Philosophy of the approach:
It is necessary to develop techniques that deal with the complexity of
the geophysical systems.
We proceed in three stages:
- We construct dynamical systems that reproduce elementary Earth-like
behaviors from the nature of the interactions and not from the nature of the
heterogeneities.
- We extract from these models control parameters and characteristic scenarios.
- We extrapolate the results to real geophysical systems in order to provide
a statistical description of these systems.
Why this approach in a study of the faulting in brittle rocks?
- The fracturing process extends on a large range of spatial scales
and may produce highly discontinuous phenomena on a large range
of temporal scales (e.g. earthquakes, aftershock sequences, creep).
- No description of the brittle crust is precise enough to
approximate the geometry of the fractures and to measure the relative influence
of different physical parameters (e.g. stress corrosion, pore-pressure, heat flow,
healing).
- Fracture populations and earthquakes may be described by similar relationships under
extremely different geophysical contexts (intra-plate, inter-plate).
|