Earthquakes are complex frictional instabilities. We are interested in how and why earthquakes start, propagate, and stop in the multitude of ways that they do. We can generate smaller, scaled earthquakes in the laboratory and study them closely with a variety of instrumentation to better understand the stresses and frictional properties that are conducive to the generation of various slip modes including earthquakes, slow slip events, and stable creep. Recently, we’ve been interested in the physics and geophysical observations of preseismic slip and postseismic relaxation - using active ultrasonic techniques and acoustic emission monitoring.
(Some) related publications:
