Effect on Displacement, Stress and Strain of a Finite, Buried, Strike-Slip Inclined Fault in the Standard Linear Solid (SLS)

Strike-slip faulting is considered to be one of the major causes of tectonic earthquakes particularly in North America. A sudden movement along a finite, strike-slip, inclined, buried fault of finite width in an isotropic homogeneous, visco-elastic medium of standard linear solid (SLS) is considered here. The explicit expressions of displacement, stresses and strains at any dislocation point due to this sudden movement are derived. When the accumulated stress due to the various tectonic reasons e.g mantle convection etc. exceeds the local friction and cohesive forces a movement along the fault occurs. The effect of the different inclination with various depth from the free surface of the fault and magnitude of different slip movement on displacement, stresses and strains are studied numerically and the results thus obtained are presented graphically. A vivid inspection of these expressions may give some information about the nature of the stress accumulation near the fault.