Earthquake statistics inferred from plastic events in soft-glassy materials

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel physics-based method using soft-glassy materials and continuum simulations to generate synthetic earthquake catalogs, revealing that plastic events mimic seismic activity and follow similar statistical laws.

Contribution

The study presents a self-consistent continuum approach to model earthquake-like events in soft glasses, linking micro-scale plasticity to macro-scale seismic statistics without ad hoc assumptions.

Findings

Plastic events obey Gutenberg-Richter law with realistic exponents

Scaling laws for acceleration, energy, and stress drop match seismic data

Method provides a unified framework connecting micro and macro earthquake physics

Abstract

We propose a new approach for generating synthetic earthquake catalogues based on the physics of soft glasses. The continuum approach produces yield-stress materials based on Lattice-Boltzmann simulations. We show that, if the material is stimulated below yield stress, plastic events occur, which have strong similarities with seismic events. Based on a suitable definition of displacement in the continuum, we show that the plastic events obey a Gutenberg-Richter law with exponents similar to those for real earthquakes. We further find that average acceleration, energy release, stress drop and recurrence times scale with the same exponent. The approach is fully self-consistent and all quantities can be calculated at all scales without the need of ad hoc friction or statistical laws. We therefore suggest that our approach may lead to new insight into understanding of the physics connecting the micro and macro scale of earthquakes.