"Earthquakes are labeled “shallow” if they occur at less than 50 kilometers depth.  They are labeled “deep” if they occur at 300-700 kilometers depth.  When slippage occurs during these earthquakes, the faults weaken.  How this fault weakening takes place is central to understanding earthquake sliding.

A new study published online in Nature Geoscience today by a research team led by University of California, Riverside geologists now reports that a universal sliding mechanism operates for earthquakes of all depths – from the deep ones all the way up to the crustal ones."

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