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Dependence of surface fracture energy on earthquake size: A derivation from hierarchical self‐similar fault zone geometry
Author(s) -
Otsuki Kenshiro
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2007gl031419
Subject(s) - geometry , fractal , fracture (geology) , fractal dimension , surface (topology) , geology , fault (geology) , surface energy , energy (signal processing) , seismology , materials science , mathematics , composite material , geotechnical engineering , mathematical analysis , statistics
Based on the hierarchical self‐similar geometry of fault zones in which fault segments and jogs of different hierarchical ranks are nested, I formulated surface fracture energy of jogs and the mean surface fracture energy averaged over the rupture surface. I incorporated this theory with a new finding that the distribution of microfractures in fault jogs is fractal with a universal fractal dimension of 1.56 (2‐D measurements), and derived the result that both fracture energy of jogs and the mean fracture energy are proportional to the rupture length to the power of 0.56.