with stress or strength inhomogeneities this segment of the fault ruptured with a large slip amplitude releasing 12 of the total seismic moment from 4 of the total area of the aftershock zone the surface trace of this section of the fault is characterized by a complex left step that could act to increase the normal stress acting across the fault however the distribution of aftershocks suggests that the fault at depth is simpler and that it may bend to the right in either case our rupture model suggests that this segment of the fault represents an asperity which initially resisted rupture but eventually ruptured massively we estimate the shear fracture energy for this earthquake to be 2 106 j m2

earthquake triggering by static and dynamic stress changes 1 in this study we aim to understand the effect of static and dynamic stress changes in promoting earthquake failures on secondary faults toward this goal we solve the equation of motion of a spring slider dynamic system including inertia and using rate and state dependent constitutive laws we separately investigate the dynamic response of this fault analog system to a sudden stress change represented either as a stress step or as a stress pulse which are used to model permanent static and transient dynamic stress perturbations the induced earthquake failure does not occur immediately at the application of the coseismic stress change but it is delayed in time we define this time interval as the triggering delay for a given stress perturbation we analyze the dependence of triggering delays on different system conditions and constitutive parameters our results clearly show that the effects of static and dynamic stress changes are quite different while a static stress change is able to advance as well as to delay an induced instability depending on its sign a dynamic stress pulse is only able to promote a nearly instantaneous failure provided its amplitude is positive and large enough with respect to the direct effect of friction in other words dynamic stress changes can only cause nearly instantaneous failures without any relevant triggering delay these results should be considered in interpreting the seismicity rate changes caused by large earthquakes at least as long as seismic events are interpreted as sliding instabilities obeying rate and state dependent friction laws

crustal earthquake instability in relation to the depth variation of frictional slip properties recent stability studies using constitutive relations of the type found by dieterich ruina and others to describe frictional slip of rocks in the laboratory have provided a new explanation of the depth cutoff of shallow crustal earthquakes the class of friction laws discussed has the property that the sliding stress depends on normal stress temperature slip rate and slip history for sliding at a fixed slip rate v and fixed environment e g normal stress temperature etc the shear strength evolves toward a steady state value ss v stability analysis show that for d ss v dv 0 velocity strengthening implies stable steady state sliding at least for a broad class of constitutive laws more fully described in the paper experiments by dieterich and by tullis and weeks on westerly granite with mature sliding surfaces indicate that d ss v dv is negative at room temperature whereas higher temperature experiments by stesky show that d ss v dv becomes positive above approximately 300 c therefore in the case of the earth where temperature increases with depth the above observations seem to suggest that the depth cutoff of crustal earthquake activity can be understood in terms of the variation of the frictional response with depth from a regime with d ss v dv 0 this is not inconsistent with but rather refines the suggestion by sibson and others that the depth cutoff is due to a transition from brittle friction to ductile flow further our results show definitively that the shallow depth confinement of seismicity is compatible with a model in which deformation is localized to a fault zone extending well below the seismogenic depth the depth confinement does not require a model showing transition to a zone of broadly distributed creep flow beneath the seismogenic zone following mavko a two dimensional quasi static strike slip fault model is analyzed but using different numerical procedures and a depth variation of frictional properties based on the laboratory data mentioned above and the lachenbruch sass depth variation of temperature for the san andreas fault the resulting predictions of such features as the confinement of crustal earthquakes to shallow depths the development of locked patches the recurrence time for the seismic cycle the seismic stress drop and displacement etc are generally in agreement with the observed characteristics of large scale strike slip earthquakes along the san andreas fault calculations based on the laboratory data predict for example that stick slip nucleates around 5 7 km that large seismic motion occurs around the nucleation depth and above but diminishes gradually to zero at 13 15 km depths that rapid postseismic creep occurs over another 3 4 km depth and that at greater depths steady slip consistent with the average plate velocity is only modestly perturbed by the earthquakes occurring above the most uncertain parameter is the slip weakening distance l for evolution of fault surface state we illustrate how features of the predicted earthquake cycles vary with l over the range for which calculations are feasible

loop current eddy paths in the western gulf of mexico abstract the paths of anticyclonic loop current eddies in the western gulf of mexico have been investigated using argos tracked drifters accompanied by hydrographic surveys the analysis used orbit parameters derived from a least square fit of a translating ellipse kinematic model and showed that paths from four quite different eddies had a number of similar features they are a general increase in rotational period over time clockwise rotation of ellipse axes that slows with time and often becomes stationary in the far western gulf swirl velocities that decay quite slowly and a tendency of the eddies to have low divergence in three cases 20 to 30 day oscillations of the orbit parameters were observed translation velocities of the orbits showed the characteristic stalls and sprints that have been previously observed in two cases stalls and deviations from solid body rotation could be attributed to the presence of vigorous lower continental slope cyclones situated to the northwest of the eddies in

emergence and disappearance of interplate repeating earthquakes following the 2011 m9 0 tohoku oki earthquake slip behavior transition between seismic and aseismic depending on the loading rate we investigated spatiotemporal change in the interplate seismic activity following the 2011 tohoku oki earthquake m9 0 in the region where interseismic interplate coupling was relatively weak and large postseismic slip was observed we classified earthquakes by their focal mechanisms to identify the interplate events and conducted hypocenter relocation to examine the detailed spatiotemporal distribution of interplate earthquakes in the mostly creeping area the results show that many interplate earthquakes including m 6 events emerged immediately after the tohoku oki earthquake in areas where very few interplate earthquakes had been observed in the 88 previous years the emergent earthquakes include repeating sequences and the extremely long quiescence of small to moderate earthquakes before the tohoku oki earthquake suggests that the source areas for the post m9 events slipped aseismically during the quiescence the repeaters magnitudes decayed over time following the tohoku oki earthquake and some sequences disappeared within a year the emergence of interplate earthquakes suggests that areas where aseismic slip had been dominant before the tohoku oki earthquake started to cause seismic slip after the earthquake probably due to the increased loading rate from the afterslip the magnitude decrease and disappearance of repeaters can be interpreted as shrinkage in seismic areas around the repeaters sources as the loading rate decreased due to the afterslip decay over time these observations suggest that changes in the loading rate can cause slip behavior transition between seismic and aseismic this indicates that such loading rate dependent slip behavior plays an important role in the spatiotemporal distribution of earthquakes in interplate seismogenic zones

aseismic slip transients emerge spontaneously in three dimensional rate and state modeling of subduction earthquake sequences 1 to investigate the possible physical mechanisms of recently observed aseismic slip events in the cascadia japan and mexico subduction zones we apply a dieterich ruina rate and state friction law to a three dimensional model of a shallow subduction fault that is loaded by imposed steady plate slip rate far downdip along the thrust interface friction properties are temperature and hence depth dependent such that sliding is stable at depths below about 30 km the system is perturbed into a significantly nonuniform slip mode along strike by introducing small along strike variations in the constitutive parameters a and a b in addition to large heterogeneous earthquake slip at seismogenic depths and associated postseismic transients we found that slip events which have clearly aseismic slip rates emerge spontaneously around the downdip end of the seismogenic zone both transients which start well after a seismic event and those which are triggered by other transients are observed from the simulations the slip velocity depth range and sometimes along strike migration speed of simulated transients are similar to the observations from natural subduction zones unstable stable transitional friction properties near the downdip end of the seismogenic zone are suggested to be an ingredient allowing such transients simulated transients can weaken the locking intensity of the updip seismogenic zone while enhancing that of the transition zone spatial temporal correlation of aseismic transients and nearby seismicity in the guerrero mexico area suggests that transients may signal a period of increased probability for nucleating their high frequency counterparts as damaging subduction thrust events

an interpretation of tsunami earthquake based on a simple dynamic model failure of shallow megathrust earthquake 1 the 2011 tohoku earthquake demonstrated that extremely large seismic slip can occur at shallow plate interfaces in subduction zones the large slip area for the tohoku earthquake included the source region of a tsunami earthquake we performed dynamic rupture simulations using simplified fault models and the mechanism of thermal fluid pressurization we found that small fluctuations of initial shear stress near a trench within 1 mpa lead to differences in seismic moment release greater than two orders of magnitude in addition we performed another experiment varying rupture nucleation sizes and obtained similar acute sensitivities of parameters moderate slip events with trapezoidal flat topped source time functions appear to occupy a transition position between shallow megathrust earthquakes with surface rupture and smaller ordinary earthquakes without surface rupture we interpret this result as representing the differences in interplate slip between shallow megathrust earthquakes tsunami moderate earthquakes and non tsunami ordinary earthquakes on the basis of seismic observations

seismicity simulation with a rate and state dependent friction law the dynamic motions and stabilities of a single degree of freedom elastic system controlled by different friction laws are compared the system consists of a sliding block connected to an elastic spring driven at a constant velocity the friction laws are a laboratory inferred friction law called the rate and state dependent friction law proposed by dieterich and ruina and a simple friction law described by dynamic and static frictions we further extend the solution to a one dimensional mass spring model which is an analog of a fault controlled by the rate and state dependent friction law this model predicts non uniform slip and stress drop along the rupture length of a heterogeneous fault this result is very different from some earlier modelings based on the simple friction law and a slip weakening friction law in those earlier modelings the stress and slip functions become smoother with time along the length of the fault rupture owing to the interactions between fault segments during slip because of this smoothing process the number of small events will decrease with time and the universilly observed stationary magnitude frequency relation cannot be explained the interaction between a fault segment and its neighboring segments can be measured when the post slip stress on this segment is compared with the stress on an identical segment represented by a block in this modeling without neighboring segments if the post slip stress of the former is much higher than that of the latter strong interaction exists if the two are close only weak interaction exists the interaction is determined by the relative motion between fault segments and the time duration of interaction our new modeling with the rate and state dependent friction law appears to show no such smoothing effect and provides a physical mechanism for the roughening process in the difference between the fault strength and stress that is necessary to explain the observed stationary magnitude frequency relation the noninstantaneous healing predicted by the rate and state dependent friction law may be repsonsible for the recurring nonuniform slip and stress drop and may be explained by the reduction of interaction among fault segments due to the low frictional strength during the fault stopping the very low friction during slip stopping allows much longer times than does the higher friction due to instantaneous healing for the fault segments to adjust their motions from an upper limit slip velocity to almost rest according to newton s second law a process with fixed masses and constant velocity changes involves low forces and weak interactions if it is accomplished in a long time period and vice versa our modeling also indicates that the existence of strong patches with higher effective stress on a fault is needed for the occurrence of major events the creeping section of a fault such as the one along the san andreas fault in central california on the other hand can be simulated with the rate and state dependent friction law by certain model parameters which however must not include strong patches in this case small earthquakes and aseismic creep relieve the accumulating strain without any large events

fault stability inferred from granite sliding experiments at hydrothermal conditions seismicity on crustal faults is concentrated in the depth interval 1 3 to 12 15km tse and rice 1986 suggested that the lower bound on seismicity is due to a switch with increasing temperature from velocity weakening destabilizing to velocity strengthening stabilizing friction they inferred this transition from friction data for dry granite however pore fluids exist at elevated temperatures throughout the crust and may strongly influence strength and sliding behavior we present new data from sliding experiments on granite at elevated t 23 to 600 plus elevated ph2o 100 mpa our results show velocity strengthening at room temperature but velocity weakening from 100 to 350 c except at 250 from 350 to 600 there are systematic trends from velocity weakening to strong velocity strengthening and from high to low friction neither trend was seen in tests on dry granite the velocity dependence data imply the potential for unstable slip in the interval 100 to 350 using a geotherm to map temperature to depth this interval closely matches the observed earthquake distribution

dynamic fault rupture and stress recovery processes in continental crust under depth dependent shear strength and frictional parameters abstract mikumo t 1992 dynamic fault rupture and stress recovery processes in continental crust under depth dependent shear strength and frictional parameters in t mikumo k aki m ohnaka l j ruff and p k p spudich editors earthquake source physics and earthquake precursors tectonophysics 211 201 222 the dynamic rupture process of large earthquakes in continental crust and the post seismic stress recovery process due to visco plastic behaviour are investigated by three and two dimensional numerical modelling taking into account the possible depth variations of the shear strength tectonic stress expected stress drop and of the critical weakening slip which are suggested by recent laboratory experiments on frictional parameters it was found that dynamic rupture can initiate at any depth in a brittle zone if high stress is concentrated with a dimensionless stress ratio s less than a certain limit but that the rupture cannot nucleate in a semi brittle zone with negative stress drop this suggests that the boundary between the fully brittle and semi brittle zones delineates the base of the seismogenic zone of background seismicity and aftershock distribution however the dynamic rupture of large earthquakes originating from the brittle zone can propagate into the semi brittle zone after some temporary arrest or with decelerated velocities which could generate low frequency seismic waves the depth extent of dynamic faulting and the maximum fault displacement are affected by the depth to the brittle semi brittle boundary and hence by the geothermal state within the crust the stress recovery due to visco plastic behaviour in the semi brittle and plastic regimes suggests that the rupture for eventual earthquakes tends to be nucleated near the upper boundary of the semi brittle zone

episodic aseismic slip in a two degree of freedom block spring model 1 we consider a two degree of freedom block spring model in which two blocks block 1 and block 2 are connected by a spring and driven by a slowly moving driver assuming a rate and state dependent friction law we set the friction parameters such that dynamic instability occurs at block 1 episodic aseismic slip occurs at block 2 when its frictional parameters are near the stability transition when the stress has accumulated to approximately a steady state level during an interseismic period block 2 starts a slow slip quasi static oscillation in the stress and slip velocity occurs with decaying fluctuation amplitudes leading to the steady state values the decaying oscillation could be a plausible generation mechanism of the episodic aseismic slip observed in the tokai district japan since 2001 we also consider various slip modes on a plate boundary based on this two block model associated with the interaction between different frictional properties

on the evolution of elastic properties during laboratory stick slip experiments spanning the transition from slow slip to dynamic rupture the physical mechanisms governing slow earthquakes remain unknown as does the relationship between slow and regular earthquakes to investigate the mechanism s of slow earthquakes and related quasi dynamic modes of fault slip we performed laboratory experiments on simulated fault gouge in the double direct shear configuration we reproduced the full spectrum of slip behavior from slow to fast stick slip by altering the elastic stiffness of the loading apparatus k to match the critical rheologic stiffness of fault gouge kc our experiments show an evolution from stable sliding when k kc to quasi dynamic transients when k kc to dynamic instabilities when k kc to evaluate the microphysical processes of fault weakening we monitored variations of elastic properties we find systematic changes in p wave velocity vp for laboratory seismic cycles during the coseismic stress drop seismic velocity drops abruptly consistent with observations on natural faults in the preparatory phase preceding failure we find that accelerated fault creep causes a vp reduction for the complete spectrum of slip behaviors our results suggest that the mechanics of slow and fast ruptures share key features and that they can occur on same faults depending on frictional properties in agreement with seismic surveys on tectonic faults our data show that their state of stress can be monitored by vp changes during the seismic cycle the observed reduction in vp during the earthquake preparatory phase suggests that if similar mechanisms are confirmed in nature high resolution monitoring of fault zone properties may be a promising avenue for reliable detection of earthquake precursors

dynamics of fault creep observations along the surface traces of active faults in california and elsewhere indicate that tectonic displacement can occur as seismic slip or as aseismic fault creep fault creep occurs as secular displacement and as displacement episodes called creep events which last a few hours to days and include from a millimeter or less to a few tens of millimeters of displacement instrumental measurements of displacement versus time during creep events show that many events have a characteristic simple form including a steep beginning followed by a gradual decay in the rate of displacement some creep events display small amounts of precursory slip and many seem to be composed of several discrete simple events propagation of creep events along the san andreas calaveras and imperial faults in california has been inferred from the nearly simultaneous observation of creep events at nearby creepmeters and from kinematic modeling of continuous measurements of strain during creep events fault creep can be viewed as arising from the interplay of three factors stress applied to the fault from external sources stress caused by the geometry and distribution of displacement on the fault arising from the elastic response of the surrounding medium to the displacements within the anelastic fault zone itself and the constitutive relations characterizing the resistance to slip on the fault analytic solutions are presented for a simple rectangular dislocation quasi static model of nonpropagating fault creep assuming viscous and quasi plastic power law creep fault zone rheology and for a multi element composed of several rectangular or striplike dislocation surfaces quasi static model assuming a viscous rheology viscous rheology implies solutions composed of exponentials that decay with time the simple one element quasi plastic model is in agreement with the form of creep events observed at melendy ranch california a matrix formulation is presented to calculate dislocation stresses on a fault zone in a half space or plate the formulation involves the division of the dislocation surface into strips or rectangles and the use of published solutions to calculate the stress resulting from displacement on each individual element results from the matrix method agree with analytic results for equilibrium displacements on stress free cracks the matrix formulation is then used as the basis for a numerical method to simulate one and two dimensional propagating creep assuming a quasi plastic rheology on the fault zone results from this method agree reasonably well with observations of afterslip from the 1966 parkfield 1975 oroville and 1979 imperial valley california earthquakes and of a propagating creep event observed along the southern calaveras fault central california during july 1977 this method of analysis and the assumption that creep at each point on the fault zone follows a power law rheology after the applied stress reaches a spatially varying yield stress can explain the secular and episodic nature of fault creep afterslip the simple shape of some individual events and the multiple composite shape of others and the propagation of creep events on the southern calaveras fault observations of propagating creep indicate a yield stress near zero at the surface and throughout much of the fault zone however they also indicate the presence of a zone at a depth of about 0 5 km and about 5 km long with a yield stress of about 15 bars 1 5 mpa the methods of solution presented here should be applicable to many problems in the dynamics of faulting

the near source ground motion of the 6 august 1979 coyote lake california earthquake a finite fault striking n24 w and extending to a depth of 10 km is proposed to explain the strong ground motion data for the 6 august 1979 coyote lake california earthquake m l 5 9 our source model suggests that right lateral faulting initiated at a depth of 8 km and ruptured toward the south with a velocity of 2 8 km sec this unilateral rupture can explain the large displacement recorded south of the epicenter however the waveform coherency across an array south and southwest of the epicenter suggests that the rupture length is less than 6 km the maximum dislocation is about 120 cm in a small area near the hypocenter and the total moment is estimated to be 3 5 10 24 dyne cm an abrupt stopping phase which corresponds to a deceleration of right lateral motion can explain the high peak acceleration recorded at array station 6 the stress drop in the hypocentral area is about 140 bars the average stress drop over the entire rupture surface is 30 bars the preferred finite source model can predict the p n1 waveforms and the beginning features in the teleseismic seismograms no clear arrivals can be observed in the near source data for the possible second and third smaller events suggested by nabelek personal communication

dynamic stress drop and rupture dynamics of the october 15 1979 imperial valley california earthquake abstract a dynamic faulting model is constructed to determine the dynamic stress drop and relative strength distribution for the october 15 1989 imperial valley earthquake and to study the dynamics of rupture propagation for this event reproduction of the kinematic quantities of the strike slip rate strike slip final offset rupture time and rupture duration bu varying the dynamic parameters of dynamic stress drop and yield strength is attempted the fault plane is discretized in 1 5 km square grids the model incorporates first order corrections for the effect of the free surface and material property heterogeneity on the calculation of rupture at depth the strike slip particle velocities final offsets and rupture durations of the kinematic model are matched within about 40 everywhere below about 5 km except in the hypocentral region and in a high displacement region 20 km north of the epicenter the strike slip rate of the dynamic model is half and rupture duration double those of the kinematic model in the epicentral region the rupture durations and strike slip final offsets are two thirds those of the kinematic model in a high stress drop region beneath the el centro crossing array two slip concentrations correspond to stress drop concentrations one of about 80 bar at 20 km from the epicenter and at 8 km depth and the other of about 70 bar at 30 km from the epicenter and 10 km depth most of the dynamic stress drop occurs between the depths of 9 and 11 km averaging about 60 bar stress drops in the 7 9 km range vary between 25 and 35 bar while stress drops in the 5 7 km depth range vary between 10 and 15 bar this depth dependence of stress drop was a consistent feature across nearly 20 km of the fault stress drop appeared to be well correlated with rock type negative stress drop was found in the sediment regions and the regions at depth while positive stress drop was found in the metasediment regions between the depths of 5 and 11 km yield strength and rupture velocity are inversely related high yield strength is found in regions of low rupture velocity and vice versa rupture was found to terminate at the northern end of the fault by collision with a high strength barrier a region of supersonic rupture velocity was found to occur in a region of high stress drop and low fracture strength the kinematic rupture velocity at the northern end of the fault was found to be unreasonably low results show that this region reaches its peak stress before the kinematic break time yield strength increased with depth in the seismogenetic zone until the base of the zone was reached below which it tapered off slightly

the relationship between seismic and aseismic slip on the philippine fault on leyte island bayesian modeling of fault slip and geothermal subsidence delineating seismic and aseismic slip on faults allows the exploration of the complex relationship between these different modes of slip further quantifying them helps in the assessment of seismogenic potential we present a distributed slip model of the rate of aseismic slip along the leyte island section of the philippine fault and make comparisons with the extent of seismic slip from the latest significant earthquakes in july 2017 we derived both coseismic and aseismic slip distributions from kinematic inversions of synthetic aperture radar interferometric insar observations using a probabilistic bayesian framework velocity maps from stacking and time series analysis of alos interferograms spanning 4 years 2007 2011 show a step change in ground deformation right on the fault inverting for slip at depth reveals along strike variations of aseismic slip rate over 100 km aseismic slip on the surface reaches rates of more than 3 cm yr equivalent to the long term slip rate 3 3 0 2 cm yr over the same period a 20 km segment in tongonan appears to be locked this segment ruptured in mw 6 5 and mw 5 8 earthquakes on 6 and 10 july 2017 respectively as constrained by sentinel 1 and alos 2 insar data seismic slip appears to be restricted within the tongonan segment with up to 152 21 cm of left lateral displacement the slip budget and complementarity between the extents of interseismic and coseismic slip suggest that a seismogenic asperity exists in tongonan the presence of active hydrothermal systems and rate strengthening materials provide physical conditions that can promote aseismic slip

challenging the rate state asperity model afterslip following the 2011 m9 tohoku oki japan earthquake 1 prior to the 2011 m9 tohoku oki earthquake subduction at the japan trench was characterized by m7 8 earthquakes sometimes rupturing the same source regions seismic asperities followed by extensive afterslip detected by gps measurements a physically based model consisting of velocity weakening asperities surrounded by aseismic creep on velocity strengthening regions the rate state asperity model became the prevailing conceptual model for earthquakes in this region theory and numerical simulation indicates that velocity weakening areas do not exhibit sustained afterslip while velocity strengthening regions do not accumulate stress interseismically here we demonstrate that the rate state asperity model is contradicted by models of postseismic deformation following the tohoku oki earthquake afterslip in the first eight months either occurred on historical seismic asperities or stress accumulated in regions surrounding the asperities unsmoothed inversions of cumulative 8 month postseismic gps displacements that restrict afterslip to areas outside of historical ruptures cannot fit the data without afterslip exceeding the slip that fully relaxes the coseismic stress change in contrast similarly constrained inversions allowing slip within historical ruptures can satisfactorily fit the postseismic displacements these results require a modification of the rate state asperity model and raise new questions about physical processes and properties of the subduction interface

earthquake nucleation on faults with rate and state dependent strength abstract dieterich j h 1992 earthquake nucleation on faults with rate and state dependent strength in t mikumo k aki m ohnaka l j ruff and p k p spudich editors earthquake source physics and earthquake precursors tectonophysics 211 115 134 faults with rate and state dependent constitutive properties reproduce a range of observed fault slip phenomena including spontaneous nucleation of slip instabilities at stresses above some critical stress level and recovery of strength following slip instability calculations with a plane strain fault model with spatially varying properties demonstrate that accelerating slip precedes instability and becomes localized to a fault patch the dimensions of the fault patch follow scaling relations for the minimum critical length for unstable fault slip the critical length is a function of normal stress loading conditions and constitutive parameters which include dc the characteristic slip distance if slip starts on a patch that exceeds the critical size the length of the rapidly accelerating zone tends to shrink to the characteristic size as the time of instability approaches solutions have been obtained for a uniform fixed patch model that are in good agreement with results from the plane strain model over a wide range of conditions above the steady state stress the logarithm of the time to instability linearly decreases as the initial stress increases because nucleation patch length and premonitory displacement are proportional to dc the moment of premonitory slip scales by d3c the scaling of dc is currently an open question unless dc for earthquake faults is significantly greater than that observed on laboratory faults premonitory strain arising from the nucleation process for earthquakes may by too small to detect using current observation methods excluding the possibility that dc in the nucleation zone controls the magnitude of the subsequent earthquake then the source dimensions of the smallest earthquakes in a region provide an upper limit for the size of the nucleation patch

speculations on the geometry of the initiation and termination processes of earthquake rupture and its relation to morphology and geological structure earthquake initiation and termination processes are commonly described in terms of barriers and asperities barriers fall into two classes geometric barriers are associated with places where the orientation of a failure surface changes and relaxation barriers where stress is low because aseismic creep processes outpace tectonic loading geometric barriers fall into conservative and nonconservative subgroups according to whether finite fault motion can proceed without the creation of new structures or whether it demands the creation of new faulting or void space the multiple faulting or fragmentation associated with some nonconservative barriers can disrupt fault planes and form asperities by means of selected examples it is shown that a description in terms of these barriers can help one to visualise the processes of earthquake rupture and its relation to the geological environment

slip partitioning of the calaveras fault california and prospects for future earthquakes examination of main shock and microearthquake data from the calaveras fault during the last 20 years reveals that main shock hypocenters occur at depths of 8 9 km near the base of the zone of microearthquakes the spatial pattern of pre main shock microseismicity surrounding the coyote lake and morgan hill hypocenters is similar to the pattern of the post main shock microseismicity microseismicity extends between depths of 4 and 10 km and defines zones of concentrated microseismicity and aseismic zones estimates of the fault regions which slipped during the coyote lake and morgan hill earthquakes as derived from seismic radiation coincide with zones which are otherwise aseismic we propose that these persistent aseismic zones represent stuck patches which slip only during moderate earthquakes from the pattern of microearthquake locations we recognize six aseismic zones where we expect future main shocks will rupture the calaveras fault from an analysis of historic seismic data we establish the main shock rupture history for each aseismic zone and identify two zones that are the most likely sites for the next m 5 earthquakes the first zone is located near gilroy and was last ruptured by a m5 2 earthquake in 1949 the second zone is located south of calaveras reservoir and north of the 1988 m5 1 alum rock earthquake it has not slipped seismically since at least 1903 and the size of the aseismic region is sufficiently large to sustain a m5 5 earthquake

elastodynamic analysis for slow tectonic loading with spontaneous rupture episodes on faults with rate and state dependent friction we present an efficient and rigorous numerical procedure for calculating the elastodynamic response of a fault subjected to slow tectonic loading processes of long duration within which there are episodes of rapid earthquake failure this is done for a general class of rate and state dependent friction laws with positive direct velocity effect the algorithm allows us to treat accurately within a single computational procedure loading intervals of thousands of years and to calculate for each earthquake episode initially aseismic accelerating slip prior to dynamic rupture the rupture propagation itself rapid post seismic deformation which follows and also ongoing creep slippage throughout the loading period in velocity strengthening fault regions the methodology is presented using the two dimensional 2 d antiplane spectral formulation and can be readily extended to the 2 d in plane and 3 d spectral formulations and with certain modifications to the space time boundary integral formulations as well as to their discretized development using finite difference or finite element methods the methodology can be used to address a number of important issues such as fault operation under low overall stress interaction of dynamic rupture propagation with pore pressure development patterns of rupture propagation in events nucleated naturally as a part of a sequence the earthquake nucleation process earthquake sequences on faults with heterogeneous frictional properties and or normal stress and others the procedure is illustrated for a 2 d crustal strike slip fault model with depth variable properties for lower values of the state evolution distance of the friction law small events appear the nucleation phases of the small and large events are very similar suggesting that the size of an event is determined by the conditions on the fault segments the event is propagating into rather than by the nucleation process itself we demonstrate the importance of incorporating slow tectonic loading with elastodynamics by evaluating two simplified approaches one with the slow tectonic loading but no wave effects and the other with all dynamic effects included but much higher loading rate

fault segmentation as constraint to the occurrence of the main shocks of the 2016 central italy seismic sequence we perform the finite extent fault inversion of the three main events of the 2016 central italy seismic sequence using near source strong motion records we demonstrate that both earthquakes nucleation and rupture propagation were controlled by segmentation of the n nw s se trending quaternary normal faults the first shock of the sequence august 24th mw 6 0 ruptured at the relay zone between the laga mts lf and the cordone del vettore cvf normal faults the second shock october 26th mw 5 9 nucleated at a minor relay zone within the mt vettore mt bove fault vbf while the third and largest one october 30th mw 6 5 initiated at the relay zone between the vbf and cvf triggering the multiple rupture of the vbf cvf and probably lf we show that this latter relay zone corresponds to the deeper high angle fault zone of the sibillini mts cross structure a thrust ramp inherited from the miocene pliocene contractional phase of the apennines this structure acted as a barrier to rupture propagation of the first two events thus defining an area of large stress concentration until it acted as the initiator of the rupture originating the largest mw 6 5 event that crossed the barrier itself we suggest that the young cvf have started to cut through the barrier acting as a soft linkage between the two long lived lf and vbf the evidence that coseismic cumulative slip shows a maximum at the cvf provided by both slip inversion and original surface rupture data suggests that the cvf is growing faster than the adjacent faults

slow and fast ruptures on a laboratory fault controlled by loading characteristics recent geodetic observations indicate that a single fault may slip slowly and silently or fast and seismically in different circumstances we report laboratory experiments that demonstrate how the mode of faulting can alternate between fast stick slip events 70 to 500 mm s sliding rates and slow silent events 0 001 to 30 mm s as a result of loading conditions rather than friction properties or stiffness of the loading machine the 760 mm long granite sample is close to the critical nucleation length scale for unstable slip so small variations in nucleation properties result in measurable differences in slip events slow events occur when instability cannot fully nucleate before reaching the sample ends dynamic events occur after long healing times or abrupt increases in loading rate which suggests that these factors shrink the spatial and temporal extents of the nucleation zone arrays of slip strain and ground motion sensors installed on the sample allow us to quantify seismic coupling and study details of premonitory slip and afterslip we find that seismic coupling decreases when slip rates fall below about 70 mm s the slow slip events we observe are primarily aseismic less than 1 of the seismic coupling of faster events and produce swarms of very small m 6 to m 8 events these mechanical and seismic interactions suggest that faults with transitional behavior where creep small earthquakes and tremor are often observed could become seismically coupled if loaded rapidly either by a slow slip front or dynamic rupture of an earthquake that nucleated elsewhere

earthquake aftereffects and triggered seismic phenomena the physical basis for delayed aftereffects of large crustal earthquakes is analyzed these effects apparently range in scale from typical aftershocks near the source region of a prior earthquake to the triggering of groundwater and deformation related anomalies possibly including other large earthquakes at locations as much as a few hundred kilometers from the source of a great earthquake observational reports of such aftereffects are reviewed and possible mechanisms for their occurrence are discussed

rupture history of the 1984 morgan hill california earthquake from the inversion of strong motion records near source strong motion velocity records and teleseismic short period p waveforms are modeled to obtain the spatial and temporal distribution of slip for the 1984 morgan hill earthquake both forward modeling and constrained least squares inversion techniques are used to interpret the strong motion velocity waveforms in the frequency range of approximately 0 2 to 2 0 hz these data support a nearly unilateral rupture to the southeast with a rupture propagation velocity of nine tenths of the local s wave velocity the majority of the slip occurs over a fault length of 25 km and to a first approximation can be interpreted as two main source regions each with an extent of about 5 km with their centers separated by about 12 km however each of the sources has detailed structure of its own and a simple two point source model is not an accurate representation of the morgan hill earthquake the second source occurs about 4 5 sec after the first and is approximately 3 times larger the maximum dislocation on the fault plane is about 1 m the total moment of the earthquake is estimated to be 2 1 10 25 dyne cm the morgan hill earthquake offers convincing evidence for very inhomogeneous slip and stress distributions on shallow strike slip faults

aftershock patterns and main shock faulting we have compared aftershock patterns following several moderate to large earthquakes with the corresponding distributions of coseismic slip obtained from previous analyses of the recorded strong ground motion and teleseismic waveforms well located aftershock hypocenters are projected onto the main shock fault plane and their positions are examined relative to the zones of coseismic displacement indicated by the estimated distributions of main shock slip we also examine the aftershock focal mechanisms when these data are available in an attempt to identify possible patterns of secondary faulting within the aftershock zone our results are consistent with a hypothesis of aftershock occurrence that requires a secondary redistribution of stress following primary failure on the earthquake fault aftershocks following the earthquakes examined in this study occur mostly outside of or near the edges of the source areas indicated by the patterns of main shock slip the spatial distribution of aftershocks reflects either a continuation of slip in the outer regions of the areas of maximum coseismic displacement or the activation of subsidiary faults within the volume surrounding the boundaries of main shock rupture