This essential reference for graduate students and researchers provides a unified treatment of earthquakes and faulting as two aspects of brittle tectonics at different timescales. The intimate connection between the two is manifested in their scaling laws and populations, which evolve from fracture growth and interactions between fractures. The connection between faults and the seismicity generated is governed by the rate and state dependent friction laws - producing distinctive seismic styles of faulting and a gamut of earthquake phenomena including aftershocks, afterslip, earthquake triggering, and slow slip events. The third edition of this classic treatise presents a wealth of new topics and new observations. These include slow earthquake phenomena; friction of phyllosilicates, and at high sliding velocities; fault structures; relative roles of strong and seismogenic versus weak and creeping faults; dynamic triggering of earthquakes; oceanic earthquakes; megathrust earthquakes in subduction zones; deep earthquakes; and new observations of earthquake precursory phenomena.

'When graduate students or postdocs ask what to read to improve their background in fault mechanics, Christopher H. Scholz’s book has always been at the top of my list. This much awaited third edition has been thoroughly updated with the latest findings and insights, from as recent as 2018, and will continue to be an important resource for all geophysicists and geologists interested in active faults.'

Roland Bürgmann - University of California, Berkeley

'On first publication in 1990, The Mechanics of Earthquakes and Faulting immediately became ‘The Book’ on the topic. This major revision presents all the new findings from the last fifteen years, including episodic tremor and slip phenomena, the complexity of seismic rupture processes, the mechanics of megathrust faults and associated tsunamis, and lubrication of faults. With its state-of-the art content and rich bibliography of more than 2,000 references, this third edition is a must-read for everyone interested in earthquakes and faults - from undergraduate to the senior research level.'

Giulio Di Toro - Padua University, Italy