No abstract

Fault-zone fluids control effective normal stress and fault strength. While most earthquake models assume a fixed pore fluid pressure distribution, geologists have documented fault valving behavior, that is, cyclic changes in pressure and unsteady fluid migration along faults. Here we quantify fault valving through 2-D antiplane shear simulations of earthquake sequences on a strike-slip fault with rate-and-state friction, upward Darcy flow along a permeable fault zone, and permeability evolution. Fluid overpressure develops during the interseismic period, when healing/sealing reduces fault permeability, and is released after earthquakes enhance permeability. Coupling between fluid flow, permeability and pressure evolution, and slip produces fluid-driven aseismic slip near the base of the seismogenic zone and earthquake swarms within the seismogenic zone, as ascending fluids pressurize and weaken the fault. This model might explain observations of late interseismic fault unlocking, slow slip and creep transients, swarm seismicity, and rapid pressure/stress transmission in induced seismicity sequences.

Numerical simulations of Sequences of Earthquakes and Aseismic Slip (SEAS) have made great progress over the past decades to address important questions in earthquake physics and fault mechanics. However, significant challenges in SEAS modeling remain in resolving multiscale interactions between aseismic fault slip, earthquake nucleation, and dynamic rupture; and understanding physical factors controlling observables such as seismicity and ground deformation. The increasing capability and complexity of SEAS modeling calls for extensive efforts to verify codes and advance these simulations with rigor, reproducibility, and broadened impact. In 2018, we initiated a community code-verification exercise for SEAS simulations, supported by the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC). Here we report the findings from our first two benchmark problems (BP1 and BP2), designed to test the capabilities of different computational methods in correctly solving a mathematically well-defined, basic problem in crustal faulting. These benchmarks are for a 2D antiplane problem, with a 1D planar vertical strike-slip fault obeying rate-and-state friction, embedded in a 2D homogeneous, linear elastic half-space. Sequences of quasi-dynamic earthquakes with periodic occurrences (BP1) or bimodal sizes (BP2) and their interactions with aseismic slip are simulated. The comparison of >70 simulation results from 11 groups using different numerical methods, uploaded to our online platform, show excellent agreements in long-term and coseismic evolution of fault properties. In BP1, we found that the truncated domain boundaries influence interseismic fault stressing, earthquake recurrence, and coseismic rupture process, and that agreement between models is only achieved with sufficiently large domain sizes. In BP2, we found that complexity of long-term fault behavior depends on how well important physical length scales related to spontaneous nucleation and rupture propagation are resolved. Poor numerical resolution can result in the generation of artificial complexity, impacting simulation results that are of potential interest for characterizing seismic hazard, such as earthquake size distributions, moment release, and earthquake recurrence times. These results inform the development of more advanced SEAS models, contributing to our further understanding of earthquake system dynamics.

Numerical simulations of sequences of earthquakes and aseismic slip (SEAS) have made great progress over past decades to address important questions in earthquake physics. However, significant challenges in SEAS modeling remain in resolving multiscale interactions between earthquake nucleation, dynamic rupture, and aseismic slip, and understanding physical factors controlling observables such as seismicity and ground deformation. The increasing complexity of SEAS modeling calls for extensive efforts to verify codes and advance these simulations with rigor, reproducibility, and broadened impact. In 2018, we initiated a community code-verification exercise for SEAS simulations, supported by the Southern California Earthquake Center. Here, we report the findings from our first two benchmark problems (BP1 and BP2), designed to verify different computational methods in solving a mathematically well-defined, basic faulting problem. We consider a 2D antiplane problem, with a 1D planar vertical strike-slip fault obeying rate-and-state friction, embedded in a 2D homogeneous, linear elastic half-space. Sequences of quasi-dynamic earthquakes with periodic occurrences (BP1) or bimodal sizes (BP2) and their interactions with aseismic slip are simulated. The comparison of results from 11 groups using different numerical methods show excellent agreements in long-term and coseismic fault behavior. In BP1, we found that truncated domain boundaries influence interseismic stressing, earthquake recurrence, and coseismic rupture, and that model agreement is only achieved with sufficiently large domain sizes. In BP2, we found that complexity of fault behavior depends on how well physical length scales related to spontaneous nucleation and rupture propagation are resolved. Poor numerical resolution can result in artificial complexity, impacting simulation results that are of potential interest for characterizing seismic hazard such as earthquake size distributions, moment release, and recurrence times. These results inform the development of more advanced SEAS models, contributing to our further understanding of earthquake system dynamics.