Sine-Gordon equation and its application to tectonic stress transfer

Abstract

An overview is given on remarkable progress that has been made in theoretical studies of solitons and other nonlinear wave patterns, excited during the deformation of fault block (fragmented) geological media. The models that are compliant with the classical and perturbed sine-Gordon equations have only been chosen. In these mathematical models, the rotation angle of blocks (fragments) and their translatory displacement of the medium are used as dynamic variables. A brief description of the known models and their geophysical and geodynamic applications is given. These models reproduce the kinematic and dynamic features of the traveling deformation front (kink, soliton) generated in the fragmented media. It is demonstrated that the sine-Gordon equation is applicable to the description of series of the observed seismic data, modeling of strain waves, as well as the features related to fault dynamics and the subduction slab, including slow earthquakes, periodicity of episodic tremor and slow slip (ETS) events, and migration pattern of tremors. The study shows that simple heuristic models and analytical and numerical computations can explain triggering of seismicity by transient processes, such as stress changes associated with solitary strain waves in crustal faults. The need to develop the above-mentioned new (nonlinear) mathematical models of the deformed fault and fragmented media was caused by the reason that it is impossible to explain a lot of the observed effects, particularly, slow redistribution and migration of stresses in the lithosphere, within the framework of the linear elasticity theory.