scholarly journals Self-limiting earthquake dynamics and spatio-temporal clustering of seismicity enabled by off-fault plasticity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md Shumon Mia ◽  
Mohamed Abdelmeguid ◽  
Ahmed Elbanna

Earthquakes are among nature’s deadliest and costliest hazards. Understanding mechanisms for earthquake nucleation, propagation, and arrest is key for developing reliable operational forecasts and next generation seismic hazard models. While significant progress has been made in understanding source processes in linear elastic domains, the response of the rocks near the fault is complex and likely to be inelastic due to the extreme stresses and deformations associated with fault slip. The effect of this more realistic fault zone response on seismic and aseismic fault slip is poorly understood. Here, we simulate sequence of earthquake and aseismic slip of a fault embedded in an elastic-viscoplastic bulk subject to slow tectonic loading. We show that off-fault plasticity significantly influences the source characteristics. Specifically, off-fault plasticity may lead to partial ruptures and emergence of spatial segmentation as well as hierarchical temporal seismic clustering. Furthermore, co-evolution of fault slip and off-fault bulk plasticity may lead to heterogeneous rupture propagation and results in pockets of slip deficit. While the energy dissipated through plastic deformation remains a small fraction of the total energy budget, its impact on the source characteristics is disproportionally large through the redistribution of stresses and viscous relaxation. Our results suggest a new mechanism of dynamic heterogeneity in earthquake physics that can be active for both small and large earthquakes and may have important implications on earthquake size distribution and energy budget. Furthermore, this plasticity-induced self-limiting crack dynamics may be relevant for other dynamic fracture applications and design of dynamically tough materials.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 256
Author(s):  
Usman Mazhar ◽  
Shuanggen Jin ◽  
Wentao Duan ◽  
Muhammad Bilal ◽  
Md. Arfan Ali ◽  
...  

Being the highest and largest land mass of the earth, the Tibetan Plateau has a strong impact on the Asian climate especially on the Asian monsoon. With high downward solar radiation, the Tibetan Plateau is a climate sensitive region and the main water source for many rivers in South and East Asia. Although many studies have analyzed energy fluxes in the Tibetan Plateau, a long-term detailed spatio-temporal variability of all energy budget parameters is not clear for understanding the dynamics of the regional climate change. In this paper, satellite remote sensing and reanalysis data are used to quantify spatio-temporal trends of energy budget parameters, net radiation, latent heat flux, and sensible heat flux over the Tibetan Plateau from 2001 to 2019. The validity of both data sources is analyzed from in situ ground measurements of the FluxNet micrometeorological tower network, which verifies that both datasets are valid and reliable. It is found that the trend of net radiation shows a slight increase. The latent heat flux increases continuously, while the sensible heat flux decreases continuously throughout the study period over the Tibetan Plateau. Varying energy fluxes in the Tibetan plateau will affect the regional hydrological cycle. Satellite LE product observation is limited to certain land covers. Thus, for larger spatial areas, reanalysis data is a more appropriate choice. Normalized difference vegetation index proves a useful indicator to explain the latent heat flux trend. Despite the reduction of sensible heat, the atmospheric temperature increases continuously resulting in the warming of the Tibetan Plateau. The opposite trend of sensible heat flux and air temperature is an interesting and explainable phenomenon. It is also concluded that the surface evaporative cooling is not the indicator of atmospheric cooling/warming. In the future, more work shall be done to explain the mechanism which involves the complete heat cycle in the Tibetan Plateau.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. E. Higham ◽  
M. Shahnam ◽  
A. Vaidheeswaran

Abstract We apply proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) technique to analyze granular rheology in a laboratory-scale pulsed-fluidized bed. POD allows us to describe the inherent dynamics and energy budget in the dominant spatio-temporal modes in addition to identifying spatial coherence. This enables us to elucidate non-linear interactions between the different mechanisms which has been a shortcoming of conventional statistics-based approaches. The bubbling pattern is a result of interplay between the harmonic and sub-harmonic components. The mesoscopic flow features which contribute to the pattern are dependent on the modal energy budget which change with the pulsing frequency. It is also observed that the granular dynamics can be sufficiently reconstructed by the leading POD modes despite the presence of bubbles which represent kinematic shocks contributing to higher-order modes. In short, we highlight the utility of POD while analyzing fluidized granular flows, and pave the way for future analyses. Graphic abstract


2015 ◽  
Vol 177 ◽  
pp. 313-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rikhia Ghosh ◽  
Tuhin Samanta ◽  
Saikat Banaerjee ◽  
Rajib Biswas ◽  
Biman Bagchi

Local heterogeneity is ubiquitous in natural aqueous systems. It can be caused locally by external biomolecular subsystems like proteins, DNA, micelles and reverse micelles, nanoscopic materials etc., but can also be intrinsic to the thermodynamic nature of the aqueous solution itself (like binary mixtures or at the gas–liquid interface). The altered dynamics of water in the presence of such diverse surfaces has attracted considerable attention in recent years. As these interfaces are quite narrow, only a few molecular layers thick, they are hard to study by conventional methods. The recent development of two dimensional infra-red (2D-IR) spectroscopy allows us to estimate length and time scales of such dynamics fairly accurately. In this work, we present a series of interesting studies employing two dimensional infra-red spectroscopy (2D-IR) to investigate (i) the heterogeneous dynamics of water inside reverse micelles of varying sizes, (ii) supercritical water near the Widom line that is known to exhibit pronounced density fluctuations and also study (iii) the collective and local polarization fluctuation of water molecules in the presence of several different proteins. The spatio-temporal correlation of confined water molecules inside reverse micelles of varying sizes is well captured through the spectral diffusion of corresponding 2D-IR spectra. In the case of supercritical water also, we observe a strong signature of dynamic heterogeneity from the elongated nature of the 2D-IR spectra. In this case the relaxation is ultrafast. We find remarkable agreement between the different tools employed to study the relaxation of density heterogeneity. For aqueous protein solutions, we find that the calculated dielectric constant of the respective systems unanimously shows a noticeable increment compared to that of neat water. However, the ‘effective’ dielectric constant for successive layers shows significant variation, with the layer adjacent to the protein having a much lower value. Relaxation is also slowest at the surface. We find that the dielectric constant achieves the bulk value at distances more than 3 nm from the surface of the protein.


2011 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 308-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoann Thomas ◽  
Joseph Mazurié ◽  
Marianne Alunno-Bruscia ◽  
Cédric Bacher ◽  
Jean-François Bouget ◽  
...  

2005 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 15-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen C. Ardley ◽  
Philip A. Robinson

The selectivity of the ubiquitin–26 S proteasome system (UPS) for a particular substrate protein relies on the interaction between a ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme (E2, of which a cell contains relatively few) and a ubiquitin–protein ligase (E3, of which there are possibly hundreds). Post-translational modifications of the protein substrate, such as phosphorylation or hydroxylation, are often required prior to its selection. In this way, the precise spatio-temporal targeting and degradation of a given substrate can be achieved. The E3s are a large, diverse group of proteins, characterized by one of several defining motifs. These include a HECT (homologous to E6-associated protein C-terminus), RING (really interesting new gene) or U-box (a modified RING motif without the full complement of Zn2+-binding ligands) domain. Whereas HECT E3s have a direct role in catalysis during ubiquitination, RING and U-box E3s facilitate protein ubiquitination. These latter two E3 types act as adaptor-like molecules. They bring an E2 and a substrate into sufficiently close proximity to promote the substrate's ubiquitination. Although many RING-type E3s, such as MDM2 (murine double minute clone 2 oncoprotein) and c-Cbl, can apparently act alone, others are found as components of much larger multi-protein complexes, such as the anaphase-promoting complex. Taken together, these multifaceted properties and interactions enable E3s to provide a powerful, and specific, mechanism for protein clearance within all cells of eukaryotic organisms. The importance of E3s is highlighted by the number of normal cellular processes they regulate, and the number of diseases associated with their loss of function or inappropriate targeting.


2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 1733-1747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Klausen ◽  
Fabian Kaiser ◽  
Birthe Stüven ◽  
Jan N. Hansen ◽  
Dagmar Wachten

The second messenger 3′,5′-cyclic nucleoside adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) plays a key role in signal transduction across prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Cyclic AMP signaling is compartmentalized into microdomains to fulfil specific functions. To define the function of cAMP within these microdomains, signaling needs to be analyzed with spatio-temporal precision. To this end, optogenetic approaches and genetically encoded fluorescent biosensors are particularly well suited. Synthesis and hydrolysis of cAMP can be directly manipulated by photoactivated adenylyl cyclases (PACs) and light-regulated phosphodiesterases (PDEs), respectively. In addition, many biosensors have been designed to spatially and temporarily resolve cAMP dynamics in the cell. This review provides an overview about optogenetic tools and biosensors to shed light on the subcellular organization of cAMP signaling.


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