The Atlantic segment of the Africa-Europe plate boundary has usually been interpreted as a transform boundary on the basis of the bathymetric expression of the Gloria fault and dextral strike-slip first-motion mechanisms aligned along the Azores-Gibraltar line of seismicity. The 1975 May 26 earthquake (Ms=7.9) was assumed to fit into this framework because it occurred in the general area of thi...

It is now a well known phenomenon that thin films are susceptible to size effects, which can be captured adequately by gradient plasticity theories. Besides the scale dependency, metal thin films also exhibit time dependent behavior: anelasticity (deformation recovery over time following elastic spring back upon load removal) and creep (permanent deformation developed over time at constant load...

We study a mathematical model describing dislocation dynamics in crystals. We consider a single dislocation line moving in its slip plane. The normal velocity is given by the Peach-Koehler force created by the dislocation line itself. The mathematical model is an eikonal equation whose velocity is a non-local quantity depending on the whole shape of the dislocation line. We study the special ca...

The microstructures and dislocation configurations in nanostructured Cu processed by a new technique, repetitive corrugation and straightening (RCS), were studied using transmission electron microcopy (TEM) and high resolution TEM. Most dislocations belong to 60° type and tend to pile up along the {111} slip planes. Microstructural features including low-angle grain boundaries (GBs), high-angle...

A major objective of the theory of defects is to relate the mechanical behaviour of macroscopic materials to the spatio-temporal evolution of the microstructure. The present paper deals with the dislocation-dynamical foundations of plastic instabilities and the propagation of slip in coherent plastic deformation modes (solitary plastic waves). Solitary waves arise from a proper balance between ...

We study how the fault dip and slip rake angles affect near-source ground velocities and displacements as faulting transitions from strike-slip motion on a vertical fault to thrust motion on a shallow-dipping fault. Ground motions are computed for five fault geometries with different combinations of fault dip and rake angles and common values for the fault area and the average slip. The nature ...

We examine rockfall susceptibility of folded strata in the Sevier fold-thrust belt exposed in American Fork Canyon in north-central Utah. Large-scale geologic mapping, talus production data, rock-mass-quality measurements, and historical rockfall data indicate that rockfall susceptibility is correlated with limb dip and curvature of the folded, cliff-forming Mississippian limestones. On fold li...

We used scaled experimental (analog) models with wet clay to investigate how conjugate sets of steeply dipping strike-slip faults affect deformation patterns during a subsequent phase of extension. In all twophase experiments, an initial phase of strike-slip deformation produces a long, wide deformation zone consisting of subvertical Riedel shears; synthetic R-shears and antithetic R'-shears tr...