Earthquake fault rock indicating a coupled lubrication

Earthquake fault rock indicating a coupled lubrication mechanism

Earthquake faulting in subduction zones: insights from fault rocks in accretionary prisms

Subduction earthquakes on plate-boundary megathrusts accommodate most of the global seismic moment release, frequently resulting in devastating damage by ground shaking and tsunamis. As many earthquakes occur in deep-sea regions, the dynamics of earthquake faulting in subduction zones is poorly understood. However, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone Expe...

Elastohydrodynamic lubrication of faults

The heat flow paradox provides evidence that a dynamic weakening mechanism may be important in understanding fault friction and rupture. We present here a specific model for dynamic velocity weakening that uses the mechanics of well-studied industrial bearings to explain fault zone processes. An elevated fluid pressure is generated in a thin film of viscous fluid that is sheared between nearly ...

An empirically based steady state friction law and implications for fault stability

Empirically based rate-and-state friction laws (RSFLs) have been proposed to model the dependence of friction forces with slip and time. The relevance of the RSFL for earthquake mechanics is that few constitutive parameters define critical conditions for fault stability (i.e., critical stiffness and frictional fault behavior). However, the RSFLs were determined from experiments conducted at sub...

Parkfield Earthquake and their implications

Repeated earthquakes and explosions recorded at the San Andreas fault (SAF) near Parkfield before and after the 2004 M6 Parkfield earthquake show large seismic velocity variations within an approximately 200m-wide zone along the fault to depths of approximately 6 km. The seismic arrays were co-sited in the two experiments and located in the middle of a high-slip part of the surface rupture. Wav...