Perturbation-induced granular fluidization as a model for remote earthquake triggering.

Abstract

Studying the effect of mechanical perturbations on granular systems is crucial for understanding soil stability, avalanches, and earthquakes. We investigate a granular system as a laboratory proxy for fault gouge. When subjected to a slow shear, granular materials typically exhibit a stress overshoot before reaching a steady state. We find that short seismic pulses can reset a granular system flowing in steady state so that the stress overshoot is regenerated. This feature is shown to determine the stability of the granular system under different applied stresses in the wake of a perturbation pulse and the resulting dynamics when it fails. Using an analytical aging-rejuvenation model for describing the overshoot response, we show that our laboratory-derived theoretical framework can quantitatively explain data from two fault slip events triggered by seismic waves.