Jinlin Li from Section 4.8 of GFZ Potsdam published a paper in Geophysical Research Letters entitled “High-Rate Fluid Injection Reduces the Nucleation Length of Laboratory Earthquakes on Critically Stressed Faults in Granite”. The paper is published as Open Access article.
Key findings:
- The nucleation length of injection-induced laboratory earthquakes reduces with higher injection rate and greater effective normal stress
- Injection-induced laboratory earthquakes with smaller nucleation lengths exhibit higher peak slip rates and larger fault slip displacements
- Fast-rate fluid injection may cause initially stable fault patches of smaller sizes to slip seismically, leading to higher seismic hazards
Reference:
Ji, Y., L. Wang, H. Hofmann, G. Kwiatek, and G. Dresen (2022). High-Rate Fluid Injection Reduces the Nucleation Length of Laboratory Earthquakes on Critically Stressed Faults in Granite, Geophysical Research Letters 49, no. 23, e2022GL100418, DOI: 10.1029/2022GL100418. [ Article Page ] [ Direct download – Open Access ]