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Power-law rheology controls aftershock triggering and decay

The occurrence of aftershocks is a signature of physical systems exhibiting relaxation phenomena. They are observed in various natural or experimental systems and usually obey several non-trivial empirical laws. Here we consider a cellular automaton realization of a nonlinear viscoelastic slider-blo...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Zhang, Xiaoming, Shcherbakov, Robert
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5098201/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27819355
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep36668
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author Zhang, Xiaoming
Shcherbakov, Robert
author_facet Zhang, Xiaoming
Shcherbakov, Robert
author_sort Zhang, Xiaoming
collection PubMed
description The occurrence of aftershocks is a signature of physical systems exhibiting relaxation phenomena. They are observed in various natural or experimental systems and usually obey several non-trivial empirical laws. Here we consider a cellular automaton realization of a nonlinear viscoelastic slider-block model in order to infer the physical mechanisms of triggering responsible for the occurrence of aftershocks. We show that nonlinear viscoelasticity plays a critical role in the occurrence of aftershocks. The model reproduces several empirical laws describing the statistics of aftershocks. In case of earthquakes, the proposed model suggests that the power-law rheology of the fault gauge, underlying lower crust, and upper mantle controls the decay rate of aftershocks. This is verified by analysing several prominent aftershock sequences for which the rheological properties of the underlying crust and upper mantle were established.
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spelling pubmed-50982012016-11-10 Power-law rheology controls aftershock triggering and decay Zhang, Xiaoming Shcherbakov, Robert Sci Rep Article The occurrence of aftershocks is a signature of physical systems exhibiting relaxation phenomena. They are observed in various natural or experimental systems and usually obey several non-trivial empirical laws. Here we consider a cellular automaton realization of a nonlinear viscoelastic slider-block model in order to infer the physical mechanisms of triggering responsible for the occurrence of aftershocks. We show that nonlinear viscoelasticity plays a critical role in the occurrence of aftershocks. The model reproduces several empirical laws describing the statistics of aftershocks. In case of earthquakes, the proposed model suggests that the power-law rheology of the fault gauge, underlying lower crust, and upper mantle controls the decay rate of aftershocks. This is verified by analysing several prominent aftershock sequences for which the rheological properties of the underlying crust and upper mantle were established. Nature Publishing Group 2016-11-07 /pmc/articles/PMC5098201/ /pubmed/27819355 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep36668 Text en Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Zhang, Xiaoming
Shcherbakov, Robert
Power-law rheology controls aftershock triggering and decay
title Power-law rheology controls aftershock triggering and decay
title_full Power-law rheology controls aftershock triggering and decay
title_fullStr Power-law rheology controls aftershock triggering and decay
title_full_unstemmed Power-law rheology controls aftershock triggering and decay
title_short Power-law rheology controls aftershock triggering and decay
title_sort power-law rheology controls aftershock triggering and decay
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5098201/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27819355
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep36668
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