Learn more about earthquake physics building on laboratory experiments. 

Topics of the course

Intro, then lecture on: Fracture and crack mechanics (dislocation model for stress and slip).

Dislocation model for stress and slip. Stress transformations.

Friction: Da Vinci, Amontons, Coulomb, Rabinowicz-Tabor-Bowden (1950’s). Mohr circles and the optimum angle of failure.

Adhesive theory of friction (Contact junction size, friction as the ratio of material hardness and shear strength, concepts of static & dynamic friction, critical friction distance, contact age, velocity weakening friction and contact size, contact aging or frictional healing, frictional state-contact age).

Mechanics of frictional sliding: stick-slip. Discussion on Rabinowicz paper.

Rate & State Friction constitutive laws part A and B.

Refresh on Python.

Rate & State Friction constitutive laws part C and D

Work on faulting

Visit Sapienza rock deformation and earthquake physics lab & spring slider.

Fault rocks, deformation processes and fault structure.

What is the shear stress, or differential stress, required to make a crustal fault move?

What is the fault slip behavior (seismic vs. aseismic) upon reactivation?

Fault and permeability

Induced and triggered seismicity from the geo-energy activities (wastewater disposals, enhanced oil recovery, EOR, fracking, carbon capture and storage, CCS, enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), reservoir depletion): examples worldwide.  

Rock deformation experiments for improving our understanding of induced seismicity.

Visit Sapienza rock deformation and earthquake physics lab: what we measure in the lab and how.

Python on laboratory experiments on friction.

Python plotting earthquakes of the Amatrice-Visso-Norcia sequence (4h).

Rock and fault rheology to explain the seismicity of Amatrice-Visso-Norcia part A

Rock and fault rheology to explain the seismicity of Amatrice-Visso-Norcia part B

The mechanics of slow slip part A

The mechanics of slow slip part B