The Physics of Rock Failure and Earthquakes

Despite significant advances in the understanding of earthquake generation processes and derivation of underlying physical laws, controversy remains regarding the constitutive law for earthquake ruptures and how it should be formulated. Laboratory experiments are necessary to obtain high-resolution measurements that allow the physical nature of shear rupture processes to be deduced, and to resolve the controversy. This important book provides a deeper understanding of earthquake processes from nucleation to their dynamic propagation. Its key focus is a deductive approach based on laboratory-derived physical laws and formulae, such as a unifying constitutive law, a constitutive scaling law, and a physical model of shear rupture nucleation. Topics covered include: the fundamentals of rock failure physics, earthquake generation processes, physical scale dependence, and large-earthquake generation cycles. Designed for researchers and professionals in earthquake seismology, rock failure physics, geology and earthquake engineering, it is also a valuable reference for graduate students.

• The unique deductive approach enables readers to engage with the physics of earthquakes as a truly quantitative science
• Demonstrates the heterogeneity of real faults in the Earth's crust, making readers aware of the reality of seismogenic zone properties, leading in turn to rational formulation of the law governing earthquake ruptures
• The first book to show the constitutive law formulated as a unifying law governing both frictional slip failure and shear fracture, providing a new perspective on the significance of a unifying constitutive law