Visiting Researchers
Daniel LAVALLEE
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Self Introduction
My name is Daniel Lavallée. Since the beginning of my graduate studies in the Physics Department at McGill University, my research activities have been related to many different aspects of nonlinear physics with applications in Geophysics. This interest has been the primary motivation for the development of new theoretical multifractal concepts and their application to turbulence, atmospheric physics, hydrology and landscape topography. Since 1997, when I joined the Institute for Crustal Studies, at University of California in Santa Barbara (UCSB), my research has been focused on the study of nonlinear effects in seismology: first in the study of nonlinear soil dynamics and earthquake strong ground motion and second in the study of spatial complexity of earthquake slip or pre-stress distribution over the fault surface. In collaboration with Professor R. J. Archuleta (UCSB), we developed, a random model that quantifies the spatial variability and correlation observed in the slip spatial distribution. In parallel with this effort and in collaboration with Dr. P. Favreau (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris), we also computed scenarios of rupture propagation based on synthetic slip distributions generated with the random model (a movie of the progression of the rupture can be seen at http://www.crustal.ucsb.edu/~ralph/rupture/ at the bottom of the page; papers discussing the random model can also be downloaded at this wed address or at this web site http://repositories.cdlib.org/postprints/945 .)
During my visit at the Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, I intend to pursue my investigation of earthquake random properties by computing a random model for the source process of the 2003 Tokachi-oki, earthquake. This research will be done in close collaboration with Professor K. Koketsu, Dr. H. Miyake and Dr. R. Kobayashi.