Community-Driven Code Comparisons for Three-Dimensional Dynamic Modeling of Sequences of Earthquakes and Aseismic Slip Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • AbstractDynamic modeling of sequences of earthquakes and aseismic slip (SEAS) provides a selfconsistent, physicsbased framework to connect, interpret, and predict diverse geophysical observations across spatial and temporal scales. Amid growing applications of SEAS models, numerical code verification is essential to ensure reliable simulation results but is often infeasible due to the lack of analytical solutions. Here, we develop two benchmarks for threedimensional (3D) SEAS problems to compare and verify numerical codes based on boundaryelement, finiteelement, and finitedifference methods, in a community initiative. Our benchmarks consider a planar vertical strikeslip fault obeying a rate and statedependent friction law, in a 3D homogeneous, linear elastic wholespace or halfspace, where spontaneous earthquakes and slow slip arise due to tectoniclike loading. We use a suite of quasidynamic simulations from 10 modeling groups to assess the agreement during all phases of multiple seismic cycles. We find excellent quantitative agreement among simulated outputs for sufficiently large model domains and small grid spacings. However, discrepancies in rupture fronts of the initial event are influenced by the free surface and various computational factors. The recurrence intervals and nucleation phase of later earthquakes are particularly sensitive to numerical resolution and domainsizedependent loading. Despite such variability, key properties of individual earthquakes, including rupture style, duration, total slip, peak slip rate, and stress drop, are comparable among even marginally resolved simulations. Our benchmark efforts offer a communitybased example to improve numerical simulations and reveal sensitivities of model observables, which are important for advancing SEAS models to better understand earthquake system dynamics.

published proceedings

  • JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-SOLID EARTH

altmetric score

  • 32.33

author list (cited authors)

  • Jiang, J., Erickson, B. A., Lambert, V. R., Ampuero, J., Ando, R., Barbot, S. D., ... van Dinther, Y.

citation count

  • 20

complete list of authors

  • Jiang, Junle||Erickson, Brittany A||Lambert, Valere R||Ampuero, Jean-Paul||Ando, Ryosuke||Barbot, Sylvain D||Cattania, Camilla||Zilio, Luca Dal||Duan, Benchun||Dunham, Eric M||Gabriel, Alice-Agnes||Lapusta, Nadia||Li, Duo||Li, Meng||Liu, Dunyu||Liu, Yajing||Ozawa, So||Pranger, Casper||van Dinther, Ylona

publication date

  • March 2022