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GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L04302, doi:10.1029/2004GL021811, 2005

A hypothesis for delayed dynamic earthquake triggering

Tom Parsons

U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, California, USA

Abstract

It's uncertain whether more near-field earthquakes are triggered by static or dynamic stress changes. This ratio matters because static earthquake interactions are increasingly incorporated into probabilistic forecasts. Recent studies were unable to demonstrate all predictions from the static-stress-change hypothesis, particularly seismicity rate reductions. However, current dynamic stress change hypotheses do not explain delayed earthquake triggering and Omori's law. Here I show numerically that if seismic waves can alter some frictional contacts in neighboring fault zones, then dynamic triggering might cause delayed triggering and an Omori-law response. The hypothesis depends on faults following a rate/state friction law, and on seismic waves changing the mean critical slip distance (D _c ) at nucleation zones.

Received 21 October 2004; accepted 21 January 2005; published 16 February 2005.

Index Terms: 7209 Seismology: Earthquake dynamics (1242); 7223 Seismology: Earthquake interaction, forecasting, and prediction (1217, 1242); 7230 Seismology: Seismicity and tectonics (1207, 1217, 1240, 1242); 7260 Seismology: Theory.

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Citation: Parsons, T. (2005), A hypothesis for delayed dynamic earthquake triggering, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L04302, doi:10.1029/2004GL021811.

This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. Published in 2005 by the American Geophysical Union.