Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Slip complexity in earthquake fault models.

J R Rice1, Y Ben-Zion

  • 1Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|April 30, 1996
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Demonstrating the reliability of in vivo metabolomics based chemical grouping: towards best practice.

Archives of toxicology·2024
Same author

Seeking Repeating Anthropogenic Seismic Sources: Implications for Seismic Velocity Monitoring at Fault Zones.

Journal of geophysical research. Solid earth·2023
Same author

Monitoring Seismic Velocity Changes Across the San Jacinto Fault Using Train-Generated Seismic Tremors.

Geophysical research letters·2022
Same author

Train Traffic as a Powerful Noise Source for Monitoring Active Faults With Seismic Interferometry.

Geophysical research letters·2019
Same author

Liquid chromatography with precolumn sample preconcentration and electrochemical detection: determination of aromatic amines in environmental samples.

Environmental science & technology·2012
Same author

Pressure sensitivity of a clad optical fiber.

Applied optics·2010
Same journal

Chemotactic self-organization captures the dynamics of mammalian hair follicle patterning.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same journal

Tomographic imaging of superconducting order using particle-hole interference.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same journal

Inhibitory potential of autologous neutralizing antibodies sets quantitative limits on the rebound-competent HIV-1 reservoir.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same journal

Inferring epidemiological parameters under an infectious phylogeography model with visitor dynamics.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same journal

Analytical modeling for suction cup designs for skin-interfaced wearable devices.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same journal

Improving cell-free metabolism through direct integration of artificial respiratory chains.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
See all related articles

Earthquake fault models with a characteristic slip weakening distance (h*) do not exhibit small earthquake complexity. Models lacking this scale, or using large numerical cells, can show Gutenberg-Richter statistics, but this may be an artifact.

Area of Science:

  • Seismology
  • Geophysics
  • Computational Physics

Background:

  • Earthquake fault models aim to replicate slip complexities observed in natural earthquakes.
  • Friction laws in smooth fault models require a characteristic distance for slip weakening (h*) to produce a finite nucleation size.
  • Previous models of smooth faults, with numerical cell sizes smaller than h*, have failed to reproduce the Gutenberg-Richter frequency-size statistics of small earthquakes.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate earthquake fault models and their ability to generate slip complexities, particularly the Gutenberg-Richter frequency-size statistics.
  • To determine if numerical artifacts in discrete fault models contribute to observed small earthquake complexity.
  • To assess the impact of including a characteristic length scale (h*) on earthquake model behavior.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Methods:

  • Summarizing existing studies on earthquake fault models.
  • Conducting fully inertial elastodynamic modeling of earthquake sequences.
  • Comparing simulations of smooth faults with varying numerical cell sizes relative to h*.
  • Analyzing models with locally heterogeneous faults and discrete fault segments.

Main Results:

  • Models of smooth faults with numerical cell sizes smaller than h* do not show small earthquake complexity (Gutenberg-Richter statistics).
  • Fully inertial elastodynamic modeling supports the conclusion that smooth fault models with finite h* lack small event complexity.
  • Models of locally heterogeneous faults, or those with large numerical cell sizes (inherently discrete), can exhibit Gutenberg-Richter type complexity.
  • Classical friction models without a weakening length scale (h*=0) fall into the inherently discrete class and may show spurious complexity.

Conclusions:

  • The observed small earthquake complexity in some discrete fault models may be an artifact of the numerical discretization or simplified friction laws.
  • Regularizing constitutive descriptions by including an appropriate length scale (finite h*) is crucial for realistic earthquake modeling.
  • Future research should focus on incorporating characteristic length scales into fault models to avoid artificial complexity and better represent natural earthquake behavior.