Microscopic billow-like wavy folds have been observed along slip planes of the Nojima active fault, southwest Japan. The folds are similar in form to Kelvin–Helmholtz (KH) instabilities occurring in fluids, which implies that the slip zone underwent “lubrication” such as frictional melting or fluidization of fault gouge materials. If the temperature range for generation of the billow-like wavy ...

[1] Fault processes involve complex patterns of seismic events and aseismic slip. This work develops a three-dimensional (3-D) methodology for simulating long-term history of spontaneous seismic and aseismic slip on a vertical planar strike-slip fault subjected to slow tectonic loading. Our approach reproduces all stages of earthquake cycles, from accelerating slip before dynamic instability, t...

[1] The geometry of the ruptured areas and the coseismic slip distribution data are key to highlighting the behavior of seismic faults. This information is generally retrieved from field investigations and geodetic measurements or synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry. Here we show that SPOT images can also be used to accurately map the fault zone and to determine the slip distribution ...

[1] We derived a coseismic slip model for the Mw 7.9 2008 Wenchuan earthquake on the basis of radar line‐of‐sight displacements from ALOS interferograms, GPS vectors, and geological field data. Available interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data provided a nearly complete coverage of the surface deformation along both ascending (fine beam mode) and descending orbits (ScanSAR to Scan...

[1] The Mw 6.6, 26 December 2003 Bam (Iran) earthquake was one of the first earthquakes for which Envisat advanced synthetic aperture radar (ASAR) data were available. Using interferograms and azimuth offsets from ascending and descending tracks, we construct a three-dimensional displacement field of the deformation due to the earthquake. Elastic dislocation modeling shows that the observed def...

[1] Both Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements and studies of Late Quaternary faulting are consistent with a slip rate of 10 mm/yr along the central segment of the Altyn Tagh Fault and a systematic decrease in that rate toward the eastern end of the fault. Dates of terraces above and below laterally offset terrace risers yield bounds on Quaternary slip rates that range from those that ag...

Previous inversions for slip rate along the San Andreas Fault System (SAFS), based on elastic half-space models, show a discrepancy between the geologic and geodetic slip rates along a few major fault segments. In this study, we use an earthquake cycle model representing an elastic plate over a viscoelastic half-space to demonstrate that there is no significant discrepancy between long-term geo...

We construct a coseismic deformation interferogram for the April 2010 Yushu earthquakes using ALOS/PALSAR data from the ascending track (path 487). We then infer the trace of the Yushu fault using the coherence image, and we build five fault models for the Yushu fault. To determine the fault geometry parameters that give the best fit to the coseismic interferogram, we apply an elastic dislocati...

Unique attributes in sequences of recurring, similar microearthquakes at Parkfield, California, provide a means for inferring slip rate at depth throughout the active fault surface from the time intervals between sequence events. Application of the method using an 11-year microseismicity record revealed systematic spatial and temporal changes in the slip rate that were synchronous with earthqua...

We have used broadband records from 18 teleseismic stations and three-component records from 16 local strongmotion stations in a formal inversion to determine the temporal and spatial distribution of slip during the earthquake. Separate inversions of the teleseismic (periods, 3Contribution No. 4935, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA ...