Datasets and movies supporting works on The Role of Along-Fault Dilatancy in Fault Slip Behavior

The framework of the dataset and movies:
The data, scripts, and movies provided here support the work of Yannick Caniven, Julia K Morgan, and David G Blank on the role of the along-fault dilatancy on fault slip behavior. This work concerns discrete element modeling using the code Ricebal developed at the Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA. The approach used here allows for simulating the behavior of a strike-slip fault at the seismic time scale, investigating the nucleation processes of slow-earthquakes and fast earthquakes.

The dataset:
The directory DATASET.zip provides all data and results described in Caniven et al., 2021. 

The data set provides files containing:
- particle positions (b-*.out)
- time-series of stress ratio and dilatancy (dy/dx) at the wall of the model (WALL-FRIC_frames_*.txt and Dilation-frames_*.txt) 
- time-space maps folders containing stacked slip-velocity and dilatancy along-fault profiles (MAP_Dilatancy_*_*.txt)

All these files can be used to plot all visualizations presented from Figure 2 to Figure 8 in the related paper. 

For each figure directory, we provide an example of scripts (*.sh and *.py) that can be used to display the data using the GMT software (Global Mapping Tools) or Python. The provided scripts have been developed to be used with GMT 5.4.4 and Python 3.9.2 (using Spyder 4.2.3 in Anaconda 1.10). The use of other versions may require some adjustments.

All scripts from Figure 2 to Figure 6 can be launched straightforwardly without any additional setting. 
To use the script in the Figure7-8 directory, please follow the instructions in the script header.

The supporting movies:
Movie S1 shows an example of the evolution of particle displacements at the global model scale, here during the occurrence of the fast Eq4 earthquake sequence (see Figure 7 in the paper). Note the slow nucleation of slip associated with the precursory dilation (see Figure 7b in the paper) before the onset of the dynamic stage and propagation of seismic waves. Movie S2 highlights the detailed evolution of particle displacements across the regions of the isolated slow-earthquake SEq1. The nucleation zone of this event exhibits several areas close to their failure points (apex) at different states that accommodate both fault dilation and contraction in response to the far-field imposed displacement (see Figure 8a in the paper). Movie S3 highlights the detailed evolution of particle displacements across the regions of the fast earthquake Eq3. Most asperities on each side of the main narrow nucleation zone approach failure in a synchronized state leading to general dilation and fast slip (see Figure 8b in the paper).