EARTHQUAKES AND FRICTION LAWS

Earthquakes have long been recognized as resulting from a stick-slip f rictional instability. The development of a full constitutive raw for rock friction now shows that the gamut of earthquake phenomena-seismog enesis and seismic coupling, pre-and post-seismic phenomena, and the i nsensitivity of earthquakes to stress transients-all appear as manifes tations of the richness of this friction law.