SCEC Award Number 11192 View PDF
Proposal Category Individual Proposal (Integration and Theory)
Proposal Title Spontaneous Rupture Models of The 2010 Mw 7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah Earthquake
Investigator(s)
Name Organization
Benchun Duan Texas A&M University
Other Participants Jingqian Kang, graduate student
SCEC Priorities B1, A9, A10 SCEC Groups FARM, Seismology, Geology
Report Due Date 02/29/2012 Date Report Submitted N/A
Project Abstract
 In attempting to build finite element mesh of the 2010 Mw 7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake for dynamic rupture modeling, we find that the fault geometry for this earthquake determined by kinematic inversions of geodetic, remote-sensing and seismological data is physically implausible. Our study suggests that physical constraints may need to be added in reconstructing fault geometry by kinematic inversions for earthquakes on geometrically complex faults.
Intellectual Merit The project attempts to push dynamic rupture modeling to realistically complex fault geometry for natural earthquakes, in particular the 2010 Mw 7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake. We find that fault geometry determined from kinematic inversions may need to be improved by physical considerations.
Broader Impacts Research activities in this project promote development of an in-house finite element mesh generator for dynamic rupture modeling on geometrically complex faults. This is significant in using dynamic rupture modeling to gain physical insights of recent large earthquakes that occurred on geometrically complex faults, which are critical to advance our understaning of earthquake physics.
Exemplary Figure Due to incompatibility in fault geometry obtained by kinematic inversion, which is the basis for dynamic rupture modeling, we do not have an exemplary figure for dynamic rupture models of the event in this report.