Earthquake Nucleation Along Faults With Heterogeneous Weakening Rate

© 2021. The Authors.

Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:Geophysical research letters. - 1984. - 48(2021), 21 vom: 16. Nov., Seite e2021GL094901
1. Verfasser: Lebihain, Mathias (VerfasserIn)
Weitere Verfasser: Roch, Thibault, Violay, Marie, Molinari, Jean-François
Format: Online-Aufsatz
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: 2021
Zugriff auf das übergeordnete Werk:Geophysical research letters
Schlagworte:Journal Article Earthquake dynamics friction homogenization nucleation stability analysis
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:© 2021. The Authors.
The transition from quasistatic slip growth to dynamic rupture propagation constitutes one possible scenario to describe earthquake nucleation. If this transition is rather well understood for homogeneous faults, how the friction properties of multiscale asperities may influence the overall stability of seismogenic faults remains largely unclear. Combining classical nucleation theory and concepts borrowed from condensed matter physics, we propose a comprehensive analytical framework that predicts the influence of heterogeneities of weakening rate on the nucleation length L c for linearly slip-dependent friction laws. Model predictions are compared to nucleation lengths measured from 2D dynamic simulations of earthquake nucleation along heterogeneous faults. Our results show that the interplay between frictional properties and the asperity size gives birth to three instability regimes (local, extremal, and homogenized), each related to different nucleation scenarios, and that the influence of heterogeneities at a scale far lower than the nucleation length can be averaged
Beschreibung:Date Revised 05.11.2023
published: Print-Electronic
Citation Status PubMed-not-MEDLINE
ISSN:0094-8276
DOI:10.1029/2021GL094901