Publications related to Initial effective stress controls the nature of earthquakes

Frictional weakening leads to unconventional singularities during dynamic rupture propagation

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, Federica Paglialunga, Mathias Alexandre David Lebihain, François Xavier Thibault Passelègue

Earthquakes i.e. frictional ruptures, are commonly described by singular solutions of shear crack motions. These solutions assume a square root singularity order around the rupture tip and a constant shear stress value behind it, implying scale-independent ...

2024

Three-dimensional fluid-driven frictional ruptures: theory and applications

Alexis Alejandro Sáez Uribe

Fluid-driven frictional ruptures are important in a broad range of subsurface engineering technologies and natural earthquake-related phenomena. Some examples of subsurface operations where borehole fluid injections can induce frictional slip are deep geot ...

EPFL2023

Influence of Viscous Lubricant on Nucleation and Propagation of Frictional Ruptures

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, François Xavier Thibault Passelègue, Federica Paglialunga

Fluids are pervasive in the Earth's crust and saturate fractures and faults. The combination of fluids and gouge layers developing along faults can generate fluids of different viscosities. Such viscous fluids were found to influence the reactivation, fric ...

2023

Single-Well Pore Pressure Preconditioning for Enhanced Geothermal System Stimulation

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, Mathias Alexandre David Lebihain, Barnaby Padraig Fryer

The stress state is an important parameter in terms of both earthquake nucleation and rupture. Here, a new stimulation technique is proposed for Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGSs), which have previously been burdened with a number of high-profile incidence ...

2023

Determination of Parameters Characteristic of Dynamic Weakening Mechanisms During Seismic Faulting in Cohesive Rocks

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, François Xavier Thibault Passelègue, Chiara Cornelio

While sliding at seismic slip-rates of ∼1 m/s, natural faults undergo an abrupt decrease of shear stress called dynamic weakening. Asperity-scale processes related to flash heating and weakening and, meso-scale (mm-cm) processes involving shear across the ...

AGU2022

Long-term triggered seismicity on the Mosha fault by Damavand volcano, Iran: Implications on the seismic hazard of Tehran metropolis

Seyyedmaalek Momeni

The seismic history of the Mosha fault, the largest and most active fault of Eastern Tehran metropolis, and its relation to the Damavand active volcano, the highest mountain in the Middle East, is investigated. We deduce that the central Mosha, near the Da ...

2022

On the scale dependence in the dynamics of frictional rupture: Constant fracture energy versus size-dependent breakdown work

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, François Xavier Thibault Passelègue, Mathias Alexandre David Lebihain, Federica Paglialunga, Fabian Barras

Potential energy stored during the inter-seismic period by tectonic loading around faults is released during earthquakes as radiated energy, frictional dissipation and fracture energy. The latter is of first importance since it is expected to control the n ...

2022

Transition from sub-Rayleigh anticrack to supershear crack propagation in snow avalanches

Johan Alexandre Philippe Gaume, Bertil Trottet, Grégoire Bobillier, Alec van Herwijnen

Avalanches can occur when a porous snow layer lies beneath a dense cohesive snow slab. Field experiments and simulations now reveal different crack-propagation regimes in slab avalanches, similar to rupture propagation following an earthquake. ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2022

Three-dimensional fluid-driven stable frictional ruptures

Brice Tanguy Alphonse Lecampion, Alexis Alejandro Sáez Uribe

We investigate the quasi-static growth of a fluid-driven frictional shear crack that propagates in mixed mode (II+III) on a planar fault interface that separates two identical half-spaces of a three-dimensional solid. The fault interface is characterized b ...

2022

On the effects of fluid pressure variations on rock-mass and fault mechanical behaviour

Corentin Jean-Marie Rémi Noël

In the past 20 years, the growing interest in deep geo-reservoirs for purposes such as carbon storage, waste water disposal, or geothermal energy exploitation have led to large-volume fluid injections into the upper continental crust. These fluid injection ...

EPFL2021