HR: 16:00h
AN: T14B-01    [Abstracts]
TI: Rate-and-state friction and linear fault displacement profiles
AU: * Schultz, R A
EM: schultz@mines.unr.edu
AF: University of Nevada, Geomechanics-Rock Fracture Group, Department of Geological Sciences and Engineering, Reno, NV 89557 United States
AU: Soliva, R
EM: solivaroger@yahoo.fr
AF: Université Montpellier II, Département des Sciences de la Terre et de l'Environnement, place Eugene Bataillon, Bât. 22, Montpellier, 34000 France
AB: Faults accommodate larger displacement magnitudes near their midpoints than at their tips, resulting in nonuniform, and often nearly linear, displacement distributions. Recent work demonstrates that slip rates must also vary along a fault, paralleling the displacement distribution. Slip rates that increase along segmented faults imply systematic reductions in the time-dependent frictional strength of segments from fault tip to midpoint. We show that rate-and-state friction laws lead naturally to nonuniform values of driving stress along a fault. Faster slip rates near fault midpoints produce a larger difference between static and dynamic friction coefficients (driving stress) there than near the tips, as calculated from velocity weakening and interseismic healing of the respective segments. For a sufficient number of segments each having constant values of frictional strength for its particular slip rate, a linear displacement distribution is produced along the fault. As a result, fault segmentation, interaction, and linkage are closely related through the slip rate variations to the evolving displacement distribution along a fault.
UR: http://mines.unr.edu/geo-eng/geomech
DE: 8004 Dynamics and mechanics of faulting (8118)
DE: 8020 Mechanics, theory, and modeling
DE: 8034 Rheology and friction of fault zones (8163)
DE: 8118 Dynamics and mechanics of faulting (8004)
DE: 8486 Field relationships (1090, 3690)
SC: Tectonophysics [T]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005