Foreword to Special Issue: 'Fault Zone Structure, Mechanics and Evolution in Nature and Experiment'

摘要

Tectonic faults in the Earth's upper crust are geometrically complex zones of localized deformation and rock damage that evolve over wide length- and time-scales. Fault zones influence a range of crustal processes including fluid flow, mechanical strength, basin evolution, and earthquake nucleation, propagation and arrest. Because of this, fault zones motivate considerable academic and commercial research, and have been the focus of a large body of work involving field observations, theory, numerical simulations, experiments and seismology.