Fault “Corrosion” by Fluid Injection: A Potential Cause of the November 2017 5.5 Korean Earthquake

Figure 12

Conceptual model for a fault, modified after [81]. The fault is regarded as a fluid-filled volume of area and typical width , its surfaces—with fractal distributions of irregularities—being in contact at asperities of area , with A_R ≪ A. and are the normal and shear forces acting across the fault, associated with the normal and shear stresses and . This model simplifies the features depicted in Figure 4 for calculation purposes.