Earthquakes commonly occur in the sliding surface of the fault zone. The morphology of the sliding surface is the result of fault activities, and also it evolves with the activities. The irregular geometry of the fault plane affects the sliding resistance, the concentration and anisotropy of the stress distribution within the fault plane and the fault shear strength. So, the acquisition of high-precision morphological features is of great significance for studying the correlation between fault surface morphology and seismic nucleation, fracture propagation and termination. Due to the lack of reliable micron-scale morphological measurement apparatus, the study of the coherence of the fault surface morphology from large scale(unit: m-cm)to small scale(unit: μm)is subject to restrictions, as well as the study of the relationship between the micro-morphology of the experimental frictional surface and the rupture process. In order to improve the measurement accuracy of the fault plane and overcome the shortcomings of existing measurement methods, we have invented a morphology measurement system with independent intellectual property rights.
The measuring principle of this morphology measurement system is based on the laser rangefinder theory. The frame of this system consists of four parts: Braced Frame, Moving Scanner Unit, System-Controlling Unit and Data Collection Unit. Braced Frame is made up of high-adjustable frame, loading stage, dust-proof box and isolation platform, which is used to provide a vibration isolation, light proof and dust-proof measuring environment. Moving Scanner Unit contains a laser head and a two-dimensional translation stag, the laser head is used to measure vertical distance and a two-dimensional translation stage carrying a laser head moving in X-axis and Y-axis orientation to provide X, Y coordinate values. System-Controlling Unit includes two-dimensional translation stage controller, laser head controller and signal convertor. The function of this part is mainly to control operation of other parts. The Data Collection Unit is composed of computer system and software module. This part connects other parts for receiving and storing data. In order to improve the scan efficiency, we developed new software by which we can precisely control the measuring process and efficiently process the acquired data. The software is comprised of five modules: 1)Move Module, this module is used to control the original moving of the laser head relative to the two-dimension translation stage and display the 3-dimensional coordinate information in real time; 2)Set Parameters of Scan Area, the function of this module is to obtain the XY coordinate values of four corner points of the target area to scan; 3)Scan Method Module, though this part, we can control the point spacing in the X-axis orientation by inputting velocity of laser header, as well as the point spacing in X-axis orientation by inputting the Y-step parameter; 4)Pre-Scan Module, there are three functions in this module to inspect whether the z-value of the target area is beyond the range of the laser head or not, estimate consuming time for scanning the object area under the predefined parameters and to estimate the size of the result file; and 5)Scan Module, the function of this module is to store the scanning data.
We scanned the camera lens and the standard plate whose standard deviations are lower than 5μm to acquire the precision of the measurement system, and the results show that the precision of the plane positioning (X-axis and Y-axis direction)is better than 3.5μm; the vertical measurement precision is better than 4.5μm. The highest resolution of the measurement system is constrained by the performance of the laser head and two-dimension translation stage, and the horizontal resolution can reach 0.62μm, vertical resolution 0.25μm. When the needed resolution is lower than the highest, we can achieve it through adjusting the parameter of the velocity in the X-axis orientation and steps in the Y-axis orientation. To test the practical effect of the measurement system, we scanned an area of frictional surface of experimental rock using this system and obtained a high-resolution topography data. From the DEM interpolated from the cloud data, we can observe the striation on the fault plane and the variation of the roughness distribution. The roughness and slope distribution results show that the topography measurement system can meet our requirements for analyzing the microscopic morphology on the micrometer scale.
Compared with traditional measurement devices, the morphology measurement system has the following advantages: 1)The measurement system can obtain the data even in a valley region with a large dip angle on the surface because the vertically emitted beam by the laser head is practically perpendicular to the surface. So compared with other means, it can avoid producing a blank area of measurements and get a complete area; 2)the measurement system has a larger measurement range of 30cm×30cm. When the high-resolution measurement is performed on a large scale, the error caused by the registration of multiple measurement results can also be avoided.

The existence of asperity has been confirmed by heterogeneously distributed seismic activities along the slipping surface associated with recent huge earthquakes, such as the M8.0 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and M9.0 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake. The location of asperity embedded in the seismogenic depth always corresponds to the area of high value of the co-seismic displacement and stress drop where the elastic energy is accumulated during the inter-seismic periods. Fault segmentation is an essential step for seismic hazard assessment. So far, the fault trace is dominantly segmented by considering its geometric features, such as bends and steps. But the connection between the asperity and geometric feature of the slipping surface is under dispute. Research on correlation between geometric feature of surface rupture and co-seismic displacement is of great significance to understand the relationship of seismicity distribution to geometric morphology of sliding surface. To scrutinize the correlation between the geometric feature and co-seismic displacement, we compiled 28 earthquake cases among which there are 19 strike-slip events and 9 dip-slip events. These cases are mainly collected from the published investigation reports and research papers after the earthquake occurred. All the earthquakes’ magnitude is between M_W5.4~8.1 except for the M_W5.4 Ernablla earthquake. The range of the rupture length lies between 4.5~426km. Each case contains surface rupture trace mapped in detail with corresponding distribution of co-seismic displacement, but the rupture maps vary in projected coordinate system. So, in order to obtain uniform vector graphics for the following data processing, firstly, vectorization of the surface rupture traces associated with each case should be conducted, and secondly, the vector graphics are transformed into identical geographic coordinate system, i.e. WGS1984-UTM projected coordinate system, and detrended to adjust its fitted trend line into horizontal orientation. The geometric features of surface rupture trace are characterized from three aspects, i.e. strike change, step and roughness. Previous studies about the rupture geometry always describe the characteristics from the whole trace length, consequently, the interior change of the geometric characteristics of the rupture is overlooked. In order to solve this problem, a technique of moving window with a specified window size and moving step is performed to quantify the change of feature values along the fault strike. The selected window size would directly affect the quantified result of the geometric feature. There are two contrary effects, large window size would neglect the detail characteristics of the trace, and small window size would split the continuity of the target object and increase the noise component. So we tested a set of sizes on the Gobi-Altay case to select a proper value and choose 1/25 of the whole rupture length as a proper scaling. Here, we utilize the included angle value of the fitted line in the adjoining windows, Coefficient of variation and the intercept value of the PSD(Power Spectra Density)for characterizing the change of strike, step size and roughness. The rupture trace is extracted within every moving window to calculate the aforementioned feature values. Then we can obtain three sets of data from every rupture trace. The co-seismic displacement is averaged in piecewise with uniform interval and moving step along the fault strike. Then, the correlations between three kinds of feature value and the co-seismic displacement are calculated respectively, as well as the P-value of correlation coefficient significant test.
We divided cases into two groups according to the slip mode, i.e. strike-slip group and dip-slip group, and contrast their results. In the correlation result list, there is an apparent discrepancy in correlation values between the two groups. The values of the strike-slip group mostly show negative, which indicates that geometric feature of the rupture trace is in inverse proportion to the displacement. In dip-slip group, the values distribute around zero, which suggests the geometric features is irrelevant to the displacement. Through the analysis of the correlation between the surface rupture and co-seismic displacement, the following conclusions can be reached: 1)In comparison with the dip-slip earthquake type, the characteristics of surface rupture of strike-slip earthquakes have a higher-level of correlation with the distribution of the co-seismic displacement, which suggests that the geometric features of strike-slip active faults may have a higher reference value in the fault-segmentation research than the dip-slip type; 2)In most strike-slip events, there is a negative correlation between the geometric features and the co-seismic displacement, which implicates that the higher the feature values of the steps, strike change and roughness, the lower the corresponding co-seismic displacement is; 3)Among the three quantified features of the surface rupture trace, the ranking of relevancy between them and the co-seismic displacement is: step size>strike change>roughness.

With the development and breakthrough of a series of techniques such as the fault surface morphology measurement, the geochemical element determination and Quaternary dating methods, it becomes possible to study paleo-earthquake using information recorded by the bedrock fault surface. At present, more and more scholars domestic and overseas have carried out a large number of paleo-earthquake studies on bedrock fault surfaces in different professional perspectives and have achieved a series of innovative results. This paper systematically introduces the development history, the current situation and the basic principles and applications of paleo-earthquake study on bedrock fault surface. Moreover, after the thorough discussion of the existing problems in paleo-earthquake research of bedrock fault surface, some suggestions for optimizing the current work are proposed. Finally, on the basis of comparison of the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of various research methods, the prospects and development trends of the bedrock fault paleo-earthquake study are predicted. Lots of weaknesses and limitations in the current study are pointed out in this paper:Firstly, for the method of faullt surface morphology measurement, different morphological expression parameters exist nowadays, however, their advantages and disadvantages are unknown. Secondly, the TCNs method still has a large uncertainty in the age determination of the paleo-earthquake, and the mature cosmogenic nuclides dating methods is too few to meet the dating requirements of different lithologic fault surfaces. Besides, a reliable relationship between relative dating parameters such as morphologicl and physicochemical characteristics and the absolute dating method such as TCNs are not closely established to build a reliable chronology framework. The last but not the least, the lack of mechanical research on the physical and chemical biological processes that the bedrock fault surface experienced before and after the faulting and exposure, and insufficient multi-method comprehensive comparison are also the obstacles for the paleo-earthquake study on bedrock fault surface. It is suggested that in the future study of paleo-earthquakes on bedrock fault surfaces, more attention should be paid to the following aspects:Firstly, strengthen the evaluation of the reliability, applicability and accuracy of the parameters of each morphological model in time and improve the mathematical model of current dating techniques, optimize the mechanism of cosmogenic nuclide production, and introduce new high-precision dating technology timely; Secondly, strive to establish a reliable age framework between relative dating index(X)and absolute dating age(T)regionally; In addition, the morphological structure and mineral compositions of bedrock fault surface are analyzed proactively on the microscopic scale, and the mechanical study is conducted on a series of physical, chemical and biological processes that the fault surface experienced before and after the exposure. At last, comprehensive and comparative research need to be conducted by the multi-disciplinary and multi-method approaches. In conclusion, the paleo-earthquake study on the bedrock fault surface is going through the processes from the qualitative description to the quantitative expression, from the single-disciplinary method to the multi-disciplinary integration, from the exploration of a certain technical index to the comprehensive application of multi-source data technology. The combination of relative dating indicators(X)and absolute dating(T), and putting more emphasis on the mechanical study on the microscopic scale are the development trends of paleo-earthquake study on the bedrock fault surface. The close combination of the paleo-earthquake study of the bedrock fault surface with the traditional method of trenching conducted in the Quaternary sediment region is considered to help more effectively reconstruct a more complete paleo-earthquake sequence and the faulting history on the active fault zone, thus a more reasonable evaluation of the regional seismic hazard can be obtained.

Fault traces contain abundant information associated with the fracture process and mechanism, so an accurate and quantitative description of their geometric characteristics is of great significance to perceiving the generation and development of faults. We collected 52 co-seismic surface ruptures and 300 active fault traces from across the world to analyse their geometric characteristics by the method of power spectrum density. Our results show that (1)the average power spectrum density has a distinct three-segment charateristic in the frequency domain. In the low frequency domain it represents the geometric characteristics of the boundary of tectonic block. In the medium frequency domain, the power spectrum density reflects the processes of lateral growth and connection of secondary faults, and the turn point on the 100 meters scale represents the effective resampling length, below which the power spectrum density characteristics are meaningless. (2)In the middle and high frequency domains, the power spectrum density curves of co-seismic surface ruptures show that there are obvious differences in roughness among three fault types, i.e. reverse > normal > strike-slip, which indicates that the geometric characteristics of co-seismic surface ruptures are controlled by the fault types. (3)Compared with co-seismic surface ruptures, active fault traces have much lower power spectrum density, indicating the roughness of active fault traces becomes lower with increasing numbers of rupturing events and the lengths of active history, i.e., the fault roughness is inversly proportional to its maturity.