STRESS DROP FOR A FINITE FAULT

Abstract

The expression for a stress drop of a fault with finite length and width is derived, and the mean stress drop over the fault plane is computed as a function of fault dimension.The geometrical factor J is related to the stress drop by (21) in the text. Plots of the mean J value, J, versus the ratio (length/width) in Fig. 5 enables us to determine the stress drop for a finite fault. It is shown that for earthquakes, whose stress drops were estimated to be very large by applying the expressions derived on the basis of an assumption of an infinitely long narrow fault, stress drops are reduced when taking account of the finiteness of fault demension.