Fully dynamic seismic cycle simulations in co-evolving fault damage zones controlled by damage rheology

SUMMARY Both short-term coseismic off-fault damage and long-term fault growth during interseismic periods have been suggested to contribute to the formation and evolution of fault damage zones. Most previous numerical models focus on simulating either off-fault damage in a single earthquake or off-fault plasticity in seismic cycles ignoring changes of elastic moduli. Here, we developed a new method to simulate the damage evolution of fault zones and dynamic earthquake cycles together in a 2-D antiplane model. We assume fault slip is governed by the laboratory-derived rate-and-state friction law while the constitutive response of adjacent off-fault material is controlled by a simplified version of the Lyakhovsky–Ben–Zion continuum brittle damage model. This study aims to present this newly developed modelling framework which opens a window to simulate the co-evolution of earthquakes and fault damage zones. We also demonstrate one example application of the modelling framework. The example simulation generates coseismic velocity drop as evidenced by seismological observations and a long-term shallow slip deficit. In addition, the coseismic slip near the surface is smaller due to off-fault inelastic deformation and results in a larger coseismic slip deficit. Here, we refer to off-fault damage as both rigidity reduction and inelastic deformation of the off-fault medium. We find off-fault damage in our example simulation mainly occurs during earthquakes and concentrates at shallow depths as a flower structure, in which a distributed damage area surrounds a localized, highly damaged inner core. With the experimentally based logarithmic healing law, coseismic off-fault rigidity reduction cannot heal fully and permanently accumulates over multiple seismic cycles. The fault zone width and rigidity eventually saturate at long cumulative slip, reaching a mature state without further change.