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The complexity of seismogenesis calls for probabilistic rather than deterministic model. Towards that direction, the stress release models transpose the elastic rebound theory in a stochastic framework, where the stress level in a region increases gradually between earthquakes due to constant tectonic loading and is released suddenly when an event occurs. The data are modeled through point processes and particularly by means of the hazard function. The application is performed using moderate earthquakes (M ≥ 4.8) occurred in Egypt and the model is compared with the Poisson model by means of information criteria.

The geographic coincidence of the Chile Ridge slab window and the Patagonia ice fields offers a unique opportunity for assessing the effects of slab window rheology on glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). Mass loss of these ice fields since the Little Ice Age causes rapid but variable crustal uplift, 12–24 mm/yr around the North Patagonia ice field, increasing to a maximum of 41 mm/yr around the South Patagonia ice field, as determined from newly collected or processed geodetic data. We used these observational constraints in a three-dimensional Maxwell viscoelastic finite element model of GIA response above both the subducting slab and slab window in which the upper-mantle viscosity was parameterized to be uniform with depth. We found that the viscosity of the northern part of the slab window, ~2 × 1018 Pa·s, is lower than that of the southern part by approximately an order of magnitude. We propose that this along-strike viscosity contrast is due to late Cenozoic ridge subduction beneath the northern part of the slab window, which increases asthenospheric temperature and reduces viscosity.

The moment magnitude (Mw) 6.4 and 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence that occurred on July 4 and 6, 2019, ruptured a conjugate fault system within the eastern California shear zone. In addition to the ∼50 km surface ruptures, the sequence activated a series of structures with lengths ranging from 1 to 10 km, which are well illuminated by phase gradient maps of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) interferograms. The deformation patterns and mechanisms of these fractures have been well studied, yet the controlling factors of their spatial distribution are less discussed, which are important for understanding how the accumulated strain is released via distributed faulting in the earthquake cycle. Here, we use multi-source SAR images to derive three-dimensional (3D) surface displacement along the main ruptures and the east–west strain across the detected small fractures caused by the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence. We find that the distribution of these fractures is related to the displacement pattern along the main rupture. Specifically, more fractures appeared in areas with larger slips normal to the main rupture as well as in the junction of the conjugated ruptures. We also conduct uniaxial loading rock experiments to evaluate the strain distribution before the samples were broken. Rock experiments show that rupturing of a conjugated fault system may produce local strain concentration along the main rupture, indicating the important role of the orthogonal faults in generating small fractures with different striking angles and deformation patterns. The 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence exhibits complicated crust behaviors by rupturing an immature fault system, implying that the simple elastic rebound theory may be insufficient to model the coseismic deformation during the earthquake cycle, particularly in the zone with weak crust.

This chapter explains the “effect of an earthquake source” on ground motion. Section 2.1 first briefly describes the history of seismology, where an earthquake is interpreted as a sudden movement of rocks along a source fault (“elastic rebound theory”) due to strain accumulated as a result of the interaction of the Earth’s plates (“plate tectonics”). The representations of source faults, which comprise the “fault geometry”, the “body force equivalent” and the concept of a “double couple”, are explained first. The theoretical development for ground motion from a point force and a point source are then reviewed. In Sect. 2.2, the results are extended to a “cylindrical wave expansion”, which plays a major role in this book. The extension begins with a vertical strike-slip fault and is then applied to an inclined strike-slip fault, a vertical dip-slip fault, and an inclined dip-slip fault. The full set of extensions are combined for an arbitrary fault slip. Section 2.3 explains various methods and models for the analysis of a source fault, such as “hypocenter determination”, “fault plane solution”, “CMT inversion”, “Haskell model”, “source inversion”, “characterized source model”, and “directivity effect”.

We discuss two competing models for explaining the ground deformation associated with normal faulting earthquake in the brittle elastic upper crust. The classic elastic rebound theory is usually applied for all tectonic settings. In normal fault earthquakes, this model would predict a horizontal stretching eventually responsible for the elastic rebound at the earthquake. However, volumes mostly subside vertically during an extensional earthquake and the collapsed ground in the hanging wall is about one order of magnitude larger than the uplifted volumes of the surrounding hanging wall and footwall. The elastic rebound model would explain this asymmetry with a high horizontal elastic compressibility of the hanging wall and footwall absorbing the coseismic push. We rather suggest that the force activating normal fault earthquakes is mostly dictated by the sliding of the hanging wall, owing gravitational potential. The much larger coseismic subsidence with respect to the uplift can be explained by the closure at depth of a diffuse network of microfractures developed during the interseismic period. Since the horizontal stretching does not exist below ~1 km of depth, with the minimum horizontal stress tensor becoming positive below that depth, the development of a normal fault can be activated only by the vertical maximum stress tensor, i.e., the lithostatic load. The common fluids expulsion at the coseismic stage requires diffuse secondary permeability in the upper crust, in agreement with the presence of a diffuse network of microfractures.

We simulate earthquake cycles with rate-and-state fault friction and off-fault power-law viscoelasticity for the classic 2D antiplane shear problem of a vertical, strike-slip plate boundary fault. We investigate the interaction between fault slip and bulk viscous flow with experimentally-based flow laws for quartz-diorite and olivine for the crust and mantle, respectively. Simulations using three linear geotherms (dT/dz = 20, 25, and 30 K/km) produce different deformation styles at depth, ranging from significant interseismic fault creep to purely bulk viscous flow. However, they have almost identical earthquake recurrence interval, nucleation depth, and down-dip coseismic slip limit. Despite these similarities, variations in the predicted surface deformation might permit discrimination of the deformation mechanism using geodetic observations. Additionally, in the 25 and 30 K/km simulations, the crust drags the mantle; the 20 K/km simulation also predicts this, except within 10 km of the fault where the reverse occurs. However, basal tractions play a minor role in the overall force balance of the lithosphere, at least for the flow laws used in our study. Therefore, the depth-integrated stress on the fault is balanced primarily by shear stress on vertical, fault-parallel planes. Because strain rates are higher directly below the fault than far from it, stresses are also higher. Thus, the upper crust far from the fault bears a substantial part of the tectonic load, resulting in unrealistically high stresses. In the real Earth, this might lead to distributed plastic deformation or formation of subparallel faults. Alternatively, fault pore pressures in excess of hydrostatic and/or weakening mechanisms such as grain size reduction and thermo-mechanical coupling could lower the strength of the ductile fault root in the lower crust and, concomitantly, off-fault upper crustal stresses.

The finite element numerical simulation method was used to investigate the impact of the Wenchuan earthquake on the seismic environment of the southern Longmenshan Mountain. The three-dimensional viscoelastic geological model, including the Longmenshan front-range fault, central fault, back-range fault, the Bayan Kala block, and the South China block, was constrained by the results of the geological survey, coseismic dislocation, and the GPS observation of Wenchuan and Lushan earthquakes. We studied how the calculation results were influenced by gravity potential energy caused by high altitude topography, the low velocity layer in the middle crust and the rupture of the Beichuan-Yingxiu and Jiangyou-Guanxian faults, by modifying the parameters of a model. The Wenchuan earthquake was simulated by reducing the Young’s modulus of the possible generating fault. We calculated the Coulomb stress of the Dayi blind fault, Dachuang-Shuangshi fault, and the “Y”-shaped blind thrust fault between the two faults above. The simulation results show that the Coulomb stress has a similar distribution on the fault planes of the southern Longmenshan faults zone caused by the Wenchuan earthquake, considering the low-velocity layer or the double-rupture surface. The Coulomb stress on the top of the Dachuan-Shuangshi fault surface was about 0 MPa, and it gradually reduced towards the southwest direction. At the source of the Lushan earthquake, the Coulomb stress was about −0.02 MPa. For the west branch of “Y”-shaped fault, the Coulomb stress on the fault surface was significantly reduced and was about −0.02–−0.03 MPa at the source of the Lushan earthquake; after the Wenchuan earthquake, the Coulomb stress on the east branch of the “Y”-shaped fault plane was about −0.01–0.03 MPa; for the Dayi fault, the Coulomb stress was increasingly obvious on the fault surface from the southwest to the northwest after the Wenchuan earthquake. Therefore, the Wenchuan earthquake could reduce the risk of an earthquake on the Dachuan-Shuangshi fault and the west branch of “Y”-shaped fault earthquake, but it increases the risk on the east branch of “Y”-shaped fault and the Dayi fault. The maximum Coulomb stress near the source was located on the Dayi fault. Considering the terrain and the simultaneous failure of the Beichuan-Yingxiu and Jiangyou-Guanxian, the presence of the low velocity layer increases the Coulomb stress on the four faults, and obviously increases towards the east branch of the “Y”-shaped fault and the Dayi fault. If the terrain and the low velocity layer are considered, compared with only the ruptured Beichuan-Yingxiu fault, the Beichuan-Yingxiu and Jiangyou-Guanxian faults’ simultaneous rupture increased the risk of earthquakes on the Dachuan-Shuangshi fault, the east branch of “Y”-shaped fault, and the Dayi hidden fault, but reduced the risk of the west branch of “Y” type fault. In any of the above models, the Coulomb stress changes on the four fault planes of southern Longmenshan Mountains were influenced by terrain. In the case of certain crust, mantle medium properties, and spatial structure, the existence of the low velocity layer on the west of the Longmenshan fault zone, the topographic features of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to the Sichuan Basin, and the conditions for the simultaneous rupture of the central fault and the front-range fault during the Wenchuan earthquake, are the important factors that affect the Wenchuan earthquake to the Lushan earthquake. Among them, the terrain and low velocity layer have the most significant influence on the Coulomb failure stress for the area around the Lushan earthquake area caused by the Wenchuan earthquake. The effect of terrain features is more obvious in the north section of the selected section, yet the effect of the Wenchuan earthquake simultaneous rupture planes is smaller.

Earthquake recurrence models assume that major surface-rupturing earthquakes are followed by periods of reduced rupture probability as stress rebuilds. Although purely periodic, time- or slip-predictable rupture models are known to be oversimplifications, a paucity of long records of fault slip clouds understanding of fault behavior and earthquake recurrence over multiple ruptures. Here, we report a 16 kyr history of fault slip—including a pulse of accelerated slip from 6.4 to 6.0 ka—determined using a Monte Carlo analysis of well-dated offset landforms along the central Altyn Tagh strike-slip fault (ATF) in northwest China. This pulse punctuates a median rate of 8.1 + 1.2 / − 0.9 mm / a and likely resulted from either a flurry of temporally clustered ∼Mw 7.5 ground-rupturing earthquakes or a single large >Mw 8.2 earthquake. The clustered earthquake scenario implies rapid re-rupture of a fault reach >195 km long and indicates decoupled rates of elastic strain energy accumulation versus dissipation, conceptualized as a crustal stress battery. If the pulse reflects a single event, slip-magnitude scaling implies that it ruptured much of the ATF with slip similar to, or exceeding, the largest documented historical ruptures. Both scenarios indicate fault rupture behavior that deviates from classic time- or slip-predictable models.

In this study, we present inter-, co- and post-seismic displacements observed in the 2015 Illapel earthquake area by Global Positioning System (GPS) and Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR). RADARSAT-2, ALOS-2 and Sentinel-1A interferograms capture the co- and post-seismic displacements due to the Illapel earthquake. Based on a layered Earth structure, we modeled both co- and post-seismic faulting behaviors on the subduction interface of central Chile. The best-fit model shows that the coseismic rupture broke a 200 km × 200 km area with a maximum slip of 10 m at a depth of 20 km. Two distinct slip centers, likely controlled by local ramp-flat structure, are revealed. The total coseismic geodetic moment is 2.76 × 10 21 N m , equivalent to a moment magnitude 8.3. The accumulated afterslip in the first two months after the mainshock is observed on both sides of the coseismic rupture zone with both ascending and descending Sentinel-1A interferograms. A limited overlap zone between co- and post-seismic slip models can be observed, suggesting partitioning of the frictional properties within the Illapel earthquake rupture zone. The total afterslip releases ∼ 5.0 × 10 20 N m geodetic moment, which is equivalent to an earthquake of M w 7.7. The 2010 M w 8.8 Maule earthquake that occurred ∼400 km away from the Illapel earthquake epicenter could have exerted certain effects on the seismic cycle of the Illapel earthquake area. The seismic records from 2000 to 2015 imply that the rate of annual seismic moment release in the Illapel earthquake area dropped from 0.4 to 0.2 × 10 19 N m / yr after the Maule earthquake. Based on the forward modeling with the best-fit slip models determined in this study, we reproduce the local surface displacements before, during and after the Illapel earthquake. A rough deformation cycle, 105 ± 29 yr , calculated by using the coseismic displacements and interseismic rate is basically identical with the revisit interval of M8 events in the adjacent areas of the Illapel earthquake, suggesting that elastic rebound theory is applicable for the long-term prediction in this region.

Parallel and evenly-spaced active strike-slip faults occur widely in nature across diverse tectonic settings. Despite their common existence, the fundamental question of what controls fault spacing remains unanswered. Here we present a mechanical model for the generation of parallel strike-slip faults that relates fault spacing to the following parameters: (1) brittle-crust thickness, (2) fault strength, (3) crustal strength, and (4) crustal stress state. Scaled analogue experiments using dry sand, dry crushed walnut shells, and viscous putty were employed to test the key assumptions of our quantitative model. The physical models demonstrate that fault spacing (S) is linearly proportional to brittle-layer thickness (h ), both in experiments with only brittle materials and in two-layer trials involving dry sand overlying viscous putty. The S/hS/h slope in the two-layer sand–putty experiments may be controlled by the (1) rheological/geometric properties of the viscous layer, (2) effects of distributed basal loading caused by the viscous shear of the putty layer, and/or (3) frictional interaction at the sand–putty interface (i.e., coupling between the viscous and brittle layers). We tentatively suggest that this third effect exerts the strongest control on fault spacing in the analogue experiments. By applying our quantitative model to crustal-scale strike-slip faults using fault spacing and the seismogenic-zone thickness obtained from high-resolution earthquake-location data, we estimate absolute fault friction of active strike-slip faults in Asia and along the San Andreas fault system in California. We show that the average friction coefficient of strike-slip faults in the India–Asia collisional orogen is lower than that of faults in the San Andreas fault system. Weaker faults explain why deformation penetrates >3500 km into Asia from the Himalaya and why the interior of Asia is prone to large (M>7.0M>7.0) devastating earthquakes along major intra-continental strike-slip faults. Our new approach of estimating absolute fault strength may be useful in future studies of continental deformation and earthquake mechanics.

Earthquake clustering (grouping in space and time) is a widely observed mode of strain release in the upper crust, although this behavior on individual faults is a departure from classic elastic rebound theory. In this study, we consider factors responsible for a cluster of earthquakes on the Bear River fault zone (BRF), a recently activated, 44-km-long normal fault on the eastern margin of Basin and Range extension in the Rocky Mountains. The entire surface-rupturing history of the BRF, as gleaned from paleoseismic and geomorphic observations, began only 4500 years ago and consists of at least three large events. Rupture of the BRF is spatially complex and is clearly conditioned by preexisting structure. In particular, where the south end of the fault intersects older thrust faults and upturned strata along the south-dipping flank of the Precambrian basement-cored Uinta arch, the main trace ends abruptly in a set of orthogonal splays that accommodate down-dropping of a large hanging-wall graben against the arch. We hypothesize that the geomechanically strong Uinta arch crustal block impeded the development of the BRF and, over time, enabled a significant accumulation of elastic strain energy, eventually giving rise to a pulse of strain release in the mid- to late Holocene. We surmise that variations in fault strength, both in space and time, is a cause of earthquake clustering on the BRF and on other faults that are structurally and tectonically immature. The first two earthquakes on the BRF occurred during the same period of time as a regional cluster of earthquakes in the Middle Rocky Mountains, suggesting that isolated faults in this slowly extending region interact through widespread changes in stress conditions.

Mechanisms for the delayed triggering between the Mw 4.8 foreshock and Mw 5.6 main shock of the 2011 earthquake sequence near Prague, Oklahoma, USA were investigated using a coupled fluid flow and fault mechanics numerical model. Because the stress orientations, stress magnitudes, fault geometry, and earthquake source mechanisms at the Prague site have been well-characterized by previous studies, this particular earthquake sequence offered an opportunity to explore the range of physical processes and in-situ fault properties that might be consistent with the 20 hour delayed triggering effect observed at the site. Our numerical experiments suggest that an initial undrained response resulting from elastic stress transfer from the foreshock followed by transient fluid flow along the fault may have contributed to the earthquake nucleation process. The results of the numerical experiments were used to constrain fault compliance and fault transmissivity for the fault that hosted the Mw 5.6 event. Relatively compliant behavior in response to changes in normal stress, corresponding to Skempton pore pressure coefficients near 1, was consistent with the field observations. Fault transmissivity was estimated to range from 10−18 to 10−15 m3. This study has implications for understanding hydraulic properties, frictional properties, and faulting behavior of basement faults in Oklahoma that are large enough to host damaging earthquakes.

GPS-derived horizontal velocities, geologic fault slip rates and earthquake-derived fault slip vector azimuths are inverted simultaneously for fault coupling and slip rate deficit on the Haiyuan-Liupanshan fault in the northeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. Along the Haiyuan fault, the results show 3.2–6.2 mm/yr of left-lateral strike-slip, and the strike-slip transformed into thrusting deformation (2.8–3.5 mm/yr) along the Liupanshan fault. The results suggest full coupling down to ∼10 km along the Haiyuan fault. Significant portions from the Jinqianghe fault to the Maomaoshan fault, however, are locked to ∼23 km depth. The abrupt change in fault coupling coincides with the Tianzhu seismic gap. High slip rate deficit (3.0–4.5 mm/yr) and seismic moment accumulation rate are also interpreted along the seismic gap. The Liupanshan fault is locked to 15–20 km depth. A high seismic moment accumulation rate, low slip rate deficit (2.0–3.2 mm/yr) and scarcity of large seismic event over the last 1400 years may imply high strain accumulation on the fault. The results demonstrate that crustal deformation in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau is dominated by elastic block rotation. We also conclude that deformation due to fault coupling is limited along the near-field (less than 50 km with velocities less than 2 mm/yr) of the Haiyuan-Liupanshan fault.

Crustal faults located close to cities may induce catastrophic damages. When recurrence times are in the range of 1000–10 000 or higher, actions to mitigate the effects of the associated earthquake are hampered by the lack of a full seismic record, and in many cases, also of geological evidences. In order to characterize the fault behavior and its effects, we propose three different already-developed time-integration methodologies to define the most likely scenarios of rupture, and then to quantify the hazard with an empirical equation of peak ground acceleration (PGA). We consider the following methodologies: (1) stream gradient and (2) sinuosity indexes to estimate fault-related topographic effects, and (3) gravity profiles across the fault to identify the fault scarp in the basement. We chose the San Ramón Fault on which to apply these methodologies. It is a ∼ 30 km N–S trending fault with a low slip rate (0.1–0.5 mm yr−1) and an approximated recurrence of 9000 years. It is located in the foothills of the Andes near the large city of Santiago, the capital of Chile (> 6 000 000 inhabitants). Along the fault trace we define four segments, with a mean length of ∼ 10 km, which probably become active independently. We tested the present-day seismic activity by deploying a local seismological network for 1 year, finding five events that are spatially related to the fault. In addition, fault geometry along the most evident scarp was imaged in terms of its electrical resistivity response by a high resolution TEM (transient electromagnetic) profile. Seismic event distribution and TEM imaging allowed the constraint of the fault dip angle (∼ 65°) and its capacity to break into the surface. Using the empirical equation of Chiou and Youngs (2014) for crustal faults and considering the characteristic seismic event (thrust high-angle fault, ∼ 10 km, Mw = 6.2–6.7), we estimate the acceleration distribution in Santiago and the hazardous zones. City domains that are under high risk include the hanging wall zone covered by sediments and narrow zones where the fault could break the surface. Over these domains horizontal PGA can be greater than 0.5 g and eventually produce building collapse.

Understanding the physical mechanism of major earthquakes is very important for earthquake prediction and its disaster reduction. The mainstream hypotheses on earthquake mechanism are reviewed in this paper. It is pointed out that the elastic rebound and stick-slip hypotheses, both of which are usually used to explain the mechanism of shallow earthquakes, have some serious drawbacks, and that such hypotheses explaining the mechanism of intermediate and deep earthquakes as the dehydration embrittlement, phase transition instability, shear melting and anticrack-associated faulting, are inconsistent with some observation data. Thus, it is necessary to establish a new hypothesis or theory of earthquake mechanism. The brittle failure theory of multiple locked patches in a seismogenic fault system developed by us since 2010 is introduced in the present study. It is stated by the theory that the progressive failures of locked patch result in the occurrence of earthquakes due to the fault movement. Hereafter, the significant earthquakes occurred at its volume expansion and peak strength points are referred to as characteristic ones. The earthquake cases indicate that the seismogenic processes of shallow, intermediate and deep characteristic earthquakes can be well explained by the theory. We emphasize that both the elastic rebound and stick-slip hypotheses contain the same implicit assumption that there exist locked patches in the seismogenic faults, and that the source body of deep earthquakes is with appropriate environment conditions leading to brittle failures. Moreover, some controversial issues, such as seismic stress drop much less than that of rock failure in the laboratory test, heat flow paradox and Self-Organized Criticality (SOC), are discussed and can be reasonably explained by the theory. The present study shows that the physical mechanism of major earthquakes is attributed to the brittle failures of locked patches.

The central San Andreas Fault in California is known as a creeping fault, however recent studies have shown that it may be accumulating a slip deficit and thus its seismogenic potential should be seriously considered. We conducted laboratory friction experiments measuring time-dependent frictional strengthening (healing) on fault zone and wall rock samples recovered during drilling at the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD), located near the southern edge of the creeping section and in the direct vicinity of three repeating microearthquake clusters. We find that for hold times of up to 3000 s, frictional healing follows a log-linear dependence on hold time and that the healing rate is very low for a sample of the actively shearing fault core, consistent with previous results. However, considering longer hold times up to ∼350,000 s, the healing rate accelerates such that the data for all samples are better described by a power law relation. In general, samples having a higher content of phyllosilicate minerals exhibit low log-linear healing rates, and the notably clay-rich fault zone sample also exhibits strong power-law healing when longer hold times are included. Our data suggest that weak faults, such as the creeping section of the San Andreas Fault, can accumulate interseismic shear stress more rapidly than expected from previous friction data. Using the power-law dependence of frictional healing on hold time, calculations of recurrence interval and stress drop based on our data accurately match observations of discrete creep events and repeating M w = 2 earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault.

Pronounced variations in fault slip rate revealed by new measurements along the Garlock fault have basic implications for understanding how faults store and release strain energy in large earthquakes. Specifically, dating of a series of 26.0 + 3.5 / − 2.5 m fault offsets with a newly developed infrared-stimulated luminescence method shows that the fault was slipping at > 14.0 + 2.2 / − 1.8 mm / yr , approximately twice as fast as the long-term average rate, during a previously documented cluster of four earthquakes 0.5–2.0 ka. This elevated late Holocene rate must be balanced by periods of slow or no slip such as that during the ca. 3300-yr-long seismic lull preceding the cluster. Moreover, whereas a comparison of paleoseismic data and stress modeling results suggests that individual Garlock earthquakes may be triggered by periods of rapid San Andreas fault slip or very large-slip events, the “on–off” behavior of the Garlock suggests a longer-term mechanism that may involve changes in the rate of elastic strain accumulation on the fault over millennial time scales. This inference is consistent with most models of the geodetic velocity field, which yield slip-deficit rates that are much slower than the average latest Pleistocene-early Holocene (post-8–13 ka) Garlock slip rate of 6.5 ± 1.5 mm / yr . These observations indicate the occurrence of millennia-long strain “super-cycles” on the Garlock fault that may be associated with temporal changes in elastic strain accumulation rate, which may in turn be controlled by variations in relative strength of the various faults in the Garlock-San Andreas-Eastern California Shear Zone fault system and/or changes in relative plate motion rates.

Fault geometry is a consequence of tectonic evolution, and it provides important information on potential seismic hazards. We investigated fault geometry and its properties in Parkfield, California on the basis of local seismicity and seismic velocity residuals refined by an adaptive-velocity hypocentral-parameter inversion method. The station correction terms from the hypocentral-parameter inversion present characteristic seismic velocity changes around the fault, suggesting low seismic velocities in the region east of the fault and high seismic velocities in the region to the west. Large seismic velocity anomalies are observed at shallow depths along the whole fault zone. At depths of 3–8 km, seismic velocity anomalies are small in the central fault zone, but are large in the northern and southern fault zones. At depths > 8 km, low seismic velocities are observed in the northern fault zone. High seismicity is observed in the Southwest Fracture Zone, which has developed beside the creeping segment of the San Andreas fault. The vertical distribution of seismicity suggests that the fault has spiral geometry, dipping NE in the northern region, nearly vertical in the central region, and SW in the southern region. The rapid twisting of the fault plane occurs in a short distance of approximately 50 km. The seismic velocity anomalies and fault geometry suggest location-dependent piecewise faulting, which may cause the periodic M6 events in the Parkfield region.

Earthquake slip distributions are asymmetric along strike, but the reasons for the asymmetry are unknown. We address this question by establishing empirical relations between earthquake slip profiles and fault properties. We analyze the slip distributions of 27 large continental earthquakes in the context of available information on their causative faults, in particular on the directions of their long-term lengthening. We find that the largest slips during each earthquake systematically occurred on that half of the ruptured fault sections most distant from the long-term fault propagating tips, i.e., on the most mature half of the broken fault sections. Meanwhile, slip decreased linearly over most of the rupture length in the direction of long-term fault propagation, i.e., of decreasing structural maturity along strike. We suggest that this earthquake slip asymmetry is governed by along-strike changes in fault properties, including fault zone compliance and fault strength, induced by the evolution of off-fault damage, fault segmentation, and fault planarity with increasing structural maturity. We also find higher rupture speeds in more mature rupture sections, consistent with predicted effects of low-velocity damage zones on rupture dynamics. Since the direction(s) of long-term fault propagation can be determined from geological evidence, it might be possible to anticipate in which direction earthquake slip, once nucleated, may increase, accelerate, and possibly lead to a large earthquake. Our results could thus contribute to earthquake hazard assessment and Earthquake Early Warning.

Large, compressional earthquakes cause surface uplift as well as widespread mass wasting. Knowledge of their trade-off is fragmentary. Combining a seismologically consistent model of earthquake-triggered landsliding and an analytical solution of coseismic surface displacement, we assess how the mass balance of single earthquakes and earthquake sequences depends on fault size and other geophysical parameters. We find that intermediate size earthquakes (Mw 6–7.3) may cause more erosion than uplift, controlled primarily by seismic source depth and landscape steepness, and less so by fault dip and rake. Such earthquakes can limit topographic growth, but our model indicates that both smaller and larger earthquakes (Mw 7.3) systematically cause mountain building. Earthquake sequences with a Gutenberg-Richter distribution have a greater tendency to lead to predominant erosion, than repeating earthquakes of the same magnitude, unless a fault can produce earthquakes with Mw > 8 or more.

The 2013 Mw6.8 Lushan, China earthquake occurred in the southwestern end of the Longmenshan fault zone. We jointly invert local strong motion data and geodetic measurements of coseismic surface deformation, including GPS and InSAR, to obtain a robust model of the rupture process of the 2013 Lushan earthquake. Our joint inversion best model involves the rupture of two opposing faults during the Lushan earthquake, a main fault and a secondary fault. It is only when the secondary fault is included that both the GPS and InSAR measurements are fit along with the near-field strong motion. Over 75% of the computed moment was released in slip on the main fault segment, a northwest dipping, listric thrust fault, with buried thrust and dextral strike-slip at hypocenter depths, and with only minor slip closer to the surface. The secondary fault mainly involved oblique thrust slip or pure dextral strike-slip at shallower depths, and accounts for just under 24% of the moment released in the Lushan earthquake. Coulomb stress changes of about 0.5 MPa on the secondary fault segment at the time coseismic slip initiated on that fault indicate that slip was likely triggered by the coseismic slip on the main blind thrust fault. Our coseismic slip model is consistent with a sub-horizontal and east–west to southeast–northwest trending most compressive stress. Our inferred coseismic slip model is also consistent with previous GPS derived models of strain accumulation on the Longmenshan fault system.

We develop a folding boundary element model in a medium containing a fault and elastic layers to show that anticlines growing over slipping reverse faults can be significantly amplified by mechanical layering buckling under horizontal shortening. Previous studies suggested that folds over blind reverse faults grow primarily during deformation increments associated with slips on the fault during and immediately after earthquakes. Under this assumption, the potential for earthquakes on blind faults can be determined directly from fold geometry because the amount of slip on the fault can be estimated directly from the fold geometry using the solution for a dislocation in an elastic half-space. Studies that assume folds grown solely by slip on a fault may therefore significantly overestimate fault slip. Our boundary element technique demonstrates that the fold amplitude produced in a medium containing a fault and elastic layers with free slip and subjected to layer-parallel shortening can grow to more than twice the fold amplitude produced in homogeneous media without mechanical layering under the same amount of shortening. In addition, the fold wavelengths produced by the combined fault slip and buckling mechanisms may be narrower than folds produced by fault slip in an elastic half space by a factor of two. We also show that subsurface fold geometry of the Kettleman Hills Anticline in Central California inferred from seismic reflection image is consistent with a model that incorporates layer buckling over a dipping, blind reverse fault and the coseismic uplift pattern produced during a 1985 earthquake centered over the anticline forelimb is predicted by the model.

Vibrations of the Earth crust and variations in the physical fields of the Earth atmosphere and ionosphere are continuously monitored by a variety of techniques and specialized facilities across the world. Nevertheless, most catastrophic earthquakes even in this century have occurred in “incidental” or “unexpected” places in “unpredicted” time. Earthquake predictions have errors as the current knowledge of focal mechanisms of strong (M≥8) earthquakes is still insufficient. It is believed today that the most common source of earthquakes is movement of rock blocks along a fault/megafracture. Such movements take place in a stepwise pattern with high or reduced friction, depending on the presence of fluids, hitches on the fault planes and other factors. Modern seismic forecasting is based on the concept of precursors.The author considers geological and geophysical settings in areas of dynamic influence of faults, wherein 8>М>7.5 earthquakes took place. Based on earthquake recurrence curves constructed for such areas, four tectonic criteria for formation of strong earthquake sources are identified: structural (large seismically active faults), kinematic (large amplitudes of the fault wing’s displacements), rheological (physical properties of the fault infill material, such as low viscosity of the intra-fault medium) and dynamic (high rates of the fault wing’s displacements) criteria. These criteria should be in the focus of quantitative studies in order to provide a solid scientific basis for long-term forecasting of strong earthquakes. Curves constructed for the criteria can show changes in the physics of earthquake foci in case of strong seismic events.With account of the tectonophysical features of faults associated with strong seismic events, the following conclusions are drawn. (1) In the continental lithosphere, catastrophic earthquakes (M≥8) occur in areas of dynamic influence of the major faults in the lithosphere in case of relatively high amplitudes of displacements of boundary blocks (i.e. fault wings). (2) In the relatively stable stress field, high amplitude displacements take place in case of reduced viscosity/quasi-viscosity of the medium comprising the internal structure of faults. (3) Reduced viscosity of the intra-fault medium is related to the physical conditions of transition of rocks in fault zones (mainly along the fault planes) in the state of quasi-plastic or plastic flow (unilateral pressure in excess of hydrostatic pressure, and relatively decreasing strength properties of the intra-fault medium with increasing length of the fault wings). (4) Reduced viscosity of the fault zone leads to an increase in the displacement rate of the fault wings in the constant stress field. The latter factor is the main one, transforming seismically active faults with M≤7.5 seismic events into faults of similar characteristics, but with earthquakes of higher energy, M≥8. Focal mechanisms of such earthquakes are associated with conditions for a potential increase of the displacement amplitude regardless of the presence of fluids, hitches on the fault planes and other poorly predictable factors. In-depth studies of the internal structure of faults with M≥8 earthquakes, their foci, conditions of the temporal regime of the seismic process before and after strong seismic events can discover a key to understanding the origin of earthquake sources, the criteria of energy release, and the occurrence of earthquakes with maximum energy. Further steps to develop the geological and geophysical (including tectonic) criteria for prediction of strong earthquakes should be focused on more detailed research of seismic zones wherein strong earthquakes were recorded.

From the early dawn of civilization, human beings have been battling against nature to establish their supremacy. In this process, they have been fighting against a number of natural forces like hurricanes, tornados, flood, volcanic eruptions, and finally the earthquake.

Relating to the occurrence of earthquakes, elastic rebound theory shows the accumulated elastic pressure in the seismic region due to the movement of plate tectonics which is released when the pressure exceeds the plate strength limit. On the basis of this theory, the point process is constructed into a stress release model. The stress release model considers the increased pressure in an area and the pressure released during an earthquake over a period of time. It is possible to measure the probability of earthquake occurrence using the conditional intensity function of the stress release model. Thus, this research aims to estimate conditional intensity function of stress release model and apply it to earthquake data in Indonesia, especially Java Island and Sumatra Island. These two areas are the most earthquake-prone areas in Indonesia. We use data from January 1993 to December 2016 obtained from the United States Geological Survey. The maximum likelihood method is needed to estimate parameters of condit...

This chapter presents the physics of earthquakes and earthquake mechanism. Theory of plate tectonics and elastic rebound theory are explained along with global seismicity. The seismicity of India and surroundings is discussed in detail highlighting spatially varied tectonic framework of the country. A guideline for preparation of seismotectonic map is also provided in the chapter. Measurement of earthquake size in terms of intensity and magnitude are discussed with popular scales employed worldwide. Different seismic source models such as linear, point, areal and gridded seismicity models are discussed. Seismicity analysis to estimate seismicity parameters for a region or seismic source zone is also presented.

Near-surface thrust fault splays and antithetic backthrusts at the tips of major thrust fault systems can distribute slip across multiple shallow fault strands, complicating earthquake hazard analyses based on studies of surface faulting. The shallow expression of the fault strands forming the Seattle fault zone of Washington State shows the structural relationships and interactions between such fault strands. Paleoseismic studies document an ∼7000 yr history of earthquakes on multiple faults within the Seattle fault zone, with some backthrusts inferred to rupture in small (M ∼5.5–6.0) earthquakes at times other than during earthquakes on the main thrust faults. We interpret seismic-reflection profiles to show three main thrust faults, one of which is a blind thrust fault directly beneath downtown Seattle, and four small backthrusts within the Seattle fault zone. We then model fault slip, constrained by shallow deformation, to show that the Seattle fault forms a fault propagation fold rather than the alternatively proposed roof thrust system. Fault slip modeling shows that back-thrust ruptures driven by moderate (M ∼6.5–6.7) earthquakes on the main thrust faults are consistent with the paleoseismic data. The results indicate that paleoseismic data from the back-thrust ruptures reveal the times of moderate earthquakes on the main fault system, rather than indicating smaller (M ∼5.5–6.0) earthquakes involving only the backthrusts. Estimates of cumulative shortening during known Seattle fault zone earthquakes support the inference that the Seattle fault has been the major seismic hazard in the northern Cascadia forearc in the late Holocene.

Rising and falling slip rates on the creeping section of the San Andreas Fault have been inferred from variations of recurrence intervals of characteristically repeating microearthquakes, but this observation has not previously been confirmed using modern geodetic data. Here we report on observations of this “pulsing” slip obtained from advanced multitemporal interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data, confirmed using continuous GPS sites of the Plate Boundary Observatory. The surface deformation time series show a strong correlation to the previously documented slip rate variations derived from repeating earthquakes on the fault interface, at various spatial and temporal scales. Time series and spectral analyses of repeating earthquake and InSAR data reveal a quasiperiodic pulsing with a roughly 2 year period along some sections of the fault, with the earthquakes on the fault interface lagging behind the far-field deformation by about 6 months. This suggests a temporal delay between the pulsing crustal strain generated by deep-seated shear and the time-variable slip on the shallow fault interface, and that at least in some places this process may be cyclical. There exist potential impacts for time-dependent seismic hazard forecasting in California and, as it becomes better validated in the richly instrumented natural laboratory of the central San Andreas Fault, the process used here will be even more helpful in characterizing hazard and fault zone rheology in areas without California's geodetic infrastructure.

Deformation is commonly accommodated by strain partitioning on multiple, independent strike-slip and dip-slip faults in continental settings of oblique plate convergence. As a corollary, individual faults tend to exhibit one sense of slip – normal, reverse, or strike-slip – until whole-scale changes in boundary conditions reactivate preexisting faults in a new deformation regime. In this study, we show that a single continental fault may instead partition oblique strain by alternatively slipping in a strike-slip or a dip-slip sense during independent fault slip events. We use 0.5 m resolution optical imagery and sub-pixel correlation analysis of the 200 + km 2013 M w 7.7 Balochistan, Pakistan earthquake to document co-seismic surface slip characteristics and Quaternary tectonic geomorphology along the causative Hoshab fault. We find that the 2013 earthquake, which involved a ∼6:1 strike-slip to dip-slip ratio, ruptured a structurally segmented fault. Quaternary geomorphic indicators of gross fault-zone morphology reveal both reverse-slip and strike-slip deformation in the rupture area of the 2013 earthquake that varies systematically along fault strike despite nearly pure strike-slip motion in 2013. Observations of along-strike variations in range front relief and geomorphic offsets suggest that the Hoshab fault accommodates a substantial reverse component of fault slip in the Quaternary, especially along the southern section of the 2013 rupture. We surmise that Quaternary bimodal slip along the Hoshab fault is promoted by a combination of the arcuate geometry of the Hoshab fault, the frictional weakness of the Makran accretionary prism, and time variable loading conditions from adjacent earthquakes and plate interactions.

Time series analysis of interferometric synthetic aperture radar data reveals coseismic and postseismic surface displacements associated with the 2007 M5.5 earthquake along the southern Ghazaband fault, a major but little studied fault in Pakistan. Modeling indicates that the coseismic surface deformation was caused by ~9 cm of strike-slip displacement along a shallow subvertical fault. The earthquake was followed by at least 1 year of afterslip, releasing ~70% of the moment of the main event, equivalent to a M5.4 earthquake. This high aseismic relative to the seismic moment release is consistent with previous observations for moderate earthquakes (M

We observe crustal damage and its subsequent recovery caused by the 1999 M7.6 Chi-Chi earthquake in central Taiwan. Analysis of repeating earthquakes in Hualien region, ~70 km east of the Chi-Chi earthquake, shows a remarkable change in wave propagation beginning in the year 2000, revealing damage within the fault zone and distributed across the near surface. We use moving window cross correlation to identify a dramatic decrease in the waveform similarity and delays in the S wave coda. The maximum delay is up to 59 ms, corresponding to a 7.6% velocity decrease averaged over the wave propagation path. The waveform changes on either side of the fault are distinct. They occur in different parts of the waveforms, affect different frequencies, and the size of the velocity reductions is different. Using a finite difference method, we simulate the effect of postseismic changes in the wavefield by introducing S wave velocity anomaly in the fault zone and near the surface. The models that best fit the observations point to pervasive damage in the near surface and deep, along-fault damage at the time of the Chi-Chi earthquake. The footwall stations show the combined effect of near-surface and the fault zone damage, where the velocity reduction (2–7%) is twofold to threefold greater than the fault zone damage observed in the hanging wall stations. The physical models obtained here allow us to monitor the temporal evolution and recovering process of the Chi-Chi fault zone damage.

We propose that the brittle-ductile transition (BDT) controls the seismic cycle. In particular, the movements detected by space geodesy record the steady state deformation in the ductile lower crust, whereas the stick-slip behavior of the brittle upper crust is constrained by its larger friction. GPS data allow analyzing the strain rate along active plate boundaries. In all tectonic settings, we propose that earthquakes primarily occur along active fault segments characterized by relative minima of strain rate, segments which are locked or slowly creeping. We discuss regional examples where large earthquakes happened in areas of relative low strain rate. Regardless the tectonic style, the interseismic stress and strain pattern inverts during the coseismic stage. Where a dilated band formed during the interseismic stage, this will be shortened at the coseismic stage, and vice-versa what was previously shortened, it will be dilated. The interseismic energy accumulation and the coseismic expenditure rather depend on the tectonic setting (extensional, contractional, or strike-slip). The gravitational potential energy dominates along normal faults, whereas the elastic energy prevails for thrust earthquakes and performs work against the gravity force. The energy budget in strike-slip tectonic setting is also primarily due elastic energy. Therefore, precursors may be different as a function of the tectonic setting. In this model, with a given displacement, the magnitude of an earthquake results from the coseismic slip of the deformed volume above the BDT rather than only on the fault length, and it also depends on the fault kinematics. © 2014 China University of Geosciences (Beijing) and Peking University.

International audience; The mechanisms controlling rupture propagation between fault segments during a large earthquake are key to the hazard posed by fault systems. Rupture initiation on a smaller fault sometimes transfers to a larger fault, resulting in a significant event (e.g., 2002 M7.9 Denali USA and 2010 M7.1 Darfield New Zealand earthquakes). In other cases rupture is constrained to the initial fault and does not transfer to nearby faults, resulting in events of more moderate magnitude. This was the case of the 1989 M6.9 Loma Prieta and 2010 M7.0 Haiti earthquakes which initiated on reverse faults abutting against a major strike-slip plate boundary fault but did not propagate onto it. Here we investigate the rupture dynamics of the Haiti earthquake, seeking to understand why rupture propagated across two segments of the Léogâne fault but did not propagate to the adjacent Enriquillo Plantain Garden Fault, the major 200 km long plate boundary fault cutting through southern Haiti. We use a finite element model to simulate propagation of rupture on the Léogâne fault, varying friction and background stress to determine the parameter set that best explains the observed earthquake sequence, in particular, the ground displacement. The two slip patches inferred from finite fault inversions are explained by the successive rupture of two fault segments oriented favorably with respect to the rupture propagation, while the geometry of the Enriquillo fault did not allow shear stress to reach failure.

Toru segment, which is one of the active faults and located in the North of Sumatra, broke in 1984 ago on Pahae Jahe’s earthquake with a magnitude 6.4 at the northern part of the fault which has a length of 23 km, and also broke again at the same place in 2008. The event of recurrence is very fast, which only 25 years old have repeatedly returned. However, in the elastic rebound theory, it probably happen with a fracture 50 cm and an average of the shear velocity 20 mm/year. The average focus of the earthquake sourced at a depth of 10 km and 23 km along its fracture zones, which can generate enough shaking 7 MMI and could breaking down buildings and create landslides on the cliff. Due to its seismic activity, this study was made to identify the effectiveness of this fault with geophysical methods. Geophysical methods such as gravity, geomagnetic and seismology are powerful tools for detecting subsurface structures of local, regional as well as of global scales. This study used to geophysical methods to discuss about total intensity of the geomagnetic anomaly data, resulted in the distribution of susceptibility values corresponding to the fault movement. The geomagnetic anomalies data was obtained from Geomag, such as total intensity measured by satellite. Data acquisition have been corrected for diurnal variations and reduced by IGRF. The study of earthquake records can be used for differentiating the active and non active fault elements. Modeling has been done using several methods, such as pseudo-gravity, reduce to pole, and upward or downward continuation, which is used to filter the geomagnetic anomaly data because the data has not fully representative of the fault structure. The results indicate that rock layers of 0 – 100 km depth encountered the process of intrusion and are dominated by sedimentary rocks that are paramagnetic, and that the ones of 100 - 150 km depth experienced the activity of subducting slab consisting of basalt and granite which are ferromagnetic and semi-ferromagnetic. This concluded that all the occurences correspond to the high seismicity and seismotectonic condition of Toru fault.

Earth deformation is a multi-scale process ranging from seconds (seismic deformation) to millions of years (tectonic deformation). Bridging short- and long-term deformation and developing seismotectonic models has been a challenge in experimental tectonics for more than a century. Since the formulation of Reid's elastic rebound theory 100 years ago, laboratory mechanical models combining frictional and elastic elements have been used to study the dynamics of earthquakes. In the last decade, with the advent of high-resolution monitoring techniques and new rock analogue materials, laboratory earthquake experiments have evolved from simple spring-slider models to scaled analogue models. This evolution was accomplished by advances in seismology and geodesy along with relatively frequent occurrences of large earthquakes in the past decade. This coincidence has significantly increased the quality and quantity of relevant observations in nature and triggered a new understanding of earthquake dynamics. We review here the developments in analogue earthquake modelling with a focus on those seismotectonic scale models that are directly comparable to observational data on short to long timescales. We lay out the basics of analogue modelling, namely scaling, materials and monitoring, as applied in seismotectonic modelling. An overview of applications highlights the contributions of analogue earthquake models in bridging timescales of observations including earthquake statistics, rupture dynamics, ground motion, and seismic-cycle deformation up to seismotectonic evolution.

The Newport-Inglewood/Rose Canyon fault zone (NIRC) is an active strike-slip fault system within the Pacific-North American plate boundary in Southern California, located in close proximity to populated regions of San Diego, Orange, and Los Angeles counties. Prior to this study, the NIRC fault zone's continuity and geometry were not well constrained. Nested marine seismic reflection data with different vertical resolutions are employed to characterize the offshore fault architecture. Four main fault strands are identified offshore, separated by three main stepovers along strike, all of which are 2 kilometers or less in width. Empirical studies of historical ruptures worldwide show that earthquakes have ruptured through stepovers with this offset. Models of Coulomb stress change along the fault zone are presented to examine the potential extent of future earthquake ruptures on the fault zone, which appear to be dependent on the location of rupture initiation and fault geometry at the stepover. These modeling results show that the southernmost stepover between the La Jolla and Torrey Pines fault strands may act as an inhibitor to through-going rupture due to the stepover width and change in fault geometry across the stepover; however, these results still suggest that rupture along the entire fault zone is possible.

Direct observations of faults exhumed from mid-crustal depths indicate that distributed inelastic deformation enhances fault slip and interaction across steps. Constrained by field measurements, finite element models demonstrate that the slip distribution for a fault in a Mises elastoplastic continuum differs significantly from that of a linear elastic model fault. Lobes of plastic shear strain align with fault tips and effectively lengthen the fault, resulting in greater maximum slip and increased slip gradients near fault tips. Additionally, distributed plastic shear strain facilitates slip transfer between echelon fault segments. Fault arrays separated by contractional steps, which are subjected to greater mean normal stress and Mises equivalent stress, produce greater maximum slip than do those separated by extensional steps (with no fractures). These results provide insight into fault behavior at the base of the seismogenic zone, with implications for rupture dynamics of discontinuous faults.

Observations of heterogeneous and complex fault slip are often attributed to the complexity of fault structure and/or spatial heterogeneity of fault frictional behavior. Such complex slip patterns have been observed for earthquakes on normal faults throughout central Italy, where many of the Mw 6 to 7 earthquakes in the Apennines nucleate at depths where the lithology is dominated by carbonate rocks. To explore the relationship between fault structure and heterogeneous frictional properties, we studied the exhumed Monte Maggio Fault, located in the northern Apennines. We collected intact specimens of the fault zone, including the principal slip surface and hanging wall cataclasite, and performed experiments at a normal stress of 10 MPa under saturated conditions. Experiments designed to reactivate slip between the cemented principal slip surface and cataclasite show a 3 MPa stress drop as the fault surface fails, then velocity-neutral frictional behavior and significant frictional healing. Overall, our results suggest that (1) earthquakes may readily nucleate in areas of the fault where the slip surface separates massive limestone and are likely to propagate in areas where fault gouge is in contact with the slip surface; (2) postseismic slip is more likely to occur in areas of the fault where gouge is present; and (3) high rates of frictional healing and low creep relaxation observed between solid fault surfaces could lead to significant aftershocks in areas of low stress drop.

We perform 3D modeling of earthquake generation of the Xianshuihe fault, southwestern China, which is a highly active strike-slip fault with a length of about 350 km, in order to understand earthquake cycles and segmentations for a long-term forecasting and earthquake nucleation process for a short-term forecasting. Historical earthquake data over the last 300 years indicates repeated periods of seismic activity, and migration of large earthquake along the fault during active seismic periods. To develop the 3D model of earthquake cycles along the Xianshuihe fault, we use a rate- and state-dependent friction law. After analyzing the result, we find that the earthquakes occur in the reoccurrence intervals of 400–500 years. Simulation result of slip velocity distribution along the fault at the depth of 10 km during 2694 years along the Xianshuihe fault indicates that since the third earthquake cycle, the fault has been divided into 3 parts. Some earthquake ruptures terminate at the bending part of the fault line, which may means the shape of the fault line controls how earthquake ruptures. The change of slip velocity and displacement at 10 km depth is more tremendous than the change of the shallow and deep part of the fault and the largest slip velocity occurs at the depth of 10 km which is the exact depth of the seismic zone where fast rupture occurs.

Establishment of a constitutive law from friction to high-temperature plastic flow has long been a challenging task for solving problems such as modeling earthquakes and plate interactions. Here we propose an empirical constitutive law that describes this transitional behavior using only friction and flow parameters, with good agreements with experimental data on halite shear zones. The law predicts steady state and transient behaviors, including the dependence of the shear resistance of fault on slip rate, effective normal stress, and temperature. It also predicts a change in velocity weakening to velocity strengthening with increasing temperature, similar to the changes recognized for quartz and granite gouge under hydrothermal conditions. A slight deviation from the steady state friction law due to the involvement of plastic deformation can cause a large change in the velocity dependence. We solved seismic cycles of a fault across the lithosphere with the law using a 2-D spectral boundary integral equation method, revealing dynamic rupture extending into the aseismic zone and rich evolution of interseismic creep including slow slip prior to earthquakes. Seismic slip followed by creep is consistent with natural pseudotachylytes overprinted with mylonitic deformation. Overall fault behaviors during earthquake cycles are insensitive to transient flow parameters. The friction-to-flow law merges “Christmas tree” strength profiles of the lithosphere and rate dependency fault models used for earthquake modeling on a unified basis. Strength profiles were drawn assuming a strain rate for the flow regime, but we emphasize that stress distribution evolves reflecting the fault behavior. A fault zone model was updated based on the earthquake modeling.

The great Sanhe-Pinggu M8 earthquake occurred in 1679 was the largest surface rupture event recorded in history in the northern part of North China plain. This study determines the fault geometry of this earthquake by inverting seismological data of present-day moderate-small earthquakes in the focal area. We relocated those earthquakes with the double-difference method. Based on the assumption that clustered small earthquakes often occur in the vicinity of fault plane of large earthquake, and referring to the morphology of the long axis of the isoseismal line obtained by the predecessors, we selected a strip-shaped zone from the relocated earthquake catalog in the period from 1980 to 2009 to invert fault plane parameters of this earthquake. The inversion results are as follows: the strike is 38.23°, the dip angle is 82.54°, the slip angle is −156.08°, the fault length is about 80 km, the lower-boundary depth is about 23 km and the buried depth of upper boundary is about 3 km. This shows that the seismogenic fault is a NNE-trending normal dip-slip fault, southeast wall downward and northwest wall uplift, with the right-lateral strike-slip component. Moreover, the surface rupture zone, intensity distribution of the earthquake and seismic-wave velocity profile in the focal area all verified our study result.

Surface creep rate, observed along five branches of the dextral San Andreas fault system in northern California, varies considerably from one section to the next, indicating that so too may the depth at which the faults are locked. We model locking on 29 fault sections using each section’s mean long‐term creep rate and the consensus values of fault width and geologic slip rate. Surface creep rate observations from 111 short‐range alignment and trilateration arrays and 48 near‐fault, Global Positioning System station pairs are used to estimate depth of creep, assuming an elastic half‐space model and adjusting depth of creep iteratively by trial and error to match the creep observations along fault sections. Fault sections are delineated either by geometric discontinuities between them or by distinctly different creeping behaviors. We remove transient rate changes associated with five large ( M ≥5.5) regional earthquakes. Estimates of fraction locked, the ratio of moment accumulation rate to loading rate, on each section of the fault system provide a uniform means to inform source parameters relevant to seismic‐hazard assessment. From its mean creep rates, we infer the main branch (the San Andreas fault) ranges from only 20%±10% locked on its central creeping section to 99%–100% on the north coast. From mean accumulation rates, we infer that four urban faults appear to have accumulated enough seismic moment to produce major earthquakes: the northern Calaveras ( M 6.8), Hayward ( M 6.8), Rodgers Creek ( M 7.1), and Green Valley ( M 7.1). The latter three faults are nearing or past their mean recurrence interval. Online Material: High‐resolution fault system map, and tables of creep observations and geographic coordinates of fault model.

We investigate the spatial pattern of surface creep and off-fault deformation along the southern segment of the San Andreas Fault using a combination of multiple interferometric synthetic aperture radar viewing geometries and survey-mode GPS occupations of a dense array crossing the fault. Radar observations from Envisat during the period 2003-2010 were used to separate the pattern of horizontal and vertical motion, providing a high-resolution image of uplift and shallow creep along the fault trace. The data reveal pervasive shallow creep along the southernmost 50 km of the fault. Creep is localized on a well-defined fault trace only in the Mecca Hills and Durmid Hill areas, while elsewhere creep appears to be distributed over a 1-2 km wide zone surrounding the fault. The degree of strain localization is correlated with variations in the local fault strike. Using a two-dimensional boundary element model, we show that stresses resulting from slip on a curved fault can promote or inhibit inelastic failure within the fault zone in a pattern matching the observations. The occurrence of shallow, localized interseismic fault creep within mature fault zones may thus be partly controlled by the local fault geometry and normal stress, with implications for models of fault zone evolution, shallow coseismic slip deficit, and geologic estimates of long-term slip rates.

A fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock, across which there has been significant displacement along the fractures as a result of earth movement. Large faults within the Earth’s crust result from the action of plate tectonic forces, with the largest forming the boundaries between the plates, energy release associated with rapid movement on active faults is the cause of most earthquakes. The relationship between unevenness dislocation and gravity changes was studied on the theoretical thought of differential fault. Simulated observation values were adopted to deduce the gravity changes with the model of asymmetric fault and the model of Okada, respectively. The characteristic of unevennes fault momentum distribution is from two end points to middle by 0 according to a certain continuous functional increase. However, the fault momentum distribution in the fault length range is a constant when the Okada model is adopted. Numerical simulation experiments for the activities of the strike-slip fault, dip-slip fault and extension fault were carried out, respectively, to find that both the gravity contours and the gravity variation values are consistent when either of the two models is adopted. The apparent difference lies in that the values at the end points are 17. 97% for the strike-slip fault, 25. 58% for the dip-slip) fault, and 24. 73% for the extension fault.

The 150 km long central section of the San Andreas Fault (CSAF) in central California creeps at the surface and has not produced a large earthquake historically. However, sections of the San Andreas Fault to the north and south are known to have ruptured repeatedly in M~7–8 earthquakes. It is currently unclear whether the creeping CSAF could rupture in large earthquakes, either individually or along with earthquakes on the locked sections to the north and south. We invert Global Positioning System and interferometric synthetic aperture radar data with elastic block models to estimate the degree of locking on the CSAF and place bounds on the moment accumulation rate on the fault. We find that the inferred moment accumulation rate is highly dependent on the long-term fault slip rate, which is poorly constrained along the CSAF. The inferred moment accumulation rate, normalized by shear modulus, ranges from 3.28 × 104 to 5.85 × 107 m3/yr, which is equivalent to a Mw = 5.5–7.2 earthquake every 150 years for a long-term slip rate of 26 mm/yr and Mw = 7.3–7.65 for a long-term slip rate of 34 mm/yr. The comparisons of slip distributions with microseismicity and repeating earthquakes indicate a possible locked patch between 10 and 20 km depth on the CSAF that could potentially rupture with Mw = 6.5.

Computer simulations of large (M ≥ 7.8) earthquakes rupturing the southern San Andreas Fault from SE to NW (e.g., ShakeOut, widely used for earthquake drills) have predicted strong long-period ground motions in the densely populated Los Angeles Basin due to channeling of waves through a series of interconnected sedimentary basins. Recently, the importance of this waveguide amplification effect for seismic shaking in the Los Angeles Basin has also been confirmed from observations of the ambient seismic field. By simulating the ShakeOut earthquake scenario (based on a kinematic source description) for a medium governed by Drucker-Prager plasticity, we show that nonlinear material behavior could reduce the earlier predictions of large long-period ground motions in the Los Angeles Basin by up to 70% as compared to viscoelastic solutions. These reductions are primarily due to yielding near the fault, although yielding may also occur in the shallow low-velocity deposits of the Los Angeles Basin if cohesions are close to zero. Fault zone plasticity remains important even for conservative values of cohesions, suggesting that current simulations assuming a linear response of rocks are overpredicting ground motions during future large earthquakes on the southern San Andreas Fault.

We present a mechanical model to explain why most seismically active normal faults have dips much lower (30–60°) than expected from Anderson-Byerlee theory (60–65°). Our model builds on classic finite extension theory but incorporates rotation of the active fault plane as a response to the buildup of bending stresses with increasing extension. We postulate that fault plane rotation acts to minimize the amount of extensional work required to sustain slip on the fault. In an elastic layer, this assumption results in rapid rotation of the active fault plane from ~60° down to 30–45° before fault heave has reached ~50% of the faulted layer thickness. Commensurate but overall slower rotation occurs in faulted layers of finite strength. Fault rotation rates scale as the inverse of the faulted layer thickness, which is in quantitative agreement with 2-D geodynamic simulations that include an elastoplastic description of the lithosphere. We show that fault rotation promotes longer-lived fault extension compared to continued slip on a high-angle normal fault and discuss the implications of such a mechanism for fault evolution in continental rift systems and oceanic spreading centers.

Moderate past and present-day seismicity is observed in formerly deglaciated regions of North America and Europe. An understanding of the occurrence of these earthquakes is important for estimating the seismic risk within these areas as well as areas affected by recent ice-sheet melting, in particular Greenland and Antarctica. We have developed a new finite-element approach that allows us to estimate the fault throw for areas once covered by a continental ice sheet. The simulation is initialized by loading a two-dimensional earth model with an ice sheet. The model incorporates a stress field consisting of rebound, horizontal background and vertical stresses, as well as a fault that can accommodate slip. The sensitivity of fault throw and activation time is tested with respect to lithospheric and crustal thickness, viscosity structure of upper and lower mantle, and ice-sheet thickness and width, as well as fault location and angle. Single-event seismic displacements of up to 18.5 m are obtained, approximately equivalent to an earthquake with a moment magnitude of 8.5. The thickness of the crust and lithosphere are major parameters affecting the total magnitude of fault slip, whereas the size of the ice sheet primarily affects the activation time. Most faults start to move close to the end of deglaciation, and movement typically stops for our simulations after one thrusting/reverse earthquake. However, in our simulations faults with a dip of 60° also show several fault movements before and after the end of deglaciation.

Using dynamic modeling of earthquake rupture on a strike-slip fault and seismic wave propagation in a three dimensional inhomogeneous elastoplastic medium, we investigate the inelastic response of compliant fault zones to nearby earthquakes. We primarily examine the plastic strain distribution within the fault zone and the displacement field that characterizes the effects of the presence of the fault zone. We find that when the fault zone rocks are close to failure in the prestress field, plastic strain occurs along the entire fault zone near the Earth's surface and some portions of the fault zone in the extensional quadrant at depth, while the remaining portion deforms elastically. Plastic strain enhances the surface displacement of the fault zone, and the enhancement in the extensional quadrant is stronger than that in the compressive quadrant. Inelastic response may be distinguished from elastic response by sympathetic motion (or reduced retrograde motion) exhibited in the fault-parallel horizontal surface displacement in conjunction with enhanced vertical surface displacement in a strike-slip faulting environment. These findings suggest that taking into account both elastic and inelastic deformation of fault zones to nearby earthquakes may improve our estimations of fault zone structure and properties from small-scale surface deformation signals. Furthermore, identifying the inelastic response of nearby fault zones to large earthquakes may allow us to place some constraints on the absolute stress level in the crust.