Comment on “Basin inversion and fault reactivation in laboratory experiments”

A recent paper describing laboratory experiments on fault reactivation misinterprets the principles of scale models of physical systems by using inconsistent dimensionless ratios that determine the correspondence between model and nature. For example the dimensionless stress ratio is not consistent with the dimensionless time ratio. Moreover, consistent, independent fundamental ratios of mass, length and time cannot be derived from the values of the variables and constants known in both the model and nature. Consequently, little information about the natural system can be derived from the model.