Stress drop and slip vector on a dislocation in an elastic space due to localized force distributions

Some earthquake models based on the elastic theory of dislocations are presented. Earthquake occurrence is modelled as the opening of a crack in an infinite elastic medium triggered by the action of localized stress distributions. The fracture is modelled as a continuum of infinitesimal dislocations. This approach allows us to have complete information about the stress field and the displacement field and to make a first step towards understanding the relation between source mechanism and stress distributions.