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In geology, the elastic-rebound theory is an explanation for how energy is released during an earthquake. As the Earth's crust deforms, the rocks which span the opposing sides of a fault are subjected to shear stress. Slowly they deform, until their internal rigidity is exceeded.
Earthquake-cycle theory combines the stress-accumulation hypothesis and elastic-rebound theory. [1] A complete earthquake cycle can be divided into interseismic, preseismic, coseismic and postseismic periods. [1] During the interseismic period, stress accumulates on a locked fault due to plate motion. [2] In the preseismic period, this stress ...
In 1949, Hugo Benioff introduced a method for determining elastic-rebound strain increments of earthquakes on a particular fault. [5] He determined that the square root of an earthquake's energy is proportional to both the elastic rebound strain increment and the rebound displacement, and developed a way to determine whether a series of earthquakes was generated along a single fault structure.
Tectonic earthquakes occur anywhere on the earth where there is sufficient stored elastic strain energy to drive fracture propagation along a fault plane. The sides of a fault move past each other smoothly and aseismically only if there are no irregularities or asperities along the fault surface that increases the frictional resistance.
A tectonic earthquake begins by an initial rupture at a point on the fault surface, a process known as nucleation. The scale of the nucleation zone is uncertain, with some evidence, such as the rupture dimensions of the smallest earthquakes, suggesting that it is smaller than 100 m while other evidence, such as a slow component revealed by low-frequency spectra of some earthquakes, suggest ...
Seismology (/ s aɪ z ˈ m ɒ l ə dʒ i, s aɪ s-/; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (seismós) meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (-logía) meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes (or generally, quakes) and the generation and propagation of elastic waves through planetary bodies.
Unlike a normal earthquake, where it is believed the earthquake releases enough of the tectonic stress driving it that it will take decades to centuries to accumulate enough stress to drive the next earthquake (per the elastic rebound theory), the initial multiplet quake only releases part of the pent-up stress when the rupture hits the asperity.
Fig.2 : Site effects in Mexico city: recordings from the 1985 earthquake. Seismic site effects have been first evidenced during the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. [4] The earthquake epicenter was located along the Pacific Coast (several hundreds kilometers from Mexico-City), the seismic shaking was however extremely strong leading to very large damages.