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Science 22 September 2006:
Vol. 313. no. 5794, pp. 1765 - 1768
DOI: 10.1126/science.1128359
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Reports

Self-Healing Pulse-Like Shear Ruptures in the Laboratory

George Lykotrafitis, Ares J. Rosakis,* Guruswami Ravichandran

Models predict that dynamic shear ruptures during earthquake faulting occur as either sliding cracks, where a large section of the interface slides behind a fast-moving rupture front, or self-healing slip pulses, where the fault relocks shortly behind the rupture front. We report experimental visualizations of crack-like, pulse-like, and mixed rupture modes propagating along frictionally held, "incoherent" interfaces separating identical solids, and we describe the conditions under which those modes develop. A combination of simultaneously performed measurements via dynamic photoelasticity and laser interferometry reveals the rupture mode type, the exact point of rupture initiation, the sliding velocity history, and the rupture propagation speed.

Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Rosakis{at}aero.caltech.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Dynamic rupture experiments elucidate tensile crack development during propagating earthquake ruptures.
W. A. Griffith, A. Rosakis, D. D. Pollard, and C. W. Ko (2009)
Geology 37, 795-798
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From the Cover: Pulse-like and crack-like ruptures in experiments mimicking crustal earthquakes.
X. Lu, N. Lapusta, and A. J. Rosakis (2007)
PNAS 104, 18931-18936
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