The Seismogenic Zone Experiment

Upper limit on damage zone thickness controlled by seismogenic depth

Imaging the Plate Interface in the Cascadia Seismogenic Zone: New Constraints from Offshore Receiver Functions

The Cascadia subduction zone, where the Juan de Fuca (JdF) plate subducts beneath North America, has paleoseismic evidence ofMw ∼9:0 megathrust earthquakes (Nelson et al., 1995; Goldfinger et al., 2003). However, there are virtually no instrumentally recorded thrust-zone earthquakes, hence the location and behavior of the seismogenic zone is known only indirectly. Temperature has been proposed ...

Seismogenic faulting in the Meruoca granite, NE Brazil, consistent with a local weak fracture zone.

A sequence of earthquakes occurred in 2008 in the Meruoca granitic pluton, located in the northwestern part of the Borborema Province, NE Brazil. A seismological study defined the seismic activity occurring along the seismically-defined Riacho Fundo fault, a 081° striking, 8 km deep structure. The objective of this study was to analyze the correlation between this seismic activity and geologica...

Penetration of a Quasi-statically Slipping Crack Into a Seismogenic Zone of Heterogeneous Fracture Resistance

This paper is concerned with some aspects of nonuniform stressing above a deep creeping portion of a fault zone prior to a large crust-breaking earthquake. The model that we use involves a slipping crack, representing the deeper, more stably sliding portions of the fault zone, which penetrates upward from depth and is blocked in the lower region of the seismogenic zone. When conditions are unif...

Analysis of aftershocks in a lithospheric model with seismogenic zone governed by damage rheology

We perform analytical and numerical studies of aftershock sequences following abrupt steps of strain in a rheologically layered model of the lithosphere. The model consists of a weak sedimentary layer, over a seismogenic zone governed by a viscoelastic damage rheology, underlain by a viscoelastic upper mantle. The damage rheology accounts for fundamental irreversible aspects of brittle rock def...