From Preparation to Faulting: Multidisciplinary Investigations on Earthquake Processes

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Background

What happens before an earthquake occurs?
Which are the physical processes that take place in the Earth’s crust before the earthquake nucleates?
How can we observe, describe, and model them statistically, numerically, and physically in multiscales from samples in laboratory to tectonic plate of earth?

During the last decades many efforts have been devoted by multidisciplinary studies in an attempt to answer these fundamental questions. In early time, Institute Physics of the Earth (IPE) model (dry) and Dilatance Diffusion (DD) model (wet) were proposed for earthquake processes. Like Schrödinger's cat, earthquake is unpredictable—according to IPE model, yet can be predictable—according to DD model. Recently, with advanced techniques, some scientists have declaimed that there are precursors to be used for earthquake forecast, which envisages new opportunities to study earthquake precursors.

The understanding of governing laws, from long-term tectonic loading and nucleation to rapid rupture propagation, is significant to earthquake forecasting and demands comprehension of the stress state and evolution during time of geophysical observations around seismically active areas. The evidences from multiscale experiments, multidisciplinary networks of monitoring systems, numerical modeling, and field investigations are the keys to advance our understanding in earthquake mechanics.

Earthquakes do not occur everywhere. Fault geometry and the physical properties of fault zone, geologic and tectonic settings, as well as crustal movement and geodynamic environment play pivotal roles on the seismic patterns. A variety of geophysical and geochemical observations, ranging from ground-related deformation patterns (GPS,SAR, etc.) to pre-earthquake changes (geochemical, electromagnetic, hydro-geological, geodetic, or thermodynamic), recorded by ground-based or satellite-based techniques may be related to stress variations in the lithosphere prior to an eventual large earthquake. In this regard, what’s new after decades of research?

This Research Topic aims to provide the state-of-the-art studies on processes of earthquakes via multidisciplinary approaches from geophysical, geochemical, geodetical, and geological routines. Pre-earthquake observations, methods, and perspectives, can provide a current view in knowledge of processes preceding earthquake occurrence, which can be possibly employed to set up earthquake forecasting experiments, aiming at their verification both in large or small Test Site areas.

Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to:

• Geodynamic environment and its implication to fault activity
• Investigation of fault activity and description of fault geometry for earthquake cycle
• Extracting anomalous changes relevant to earthquake processes from observation systems
• Microseismicity detection and its contribution to risk assessment of big earthquake
• Model validation and statistical assessment of proposed physical-based precursors
• Time-dependent seismic hazard assessment based on space-time characterization of impending earthquakes
• Physics of seismic sources and source mechanisms
• Physical and numerical models of earthquake processes in different scales
• Case studies of recent and historical earthquakes

Keywords: Earthquake preparation process, Physics of earthquake sources, Evidences for risk evaluation and forecasting, Monitoring systems of networks, Multidisciplinary approaches

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