Home – Home – Jornals – Russian Geology and Geophysics 2005 number 10

The stress field in the upper crust of the Baikal rift produced by the system of large faults, active in the Cenozoic, has been simulated in laboratory optical models and compared to the seismicity pattern. Different loading regimes in three sets of models provided extension strain in the central part of the rift and corresponded to impacts from different external forces. Stress distributions in the three model sets correlated to the superposed fault pattern showed features of similarity and difference. The distribution of large earthquakes in the Baikal rift can be accounted for in terms of the interplay of passive and active rifting mechanisms.