Coupled mechano-electrokinetic Burridge-Knopoff model of fault sliding events and transient geoelectric signals

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive self-consistent model that links seismic micro-ruptures with electric charge pulses, offering insights into geoelectric precursors to earthquakes and reproducing observed electric field anomalies.

Contribution

It introduces the first integrated mechano-electrokinetic model combining fault slip dynamics with electric charge pulse propagation.

Findings

Reproduces unipolar electric pulses before large earthquakes

Explains anomalies in electric field statistical moments

Models power-law spectral transitions in electric fields

Abstract

We introduce the first fully self-consistent model combining the seismic micro-ruptures occurring within a generalized Burridge-Knopoff spring-block model with the nucleation and propagation of electric charge pulses within a coupled mechano-electrokinetic system. This model provides a general theoretical framework for modeling and analyzing geoelectric precursors to earthquakes. In particular, it can reproduce the unipolar pulses that have often been reported before large seismic events, as well as various observed anomalies in the statistical moments of the ambient electric fields and the power-law exponent transition of the power spectra of electric fields.