1993 Articles

Moment spectra in a simple model of an earthquake fault

Shaw, Bruce E.

The behavior of a simple one-dimensional, homogeneous, deterministic model of an earthquake fault is examined on the timescale of the rupture process. The model generates a complex spatial and temporal distribution of events from a frictional instability. I measure the frequency spectra of the moment release rate for events of different sizes, and observe power laws for the spectra. A bend in the spectra of large events is also observed. The paper concludes with a discussion of how these results may be relevant to real earthquake faults.