Fall Meeting 2022

December 12 - 16, 2022

Fault maturity is often invoked as an explanation for different features of the faulting process in geomechanics, seismology, and geodesy, including the distribution of slip from depth to the surface, rupture propagation and arrest, the ratio of on to off-fault deformation, and the energetics and stress release during rupture. Field studies have shown changes in the degree of segmentation and complexity on the surface trace of a fault. Analog experiments provide insights into the kinematics of fault reorganization with maturity. Laboratory experiments show the evolution of fault surfaces with accumulated slip. Seismological observables shed light on the sensitivity of source parameters to structural maturity of a fault zone​​. Given the differences in methodologies, as well as space and time scales considered by these methodologies, indicators of fault maturity and associated processes across fault types present a challenge to holistically define fault maturity. As a result, questions related to fault maturity remain open-ended, including understanding how fault evolution influences the dynamic rupture process, fault zone complexity and rheology evolve with fault maturity, and strain partitioning changes through time.

In this session, we welcome recent advances in the quantitative understanding of fault maturity from field observations, numerical models, analog experiments, and laboratory studies. We are particularly interested in work that bridges observations from various methods and studies spanning multiple spatial and temporal scales, and studies linking fault maturity to seismic hazard.