Seismogenic width controls aspect ratios of earthquake ruptures

We investigate the effect of seismogenic width on aspect ratios of earthquake ruptures by using numerical simulations of strike-slip faulting and an energy balance criterion near rupture tips. If the seismogenic width is smaller than a critical value, then ruptures cannot break the entire fault, regardless of the size of the nucleation zone. The seismic moments of these self-arresting ruptures increase with the nucleation size, forming nucleation-related events. The aspect ratios increase with the seismogenic width but are smaller than 8. In contrast, ruptures become breakaway and tend to have high aspect ratios (>8) if the seismogenic width is sufficiently large. But the critical nucleation size is larger than the theoretical estimate for an unbounded fault. The eventual seismic moments of breakaway ruptures do not depend on the nucleation size. Our results suggest that estimating final earthquake magnitude from the nucleation phase may only be plausible on faults with small seismogenic width.