TY - JOUR
T1 - Laboratory earthquakes decipher control and stability of rupture speeds
AU - Dong, Peng
AU - Xia, Kaiwen
AU - Xu, Ying
AU - Elsworth, Derek
AU - Ampuero, Jean Paul
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grants no. 42174061and 42141010 (K.X.), and Project funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation grant no. 2022TQ0319 (P.D.), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through the Discovery grant no. 72031326 (K.X.). We thank Prof. Hiroo Kanamori from Caltech, Prof. Shamita Das from Oxford University, Prof. Emily Brodsky from UC Santa Cruz, and Dr. Yingjun Deng from Tianjin University for discussions and comments. We thank Shiqing Xu, Allan Rubin, the other anonymous reviewer, and the Editor for their constructive comments.
Funding Information:
This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grants no. 42174061and 42141010 (K.X.), and Project funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation grant no. 2022TQ0319 (P.D.), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through the Discovery grant no. 72031326 (K.X.). We thank Prof. Hiroo Kanamori from Caltech, Prof. Shamita Das from Oxford University, Prof. Emily Brodsky from UC Santa Cruz, and Dr. Yingjun Deng from Tianjin University for discussions and comments. We thank Shiqing Xu, Allan Rubin, the other anonymous reviewer, and the Editor for their constructive comments.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).
PY - 2023/12
Y1 - 2023/12
N2 - Earthquakes are destructive natural hazards with damage capacity dictated by rupture speeds. Traditional dynamic rupture models predict that earthquake ruptures gradually accelerate to the Rayleigh wave speed with some of them further jumping to stable supershear speeds above the Eshelby speed (~ 2 times S wave speed). However, the 2018 M w 7.5 Palu earthquake, among several others, significantly challenges such a viewpoint. Here we generate spontaneous shear ruptures on laboratory faults to confirm that ruptures can indeed attain steady subRayleigh or supershear propagation speeds immediately following nucleation. A self-similar analysis of dynamic rupture confirms our observation, leading to a simple model where the rupture speed is uniquely dependent on a driving load. Our results reproduce and explain a number of enigmatic field observations on earthquake speeds, including the existence of stable subEshelby supershear ruptures, early onset of supershear ruptures, and the correlation between the rupture speed and the driving load.
AB - Earthquakes are destructive natural hazards with damage capacity dictated by rupture speeds. Traditional dynamic rupture models predict that earthquake ruptures gradually accelerate to the Rayleigh wave speed with some of them further jumping to stable supershear speeds above the Eshelby speed (~ 2 times S wave speed). However, the 2018 M w 7.5 Palu earthquake, among several others, significantly challenges such a viewpoint. Here we generate spontaneous shear ruptures on laboratory faults to confirm that ruptures can indeed attain steady subRayleigh or supershear propagation speeds immediately following nucleation. A self-similar analysis of dynamic rupture confirms our observation, leading to a simple model where the rupture speed is uniquely dependent on a driving load. Our results reproduce and explain a number of enigmatic field observations on earthquake speeds, including the existence of stable subEshelby supershear ruptures, early onset of supershear ruptures, and the correlation between the rupture speed and the driving load.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-023-38137-w
DO - 10.1038/s41467-023-38137-w
M3 - Article
C2 - 37105963
AN - SCOPUS:85156227522
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 14
JO - Nature communications
JF - Nature communications
IS - 1
M1 - 2427
ER -