Calibrating an Indicative Stress-meter for the Earth’s Crust

Recent discoveries include: Non-volcanic tremors (NVT), strong heterogeneity of the relative stress distribution, temporal and along-fault variable aseismic creep, repeating earthquakes, slow slip events. Based on the insight that was gained from these previous studies, we will be able to develop and calibrate an indicative stress-meter for the Earth’s crust. In this project we link for the first time the statistical analysis of the size distribution of earthquakes with complementary observations of fault movement.

This yields an improved understanding of the nature of fault loading cycles. Therefore, the results will provide key understanding to unravelling the predictability of earthquakes and has the potential to radically change the assessment of local seismic hazard for selected well-understood and well-monitored faults.