Fault Sliding Modes—Governing, Evolution and Transformation

Abstract

AbstractA brief summary of fundamental results obtained in the IDG RAS on the mechanics of sliding along faults and fractures is presented. Conditions of emergence of different sliding regimes, and regularities of their evolution were investigated in the laboratory, as well as in numerical and field experiments. All possible sliding regimes were realized in the laboratory, from creep to dynamic failure. Experiments on triggering the contact zone have demonstrated that even a weak external disturbance can cause failure of a “prepared” contact. It was experimentally proven that even small variations of the percentage of materials exhibiting velocity strengthening and velocity weakening in the fault principal slip zone may result in a significant variation of the share of seismic energy radiated during a fault slip event. The obtained results lead to the conclusion that the radiation efficiency of an earthquake and the fault slip mode are governed by the ratio of two parameters—the rate of decrease of resistance to shear along the fault and the shear stiffness of the enclosing massif. The ideas developed were used to determine the principal possibility to artificially transform the slidding regime of a section of a fault into a slow deformation mode with a low share of seismic wave radiation.