2022-04-19
FEAR project website online
The website for the Fault Activation and Earthquake Rupture ('FEAR') project is now online. The goal of FEAR is to improve our understanding of earthquake physics, by densely instrumenting and then stimulation an existing, natural fault. The small earthquakes resulting from this stimulation shall provide new insights on how earthquakes originate and evolve. Again, safety is our first priority and the measures taken to ensure safe procedures are described on this page.
The construction work for the new FEAR experimental setup is ongoing. The experiment is situated about 2.5 km and therewith 400 meters beyond the currently used lab at the Bedretto tunnel. Recently, first boreholes have been drilled. They will be instrumented and serve to determine if there is any seismic background activity in the experimental volume, and whether the selected target structure - a north-west dipping natural fault zone with evidence of past seismic activity - is large enough to host the FEAR experiments.
Please check the website to find detailed information about FEAR: http://fear-earthquake-research.org