DISPLACEMENTS AND STRESSES IN AN ANISOTROPIC MEDIUM DUE TO NON-UNIFORM SLIP ALONG A VERY LONG STRIKE-SLIP FAULT

The problem of static deformation of a homogeneous, orthotropic elastic uniform half-space due to non-uniform slip along a vertical strike-slip fault of infinite length and finite width has been studied. Closed-form analytical expressions of displacements and stresses for different slip profiles – parabolic, linear, elliptic, and cubic are obtained. The results obtained here are the generalization of the results for an isotropic medium (Singh et al., 1994) in the sense that medium of the present work is orthotropic which is more realistic than isotropic and results for an isotropic case can be derived from our results. The variations of the horizontal displacements and stresses with distance from the fault due to various slip-profiles at the surface have been studied to examine the effect of anisotropy on the deformation. Numerically, it has been found that for parabolic, linear, and elliptic slip profiles, the surface displacements in magnitude for isotropic elastic medium are greater than that for an orthotropic elastic medium while in case of cubic slip, the surface displacements in magnitude for orthotropic elastic medium is greater than that for the isotropic medium