Physics
Scientific paper
Feb 1985
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1985pepi...37..149f&link_type=abstract
Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, Volume 37, Issue 2-3, p. 149-168.
Physics
18
Scientific paper
We propose a fault model in which there are a finite number of characteristic lengths between the smallest and the largest scales, e.g., between a grain size and a size of great earthquakes. A fault plane in one scale is segmented into blocks of statistically similar sizes by the barriers of statistically similar heights. Rupture expands by successively ``climbing'' the barriers. The average barrier height is proportional to the average block size which defines the characteristic length of the relevant scale. Stresses before and after rupturing are assumed to be independent of earthquake size. With these assumptions the probability for rupture to grow further is shown to be independent of the scale of barrier structure. The rupture in one scale, however, tends to grow more easily as it grows so that once the rupture exceeds some critical size, it no longer stops until it encounters the barriers in the next larger scale. Rupture grows by repeating this cycle, which starts with rupturing of a unit block in one scale and ends with one in the next larger scale. Our model involves two parameters which must be determined empirically. One is the length ratio r between two successive scales. The other is the critical number of blocks, nc, which defines the critical size for unstable rupture growth in one scale. We suggest values of ~ 5 for both r and nc. With these values our model explains a diversity of earthquake phenomena such as the magnitude-frequency relation, the seismic gap and the magnitude gap, the magnitude difference between a main shock and its largest aftershock, the occurrence of multiplet earthquakes, the generation of high frequency seismic waves, the incoherency of the near field acceleration and the recent observation by Furumoto and Nakanishi that the main rupture is often preceded by a precursory rupture whose time duration, in general, scales with seismic moment.
Fukao Yoshio
Furumoto Muneyoshi
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