Slow Strain Waves: Models and Observations, a Review

Abstract

The theoretical discovery of slow strain (tectonic) waves, the so-called strain waves in the Earth, served as a motivation to develop physical backgrounds of the mathematical theory of propagation of these waves and to search for methods of their experimental detection. For fifty years, scientists from different countries in different regions of the Earth, using direct and indirect methods, discovered the migration of crustal deformation and revealed its wave nature, and, therefore, proved the reality of the existence of strain waves of the Earth. This overview briefly describes the history of the development of the concept of strain waves on the Earth, the observation methods and properties of strain waves, and the main types of geological structures generating these waves. The most prominent results of the theoretical, laboratory, and in-situ observations of slow strain migration, including slow earthquakes and periodic Episodic Tremor and Slow (ETS) slip effects, are presented. In the near future, studies of slow strain waves may lead to a fundamental revision of the current concepts about the physics of the seismic process.