How do earthquake-triggering strike-slip faults form?
Researchers simulating strike-slip faults, which form in Earth's crust, give a "Lazy Earth" hypothesis to the origin of earthquakes. It states, a fault when forming takes the easiest path. They identified four stages of fault evolution: pre-faulting, localisation, linkage and slip. As tectonic plates slide against each other, strains develop until fractures link to form a single fault, they found.