Time-dependent displacement and stress fields due to shear and tensile faults in a transversely isotropic viscoelastic half-space

Viscoelastic behaviour of materials in nature is observed in post-event deformations due to seismic or volcanic activities. In this paper, by adopting the correspondence principle, we propose an inelastic model to predict first the Laplace-domain response of a transversely isotropic viscoelastic half-space due to a shear or tensile fault of polygonal shape. The displacement and stress fields in the time domain are then obtained using an efficient and accurate algorithm for the inverse Laplace transform. Numerical examples are presented to validate the proposed solution and to show the viscoelastic displacement and stress fields due to a strike-slip, dip-slip and tensile fault of rectangular shape. The obtained results indicate that both viscoelasticity and transverse isotropy play significant roles in the viscoelastic response of the half-space due to faults, which could be used as benchmarks for the future numerical analysis of realistic post-seismic or volcanic event.