“Strength & Healing of Fault zones: a tool to understand seismogenesis”

Abstract: The frictional properties of rocks exert a first-order control on the inception of slip along faults. This may affect the location and evolution of rupture and slip during earthquakes and other fault slip phenomena such as slow slips and creep.
The frictional properties of rocks are not constant but are affected by the structural complexity of faults and by many enviromental conditions (P,T, fluids, time...).
Here we present how we are investigating the fault structure and frictional properties of a fault zone that represents an ancient megathrust now exhumed in the Northern Apennines of Italy, and what it can tell us about faulting in modern subduction zones.

Short CV: T. Tesei is a specialist in structural geology, of brittle faults, microtectonics and rock mechanics, with a particular focus on the mechanisms of friction and fault healing and slow processes that lead to the nucleation of earthquakes.

Associate Professor of Structural Geology at Padua University
Previous experience:
2017-2019 Marie-Skłodowska Curie Fellow at Durham University.
2015-2017: Postdoctoral researcher, HPHT Laboratory, INGV Rome.
10/12/2014: Ph.D. in Structural Geology and Rock Mechanics, University of Perugia, Italy.