{"record":{"author":{"account_ref":null,"orcid":null},"builds_on":[],"content_schema":"pubphys.content.revision/1","content_sha256":"42e583a94d7fabcd7fc6b4f2ccd2e4632df6a8ee33a0a5dad5eba17bca1acb16","created":"2026-10-03T07:18:02Z","files":[],"origin":{"assisted_by":[],"kind":"seed"},"parents":["5475cf5dc5b1a72283d26dc95dc6e00d7ea4e00096a7c6492e409a1816eeb011"],"salt":"e2f995a7265400a37cb870de6bb3dc4bd133cfed58fb67fe683edb0f1d2d0e23","schema":"pubphys.record/2","site":"pubphys.com","target":null,"type":"revision"},"content":{"answer_type":"mechanism","assisted_by":[],"external_id":"earth.earthquake-physics.slow-slip-control","kind":"phenomenon","literature_status":"open","n":"1","parents":[],"plain":"Some faults release stress in slow slip events lasting days to months, with faint tremor instead of shaking. What property of a fault makes its slip slow instead of fast is not established.","posed_since":"","precise":"Slow slip events and tectonic tremor at subduction zones move at slip rates of order $1e-6 \\text{ to } 1e-5\\,\\mathrm{cm/s}$, roughly $10 \\text{ to } 100$ times the plate rate and about $1e7 \\text{ to } 1e8$ times slower than earthquake slip (near $1e2\\,\\mathrm{cm/s}$). Identify the physical control: near-neutral rate-and-state frictional stability ($a - b \\text{ near } 0$) with high pore-fluid pressure, dilatancy strengthening, mixed frictional-viscous rheology, or fault-zone heterogeneity, and whether and when slow slip triggers large earthquakes. An answer is a constitutive model, tested against laboratory data, that reproduces the observed moment-duration scaling, recurrence and tremor of slow slip (review: Burgmann, EPSL 2018, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2018.04.062).","problem_ref":null,"references":"","settled_by":"Laboratory friction experiments on natural fault-zone materials under in situ fluid pressure that reproduce slow slip, matched to geodetic and tremor catalogs.","status_note":"","title":"What decides whether a fault slips slowly or in earthquakes?","topic_ref":"1dbf2e518640764e9008c15991558e9c0810fdb6b00292d36b150438ae8a1784"},"attested":{"attestation":{"batch":null,"client_id":null,"id_token_sha256":null,"kind":"platform"},"record_hash":"78ce7db2fd15a070f04d9489e18f9b9a3d4bd1e0784657b1ba80313dcf64a6d1","schema":"pubphys.attested/1"},"envelope":{"attested_hash":"a0e6aa2db40e74e7d7b0e1655593cd3fe5a03939e722c3b30cd563ff00cfcf20","platform_signature":{"key_id":"c6afc19b31429869751f06879c75cd64ea92654423d15b44be775bf1310a60da","sig":"10rpNBrEPcs763lBKVH0847A3_yvXnwcMdD6vEDRYOiA7yq51xYXLmkO5Oa5f-SJcnEBzP7onerJHbpxdPk2Bg"},"schema":"pubphys.envelope/1"},"record_hash":"78ce7db2fd15a070f04d9489e18f9b9a3d4bd1e0784657b1ba80313dcf64a6d1","leaf_index":1314}