Earthquake scaling laws for creeping and non-creeping faults

Abstract

The dependence of the summed moment release on the fault dimension differs between non-creeping faults and creeping faults or volcanic regions. This can be attributed to different earthquake scaling laws. The number N of events with fault length L scales for non-creeping faults as N(L)~L-2 and for creeping faults as N(L)∼L-3 This difference offers a means for mapping the distribution of creep in the seismogenic crust.