INVESTIGADORES
JAGLA Eduardo Alberto
artículos
Título:
A mechanism for spatial and temporal earthquake clustering
Autor/es:
E. A. JAGLA; A. B. KOLTON
Revista:
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH
Editorial:
AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
Referencias:
Año: 2010 vol. 115 p. 1 - 13
ISSN:
0148-0227
Resumen:
The Gutenberg-Richter law states that the size-frequency distribution of
earthquakes follows a power law. This trend is usually justified using
spring-block models, where slips with the appropriate statistics of
sizes have been numerically observed. However, prominent spatial and
temporal clustering features of earthquakes, as those implied by the
Omori law of aftershocks, are not accounted for by this kind of model
unless they are complemented with ad hoc assumptions, such as stress
recovery laws after slip events, or the phenomenological rate-and-state
equations to describe friction. We show that when a mechanism of
structural relaxation is incorporated into a spring-block model,
realistic earthquake patterns following the Gutenberg-Richter and Omori
laws are obtained. Moreover, features well known from laboratory
friction experiments, such as velocity weakening and increase of static
friction with contact time, appear as a consequence of therelaxational
mechanism as well, without making any a priori assumptions on the
velocity dependence of the friction force in the model. In this way, our
model shows that a single physical mechanism may be a unifying concept
behind the Gutenberg-Richter andOmori laws and the rate-and-state
equations of rock friction. Copyright © 2010 by the American Geophysical
Union.