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Earthquakes, Energy

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Encyclopedia of Solid Earth Geophysics

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

Definition and calculation

During the earthquake process, the strain energy W available for rupture is divided into fracture energy E G , thermal energy E H , and radiated seismic energy E S . The stress conditions around the fault and the rheological and elastic characteristics of the Earth materials being ruptured determine the partitioning of the overall energy budget involved in the earthquake source process. In particular, E G and E H are the energies dissipated mechanically and as frictional heat during faulting, respectively, and E S is the energy fraction that goes into elastic seismic waves energy. The latter being of great importance for seismologists in evaluating an earthquake’s shaking potential, in the following the relationship between the strain energy and radiated seismic energy is outlined.

After Knopoff (1958), the change in strain energy before and after an earthquake can be obtained from:

$$ \Delta W = S\bar{D}\bar{\sigma }, $$
(1)...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department 2: Physics of the Earth, GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, 14473, Potsdam, Germany

    Domenico Di Giacomo & Peter Bormann

Authors
  1. Domenico Di Giacomo
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  2. Peter Bormann
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Correspondence to Domenico Di Giacomo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. National Geophysical Research Institute, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Hyderabad, India

    Harsh K. Gupta

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Di Giacomo, D., Bormann, P. (2011). Earthquakes, Energy. In: Gupta, H.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Solid Earth Geophysics. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8702-7_24

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