Recent observations suggesting the influence of creep on earthquakes nucleation and arrest are strong incentives to investigate the physical mechanisms controlling how active faults slip. We focus here on deriving generic characteristics of shallow creep along the Haiyuan fault, a major strike-slip fault in China, by investigating the relationship between fault slip and geometry. We use optical...

This paper discusses the processes and mechanical factors that define the seismogenic zone and the updip transition from seismic to aseismic faulting. We review friction laws for granular and clay-rich fault zones and discuss them in the context of the mechanics of stick-slip and the requirements for instability. Seismogenic faulting is driven by the unstable release of stored elastic energy, a...

14C-dated Holocene coastal uplift, conventional and satellite geodetic measurements, and coseismic and aseismic fault slip reveal the pattern of distributed deformation at Taiwan resulting from convergence between the Philippine Sea plate and Eurasia; as in other subduction orogenic settings, the locus of strain release and accumulation is strongly influenced by changes in fault geometry across...

Successful scientific theories provide theoretical understanding for reliable deterministic or probabilistic forecasting of events. In the past decades the volume of data obtained within the fields of structural geology and tectonics has increased enormously, but the theoretical understanding of the processes that generate these data has not advanced at the same rate. For example, after decades...