How fault surface features can tell us about future earthquakes

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Source: Geophysical Research Letters

Earthquakes are not as predictable as weather, but fault line characteristics, such as structural maturity, can give hints about how an earthquake might occur in the future. Structural maturity is related to the age of the fault, but it is especially important to “experience” it, how much the fault has evolved and changed over time and activity.

Mature and immature faults cause very different earthquakes. Mature faults release less pressure, but their rupture rapidly spreads along them, while immature faults create higher energy and slower earthquakes. A quick assessment of the maturity of the fault will help scientists better understand the risks they pose to neighboring communities.

A new study seeks to quantify fault maturity in a measure useful to help assess earthquake risk. Maneghetti et al. The surface features of fault lines evaluated by previous studies were measured at multiple maturity levels. Then they analyzed their measurements to see how they correlated with the maturity judgment.

The researchers found that corrugations (i.e. ripples) and steps were good indicators of maturity. Immature faults were reliably shorter, with high corrugation and high skipping intensity. As blemishes mature, they are lengthened and smoothed, reducing the intensity of ripples and steps.

These traits are not only reliable via flaws; It can also be detected with low accuracy. Scientists can plot at least a third of the length of the error at a relatively low resolution and still generate an accurate assessment of error maturity. This means that these metrics are practical for models and risk assessments. According to the authors, applying neural networks to the mapping process will make this method easier. (Geophysical Research Letters, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL095372, 2021)

—Elizabeth Thompson, science writer

Citation: Thompson, E. (2021), How fault surface features can tell us about future earthquakes, Eos, 102, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EO210677. Published December 21, 2021. Text © 2021. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 Unless otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without the express permission of the copyright owner is prohibited. Related

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