Earthquakes occur as a result of global plate motion. However, this simple picture is far from complete. Some plate boundaries glide past each other smoothly, while others are punctuated by catastrophic failures. Some earthquakes stop after only a few hundred metres while others continue rupturing for a thousand kilometres. Earthquakes are sometimes triggered by other large earthquakes thousands of kilometres away. We address these questions by dissecting the observable phenomena and separating out the quantifiable features for comparison across events. We begin with a discussion of stress in the crust followed by an overview of earthquake phenomenology, focusing on the parameters that are readily measured by current seismic techniques. We briefly discuss how these parameters are related to the amplitude and frequencies of the elastic waves measured by seismometers as well as direct geodetic measurements of the Earth's deformation. We then review the major processes thought to be active during the rupture and discuss their relation to the observable parameters. We then take a longer range view by discussing how earthquakes interact as a complex system. Finally, we combine subjects to approach the key issue of earthquake initiation. This concluding discussion will require using the processes introduced in the study of rupture as well as some novel mechanisms. As our observational database improves, our computational ability accelerates and our laboratories become more refined, the next few decades promise to bring more insights on earthquakes and perhaps some answers.

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The physics of earthquakes

Continental lithosphere of the Arabian Plate: A geologic, petrologic, and geophysical synthesis

The section of the San Andreas fault located between Cholame Valley and San Juan Bautista in central California creeps at a rate as high as 28 mm yr(-1) (ref. 1), and it is also the segment that yields the best evidence for being a weak fault embedded in a strong crust. Serpentinized ultramafic rocks have been associated with creeping faults in central and northern California, and serpentinite is commonly invoked as the cause of the creep and the low strength of this section of the San Andreas fault. However, the frictional strengths of serpentine minerals are too high to satisfy the limitations on fault strength, and these minerals also have the potential for unstable slip under some conditions. Here we report the discovery of talc in cuttings of serpentinite collected from the probable active trace of the San Andreas fault that was intersected during drilling of the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) main hole in 2005. We infer that the talc is forming as a result of the reaction of serpentine minerals with silica-saturated hydrothermal fluids that migrate up the fault zone, and the talc commonly occurs in sheared serpentinite. This discovery is significant, as the frictional strength of talc at elevated temperatures is sufficiently low to meet the constraints on the shear strength of the fault, and its inherently stable sliding behaviour is consistent with fault creep. Talc may therefore provide the connection between serpentinite and creep in the San Andreas fault, if shear at depth can become localized along a talc-rich principal-slip surface within serpentinite entrained in the fault zone.

Talc-bearing serpentinite and the creeping section of the San Andreas fault

Summary A set of preferred geotherms for the continental crust is calculated using assumptions of steady state conductive heat transfer. The calculations use observed heat flow as the principal constraint, temperature and pressure dependent thermal conductivity functions, and a radiogenic heat generation profile that is consistent with a generalized petrological model of the lithosphere. Properties of these geotherms include: (1) a nearly constant gradient through the upper crust because the decrease in thermal conductivity at higher temperatures for felsic rocks counteracts the decreasing heat flow caused by crustal radioactivity; (2) divergence of the geotherms amounting to temperature differences of more than 500 K between rifts and shields at Moho depths, and (3) convergence of geotherms below 250 km in the asthenosphere as convective heat transfer dominates. Emphasis is also placed on understanding the sensitivity of calculated temperatures to measureable properties. Computed geotherms are overall most sensitive to surface heat flow or reduced heat flow, and uncertainties in this quantity will ultimately limit the accuracy of temperature estimations for the deeper crust and lithosphere. Otherwise, the sensitivity to parameters such as heat production, thermal conductivity and its temperature dependence throughout the lithosphere and crustal thickness depends on depth and whether the region is characterized by high or low heat flow. Upper mantle heat production, pressure coefficients of thermal conductivity, and the position of the upper/lower crust boundary are relatively insensitive parameters for lower crustal temperature calculations. Dynamic events accompanying crust forming processes lead to significant perturbations of the steady state static temperature field described above. Pressure-temperature pairs from granulite terrains plot near high temperature limits for those steady state geotherms and imply either a transient P-T-t path or a magmatic heat input from the mantle accompanying crustal thickening.

Thermal gradients in the continental crust

Heat Flow in the United States and the Thermal Regime of the Crust

Heat flow in the Imperial Valley and adjacent crystalline rocks is very high (∼140 mW m−2). Gravity and seismic studies suggest the crust is about 23.5 km thick with the lower half composed of gabbro and the upper fourth composed of low-density sediments. Conduction through such a crust resting directly on asthenosphere would give the observed heat flow if there were no extension or sedimentation. However, both processes must have been active, as the Imperial Valley is part of the Salton Trough, a pull-apart sedimentary basin that evolved over the past 4 or 5 m.y. To investigate the interrelations of these factors, we consider a one-dimensional model of basin formation in which the lower crustal gabbro and upper crustal sediments accumulated simultaneously as the crust extended and sedimentation kept pace with isostatic subsidence. For parameters appropriate for the Salton Trough, increasing the extension rate has little effect on surface heat flow because it increases effects of heating by intrusion and cooling by sedimentation in a compensating manner; it does, however, result in progressively increasing lower crustal temperatures. Analytical results suggest that the average extensional strain rate during formation of the trough was ∼20–50%/m.y. (∼1014 s−1); slower rates are inadequate to account for the present composition of the crust, and faster rates would probably cause massive crustal melting. To achieve the differential velocities of the Pacific plate at one end of the trough and North American plate at the other with this strain rate, extension must have, on the average, been distributed (or shifted about) over a spreading region ∼150 km wide. This is about 10 times wider than the present zone of active seismicity, suggesting that the seismic pattern is ephemeral on the time scale for the trough's formation. Narrow spreading zones are typical where sustained spreading is compensated by basaltic intrusion to form the thin oceanic crust, but where such spreading occurs in thicker continental crust, broader zones of distributed extension (with smaller strain rates) may be required for heat balance. The Salton Trough model suggests that distributed extension can be associated with substantial magmatic additions to the crust; their effect on crustal buoyancy has important implications for the relation between crustal extension and subsidence.

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Heat flow in southernmost California and the origin of the Salton Trough

With about 150 new heat flow values, more than 200 values of heat flow are now available from the crystalline terranes of southern California, the Basin and Range Province of Arizona, and Paleozoic sedimentary rocks of the southwestern Colorado Plateau lCPr. Heat flow ranges from about 5 mW m−2 on the CP near Flagstaff, Arizona, to more than 150 mW m−2 in the crystalline rocks bordering the Salton Trough in SE California. The heat flow pattern within this region is complex, although it correlates with regional physiographic and tectonic features. Unlike the adjacent Sierra Nevada Batholith where heat flow is a linear function of nearhsurface radiogenic heat production, no statistically significant correlation exists between heat flow and heat production in the study area, possibly because of its complex tectonic history, involving lateral movement of basement terranes, and relatively young heat sources and sinks of different strengths, ages, and durations. Contemporary and Neogene extensional tectonism appears to be responsible for the very high heat flow l>100 mW m−2r associated with the Salton Trough and its neighboring ranges, the Death Valley fault zone and its southward extension along the eastern boundary of the Mojave block, and zones of shallow depth l<10 kmr to the Curie isotherm las inferred from aerornagnetic datar in west central Arizona. Low l<60 mW m−2r heat flow in the Peninsular Ranges and eastern Transverse Ranges of California may be caused by downward advection associated with subduction and compressional tectonics. Relatively low heat flow l67±4 mW m−2r is also associated with the main trend of metamorphic core complexes in Arizona, and the outcropping rocks in the core complexes have a low radioactive heat production l1.3±0.3 μW m−3r compared to the other crystalline rocks in the region l2.1±0.2 μW m−3r.

Thermal regime of the southern Basin and Range Provincec 1. Heat flow data from Arizona and the Mojave Desert of California and Nevada

Knowledge of the temperature variation with depth near the San Andreas fault is vital to understanding the physical processes that occur within the fault zone during earthquakes and creep events. Parkfield is near the southern end of the Coast Ranges segment of the San Andreas fault. This segment has higher mean heat flow than the Cape Mendocino segment to the northwest or the Mojave segment to the southeast. Boreholes were drilled specifically for the U.S. Geological Survey's Parkfield earthquake prediction experiment or converted from other uses at 25 sites within a few kilometers of the fault near Parkfield. These holes, which range in depth from 150 to over 1500m, were intended mainly for the deployment of volumetric strain meters, water-level recorders, and other downhole instruments. Temperature profiles were obtained from all the holes, and heat flow values were estimated from 17 of them. For a number of reasons, including a paucity of thermal conductivity data and rugged local topography, the accuracy of individual determinations was not sufficiently high to document local variations in heat flow. Values range from 54 to 92 mW m−2, with mean and 95% confidence limits of 74±4 mW m−2. This mean is slightly lower than the mean (83±3) of 39 previously published values from the central Coast Ranges, but it is consistent with the overall pattern of elevated heat flow in the Coast Ranges, and it is transitional to the mean of 68±2 mW m−2 that characterizes the Mojave segment of the San Andreas fault immediately to the south. The lack of a heat flow peak near the fault underscores the absence of a frictional thermal anomaly and provides additional support for a very small resolved shear stress parallel to the San Andreas fault and the nearly fault-normal maximum compressive stress observed in this region. Estimates of subsurface thermal conditions indicate that the seismicaseismic transition for the Parkfield segment corresponds to temperatures in the range of 350°–400°C. Increasing heat flow to the northwest of Parkfield corresponds to a transition from locked to creeping sections and to a shallowing of the base of seismicity and confirms the importance of temperature in controlling the thickness of the seismogenic crust. Lateral variations in heat flow do not appear to have any major role in determining the regularity of M5.5–6 earthquakes at Parkfield.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/JB102iB12p27575

Thermal regime of the San Andreas fault near Parkfield, California

Estimated or calculated heat flow values at 18 sites in Jordan are presented in this study. These are the first heat flow measurements on the east flank of the Dead Sea Rift. The data are divided into three groups: 1) High heat flow values adjacent to the Dead Sea Rift, near the Zerqa Ma'in and Zara geothermal areas, range from 91 to M72 mW/m2 . 2) High heat flow values within and adjacent to Azraq Basin range from 70 to 135 mW/m 2 . 3) Normal heat flow values in other parts of Jordan range from 42 to 65 mW/m2 . The mechanism for heat transfer in the first two groups is attributed to rapid ascent of hot water along deep faults. Near the surface, the water's heat is dissipated either by mixing with cooler waters from shallow aquifers, by direct discharge at thermal springs, or by conduction into surrounding country rock. The source of the waters are believed to be deeply buried, confined beds of Lower Paleozoic sandstones. Further study is needed to determine if the Zerqa Ma'in Zara and the Azraq Basin anomalies are separate or part of one larger anomaly. The mechanism of heat transfer in the third group is primarily conductive. These conductive values probably represent the regional "background" heat flow. The results of this study are similar to findings on the west flank of the Dead Sea Rift.

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Heat flow at Zerqa Ma'in and Zara and a geothermal reconnaissance of Jordan

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S. P. Galanis

Papers

Heat flow in southernmost California and the origin of the Salton Trough

Thermal regime of the southern Basin and Range Provincec 1. Heat flow data from Arizona and the Mojave Desert of California and Nevada

Thermal regime of the San Andreas fault near Parkfield, California

Heat flow at Zerqa Ma'in and Zara and a geothermal reconnaissance of Jordan

An analysis of thermal data from the vicinity of Cajon Pass, California