Obtaining the size distribution of fault gouges with polydisperse bearings

Pedro G. Lind, Reza M. Baram, Hans J. Herrmann

Published 2007-11-12, updated 2007-11-13Version 2

We generalize the recent study of random space-filling bearings to a more realistic situation, where the spacing offset varies randomly during the space-filling procedure, and show that it reproduces well the size-distributions observed in recent studies of real fault gouges. In particular, we show that the fractal dimensions of random polydisperse bearings sweep predominantly the low range of values in the spectrum of fractal dimensions observed along real faults, which strengthen the evidence that polydisperse bearings may explain the occurrence of seismic gaps in nature. In addition, the influence of different distributions for the offset is studied and we find that the uniform distribution is the best choice for reproducing the size-distribution of fault gouges.