LEC 377 REVISION
Lecture 1: Fault ruptures and why earthquakes cannot be predicted
Why are fault rupture mechanics so poorly understood?
•Ruptures cannot be observed at the source
•Intensive monitoring of faults is costly
•Recurrence intervals are long so difficult to measure repeat events on
same fault
•Lithosphere very heterogenous
•Fault systems are segmented, so some faults are blind and some slip
aseismic
•Complexity difficult to simulate in lab or models.
Elastic Rebound Theory (Reid, 1911)
NOTE: Applies to only shallow earthquakes.
