Effects of acoustic waves on stick-slip in granular media and implications for earthquakes.

It remains unknown how the small strains induced by seismic waves can trigger earthquakes at large distances, in some cases thousands of kilometres from the triggering earthquake, with failure often occurring long after the waves have passed. Earthquake nucleation is usually observed to take place at depths of 10-20 km, and so static overburden should be large enough to inhibit triggering by seismic-wave stress perturbations. To understand the physics of dynamic triggering better, as well as the influence of dynamic stressing on earthquake recurrence, we have conducted laboratory studies of stick-slip in granular media with and without applied acoustic vibration.

Widespread triggering of nonvolcanic tremor in California.

We identified seven locations on or near the transform plate boundary in California where nonvolcanic tremor was triggered by the 2002 Denali earthquake. This result implies that the conditions essential for nonvolcanic tremor exist in a range of tectonic environments. Models explaining tremor typically require conditions endemic to subduction zones, that is, high temperatures and fluid pressures, because previously tremor was nearly exclusively documented in subduction zones.

Non-volcanic tremor driven by large transient shear stresses.

Non-impulsive seismic radiation or 'tremor' has long been observed at volcanoes and more recently around subduction zones. Although the number of observations of non-volcanic tremor is steadily increasing, the causative mechanism remains unclear. Some have attributed non-volcanic tremor to the movement of fluids, while its coincidence with geodetically observed slow-slip events at regular intervals has led others to consider slip on the plate interface as its cause.

Seismology: dynamic triggering of earthquakes.

After an earthquake, numerous smaller shocks are triggered over distances comparable to the dimensions of the mainshock fault rupture, although they are rare at larger distances. Here we analyse the scaling of dynamic deformations (the stresses and strains associated with seismic waves) with distance from, and magnitude of, their triggering earthquake, and show that they can cause further earthquakes at any distance if their amplitude exceeds several microstrain, regardless of their frequency content. These triggering requirements are remarkably similar to those measured in the laboratory for inducing dynamic elastic nonlinear behaviour, which suggests that the underlying physics is similar.

Using 1-Hz GPS data to measure deformations caused by the Denali fault earthquake.

The 3 November 2002 moment magnitude 7.9 Denali fault earthquake generated large, permanent surface displacements in Alaska and large-amplitude surface waves throughout western North America. We find good agreement between strong ground-motion records integrated to displacement and 1-hertz Global Positioning System (GPS) position estimates collected approximately 140 kilometers from the earthquake epicenter.