Because the Earth’s crust is quite heterogeneous and consists of various types of rocks, many faults are located near material interfaces. Recent observational studies have revealed that some faults cross the interfaces, but theoretical treatment of their dynamic behaviour is still undeveloped. In this paper, we develop a boundary integral equation method (BIEM) to analyse the dynamic behavio…

It is well known that sedimentary rocks having same porosity can have very different pore size distribution. The pore distribution determines many characteristics of the rock, among which its transport properties are often the most useful. Multifractal analysis is a powerful tool that is increasingly used to characterize the pore space. In this study, we performed multifractal analysis of pore …

Numerical simulations of dynamic earthquake rupture require an artificial initiation procedure, if they are not integrated in long-term earthquake cycle simulations. A widely applied procedure involves an ‘overstressed asperity’, a localized region stressed beyond the static frictional strength. The physical properties of the asperity (size, shape and over stress) may significan…

Between 2011 and 2013, two dense transects were deployed across the central and western Pyrenees to get better constraints on the deep lithospheric architecture and discriminate the competing models of the structure and formation of the Pyrenees. Each transect recorded the regional and global seismicity during a period of approximately 1 yr. Here, we exploit the records of teleseismic compressi…

Full waveform inversion (FWI) of 3-D data sets has recently been possible thanks to the development of high performance computing. However, FWI remains a computationally intensive task when high frequencies are injected in the inversion or more complex wave physics (viscoelastic) is accounted for. The highest computational cost results from the numerical solution of the wave equation for each s…

Precise relative hypocentres of seismic events induced by long-term fluid injection at the Paradox Valley Unit (PVU) brined is posal well provide constraints on the subsurface geological structure and compliment information available from deep seismic reflection and well data. We use the 3-D spatial distribution of the hypocentres to refine the locations, strikes, and throws o…

For the first time, a deep seismic data set acquired in the frame of the Algerian–French SPIRAL program provides new insights regarding the origin of the westernmost Algerian margin and basin. We performed a tomographic inversion of traveltimes along a 100-km-long wide-angle seismic profile shot over 40 ocean bottom seismometers offshore Mostaganem (Northwestern Algeria). The resu…

We present high-resolution tomographic images in source areas of 26 large crustal earthquakes (M 6.0–7.2) which occurred in Northeast Japan (Tohoku) during the past 120 yr from 1894 to 2014. Prominent low-velocity (low-V) and high Poisson’s ratio (high-σ) anomalies are revealed in the crust and mantle wedge under the source areas. Beneath the volcanic front and backarc areas, the low-V…

Earthquake rupture models inferred from inversions of geophysical and/or geodetic data exhibit remarkable variability due to uncertainties in modelling assumptions, the use of different inversion algorithms, or variations in data selection and data processing. A robust statistical comparison of different rupture models obtained for a single earthquake is needed to quantify the intra-event varia…

The effect of network density and geometric distribution on kinematic non-linear source inversion is investigated by inverting synthetic ground motions from a buried strike-slip fault (Mw 6.5), that have been generated by dynamic spontaneous rupture modelling. For the inversion, we use a physics-based regularized Yoffe function as slip velocity function. We test three different cases of station…