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Published May 2015 | public
Journal Article

Dynamic Ruptures on a Frictional Interface with Off-Fault Brittle Damage: Feedback Mechanisms and Effects on Slip and Near-Fault Motion

Abstract

The spontaneous generation of brittle rock damage near and behind the tip of a propagating rupture can produce dynamic feedback mechanisms that modify significantly the rupture properties, seismic radiation, and generated fault zone structure. In this work, we study such feedback mechanisms for single rupture events and their consequences for earthquake physics and various possible observations. This is done through numerical simulations of in-plane dynamic ruptures on a frictional fault with bulk behavior governed by a brittle damage rheology that incorporates reduction of elastic moduli in off-fault yielding regions. The model simulations produce several features that modify key properties of the ruptures, local wave propagation, and fault zone damage. These include (1) dynamic generation of near-fault regions with lower elastic properties, (2) dynamic changes of normal stress on the fault, (3) rupture transition from crack-like to a detached pulse, (4) emergence of a rupture mode consisting of a train of pulses, (5) quasi-periodic modulation of slip rate on the fault, and (6) asymmetric near-fault ground motion with higher amplitude and longer duration on the side with reduced elastic moduli. The results can have significant implications to multiple topics ranging from rupture directivity and local amplification of seismic motion to near-fault tremor-like signals.

Additional Information

© 2014 Springer Basel. Received April 28, 2014, revised August 10, 2014, accepted August 12, 2014, onlinedate September 10, 2014. We thank two anonymous referees and Editor Antonio Rovelli for useful comments. The study was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grants EAR-0944066, EAR-0944288 and EAR-0908903), the US–Israel Binational Science Foundation (Grant 2008248), and the Southern California Earthquake Center (based on NSF Cooperative Agreement EAR-0529922 and USGS Cooperative Agreement 07HQAC0026).

Additional details

Created:
August 20, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023