SCEC Award Number 07084 View PDF
Proposal Category Individual Proposal (Integration and Theory)
Proposal Title Computing time to failure probabilities using interseismic constitutive relationships inferred from lab experiments
Investigator(s)
Name Organization
Delphine Fitzenz Université de Strasbourg (France)
Other Participants Spiers, Chris
his PhD student
Hickman, Stephen H.
Jalobeanu, Andre
and maybe up to 2 other participants
SCEC Priorities A10, A11, B1 SCEC Groups Geodesy, FARM, CDM
Report Due Date N/A Date Report Submitted N/A
Project Abstract
 The objective of the project was to compute time to failure probabilities using interseismic constitutive relationships inferred from lab experiments relevant to the interseismic fault pressurization. We used porosity time series of slow deformation of quartz at hydrothermal conditions and we developed a Bayesian inversion method using a generic relationship between compaction rate, a power law of stress, an Arrhenius expression for the temperature dependence, and an exponential function of porosity. We then sampled through those multivariate probability density functions (pdf) to compute pdfs for time-to-failure using a simple model for seismogenesis. We therefore provided an alternative, physics-based renewal model.
Intellectual Merit SCEC is by essence a multidisciplinary forum dedicated to the advancement of earthquake science and knowledge transfer to society. I believe that Bayesian frameworks as that developed and presented in this report can help achieve these goals by providing a much needed intersection between disciplins, and by providing results of the same probabilistic nature as that of ingredients of seismic hazard assessment. Moreover, the present study showed how to get the most from lab experiments to constrain fault models, and showed how such models, including the physics that is already available, can produce alternative renewal models to those currently used, not always with a process-based justification.
Broader Impacts This type of project serves to transfer more earthquake research into Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment (PSHA), which is very important to get public support in fundamental research, and to get the best available science into PSHA.
Exemplary Figure N/A
Linked Publications

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