Three-dimensional surface geometry of rock discontinuities and its evolution with shearing are of great importance in understanding the deformability and hydro-mechanical behavior of rock masses. In the present research, surfaces of three natural rock fractures were digitized and studied before and after the direct shear test. The variography analysis of the surfaces indicated a strong non-line...

[1] We model ruptures on faults that weaken in response to flash heating of microscopic asperity contacts (within a rate-and-state framework) and thermal pressurization of pore fluid. These are arguably the primary weakening mechanisms on mature faults at coseismic slip rates, at least prior to large slip accumulation. Ruptures on strongly rate-weakening faults take the form of slip pulses or c...

Determination of co-seismic slip resistance in earth faults is critical for understanding the magnitude of shear-stress reduction and hence the near-fault acceleration that can occur during earthquakes. Also, knowledge of shear resistance dependency on slip velocity, slip distance, normal stress, and surface roughness is fundamental information for understanding earthquake physics and the energ...

Characterizing the time evolution of slip over different phases of the seismic cycle is crucial to a better understanding of the factors controlling the occurrence of large earthquakes. In this study, we take advantage of interferometric synthetic aperture radar data and 3.5 years of continuous Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements to determine interseismic, coseismic, and postseismic sl...

The effect of a height-dependent asperity radius of curvature is accounted for in a recently developed scaledependent model of contact and friction. The contact and friction model includes the effects of adhesion, using the Maugis model, and of scale-dependent friction, using the Hurtado and Kim single asperity friction model. This multiasperity model has been modified to include the effect of ...

Seismic sequences are a powerful tool to locally infer geometrical and mechanical properties of faults fault systems. In this study, we provided detailed location characterization events the 3–7 July 2020 Irpinia sequence (southern Italy) that occurred at northern tip main segment ruptured during 1980 earthquake. Using an autocorrelation technique, detected more than 340 within sequence, with l...