The Moment Duration Scaling Relation for Slow Rupture Arises From Transient Rupture Speeds

Abstract

Plain Language Summary Observations have shown that the duration of earthquakes is related to the seismic moment through a power law. The power law exponent is different for regular earthquakes and slow aseismic rupture, and the origin of this difference is currently debated in the literature. In this letter, we introduce a minimal mechanical friction model that contains both slow and regular earthquakes and demonstrate that the different power laws emerge naturally within the model because the propagation speed of slow earthquakes decays as a power law in time, whereas the propagation speed of regular earthquakes remains fairly constant.