Decreasing aftershocks : time was not the good metronome !

By studying laboratory microearthquakes generated in sheared granular stacks, researchers have shown that earthquake physics is universally described if total fault deformation replaces time as the system’s evolution parameter.

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Researchers have studied micro-earthquakes in laboratory settings using sheared granular materials, simulating small-scale seismic faults. They demonstrated that the statistical properties of these events closely mirror those of natural earthquakes. The study reveals that the key variable for understanding the evolution of aftershocks is not time, as traditionally believed, but the cumulative deformation of the fault.
This approach, developed by CNRS laboratories (IPR and ISTERRE), enables a unified understanding of earthquakes across different scales and offers a simpler framework for modeling aftershocks by explaining their universal behavior through the dynamics of deformation. These results were published in Geophysical Research Letters.