How well are we able to track the migration of stress along fault lines?
It is virtually impractical to track the migration of stress, but highly advantageous to track the migration of strain. Strain can be tracked by dense GPS networks, and is an indicator of where stresses are accumulating. To know the stress, we have to know both the strain and certain mechanical properties of the crustal rocks experiencing strain. These mass properties can be inferred from modeling past earthquakes and acquiring high quality data during future earthquakes. It is important to recognize that crustal rocks have highly variable material properties that are not well understood nor satisfactorily modeled currently.
