Fault mechanics

 
Our goal is to understand the dynamics of faults and fractures in various geological environments: earthquakes, foreshocks and aftershocks, earthquake swarms, tremors and slow earthquakes, landslides, and deformation of ice or geological reservoirs.

The team is driven by an interdisciplinary approach, combining seismology, rock physics, structural geology and tectonophysics, to better understand the numerous couplings present in faults and for which we must consider:

– The need to integrate various spatial scales: the gouge, the damaged zone, the fault segments, up to plate tectonics.

– The need to integrate multiple time scales, from earthquake rupture to slow aseismic slip, viscous dissipation and sealing processes during interseismic phase.

– The need to integrate global surveys (seismic, geodetic), local observations of fault outcrops, whether excavated or sampled through deep drilling projects that provide, currently, the only observations directly in the core of active faults.