Seismo Lab Seminar

Much progress has recently been made in the development of stress-based models for forecasting earthquakes. However, forecasting magnitudes in complex fault geometry remains a challenge. Quake-DFN, an open-source earthquake simulator, was developed to address this challenge. It allows simulating sequences of earthquakes in a 3-D Discrete Fault Network governed by rate and state friction, a phenomenological law established based on laboratory observations. In this talk, we first show simulation results with a tectonically loaded complex fault system. In particular, we selected Ridgecrest earthquake fault geometry and showed how initial stress orientation alters rupture sequences. We then investigate the maximum magnitude of induced earthquakes using planar fault geometry using varied initial stress and injection rates. We define the radii of two different slip modes, aseismic (Ra) and seismic slip (Rs), and derive an expression for maximum magnitude evolution.