IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v11y2020i1d10.1038_s41467-020-16811-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The influence of the brittle-ductile transition zone on aftershock and foreshock occurrence

Author

Listed:
  • Giuseppe Petrillo

    (University of Campania “L. Vanvitelli”)

  • Eugenio Lippiello

    (University of Campania “L. Vanvitelli”)

  • François P. Landes

    (Univ. Paris-Sud, CNRS, INRIA, Université Paris-Saclay)

  • Alberto Rosso

    (CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay)

Abstract

Aftershock occurrence is characterized by scaling behaviors with quite universal exponents. At the same time, deviations from universality have been proposed as a tool to discriminate aftershocks from foreshocks. Here we show that the change in rheological behavior of the crust, from velocity weakening to velocity strengthening, represents a viable mechanism to explain statistical features of both aftershocks and foreshocks. More precisely, we present a model of the seismic fault described as a velocity weakening elastic layer coupled to a velocity strengthening visco-elastic layer. We show that the statistical properties of aftershocks in instrumental catalogs are recovered at a quantitative level, quite independently of the value of model parameters. We also find that large earthquakes are often anticipated by a preparatory phase characterized by the occurrence of foreshocks. Their magnitude distribution is significantly flatter than the aftershock one, in agreement with recent results for forecasting tools based on foreshocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Giuseppe Petrillo & Eugenio Lippiello & François P. Landes & Alberto Rosso, 2020. "The influence of the brittle-ductile transition zone on aftershock and foreshock occurrence," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-16811-7
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16811-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16811-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-020-16811-7?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
    ---><---

    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:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-16811-7. 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.