In geophysics, a fault is a fracture or zone of fractures within Earth’s crust along which measurable displacement has occurred due to tectonic stress. Faults accommodate brittle deformation and are characterized by a fault plane (or surface), a slip direction, and associated structures such as fault gouge and breccia. They are classified by kinematics into normal, reverse (including thrust), and strike-slip types, reflecting the dominant stress regime (extensional, compressional, or shear). Faults influence strain localization, fluid migration, and seismicity, with many earthquakes resulting from sudden slip episodes governed by frictional and elastic properties of the surrounding rocks.
Asier Madarieta, a researcher in the EHU's HGI (Water Environmental Processes) group, has analyzed how the Earth's crust is being compressed and deformed in the field where Eurasia and Africa meet in the Western Mediterranean. ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 10, 2025
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The March 28, 2025, Myanmar earthquake is giving scientists a rare look into how some of the world's most dangerous fault systems behave, including California's San Andreas Fault. Earthquakes are notoriously messy and complex, ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 10, 2025
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A fault line in Canada's Yukon territory has stirred after more than 12,000 years of geological sleep. Researchers studying the Tintina Fault, which stretches 1,000 kilometers from northeast British Columbia into the Yukon ...
Environment
Dec 2, 2025
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Slow earthquakes have been discovered to exhibit anomalously slow, long-lasting and small slips, adjacent to regular earthquakes where we sometimes feel catastrophic vibration. However, no one knows the reason why slow earthquakes ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 1, 2025
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Earthquake faults deep in Earth can glue themselves back together following a seismic event, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Davis. The work, published in Science Advances, adds ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 19, 2025
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Predicting earthquakes has long been an unattainable fantasy. Factors like odd animal behaviors that have historically been thought to forebode earthquakes are not supported by empirical evidence. As these factors often occur ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 19, 2025
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A UCLA-led team of scientists has uncovered how the devastating magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar in March 2025 produced one of the longest and fastest-moving ruptures ever recorded on land.
Earth Sciences
Oct 30, 2025
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Earthquakes often bring to mind images of destruction, of the Earth breaking open and altering landscapes. But after an earthquake, the area around it undergoes a period of post-seismic deformation, where areas that didn't ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 15, 2025
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Scientists have uncovered a key piece of the puzzle behind the unusual "slow earthquakes" occurring off the east coast of New Zealand's North Island.
Earth Sciences
Aug 18, 2025
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Megathrust earthquakes are large earthquakes that occur on faults found along the boundaries between tectonic plates. The Nankai Trough is a megathrust earthquake zone lying off the southwestern coast of Japan, and experts ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 23, 2025
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