TITLE:
Slow Strain Waves: Models and Observations, a Review
AUTHORS:
Victor G. Bykov
KEYWORDS:
Earthquake Migration, Strain Waves, Solitary Waves, Stick-Slip
JOURNAL NAME:
International Journal of Geosciences,
Vol.14 No.1,
January
31,
2023
ABSTRACT: The
theoretical discovery of slow strain (tectonic) waves, the so-called strain
waves in the Earth, served as a motivation to develop physical backgrounds of
the mathematical theory of propagation of these waves and to search for methods
of their experimental detection. For fifty years, scientists from different
countries in different regions of the Earth, using direct and indirect methods,
discovered the migration of crustal deformation and revealed its wave nature,
and, therefore, proved the reality of the existence of strain waves of the
Earth. This overview briefly describes the history of the development of the
concept of strain waves on the
Earth, the observation methods and properties of strain waves, and the main types of geological structures
generating these waves. The most prominent results of the
theoretical, laboratory, and in-situ observations of slow strain migration,
including slow earthquakes and periodic Episodic Tremor and Slow (ETS) slip
effects, are presented. In the near future, studies of slow
strain waves may lead to a fundamental revision of the current concepts about the physics of the
seismic process.