The systematical experiments carried out by G6mez-Rivas and Griera （2012） demonstrate that the ductile shear zones initiate at 55° to 0-1 just as predicted by the MEM-criterion. However, the data are explained in terms of dilatancy, which requires many prerequisites and implies that the ±55° angle is only valid for the used material. In contrast, the -55°predicted by the MEM-criterion is material independent, which makes it widely applicable to explaining the development of ductile shear zones in nature.
Before the major earthquake or rock damage occurs,it is often accompanied by a sudden change in the degree of non-uniformity of the strain field.In order to find a stronger non-uniformity signal before the rock failure,the coefficient of variation(Cv)is examined and reformed in this study.We test the Cv calculation way of the"normal-abnormal"model proposed in the previous studies.Based on the analysis of the physical process of rock failure and its relationship to the shear strain field,we construct a new way to calculate the Cv value.The variation of shear strain field on rock sample with the increase of stress is obtained by the digital speckle correlation method(DSCM).The new Cv value calculation way is used to study the non-uniformity of the spatial distribution for the shear strain field.The results show that this Cv calculation way can get more obvious abnormal signals.When the number of observation points are limited,the specific distribution of points can increase the signal strength,which may provide reference for the research on precursor detection of earthquakes.
Wide-open V-shaped conjugate strike-slip faults in Asia are typically related to extrusion tectonics. However, the tectonic model based on the slip-line theory of plasticity has some critical problems associated with it. The conjugate sets of slip-lines in plane deformation, according to the theory of plasticity should be normal to each another but, in reality, the angles between the conjugate strike-slip faults, which are regarded as slip-lines in extrusion tectonics in the eastern Mediterranean, Tibet-middle Asia, China and the Indochina Peninsular regions, are always more than 90° （on average -110°） in the direction of contraction. Another problem is that the slip-line theory fails to explain how, in some cases, e.g., in the Anatolian area in the eastern Mediterranean, the extrusion rate is much higher than the indent rate. The two major problems are easy to solve in terms of the Maximum-Effective-Moment （MEM） Criterion that predicts that orientations of the shear zones are theoretically at an angle of 54.7° and practically at angles of 55°± 10° with the σ1- or contractional direction. The orientations of the strike-slip faults that accommodate extrusion tectonics are, therefore, fundamentally controlled by the MEM Criterion. When extrusion is along the MEM-orientations, the extruding rate is normally higher than the indenting rate.
