Effect of the movement across a surface breaking, inclined, locked, finite strike-slip fault in visco-elastic medium of Burger’s rheology

Abstract

Seismically active regions are associated with fault systems, and the movement of these faults influences the nature of stress accumulation/release in that region. For in-depth analysis of the effect of such movement, a mathematical model has been assumed by considering a surface breaking, inclined, finite strike-slip fault in visco-elastic medium of Burger’s rheology and considered the deformation caused in the medium. Analytical expressions for displacements, stresses and strains have been obtained by using Green’s function technique and Laplace transform. The variations of displacements, stresses and strains due to locked fault have been studied. These variations are graphically depicted for different inclinations of the fault with the free surface and for different slip magnitude using MATLAB. Such studies may throw some light on the nature of stress and strain accumulation/ release due to fault movement in Burger medium.