| dc.description.abstract | High velocity shear experiments can provide information on fault rupture processes that seismological methods cannot. The present study focuses on two main aspects of fault rupture processes. One is developing a new, realistic, experimental loading method, power-density control, which can generate stick-slip motion, which is a laboratory model of earthquakes. This method uses energy-rate (power) loading instead of the classical velocity loading, and it generates multiple, spontaneous, high-velocity stick-slips. Our power-density experiments produced events that are comparable to natural earthquakes in terms of slip-velocity and slip displacement. The other aspect of the present research involves investigating acoustic emissions (AEs) recorded with 3D accelerometers during the shear experiments. With four accelerometers on the sample, I located the sources of AEs that are interpreted as asperity breakdown on the experimental fault surface. I conducted 66 velocity control experiments and 76 power-density control experiments on samples of granite, diorite, and limestone, at slip rates approaching seismic slip velocities (~ 1 m/s); 70 of the experiments with AE data. The combined results show that power-density control loading with AE recording has the potential to generate realistic simulations of fault rupture with rupture visualization. | en_US |
