Source Mechanisms of Laboratory Earthquakes During Fault Nucleation and Formation

Identifying deformation and pre-failure mechanisms preceding faulting is key for fault mechanics and for interpreting precursors to fault rupture. This study presents the results of a new and robust derivation of first motion polarity focal mechanism solutions (FMS) applied to acoustic emission (AE). FMS are solved using a least squares minimization of the fit between projected polarity measurements and the deviatoric stress field induced by dilatational (T-type), shearing (S-type), and compressional (C-type) sources. 4 × 10 cm cylindrical samples of Alzo Granite (AG, porosity <1%) and Darley Dale Sandstone (DDS, porosity ≈14%) underwent conventional triaxial tests in order to investigat…