Solid Earth, 11, 1333–1360, 2020 https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-1333-2020 © Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Characteristics of earthquake ruptures and dynamic off-fault deformation on propagating faults Simon Preuss1, Jean Paul Ampuero2, Taras Gerya1, and Ylona van Dinther3 1Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Geophysics, Department of Earth sciences, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland 2Géoazur Laboratory, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement – Université Côte d’Azur, Campus Azur du CNRS, 06560 Valbonne, France 3Tectonics, Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, Princetonlaan 4, 3584 CB, Utrecht, the Netherlands Correspondence: Simon Preuss (
[email protected]) Received: 8 February 2020 – Discussion started: 25 February 2020 Revised: 16 June 2020 – Accepted: 26 June 2020 – Published: 22 July 2020 Abstract. Natural fault networks are geometrically complex tures range from fan-shaped distributed deformation to local- systems that evolve through time. The evolution of faults ized splay faults. We observe that the fault-normal width of and their off-fault damage patterns are influenced by both the outer damage zone saturates with increasing fault length dynamic earthquake ruptures and aseismic deformation in due to the finite depth of the seismogenic zone. We also ob- the interseismic period. To better understand each of their serve that dynamically and statically evolving stress fields contributions to faulting we simulate both earthquake rup- from neighboring fault strands affect primary and secondary ture dynamics and long-term deformation in a visco-elasto- fault growth and thus that normal stress variations affect plastic crust subjected to rate- and state-dependent friction.