spine growth and seismogenic faulting at mt unzen japan the concluding episode of activity during the recent eruption of mt unzen october 1994 to february 1995 was characterized by incremental spine extrusion accompanied by seismicity analysis of the seismic record reveals the occurrence of two dominant long period event families associated with a repeating nondestructive source mechanism which we attribute to magma failure and fault controlled ascent we obtain constraints on the slip rate and distance of faulting events within these families that analysis is complemented by an experimental thermomechanical investigation of fault friction in mt unzen dacitic dome rock using a rotary shear apparatus at variable slip rates and normal stresses a power density threshold is found at 0 3 mw m 2 above which frictional melt forms and controls the shear resistance to slip inducing a deviation from byerlee s frictional law homogenized experimentally generated pseudotachylytes have a similar final chemistry thickness and crystal content facilitating the construction of a rheological model for particle suspensions this is compared to the viscosity constrained from the experimental data to assess the viscous control on fault dynamics the onset of frictional melt formation during spine growth is constrained to depths below 300 m for an average slip event this combination of experimental data viscosity modeling and seismic analysis offers a new description of material response during conduit plug flow and spine growth showing that volcanic pseudotachylyte may commonly form and modify fault friction during faulting of dome rock this model furthers our understanding of faulting and seismicity during lava dome formation and is applicable to other eruption modes

frictional resistance of faults during accelerating and decelerating earthquake slip the dynamic friction along faults controls earthquake ruptures in the crust but many previous studies have quantified this value only for constant slip rates experiments accounting for the more realistic condition of changing slip rates suggest that faults undergo a sequence of strengthening weakening and healing during acceleration and deceleration of slip the dynamic friction of faults during earthquake slip is a critical control on earthquake ruptures in the crust extrapolation of brittle crack theories to natural earthquakes1 2 3 has led to the commonly held view that fault friction reduces during rapid earthquake slip a process known as slip weakening1 high velocity gouge experiments4 5 and recent analyses of thermal pressurization6 7 and frictional melting8 support such a notion however these studies dealt with constant rates of slip along faults here we present the results of experiments aimed at understanding the frictional behaviour of fault zone materials under variable slip rates conditions that are more representative of natural earthquakes our results show that faults undergo a sequence of strengthening weakening and healing during acceleration and deceleration of slip such a sequence may be explained by the extrapolation of rate and state frictional behaviour9 10 at low slip velocities to more realistic slip rates but involving different physical mechanisms and a different scale the initial strengthening should impose a barrier for rupture growth into large earthquakes the healing on decelerating fault motion may lead to pulse like earthquake ruptures11 12 13 14 and static stress drops that are low in comparison with the dynamic stress changes15

earthquakes in the lab understanding how earthquakes of different sizes occur is one of the most challenging questions in fault and earthquake mechanics on page 101 of this issue chang et al 1 report the results of a carefully conducted experiment using a spinning flywheel attached to a high velocity frictional testing machine to produce what they term an earthquake like slip event by changing the rate of revolution of the flywheel the amount of kinetic energy transferred to the simulated fault in sierra white granite or kasota dolomite could be varied by about six orders of magnitude and could produce a series of frictional slips ranging from 0 003 to 4 6 m corresponding to a moment magnitude range of m w 4 to 8 with respect to the range of fault displacements the power relationship between energy input and displacement is similar to that found for natural earthquakes also the slip produced by the flywheel is characterized by very rapid initial acceleration followed by gradual deceleration somewhat similar to slip history recognized for natural earthquakes 2 such experiments will arouse discussions about whether they are realistic proxies of natural earthquakes

experimental constraints on dynamic fragmentation as a dissipative process during seismic slip various fault damage fabrics from gouge in the principal slip zone to fragmented and pulverized rocks in the fault damage zone have been attributed to brittle deformation at high strain rates during earthquake rupture past experimental work has shown that there exists a critical threshold in stress strain rate space through which rock failure transitions from failure along a few discrete fracture planes to intense fragmentation we present new experimental results on arkansas novaculite an and westerly granite wg in which we quantify fracture surface area produced by dynamic fragmentation under uniaxial compressive loading and examine the controls of pre existing mineral anisotropy on dissipative processes at the microscale tests on an produced substantially greater new fracture surface area approx 6 0 m 2 g 1 than those on wg 0 07 m 2 g 1 estimates of the portion of energy dissipated into brittle fracture were significant for wg approx 5 but appeared substantial in an 10 to as much as 40 the results have important implications for the partitioning of dissipated energy under extreme loading conditions expected during earthquakes and the scaling of high speed laboratory rock mechanics experiments to natural fault zones this article is part of the themed issue faulting friction and weakening from slow to fast motion

the dependence of traction evolution on the earthquake source time function adopted in kinematic rupture models 1 we compute the temporal evolution of traction by solving the elasto dynamic equation and by using the slip velocity history as a boundary condition on the fault plane we use different source time functions to derive a suite of kinematic source models to image the spatial distribution of dynamic and breakdown stress drop strength excess and critical slip weakening distance d c our results show that the source time functions adopted in kinematic source models affect the inferred dynamic parameters the critical slip weakening distance characterizing the constitutive relation ranges between 30 and 80 of the total slip the ratio between d c and total slip depends on the adopted source time functions and in these applications is nearly constant over the fault we propose that source time functions compatible with earthquake dynamics should be used to inter the traction time history

high velocity frictional properties of alpine fault rocks mechanical data microstructural analysis and implications for rupture propagation abstract the alpine fault in new zealand is a major plate bounding structure that typically slips in m8 earthquakes every c 330 years to investigate the near surface high velocity frictional behavior of surface and borehole derived alpine fault gouges and cataclasites twenty one rotary shear experiments were conducted at 1 mpa normal stress and 1 m s equivalent slip velocity under both room dry and water saturated wet conditions in the room dry experiments the peak friction coefficient p p n of alpine fault cataclasites and fault gouges was consistently high mean p 0 67 0 07 in the wet experiments the fault gouge peak friction coefficients were lower mean p 0 20 0 12 than the cataclasite peak friction coefficients mean p 0 64 0 04 all fault rocks exhibited very low steady state friction coefficients ss room dry experiments mean ss 0 16 0 05 wet experiments mean ss 0 09 0 04 of all the experiments performed six experiments conducted on wet smectite bearing principal slip zone psz fault gouges yielded the lowest peak friction coefficients p 0 10 0 20 the lowest steady state friction coefficients ss 0 03 0 09 and commonly the lowest specific fracture energy values e g 0 01 0 69 mj m 2 microstructures produced during room dry and wet experiments on a smectite bearing psz fault gouge were compared with microstructures in the same material recovered from the deep fault drilling project dfdp 1 drill cores the near absence of localized shear bands with a strong crystallographic preferred orientation in the natural samples most resembles microstructures formed during wet experiments mechanical data and microstructural observations suggest that alpine fault ruptures propagate preferentially through water saturated smectite bearing fault gouges that exhibit low peak and steady state friction coefficients

fracture surface energy of the punchbowl fault san andreas system the energetics of earthquake rupture slip weakening and rupture surface formation are poorly understood by measuring the energy associated with fracture damage along the punchbowl fault in the devil s punchbowl los angeles county park part of the san andreas system chester et al show that the fracture surface energy for rupture along a mature fault of this type accounts for only a small fraction of the energy released during large earthquakes as determined by seismologists this suggests that mechanisms such as melt lubrication and thermal pressurization are responsible for slip weakening fracture energy is a form of latent heat required to create an earthquake rupture surface and is related to parameters governing rupture propagation and processes of slip weakening1 2 3 fracture energy has been estimated from seismological and experimental rock deformation data4 5 6 7 8 yet its magnitude mechanisms of rupture surface formation and processes leading to slip weakening are not well defined8 9 10 here we quantify structural observations of the punchbowl fault a large displacement exhumed fault11 12 in the san andreas fault system and show that the energy required to create the fracture surface area in the fault is about 300 times greater than seismological estimates would predict for a single large earthquake if fracture energy is attributed entirely to the production of fracture surfaces then all of the fracture surface area in the punchbowl fault could have been produced by earthquake displacements totalling 1 km but this would only account for a small fraction of the total energy budget and therefore additional processes probably contributed to slip weakening during earthquake rupture

frictional melting of gabbro under extreme experimental conditions of normal stress acceleration and sliding velocity 1 with the advent of high velocity shear apparatus several experimental studies have been performed in recent years improving our understanding of the evolution of fault strength during seismic slip however these experiments were conducted under relatively low normal stress 20 mpa and using small cylindrical samples where a large gradient in slip velocity exists across the sliding surface given the above limitations the extrapolation of these experimental results to natural conditions is not trivial here we present results from an experimental study on gabbroic rocks using a newly developed rotary shear apparatus capable of reaching higher normal stress up to 50 mpa on ring shaped samples 30 50 mm internal external diameter and allowing precise control of the imposed slip velocity function the results confirm that steady state shear stress during the melt lubricated phase of the experiment depends on normal stress in the form of a power law equation as predicted by theoretical models however the exponent appears closer to 0 5 contrary to the theoretical prediction of 0 25 we observe no systematic dependence of shear stress on acceleration but increasing deceleration drastically decreases the recovery of friction during final slip we find that the slip weakening distance decreases inversely with increasing normal stress in agreement with theoretical considerations and decreases with increasing slip rate extrapolation of the slip weakening distance to natural conditions predicts a slip velocity for ancient seismic events of 0 3 1 m s when compared with field estimates these values compare well with seismological estimates

frictional strength and wear rate of carbonate faults during high velocity steady state sliding article history we ran an extensive series of shear experiments to test the effect of shear velocity and normal stress on wear rate and frictional strength the experiments were conducted on three types of carbonate samples with a rotary shear apparatus on solid ring shaped rock samples that slipped for displacements up to tens of meters at slip velocity of v 0 002 0 96 m s and normal stress n 0 25 6 9m pa the analysis reveals that during steady state stage the values of wear rate and frictional strength depend on both slip velocity and normal stress the wear rates at low slip velocity show linear relations to the normal stress archard s model however at high velocity v 0 5m s the wear rates are independent of the normal stress and may vanish at the highest velocity and normal stress of the present experiments the steady state friction coefficient correlates best with the experimental power density shear stress slip velocity we recognized three friction regimes high 0 8a t low power density low 0 3 at high power density and a transition regime of fast drop of friction coefficient as the power density increases from 0 03 to 0 3 mw m 2 runs of low power density high friction displayed fault surfaces covered with fine grained gouge whereas runs of high power density low friction displayed shiny smooth fault surfaces we interpret the observed intensity variations of wear rate and frictional strength as indicating a brittle to ductile transition associated with frictional heating

new empirical relationships among magnitude rupture length rupture width rupture area and surface displacement source parameters for historical earthquakes worldwide are compiled to develop a series of empirical relationships among moment magnitude m surface rupture length subsurface rupture length downdip rupture width rupture area and maximum and average displacement per event the resulting data base is a significant update of previous compilations and includes the additional source parameters of seismic moment moment magnitude subsurface rupture length downdip rupture width and average surface displacement each source parameter is classified as reliable or unreliable based on our evaluation of the accuracy of individual values only the reliable source parameters are used in the final analyses in comparing source parameters we note the following trends 1 generally the length of rupture at the surface is equal to 75 of the subsurface rupture length however the ratio of surface rupture length to subsurface rupture length increases with magnitude 2 the average surface displacement per event is about one half the maximum surface displacement per event and 3 the average subsurface displacement on the fault plane is less than the maximum surface displacement but more than the average surface displacement thus for most earthquakes in this data base slip on the fault plane at seismogenic depths is manifested by similar displacements at the surface log linear regressions between earthquake magnitude and surface rupture length subsurface rupture length and rupture area are especially well correlated showing standard deviations of 0 25 to 0 35 magnitude units most relationships are not statistically different at a 95 significance level as a function of the style of faulting thus we consider the regressions for all slip types to be appropriate for most applications regressions between magnitude and displacement magnitude and rupture width and between displacement and rupture length are less well correlated and have larger standard deviation than regressions between magnitude and length or area the large number of data points in most of these regressions and their statistical stability suggest that they are unlikely to change significantly in response to additional data separating the data according to extensional and compressional tectonic environments neither provides statistically different results nor improves the statistical significance of the regressions regressions for cases in which earthquake magnitude is either the independent or the dependent parameter can be used to estimate maximum earthquake magnitudes both for surface faults and for subsurface seismic sources such as blind faults and to estimate the expected surface displacement along a fault for a given size earthquake

measurement and interpretation of hailstone density and terminal velocity abstract the mass density fall velocity and internal structure have been determined for low density hailstones from an truly spring storm in boulder colorado and drag coefficients were calculated the density of the permeable hail is determined from a new method of volume measurement the results are compared to those of particles grown in a one dimensional parcel model using the appropriate sounding the implications of the results are discussed with reference to hail growth in convective storms

rapid acceleration leads to rapid weakening in earthquake like laboratory experiments after nucleation a large earthquake propagates as an expanding rupture front along a fault this front activates countless fault patches that slip by consuming energy stored in earth s crust we simulated the slip of a fault patch by rapidly loading an experimental fault with energy stored in a spinning flywheel the spontaneous evolution of strength acceleration and velocity indicates that our experiments are proxies of fault patch behavior during earthquakes of moment magnitude mw 4 to 8 we show that seismically determined earthquake parameters e g displacement velocity magnitude or fracture energy can be used to estimate the intensity of the energy release during an earthquake our experiments further indicate that high acceleration imposed by the earthquake s rupture front quickens dynamic weakening by intense wear of the fault zone

from slow to fast faulting recent challenges in earthquake fault mechanics faultsthin zones of highly localized shear deformation in the earthaccommodate strain on a momentous range of dimensions millimetres to hundreds of kilometres for major plate boundaries and of ti

rupture dynamics with energy loss outside the slip zone 1 energy loss in a fault damage zone outside the slip zone contributes to the fracture energy that determines rupture velocity of an earthquake a nonelastic two dimensional dynamic calculation is done in which the slip zone is modeled as a fault plane and material off the fault is subject to a coulomb yield condition in a mode 2 crack like solution in which an abrupt uniform drop of shear traction on the fault spreads from a point coulomb yielding occurs on the extensional side of the fault plastic strain is distributed with uniform magnitude along the fault and it has a thickness normal to the fault proportional to propagation distance energy loss off the fault is also proportional to propagation distance and it can become much larger than energy loss on the fault specified by the fault constitutive relation the slip velocity function could be produced in an equivalent elastic problem by a slip weakening friction law with breakdown slip dc increasing with distance fracture energy g and equivalent dc will be different in ruptures with different initiation points and stress drops so they are not constitutive properties they are determined by the dynamic solution that arrives at a particular point peak slip velocity is however a property of a fault location nonelastic response can be mimicked by imposing a limit on slip velocity on a fault in an elastic medium

strong velocity weakening and powder lubrication of simulated carbonate faults at seismic slip rates 1 high velocity friction tests were conducted on solid and hollow cylinders of carrara calcite marble dolomite marble silicate bearing calcite marble and calcite gouge to investigate the strength of carbonate faults during seismic slip the experiments performed at normal stresses of 0 6 14 7 mpa slip rates of 0 03 1 60 m s and room temperature in a rotary shear friction testing machine yielded an extraordinarily low steady state friction coefficient 0 1 at slip rates of 1 1 1 2 m s the slip weakening distance of 4 28 m became shorter at higher normal stress or frictional work rate strong velocity weakening was observed not only in steady state but also in nonsteady state friction while the slip rate was changing thus slip deceleration was accompanied by fault strength recovery large rapid temperature rises in narrow shear localization zones less than a few micrometers induced carbonate decomposition such as the breakdown of calcite into aggregates of cao nanograins and co2 in carrara marble scanning electron microscope observation revealed that the shear localization zone in the highly porous decomposition product was a layer of scattered small grains mostly 1 m in diameter these microstructures and the measured high permeability 10 14 m2 of the decomposed marble indicate that the dominant weakening mechanism in our experiments was possibly powder lubrication powder rheology at high slip rates is not yet well understood but the frictional behavior of nanograins appears to be strongly velocity dependent if decarbonation occurs during seismic slip in natural carbonate faults powder lubrication may make the faults slippery even under fluid drained conditions

fault wear by damage evolution during steady state slip slip along faults generates wear products such as gouge layers and cataclasite zones that range in thickness from sub millimeter to tens of meters the properties of these zones apparently control fault strength and slip stability here we present a new model of wear in a three body configuration that utilizes the damage rheology approach and considers the process as a microfracturing or damage front propagating from the gouge zone into the solid rock the derivations for steady state conditions lead to a scaling relation for the damage front velocity considered as the wear rate the model predicts that the wear rate is a function of the shear stress and may vanish when the shear stress drops below the microfracturing strength of the fault host rock the simulated results successfully fit the measured friction and wear during shear experiments along faults made of carbonate and tonalite the model is also valid for relatively large confining pressures small damage induced change of the bulk modulus and significant degradation of the shear modulus which are assumed for seismogenic zones of earthquake faults the presented formulation indicates that wear dynamics in brittle materials in general and in natural faults in particular can be understood by the concept of a propagating damage front and the evolution of a third body layer

collision rotation and the initiation of subduction in the evolution of sulawesi indonesia the island of sulawesi indonesia has been shaped and deformed as a result of collision with the sula platform a sliver of continental material from the northern margin of australia new guinea the collision has resulted in rotation of the north volcanic arm of sulawesi and the development of the accretionary wedge of the north sulawesi trench the north sulawesi trench changes laterally from a zone of no active deformation in the eastern part to a wide accretionary wedge in the west early stages of thrusting produce a steep frontal slope 8 16 indicative of relatively high basal shear stress whereas the more advanced western zone of thrusting produces a gentle 2 slope consistent with low basal shear stress reported paleomagnetic data suggest post late eocene counter clockwise rotation of the north arm and the offshore geophysics are explained by a pivot of the north arm with respect to the celebes basin about the eastern end of the arc convergence between the north banda basin and southeast sulawesi is documented by the presence of the tolo thrust its outcrop is strongly arcuate and its accretionary wedge varies in width from a minimum of a few kilometers at each end to a maximum of 30 40 km in the central part the northern end transforms to the leftlateral matano fault with a reported offset of 20 km the southern end of the thrust projects toward the deformed rocks of buton but the structural relations there are not clear the matano fault zone appears to connect westward with the palu fault which forms the western transform of the north sulawesi trench the palu matano fault system acts as a trench trench transform between the north sulawesi trench and the tolo thrust and this system is described by the same rotation pole as that for the sulawesi north arm

experimental investigation of flash weakening in limestone abstract flash heating and weakening could operate during earthquake nucleation and propagation we performed 27 friction experiments in a compression torsion apparatus on ring shaped limestone samples at sub seismic to seismic slip rates 340 mm s centimetric displacements and normal stresses of 8 mpa friction decreases dramatically at slip rates of 50 150 mm s flash weakening was contemporaneous with a peripheral temperature rise of 90 c measured with an infrared camera the peripheral temperature yields a lower limit to the slipping zone temperature the decrease in friction may result from weakening of the asperity contacts due to decarbonation of calcite induced by 1 flash heating or 2 mechanically activated reactions however x ray powder diffraction and raman spectroscopy analyses do not reveal the presence of decarbonation products in the slipping zone instead white light interferometry and field emission scanning electron microscope observations reveal the presence of a smooth sliding surface made of nanometric particles the mechanical data can be fit by the rate and state dependent friction model or by a quadratic model the latter proposed for powder lubrication we conclude that flash heating and weakening and powder lubrication may operate together to decrease dynamic friction in limestone in experiments and for the conditions investigated here in nature

growth of molten zone as a mechanism of slip weakening of simulated faults in gabbro during frictional melting 1 to understand how frictional melting affects fault instability we performed a series of high velocity friction experiments on gabbro at slip rates of 0 85 1 49 m s 1 at normal stresses of 1 2 2 4 mpa and with displacements up to 124 m experiments have revealed two stages of slip weakening one following the initial slip and the other immediately after the second peak friction the first weakening is associated with flash heating and the second weakening is due to the formation and growth of a molten layer along a simulated fault the two stages of weakening are separated by a marked strengthening regime in which melt patches grow into a thin continuous molten layer at the second peak friction the frictional coefficient decays exponentially from 0 8 1 1 to 0 6 during the second weakening the host rocks are separated completely by a molten layer during this weakening so that the shear resistance is determined by the gross viscosity and shear strain rate of the molten layer melt viscosity increases notably soon after a molten layer forms however a fault weakens despite the increase in melt viscosity and the second weakening is caused by the growth of molten layer resulting in the reduction in shear strain rate of the molten layer very thin melt cannot be squeezed out easily from a fault zone so that the rate of melting would be the most critical factor in controlling the slip weakening distance effect of frictional melting on fault motion can be predicted by solving a stefan problem dealing with moving host rock molten zone boundaries

effect of water and rock composition on re strengthening of cohesive faults during the deceleration phase of seismic slip pulses abstract the elastic strain energy release rate and seismic waves emitted during earthquakes are controlled by the on fault temporal evolution of the shear stress during rupture propagation high velocity friction experiments highlighted that shear stress on the fault surface evolves rapidly during seismic slip pulses this temporal evolution of shear stress is controlled by both fault weakening at seismic slip initiation and re strengthening rate towards the end of slip while numerous studies focused on fault weakening less attention was given to co seismic re strengthening processes here we performed 53 friction experiments normal stress 30 mpa slip rate 6 5 m s 1 imposing constant slip acceleration and deceleration 7 8 m s 2 on cohesive carrara marble 99 calcite and micro gabbro silicate built rock under dry vacuum and water pressurized conditions microstructural observations showed that micro gabbro accommodated seismic slip by bulk melting of the sliding surfaces whereas carrara marble by coupled decarbonation and grain size dependent crystal plastic processes under room humidity conditions and low imposed power density i e product of normal stress per slip rate re strengthening rate during the deceleration stage was up to 17 times faster in marble than in micrograbbro in the latter the re strengthening rate increased slightly with the power density the presence of water enhanced further this trend on the contrary in marbles the re strengthening rate decreased drastically with power density and in the presence of water our experimental observations highlighted the first order importance of the mineralogy and rheology of the slip zone materials and to a second order of the presence of water in controlling co seismic re strengthening of faults during seismic slip deceleration

chemical and physical characteristics of pulverized tejon lookout granite adjacent to the san andreas and garlock faults implications for earthquake physics we present new detailed analyses of samples of pulverized tejon lookout granite collected from sections adjacent to the san andreas and garlock faults in southern california the tejon lookout granite is pulverized in all exposures within about 100 m from both faults chemical analyses indicate no or little weathering in the collected samples although xrd analysis shows the presence of smectite illite and minor kaolinite in the clay size fraction weathering products may dominate in the less than 1 micron fraction the average grain size in all samples of pulverized tejon lookout granite ranges between 26 and 208 microns silt to fine sand with the particle size distribution in part a function of proximity to the primary slip zone the san andreas fault samples that we studied are generally finer grained than those collected from adjacent to the garlock fault the particle size distribution for each studied sample from both faults follows a pseudo power law with a continuously changing exponent which suggests that pulverization is not simply a consequence of direct shear the average particle size that we determined for our samples is considerably coarser than reported in previous investigations which we attribute to possible measurement errors in the prior work our data and observations suggest that dynamic fracturing in the wall rock of the san andreas and garlock faults only accounts for about 1 or less of the earthquake energy budget

slip pulse rupture behavior on a 2 m granite fault we describe observations of dynamic rupture events that spontaneously arise on meter scale laboratory earthquake experiments while low frequency slip of the granite sample occurs in a relatively uniform and crack like manner instruments capable of detecting high frequency motions show that some parts of the fault slip abruptly velocity 100 mm s 1 acceleration 20 km s 2 while the majority of the fault slips more slowly abruptly slipping regions propagate along the fault at nearly the shear wave speed we propose that the dramatic reduction in frictional strength implied by this pulse like rupture behavior has a common mechanism to the weakening reported in high velocity friction experiments performed on rotary machines the slip pulses can also be identified as migrating sources of high frequency seismic waves as observations from large earthquakes show similar propagating high frequency sources the pulses described here may have relevance to the mechanics of larger earthquakes

particle size and energetics of gouge from earthquake rupture zones surprisingly considering the forces that we see at the surface not all the energy involved in an earthquake is transformed into ground motion much of it is consumed by frictional heating and rock pulverization an analysis of pulverized rock or gouge collected from the san andreas fault in california and from a rupture zone at 2 km depth in a south african gold mine contradicts the commonly held view that gouge surface energy is a negligible component of earthquake energy balance the analysis reveals unexpected diminutive particles in gouge samples indicating that pulverization not frictional heating is the major consumer of earthquake energy at depth this might explain the heat flow anomaly seen in the san andreas fault system and perhaps some other long standing puzzles in earthquake energetics grain size reduction and gouge formation are found to be ubiquitous in brittle faults at all scales1 2 3 4 and most slip along mature faults is observed to have been localized within gouge zones5 6 this fine grain gouge is thought to control earthquake instability3 6 7 8 and thus understanding its properties is central to an understanding of the earthquake process7 9 here we show that gouge from the san andreas fault california with 160 km slip and the rupture zone of a recent earthquake in a south african mine with only 0 4 m slip display similar characteristics in that ultrafine grains approach the nanometre scale gouge surface areas approach 80 m2 g 1 and grain size distribution is non fractal these observations challenge the common perception that gouge texture is fractal10 11 and that gouge surface energy is a negligible contributor to the earthquake energy budget3 9 12 we propose that the observed fine grain gouge is not related to quasi static cumulative slip but is instead formed by dynamic rock pulverization during the propagation of a single earthquake

strain rate effect on fault slip and rupture evolution insight from meter scale rock friction experiments abstract we conduct meter scale rock friction experiments to study strain rate effect on fault slip and rupture evolution two rock samples made of indian metagabbro with a nominal contact dimension of 1 5 m long and 0 1 m wide are juxtaposed and loaded in a direct shear configuration to simulate the fault motion a series of experimental tests under constant loading rates ranging from 0 01 mm s to 1 mm s and under a fixed normal stress of 6 7 mpa are performed to simulate conditions with changing strain rates load cells and displacement transducers are utilized to examine the macroscopic fault behavior while high density arrays of strain gauges close to the fault are used to investigate the local fault behavior the observations show that the macroscopic peak strength strength drop and the rate of strength drop can increase with increasing loading rate at the local scale the observations reveal that slow loading rates favor generation of characteristic ruptures that always nucleate in the form of slow slip at about the same location in contrast fast loading rates can promote very abrupt rupture nucleation and along strike scatter of hypocenter locations at a given propagation distance rupture speed tends to increase with increasing loading rate we propose that a strain rate dependent fault fragmentation process can enhance the efficiency of fault healing during the stick period which together with healing time controls the recovery of fault strength in addition a strain rate dependent weakening mechanism can be activated during the slip period which together with strain energy selects the modes of fault slip and rupture propagation the results help to understand the spectrum of fault slip and rock deformation modes in nature and emphasize the role of heterogeneity in tuning fault behavior under different strain rates

friction evolution of granitic faults heating controlled transition from powder lubrication to frictional melt the experimental shearing of granitic faults revealed complex evolution of strength and microstructure we use a rotary shear apparatus to shear three types of granitic rocks at moderate slip velocity of 0 01 0 11 m s normal stress of 1 0 6 8 mpa and slip distance up to 60 m three stages of strength evolution with slip distance were systematically observed in stage i faults exhibited initial weakening in which the friction coefficient dropped to a steady state level of 0 3 this weakening is associated with powder lubrication and the development of cohesive gouge layers stage ii included strengthening to 0 5 associated with volumetric expansion melting of fault patches and viscous braking at these patches in stage iii fault weakening is due to melt lubrication when the melted patches reach a critical fraction of the fault surface area we show that this complex weakening strengthening weakening evolution is controlled by thermally activated deformation processes that can explain the friction behavior of igneous rocks at seismic velocity range

evidence for and implications of self healing pulses of slip in earthquake rupture dislocation time histories of models derived from waveforms of seven earthquakes are discussed in each model dislocation rise times the duration of slip for a given point on the fault are found to be short compared to the overall duration of the earthquake 10 however in many crack like numerical models of dynamic rupture the slip duration at a given point is comparable to the overall duration of the rupture i e slip at a given point continues until information is received that the rupture has stopped propagating alternative explanations for the discrepancy between the short slip durations used to model waveforms and the long slip durations inferred from dynamic crack models are 1 the dislocation models are unable to resolve the relatively slow parts of earthquake slip and have seriously underestimated the dislocations for these earthquakes 2 earthquakes are composed of a sequence of small dimension short duration events that are separated by locked regions barriers 3 rupture occurs in a narrow self healing pulse of slip that travels along the fault surface evidence is discussed that suggests that slip durations are indeed short and that the self healing slip pulse model is the most appropriate explanation a qualitative model is presented that produces self healing slip pulses the key feature of the model is the assumption that friction on the fault surface is inversely related to the local slip velocity the model has the following features high static strength of materials kilobar range low static stress drops in the range of tens of bars and relatively low frictional stress during slip less than several hundreds of bars it is suggested that the reason that the average dislocation scales with fault length is because large amplitude slip pulses are difficult to stop and hence tend to propagate large distances this model may explain why seismicity and ambient stress are low along fault segments that have experienced large earthquakes it also qualitatively explains why the recurrence time for large earthquakes may be irregular

a constitutive scaling law and a unified comprehension for frictional slip failure shear fracture of intact rock and earthquake rupture 1 it is widely recognized that some of the physical quantities inherent in a rupture are scale dependent and the scale dependence is one of the most no facts and features of rupture phenomena the paper addresses how such scale dependent shear rupture of a broad range from laboratory scale frictional slip failure and shear fracture of intact rock to field scale rupture as an earthquake source can be unified by a single constitutive law noting that the earthquake rupture is a mixed process between frictional slip failure and the shear fracture of intact rock it is concluded that the constitutive law for the earthquake rupture be formulated as a unifying law that governs both frictional slip failure and shear fracture of intact rock it is demonstrated that the slip dependent constitutive law is such a unifying law and a constitutive scaling law is derived from laboratory data on both frictional slip failure and shear fracture of intact rock this constitutive scaling law enables one to provide a consistent and unified comprehension for scale dependent physical quantities inherent in the rupture over a broad range from small scale frictional slip failure and shear fracture in the laboratory to large scale earthquake rupture in the field

reduction in bet surface area of nojima fault gouge with seismic slip and its implication for the fracture energy of earthquakes abstract a common view concerning the energetics of seismogenic fault motion is that at least part of the fracture energy is consumed in grain crushing in the fault zone and that this part may be estimated by grain size analysis of fault rocks we address this problem by conducting room dry friction experiments on nojima fault gouge at subseismic to seismic slip rates 0 009 1 31 m s and at normal stresses up to 3 64 mpa and by measuring the bet surface area of the gouge before and after the experiments where it cuts granite the nojima fault zone has bet surface area of about 65 10 6 m 2 per unit fault area 1 m 2 clayey and granular fault gouges composed mainly of quartz plagioclase kaolinite and smectite were collected from a granitic fault zone at a new outcrop in funaki awaji island southwest japan both clayey and granular gouges exhibit dramatic weakening at high slip rates specific bet surface areas of clayey and granular gouges decreased with increasing slip rate from 46 0 and 15 4 m 2 g before deformation to about 20 and 5 m 2 g after deformation 55 70 reduction respectively microstructural observations revealed that grain welding within the slip zones at high slip rates reduced grain surface area the energetics of seismic fault motion should be examined with broader views taking into account grain crushing grain welding decomposition and frictional melting

extension of gutenberg richter distribution to mw 1 3 no lower limit in sight 1 with twelve years of seismic data from tautona gold mine south africa we show that mining induced earthquakes follow the gutenberg richter relation with no scale break down to the completeness level of the catalog at moment magnitude mw 1 3 events recorded during relatively quiet hours in 2006 indicate that catalog detection limitations not earthquake source physics controlled the previously reported minimum magnitude in this mine within the natural earthquake laboratory in south african mines nelsam experiment s dense seismic array earthquakes that exhibit shear failure at magnitudes as small as mw 3 9 are observed but we find no evidence that mw 3 9 represents the minimum magnitude in contrast to previous work our results imply small nucleation zones and that earthquake processes in the mine can readily be scaled to those in either laboratory experiments or natural faults

energy partition for grain crushing in quartz gouge during subseismic to seismic fault motion an experimental study abstract brunauer emmett teller bet surface area of quartz gouge was measured before and after shearing deformation at subseismic to seismic slip rates to determine how much of frictional work and fracture energy was consumed during grain crushing measurement of bet surface area provides more direct data on surface area change than grain size measurement does twenty four experiments on quartz gouge composed of ottawa sands or crushed quartz were conducted dry with room humidity or wet with added water at slip rates of 0 006 1 3 m s and normal stresses of 0 76 3 37 mpa using a high velocity friction apparatus and a low to high velocity friction apparatus about 1 mm thick gouge was placed between cylindrical specimens of belfast dolerite of 25 mm in diameter results show that grain crushing absorbed only 0 02 0 22 of frictional work and only 0 05 1 06 of fracture energy under dry and wet conditions thus grain comminution is unlikely to be an important energy sink at least for mature faults with well developed slip zone surface area of gouge decreases with deformation at seismic slip rates this and sem observations suggest partial sintering due to frictional heating thus a simple scenario of grain crushing as an energy sink does not hold for estimating the energy budget during earthquakes

phase transformation and nanometric flow cause extreme weakening during fault slip faults weaken during earthquakes laboratory simulations of earthquake rupture show that the nanometric scale fault gouge created during slip is inherently weak and flows by grain boundary sliding providing a mechanism to weaken faults

high velocity frictional properties of gabbro high velocity friction experiments have been performed on a pair of hollow cylindrical specimens of gabbro initially at room temperature at slip rates from 7 5 mm s to 1 8 m s with total circumferential displacements of 125 to 174 m and at normal stresses to 5 mpa using a rotary shear high speed friction testing machine steady state friction increases slightly with increasing slip rate at slip rates to about 100 mm s velocity strengthening and it decreases markedly with increasing slip rate at higher velocities velocity weakening steady state friction in the velocity weakening regime is lower for the non melting case than the frictional melting case due perhaps to severe thermal fracturing a very large peak friction is always recognized upon the initiation of visible frictional melting presumably owing to the welding of fault surfaces upon the solidification of melt patches frictional properties thus change dramatically with increasing displacement at high velocities and such a non linear effect must be incorporated into the analysis of earthquake initiation processes

the 2018 mw7 5 palu supershear earthquake ruptures geological fault s multisegment separated by large bends results from integrating field measurements lidar swath bathymetry and seismic reflection data

fracture energy of stick slip events in a large scale biaxial experiment the concept of apparent fracture energy for the shear failure process is employed by many authors in modeling earthquake sources as dynamically extending shear cracks using records of shear strain and relative displacement from stick slip events generated along a simulated prepared fault surface in a large 1 5m x 1 5m x 0 4m granite block and a slip weakening model for the fault direct estimates of the apparent shear fracture energy of the stick slip events have been obtained for events generated on a finely ground fault surface apparent fracture energy ranges from 0 06 j m sup 2 at a normal stress of 1 1 mpa to 0 8 j m sup 2 at a normal stress of 4 6 mpa in contrast to estimates for tensile crack formation we find that the apparent fracture energy of stick slip events increases linearly with normal stress the results for the slip weakening model for the stick slip events are generally consistent with constitutive fault models suggested by observations of stable sliding in smaller scale experiments

fault strength evolution during high velocity friction experiments with slip pulse and constant velocity loading abstract seismic analyses show that slip during large earthquakes evolves in a slip pulse mode that is characterized by abrupt intense acceleration followed by moderate deceleration we experimentally analyze the friction evolution under slip pulse proxy of a large earthquake and compare it with the evolution at loading modes of constant velocity and changing velocity the experiments were conducted on room dry solid granite samples at slip velocities of 0 0006 1 m s and normal stress of 1 11 5 mpa the analysis demonstrates that 1 the strength evolution and constitutive parameters of the granite fault strongly depend on the loading mode and 2 the slip pulse mode is energy efficient relatively to the constant velocity mode as manifested by faster more intense weakening and 50 90 lower energy dissipation the results suggest that the frictional strength determined in slip pulse experiments is more relevant to simulations of earthquake rupture than frictional strength determined in constant velocity experiments further for a finite amount of crustal elastic energy the efficiency of slip pulse would amplify earthquake instability

gouge formation by dynamic pulverization during earthquake rupture it is proposed here that fault gouge forms by rock pulverization within the tip region of a fast propagating earthquake due to the intensity of stress and rates of strain in this zone to examine this mechanism we calculate the deformation conditions of a dynamic shear fracture propagating close to the limiting rayleigh wave velocity the mechanical conditions close to the fracture tip are extreme tensile stresses approach 5 gpa volumetric strain rates exceed 105 s 1 and volumetric expansion alternates with volumetric contraction it is expected that a localized zone a few millimeters wide will be pulverized under these conditions this mechanism of dynamic gouge formation provides new insight to recent observations of the texture of gouge from the san andreas fault zone and from rupture zones in south african mines further as such extreme conditions develop only during fast propagating earthquakes presence or absence of pulverized gouge may serve as an indicator of earthquake propagation velocity

measurements of frictional heating in granite a large 150 150 40 cm granite sample sawn diagonally in half to simulate a fault was deformed in a biaxial rock press at normal stress up to 6 41 mpa displacements and local shear stress were monitored along the fault 200 40 cm temperature transients as large as 10 m c were recorded following stick slip events at distances of 0 2 to 1 0 cm from the fault and were related to stress displacement and total work the temperature measurements were used to calculate the heat generated on the fault during slip frictional heating was found to be 94 2 of the total work expended in each event implying a seismic efficiency of 4 8 when water was injected onto the fault both fractional stress drop and static frictional stress increased the efficiency of frictional heating was not lowered by the presence of water heat generated during deformation of a 0 15 cm thick layer of simulated gouge was also measured for sliding rates from 0 09 to 9 1 m s in these gouge experiments temperature rises were less than 0 1 c and were proportional to sliding rate

integrating field observations and fracture mechanics models to constrain seismic source parameters for ancient earthquakes most of our understanding of earthquake rupture comes from interpretation of strong ground motion seismograms however near rupture tip fields of stress and particle motions are difficult to resolve in particular the decay of frictional resistance from a peak value at the leading tip of the rupture to a residual kinetic value and subsequent healing characterizes the earthquake process yet the nature of this evolution in situ is still unclear knowledge of this coseismic frictional constitutive behavior has been supplemented by laboratory experiments yet scaling laboratory experiments to natural faults is non trivial because these experiments do not exactly reproduce the boundary conditions governing natural earthquakes field investigations of exhumed faults provide the spatial resolution needed to integrate remote seismological observations laboratory experiments and numerical models of the rupture process for natural ruptures here we build on previous work that showed that the orientation of pseudotachylyte injection veins found along the gole larghe fault zone in granitoid rocks of the italian alps can be used to infer rupture directivity and velocity we demonstrate that the length of these veins can be used to further constrain the rupture size slip weakening distance stress drop and fracture energy the results are consistent with seismological observations and recent friction experiments incorporating rapid accelerations placing constraints on coseismic frictional evolution in granitoid rocks

slow and fast ruptures on a laboratory fault controlled by loading characteristics recent geodetic observations indicate that a single fault may slip slowly and silently or fast and seismically in different circumstances we report laboratory experiments that demonstrate how the mode of faulting can alternate between fast stick slip events 70 to 500 mm s sliding rates and slow silent events 0 001 to 30 mm s as a result of loading conditions rather than friction properties or stiffness of the loading machine the 760 mm long granite sample is close to the critical nucleation length scale for unstable slip so small variations in nucleation properties result in measurable differences in slip events slow events occur when instability cannot fully nucleate before reaching the sample ends dynamic events occur after long healing times or abrupt increases in loading rate which suggests that these factors shrink the spatial and temporal extents of the nucleation zone arrays of slip strain and ground motion sensors installed on the sample allow us to quantify seismic coupling and study details of premonitory slip and afterslip we find that seismic coupling decreases when slip rates fall below about 70 mm s the slow slip events we observe are primarily aseismic less than 1 of the seismic coupling of faster events and produce swarms of very small m 6 to m 8 events these mechanical and seismic interactions suggest that faults with transitional behavior where creep small earthquakes and tremor are often observed could become seismically coupled if loaded rapidly either by a slow slip front or dynamic rupture of an earthquake that nucleated elsewhere

an experimentally based friction law for high velocity long displacement slip pulse events during earthquakes abstract large earthquakes initiate at small nucleation sites and propagate as rupture fronts along the host fault it is inherently challenging to resolve the complexity of fault rupture at depth and therefore the evolution of frictional strength during earthquakes is commonly analyzed in laboratory experiments we experimentally demonstrate here that this evolution depends simultaneously on all slip kinematic components displacement velocity and acceleration we incorporate these components in shear experiments with slip histories that resemble the theoretical expectations for earthquake slip these experiments led to a new friction law that fits fault behavior during high velocity long displacement slip our numerical simulations of dynamic rupture along a planar fault that obeys this friction law reproduced a range of earthquake source features including slip pulse yoffe function gaussian velocity and spontaneous slip arrest finally we demonstrate that this experimentally based friction law can realistically simulate the propagation and arrest of natural earthquakes

earthquake fracture energy inferred from kinematic rupture models on extended faults 1 we estimate fracture energy on extended faults for several recent earthquakes by retrieving dynamic traction evolution at each point on the fault plane from slip history imaged by inverting ground motion waveforms we define the breakdown work wb as the excess of work over some minimum traction level achieved during slip wb is equivalent to seismological fracture energy g in previous investigations our numerical approach uses slip velocity as a boundary condition on the fault we employ a three dimensional finite difference algorithm to compute the dynamic traction evolution in the time domain during the earthquake rupture we estimate wb by calculating the scalar product between dynamic traction and slip velocity vectors this approach does not require specifying a constitutive law and assuming dynamic traction to be collinear with slip velocity if these vectors are not collinear the inferred breakdown work depends on the initial traction level we show that breakdown work depends on the square of slip the spatial distribution of breakdown work in a single earthquake is strongly correlated with the slip distribution breakdown work density and its integral over the fault breakdown energy scale with seismic moment according to a power law with exponent 0 59 and 1 18 respectively our estimates of breakdown work range between 4 105 and 2 107 j m2 for earthquakes having moment magnitudes between 5 6 and 7 2 we also compare our inferred values with geologic surface energies this comparison might suggest that breakdown work for large earthquakes goes primarily into heat production