The paucity of supershear earthquakes on large faults governed by rate
and state friction
Abstract
Supershear earthquakes are rare compared to their subshear counterparts,
but the cause for their paucity remains to be understood. We investigate
for the first time the prevalence of supershear ruptures across multiple
earthquake cycles on long faults using rate-and-state friction and a
2.5D approximation that accounts for the finite seismogenic width W. We
find supershear events occur only in a narrow range of friction
parameters that is not commonly observed in laboratory experiments,
which may explain its rarity in nature. Particularly, the ratio between
direct and evolution effects of rate-and-state friction needs to be low
(a/b<0.4) and the nucleation length has to be sufficiently
large compared to W, but not too large that it causes a transition from
seismic to aseismic slip. Our numerical and analytical developments
contribute fundamentally to understanding the state of stress on long
faults over multiple earthquake cycles and their potential for hosting
supershear earthquakes.