Properties of dynamic earthquake ruptures with heterogeneous stress drop

Abstract

Earthquake rupture is a notoriously complex process, at all observable scales. We introduce a simplified semi-dynamic crack model to investigate the connection between the statistical properties of stress and those of macroscopic source parameters such as rupture size, seismic moment, apparent stress drop and radiated energy. Rupture initiation is treated consistently with nucleation on a linear slipweakening fault, whereas rupture propagation and arrest are treated according to the Griffith criterion. The available stress drop is prescribed as a spatially correlated random field and is shown to potentially sustain a broad range of magnitudes. By decreasing the amplitude of the stress heterogeneities or increasing their correlation length the distribution of earthquake sizes presents a transition from Gutenberg- Richter to characteristic earthquake behavior. This transition is studied through a mean-field analysis. The bifurcation to characteristic earthquake behavior is sharp, reminiscent of a first-order phase transition. A lower roll-off magnitude observed in the Gutenberg-Richter regime is shown to depend on the correlation length of the available stress drop, rather than being a direct signature of the nucleation process. More generally, we highlight the possible role of the stress correlation length scale on deviations from earthquake source self-similarity. The present reduced model is a building block towards understanding the effect of structural and dynamic fault heterogeneities on the scaling of source parameters and on basic properties of seismicity.