Mechanics of Faults and Instabilities

In the Mechanics of Faults and Instabilities team, we seek to understand the dynamics of fracturing and deformation at different time and space scales. We study these dynamics in a variety of geophysical contexts: earthquakes, landslides, rockfalls, sea ice, permafrost, and geological reservoirs.

Our approach is interdisciplinary and combines knowledge in seismology, physics and mechanics of materials, structural geology and tectonophysics. We take advantage of this approach to study fracture-deformation dynamics in particular where numerous processes are coupled and where it is necessary to account for:

• a wide range of time scales, those of sudden seismic rupture, slow aseismic rupture, viscous dissipation, and healing processes.

• a wide range of spatial scales: from the gouge to the damaged zone, from fault segments to the entire geophysical object (tectonic plate, sea ice, cliff).

• different and evolving mechanical behaviors: between a more or less ductile or brittle solid, a fragmented (granular) material, and a medium in which fluids circulate.

• global observational surveys (seismic, geodetic) and in situ observations.