IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v574y2019i7779d10.1038_s41586-019-1673-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Similar scaling laws for earthquakes and Cascadia slow-slip events

Author

Listed:
  • Sylvain Michel

    (California Institute of Technology, Department of Geology and Planetary Sciences
    University of Cambridge, Department of Earth Sciences, Bullard Laboratories
    Laboratoire de Géologie, Ecole Normale Supérieure)

  • Adriano Gualandi

    (California Institute of Technology, Department of Geology and Planetary Sciences
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology)

  • Jean-Philippe Avouac

    (California Institute of Technology, Department of Geology and Planetary Sciences
    Ecole Polytechnique)

Abstract

Faults can slip not only episodically during earthquakes but also during transient aseismic slip events1–5, often called slow-slip events. Previous studies based on observations compiled from various tectonic settings6–8 have suggested that the moment of slow-slip events is proportional to their duration, instead of following the duration-cubed scaling found for earthquakes9. This finding has spurred efforts to unravel the cause of the difference in scaling6,10–14. Thanks to a new catalogue of slow-slip events on the Cascadia megathrust based on the inversion of surface deformation measurements between 2007 and 201715, we find that a cubic moment–duration scaling law is more likely. Like regular earthquakes, slow-slip events also have a moment that is proportional to A3/2, where A is the rupture area, and obey the Gutenberg–Richter relationship between frequency and magnitude. Finally, these slow-slip events show pulse-like ruptures similar to seismic ruptures. The scaling properties of slow-slip events are thus strikingly similar to those of regular earthquakes, suggesting that they are governed by similar dynamic properties.

Suggested Citation

  • Sylvain Michel & Adriano Gualandi & Jean-Philippe Avouac, 2019. "Similar scaling laws for earthquakes and Cascadia slow-slip events," Nature, Nature, vol. 574(7779), pages 522-526, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:574:y:2019:i:7779:d:10.1038_s41586-019-1673-6
    DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1673-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1673-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41586-019-1673-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Muir, Callum & Cortez, Jordan & Grigolini, Paolo, 2020. "Interacting faults in california and hindu kush," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    2. Prabhav Borate & Jacques Rivière & Chris Marone & Ankur Mali & Daniel Kifer & Parisa Shokouhi, 2023. "Using a physics-informed neural network and fault zone acoustic monitoring to predict lab earthquakes," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    3. F. Corbi & J. Bedford & P. Poli & F. Funiciello & Z. Deng, 2022. "Probing the seismic cycle timing with coseismic twisting of subduction margins," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.
    4. Huihui Weng & Jean-Paul Ampuero, 2022. "Integrated rupture mechanics for slow slip events and earthquakes," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, December.
    5. Hui Huang & Jessica C. Hawthorne, 2022. "Linking the scaling of tremor and slow slip near Parkfield, CA," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    6. Hongyu Yu & Rebecca M. Harrington & Honn Kao & Yajing Liu & Bei Wang, 2021. "Fluid-injection-induced earthquakes characterized by hybrid-frequency waveforms manifest the transition from aseismic to seismic slip," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:574:y:2019:i:7779:d:10.1038_s41586-019-1673-6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.