Publications related to Cascadia subduction zone

Propagation of planar three-dimensional buoyant hydraulic fractures

Hydraulic fractures are driven by an internal fluid pressure exceeding the minimum compressive stress, propagating in a direction perpendicular to the latter. This class of tensile fractures has gained interest over the last fifty years due to the developm ...

EPFL2023

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

A Depth-Averaged Material Point Method for Shallow Landslides: Applications to Snow Slab Avalanche Release

Johan Alexandre Philippe Gaume, Lars Kristoffer Uhlen Blatny, Bertil Trottet, Denis Aloyse Joseph Steffen, Louis Marie Cédric Guillet

Shallow landslides pose a significant threat to people and infrastructure. Despite significant progress in the understanding of such phenomena, the evaluation of the size of the landslide release zone, a crucial input for risk assessment, still remains a c ...

AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION2023

Physical characterization of fault rocks within the Opalinus Clay formation

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, Luis Felipe Orellana Espinoza, Christophe Nussbaum

Near-surface disposal of radioactive waste in shales is a promising option to safeguard the population and environment. However, natural faults intersecting these geological formations can potentially affect the long-term isolation of the repositories. Thi ...

Nature Research2022

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

Experimental Evaluation of Steel Columns under Seismic Hazard-Consistent Collapse Loading Protocols

Dimitrios Lignos

This paper presents results from 21 large-scale experiments on steel columns that examined their collapse behavior as related to steel moment resisting frames (MRFs). The test specimens included wide-flange and square hollow structural shapes (HSS) and wer ...

2021

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

Experimental plastic reactivation of pseudotachylyte‐filled shear zones

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, François Xavier Thibault Passelègue

Pseudotachylytes are fine‐grained fault rocks that solidify from melt that is produced in fault zones during earthquakes. Exposed sections of natural fault zones reveal evidence of post‐seismic plastic deformation (i.e. reactivation) of pseudotachylyte, wh ...

2021

Origin of the Co‐Seismic Variations of Elastic Properties in the Crust: Insight From the Laboratory

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, François Xavier Thibault Passelègue, Mateo Alejandro Acosta, Federica Paglialunga

Seismological observations highlighted that earthquakes are often followed by changes in elastic properties around the fault zone. Here, we studied the origin of these variations using stick-slip experiments on saw-cut granite samples presenting different ...

2021

Initial effective stress controls the nature of earthquakes

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, François Xavier Thibault Passelègue, Fabian Barras

Modern geophysics highlights that the slip behaviour response of faults is variable in space and time and can result in slow or fast ruptures. However, the origin of this variation of the rupture velocity in nature as well as the physics behind it is still ...

Nature Research2020

Electromagnetic Time Reversal Similarity Characteristics and its Application to Locating Faults in Power Networks

Mario Paolone, Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Zhaoyang Wang, Reza Razzaghi

The existing Electromagnetic Time Reversal (EMTR)-based fault location methods generally leverage the features of the signals simulated in the EMTR reversed-time stage (relative to the direct-time stage wherein a fault occurs and its originated transient s ...

2020

Pore space properties in carbonate fault rocks of peninsular Italy

Marie Estelle Solange Violay

The fault cores of extensional faults in Mesozoic limestones and dolostones are examined by mean of combined microstructural, ultrasonic and petrophysical analyses. Grain-supported fault rocks commonly localize in the outer fault cores, whereas matrix-supp ...

2019

Anomalous Vp/Vs ratios at seismic frequencies might evidence highly damaged rocks in subduction zones

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, Lucas Xan Pimienta

Unusually high compressional (P) to shear (S) wave velocity ratios (V-p/V-s) were measured at different subduction zones and interpreted as fluid-pressurized regions. Because no laboratory data reported such high values in isotropic rocks, mineralogical or ...

2018

Frictional and transport properties of faults zones in the Opalinus Clay formation

Luis Felipe Orellana Espinoza

Deep geological repositories in clay formations are a promising option to ensure the long-term isolation of nuclear waste from the population and the environment. In Switzerland, the Opalinus Clay (OPA) formation is a shale whose favorable barrier properti ...

EPFL2018

Effects of the Anisotropy of the Fault Zone Permeability on the Timing of Triggered Earthquakes: Insights from 3D-Coupled Fluid Flow and Geomechanical Deformation Modeling

Claudia Maria Colciago, Anna Scotti

In the last years, numerous seismological evidences have shown a strict correlation between fluid injection and seismicity. An important topic that is currently under discussion in the scientific community concerns the prediction of the earthquake magnitud ...

SPRINGER BASEL AG2018

When dynamic cracks meet disorder: A journey along the fracture process zone

Fabian Barras

The onset of earthquakes along crustal faults, the triggering of slab avalanches or the break of a wine glass are all serious problems driven by the propagation of a dynamic rupture front. Our physical understanding of this ubiquitous phenomenon is however ...

EPFL2018

Analysis and estimation of gripper TBM performances in highly fractured and faulted rocks

Federica Sandrone, Jian Zhao, Erika Paltrinieri

This paper focuses on performance analysis of Tunnel Boring Machine (in particular gripper TBMs) in highly jointed rock masses and fault zones. In order to investigate possible relationships between these difficult excavation conditions and TBM performance ...

Elsevier2016

Probabilistic simulations of TBM Tunnelling in highly fractured and faulted rocks

Federica Sandrone, Jian Zhao, Jean-Paul Dudt, Erika Paltrinieri

Despite the potential excellent performance of TBMs in favourable ground conditions, the presence of fault zones or heavily jointed rocks represent important geological hazards encountered during tunnel excavation. The effects of these challenging environm ...

Elsevier2016

Dislocation Motion and the Microphysics of Flash Heating and Weakening of Faults during Earthquakes

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, Andrea Cavallo

Earthquakes are the result of slip along faults and are due to the decrease of rock frictional strength (dynamic weakening) with increasing slip and slip rate. Friction experiments simulating the abrupt accelerations (>>10 m/s(2)), slip rates (similar to 1 ...

Mdpi Ag2016

Properties of the shear stress peak radiated ahead of rapidly accelerating rupture fronts that mediate frictional slip

Jean-François Molinari, Mathilde Edmée Lucette Radiguet de la Bastaie, David Simon Kammer, Daniel Pino Muñoz

We study rapidly accelerating rupture fronts at the onset of frictional motion by performing high-temporal-resolution measurements of both the real contact area and the strain fields surrounding the propagating rupture tip. We observe large-amplitude and l ...

National Academy of Sciences2016