Stress and Strain Accumulation Due to a Long Dip-Slip Fault Movement in an Elastic-Layer over a Viscoelastic Half Space Model of the Lithosphere-Asthenosphere System

Sanjay Sen, Subrata Kr. Debnath

Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India.
Department of Basic Science and Humanities, Meghnad Saha Institute of Technology(A Unit of Techno India Group), Kolkata, India.

DOI: 10.4236/ijg.2013.43050                

Abstract

Most of the earthquake faults in North-East India, China, mid Atlantic-ridge, the Pacific seismic belt and Japan are found to be predominantly dip-slip in nature. In the present paper a dip-slip fault is taken situated in an elastic layer over a viscoelastic half space representing the lithosphere-asthenosphere system. A movement of the dip-slip nature across the fault occurs when the accumulated stress due to various tectonic reasons e.g. mantle convection etc., exceeds the local friction and cohesive forces across the fault. The movement is assumed to be slipping in nature, expressions for displacements, stresses and strains are obtained by solving associated boundary value problem with the help of integral transformation and Green’s function method and a suitable numerical methods is used for computation. A detailed study of these expressions may give some ideas about the nature of stress accumulation in the system, which in turn will be helpful in formulating an earthquake prediction programme.

Keywords

Aseismic Period; Dip-Slip Fault; Earthquake Prediction; Mantle Convection; Plate Movements; Stress Accumulation; Tectonic Process; Viscoelastic-Layered Model

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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