Modeling of Continental Normal Fault Earthquakes

Fault geometry and earthquakes in continental interiors

Although large earthquakes in continental interiors are much less frequent than those along plate boundaries, they have been responsible for a disproportionate amount of destruction. I present a testable model for strain accumulation and seismicity in the upper crust of continental interiors. Intersecting faults provide a focus for strain build-up, resulting in local pockets of high strain accu...

Normal fault earthquakes or graviquakes

Earthquakes are dissipation of energy throughout elastic waves. Canonically is the elastic energy accumulated during the interseismic period. However, in crustal extensional settings, gravity is the main energy source for hangingwall fault collapsing. Gravitational potential is about 100 times larger than the observed magnitude, far more than enough to explain the earthquake. Therefore, normal ...

Scaling of Fault Parameters for Continental Strike-Slip Earthquakes

The long-standing conflict between the predictions of elastic dislocation models and the observation that average coseismic slip increases with rupture length is resolved with application of a simple displacement-depth function and the assumption that the base of the seismogenic zone does not result from the onset of viscous relaxation but rather a transition to stable sliding in a medium that ...

Resolving Fault Plane Ambiguity for Small Earthquakes

Source Parameters of Earthquakes in Eastern and Western North America Based on Finite-Fault Modeling

The ground motion from large earthquakes is often predicted based on finite-fault modeling, in which the fault plane is discretized into small independently rupturing subfaults; the radiation from all subfaults is summed at the observation point. Despite the success of the method in matching observed ground-motion characteristics, the physical interpretation of the subfaults has remained largel...