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Date: 4/22/2021

Session Time: 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM Pacific

Crustal Stress and Strain and Implications for Fault Interaction and Slip

During earthquake cycles, crustal deformation includes multiple components such as inelastic strain increments associated with earthquakes, elastic strain accumulated in the interseismic period, aseismic slip on some fault sections and viscoelastic strain near and below the brittle-ductile transition depth. Resolving stress and strain distributions in the crust, specifically near fault zones, is essential for a better understanding of deformation processes, fault interactions and providing constraints on fault zone geometry and rheology.

This session focuses on (1) the estimation of the state of stress/strain in different phases of earthquake cycle and (2) the analysis of stress/strain distributions at different spatial and temporal scales by soliciting works based on theory, observations, modeling and laboratory experiments. Contributions are encouraged but not limited to address the following questions: 1) What can we extract from geodetic, geologic, borehole and seismic data regarding the state of stress and strain at regional and local scales?; 2) How are stress and strain distributed in laboratory experiments and nature and how can we bridge the two?; 3) What are the insights from numerical simulations on the state of stress and to what extent can models help in interpreting observations such as earthquakes or slow slip events?; 4) How will spatial stress/strain variations from long-term data compilations improve our knowledge of the motion partitioning across complex fault zone areas, aseismic slip, fault zone structure and earthquake cycles?; 5) How can information on the state of stress/strain be used to improve long-term earthquake forecasting and seismic hazard assessments?

Conveners

Niloufar Abolfathian, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech (niloufar.abolfathian@jpl.nasa.gov)
Thomas Goebel, University of Memphis (thgoebel@memphis.edu)
Mong-Han Huang, University of Maryland (mhhuang@umd.edu)

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