Project description
Exploring the birth of earthquakes
Earthquakes are threatening natural events that reshape the Earth and affect millions of people each year. Understanding how they start is key to improving prediction and mitigating the associated risk. However, earthquakes begin deep underground, making it very difficult to directly observe their initiation. This has limited progress in understanding the processes that lead to seismic activity. In this context, the ERC-funded OMEN project is tackling this challenge by creating a unique set-up to study earthquake initiation and generation. Using advanced laboratory technology, researchers will simulate and film the birth of earthquakes in natural fault rocks under real-world conditions. By combining imaging, acoustic data and AI, OMEN will pave the way for better understanding earthquake generation processes and their hazards.
Objective
Earthquakes are one of the most expressive phenomena of our planet, able to suddenly reshape the surface of the Earth and affect countless lives every year. Any effort towards earthquake forecast and hazard mitigation must rely on a profound comprehension of seismogenesis. However, earthquakes are phenomena that emerge from a complex, dynamic system of mechanisms that operate at inaccessible depths within the Earth. The impossibility to directly observe the birth of an earthquake (i.e. the “nucleation”) frustrates our effort to have new breakthroughs on their physics.
The overarching goal of OMEN is to directly observe the mechanisms of earthquake nucleation to allow for a step-change in our understanding of seismic slip and its potential precursors. OMEN will overcome the current experimental approaches that rely only on the indirect measure of sample properties and/or use of rock-analogue materials. With an innovative rock-deformation apparatus and the use of transparent high-tech glass, I will be able to simulate and, for the first time, film the birth of earthquakes in natural fault rocks at hypocentral conditions. This method, in combination with several investigation techniques (visible and infrared footage, acoustic emissions, deep learning-assisted image analysis etc.), will offer unprecedented detail on the processes during the preparation and propagation of seismic slip. In particular, I will shed new light on how the complexity of natural rocks affect the dynamics, resulting into the formulation of a new, more reliable physical framework for the description of earthquake nucleation. Laboratory and theoretical results will be upscaled to nature thanks to the integration of microstructural and field studies of natural faults.
OMEN is the unique opportunity to open a literal window into the dynamics of earthquakes, shifting the paradigm from an empirically quantitative documentation to a direct and truly quantitative observation.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences physical sciences astronomy planetary sciences planets
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences geology seismology
- engineering and technology materials engineering amorphous solids
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) ERC-2024-STG
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35122 Padova
Italy
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