CoachElastic rebound is the sudden return toward their unstrained shape of the rocks on either side of a fault, when the fault, locked while they were strained, slips in an earthquake; the elastic energy stored in them is released, partly as seismic waves. The seismic cycle of a fault segment is the repeated sequence of a long interseismic stage, during which the segment is locked and the strain accumulates around it, a coseismic stage, the earthquake, during which it slips, and a postseismic stage, of months to decades, during which the surroundings adjust to the new state. The recurrence interval of a segment is the time between two successive large earthquakes on it.
