Steve Glaser Studies Healed Faults to Assess Future Quakes

Featured Faculty: Steven D. Glaser

CEE Civil Systems professor Steven Glaser is the principal investigator of a study that could help engineers better assess the vulnerabilities of buildings, bridges, and other structures when a previously-ruptured fault ruptures again. The findings from the National Science Foundation funded study will be published in the Nov. 1 issue of Nature.

"The experiment in our lab allows us to consider how long a fault has healed and more accurately predict the type of shaking that would occur when it ruptures,” says Glaser.

“It is elegant work,” said seismologist John Vidale, a professor at the University of Washington who was not associated with the study. “The point that more healed faults can be more destructive is dismaying. It may not be enough to locate faults to assess danger, but rather knowing their history, which is often unknowable, that is key to fully assessing their threat.”

See Tabletop Fault Model Reveals Why Some Quakes Lead to Faster Shaking (UC Berkeley News Center)

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