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Title: Seismological Stress Drops for Confined Ruptures Are Invariant to Normal Stress

Journal Article · · Geophysical Research Letters
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3];  [4]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. University of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
  2. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States)
  3. California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
  4. Hebrew University, Jerusalem (Israel)
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Seismic moment and rupture length can be combined to infer stress drop, a key parameter for assessing earthquakes. In natural earthquakes, stress drops are largely depth-independent, which is surprising given the expected dependence of frictional stress on normal stresses and hence overburden. We have developed a transparent experimental fault that allows direct observation of thousands of slip events, with ruptures that are fully contained within the fault. Surprisingly, the observed stress drops are largely independent of both the magnitude of normal stress and its heterogeneity, capturing the independence seen in nature. However, we observe larger, normal stress-dependent stress drops when the fault area is reduced, which allows slip events to frequently reach the edge of the interface. We conclude that confined ruptures have normal stress independent stress drops, and thus the depth-independent stress drops of tectonic earthquakes may be a consequence of their confined nature.

Research Organization:
Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0023097; A23-0294-001; EAR-1761987; A23‐0294‐001
OSTI ID:
1972483
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1983686; OSTI ID: 1992136
Journal Information:
Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 50, Issue 9; Related Information: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7838962; ISSN 0094-8276
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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