Evolution of fault-surface roughness with slip

Sagy, Amir; Brodsky, Emily E.; Axen, Gary J.

doi:10.1130/g23235a.1

Cited by 360 publications

(326 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…To describe univocally both the amplitude and the wavelength of the protrusions with a single parameter, we define the reference roughness parameter, Rmh* l. Adopted Rmh* l values range between 0.0714 and 0.0004 (Table 1). For crustal faults, field studies suggest that geometrical irregularities are characterized by a wavelength which relates to amplitude with a ratio of 100-1000 [e.g., Power et al, 1988;Renard et al, 2006;Sagy et al, 2007]; however, no strict geometrical relationship can be assumed between the experimental roughness and the weakly constrained natural prototype. The experimental subduction fault simulates a natural prototype characterized by protrusions of vertical height varying from a few to about one hundred meters, representing a pervasive small-scale roughness.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In nature, progressive rock comminution during the evolution of active faults has been observed and constrained at smaller scales [Storti et al, 2007;Sagy et al, 2007;Balsamo and Storti, 2010;Brodsky et al, 2010]. Its relation with stress drop has been experimentally simulated with granular flow models [e.g., Higashi and Sumita, 2009].…”

Section: Implications For Subduction Zone Seismogenesismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Seismic variability of subduction thrust faults: Insights from laboratory models

Corbi¹,

Funiciello²,

Faccenna³

et al. 2011

J. Geophys. Res.

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[1] Laboratory models are realized to investigate the role of interface roughness, driving rate, and pressure on friction dynamics. The setup consists of a gelatin block driven at constant velocity over sand paper. The interface roughness is quantified in terms of amplitude and wavelength of protrusions, jointly expressed by a reference roughness parameter obtained by their product. Frictional behavior shows a systematic dependence on system parameters. Both stick slip and stable sliding occur, depending on driving rate and interface roughness. Stress drop and frequency of slip episodes vary directly and inversely, respectively, with the reference roughness parameter, reflecting the fundamental role for the amplitude of protrusions. An increase in pressure tends to favor stick slip. Static friction is a steeply decreasing function of the reference roughness parameter. The velocity strengthening/weakening parameter in the state-and rate-dependent dynamic friction law becomes negative for specific values of the reference roughness parameter which are intermediate with respect to the explored range. Despite the simplifications of the adopted setup, which does not address the problem of off-fault fracturing, a comparison of the experimental results with the depth distribution of seismic energy release along subduction thrust faults leads to the hypothesis that their behavior is primarily controlled by the depth-and time-dependent distribution of protrusions. A rough subduction fault at shallow depths, unable to produce significant seismicity because of low lithostatic pressure, evolves into a moderately rough, velocity-weakening fault at intermediate depths. The magnitude of events in this range is calibrated by the interplay between surface roughness and subduction rate. At larger depths, the roughness further decreases and stable sliding becomes gradually more predominant. Thus, although interplate seismicity is ultimately controlled by tectonic parameters (velocity of the plates/trench and the thermal regime), the direct control is exercised by the resulting frictional properties of the plate interface.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Implications For Subduction Zone Seismogenesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Seismic variability of subduction thrust faults: Insights from laboratory models

Corbi¹,

Funiciello²,

Faccenna³

et al. 2011

J. Geophys. Res.

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“…[13] Many recent studies [Renard et al, 2006;Sagy et al, 2007;Sagy and Brodsky, 2009;Candela et al, 2009Candela et al, , 2011Candela et al, , 2012Brodsky et al, 2011;Bistacchi et al, 2011] have provided high resolution measurements of fault roughness, using a variety of techniques including analysis of surface traces at the largest scales, over nine orders of magnitude in length. Measurements using a single technique or instrument, which are necessarily limited in bandwidth, suggest that fault surfaces are more likely to be self-affine rather than self-similar, with a Hurst exponent H 0.8 in the slipparallel direction.…”

Section: Field and Laboratory Measurements Of Fault Roughnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Additional shear resistance from fault roughness and stress levels on geometrically complex faults

2013

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[1] The majority of crustal faults host earthquakes when the ratio of average background shear stress b to effective normal stress eff is b / eff 0.6. In contrast, mature plate-boundary faults like the San Andreas Fault (SAF) operate at b / eff 0.2. Dynamic weakening, the dramatic reduction in frictional resistance at coseismic slip velocities that is commonly observed in laboratory experiments, provides a leading explanation for low stress levels on mature faults. Strongly velocity-weakening friction laws permit rupture propagation on flat faults above a critical stress level pulse / eff 0.25. Provided that dynamic weakening is not restricted to mature faults, the higher stress levels on most faults are puzzling. In this work, we present a self-consistent explanation for the relatively high stress levels on immature faults that is compatible with low coseismic frictional resistance, from dynamic weakening, for all faults. We appeal to differences in structural complexity with the premise that geometric irregularities introduce resistance to slip in addition to frictional resistance. This general idea is quantified for the special case of self-similar fractal roughness of the fault surface. Natural faults have roughness characterized by amplitude-to-wavelength ratios˛between 10 -3 and 10 -2 . Through a second-order boundary perturbation analysis of quasi-static frictionless sliding across a band-limited self-similar interface in an ideally elastic solid, we demonstrate that roughness induces an additional shear resistance to slip, or roughness drag, given by drag = 8 3˛2 G * / min , for G * = G/(1 -) with shear modulus G and Poisson's ratio , slip , and minimum roughness wavelength min . The influence of roughness drag on fault mechanics is verified through an extensive set of dynamic rupture simulations of earthquakes on strongly rate-weakening fractal faults with elastic-plastic off-fault response. The simulations suggest that fault rupture, in the form of self-healing slip pulses, becomes probable above a background stress level b pulse + drag . For the smoothest faults (˛ 10 -3 ), drag is negligible compared to frictional resistance, so that b pulse 0.25 eff . However, on rougher faults (˛ 10 -2 ), roughness drag can exceed frictional resistance. We expect that drag ultimately departs from the predicted scaling when roughness-induced stress perturbations activate pervasive off-fault inelastic deformation, such that background stress saturates at a limit ( b 0.6 eff ) determined by the finite strength of the off-fault material. We speculate that this strength, and not the much smaller dynamically weakened frictional strength, determines the stress levels at which the majority of faults operate.Citation: Fang, Z., and E. M. Dunham (2013), Additional shear resistance from fault roughness and stress levels on geometrically complex faults,

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“…Nowadays, the HDS technology is going beyond the limits of its traditional usage, namely topographical surveying, reverse engineering, etc., and is finding excellent applications in several fields, e.g. scanning surfaces of visible faults in earthquakeprone regions and analysis of their roughness led to new developments in seismology [1]. Extensive studies of heritage buildings are being conducted for historic places throughout the world, e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laser Scanning, Modeling, and Analysis for Damage Assessment and Restoration of Historical Structures

Takhirov¹,

Mosalam²,

Moustafa³

et al. 2015

Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Computational Methods in Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering (COM

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Evolution of fault-surface roughness with slip

Cited by 360 publications

References 17 publications

Seismic variability of subduction thrust faults: Insights from laboratory models

Seismic variability of subduction thrust faults: Insights from laboratory models

Additional shear resistance from fault roughness and stress levels on geometrically complex faults

Laser Scanning, Modeling, and Analysis for Damage Assessment and Restoration of Historical Structures

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