Original paper

Pseudotachylytes: Coseismic source parameterization from petrology and fabrics

Altenberger, Uwe; Wilke, Max; Bousquet, Romain; Oberhansli, Roland; Scherbaum, Frank

Abstract

Pseudotachylytes are frictional melts, recording extreme seismic events in the earth's crust and mantle and are the most important evidence of paleo-seismicity in exhumed rocks. Petrology has access to these paleo-fault systems, which allows to reconstruct coseismic processes and to constrain earthquake source parameters, such as shear resistance, maximum displacement, formation energy, viscosity, shear strain, slip velocity as well as volume and density changes.