Nucleation and Evolution of Sliding in Continental Fault Zones under the Action of Natural and Man-Made Factors: A State-of-the-Art Review

Abstract—A review is presented of the state-of-the-art publications concerning the nucleation and evolution of fault slip in the Earth’s crust. The review covers various aspects of the problem, from the structure of the slip localization zones to the triggering of dynamic rupture by exogenous factors. The publications show a clear current trend from investigating individual effects to studying interactions between subsets of the relevant processes on several spatial and time scales to establish probable correlations between different phenomena. The efforts of many research teams in the field of earthquake source physics and faulting are focused towards creating a computational model that relies on physical principles and successfully fulfils forecasting tasks. The review demonstrates multi-aspect and multi-scale character of the discussed problem and provides coverage of recent results and challenges in achieving the objectives. Some promising lines of development in geomechanics of faults, as they are seen from the author’s standpoint, are formulated.