The largest magnitude earthquakes nucleate at depths near the base of the seismogenic zone, near the transition from velocity weakening frictional slip to velocity strengthening ductile flow. However, the mechanisms controlling this transition, and relevant to earthquake nucleation, remain poorly understood. Here we present data from experiments investigating the effect of slip rate on the mechanical properties and microstructure development of simulated calcite fault gouge sheared at ~550°C, close to the transition from (unstable) velocity weakening to (stable) velocity strengthening behaviour, reported by Verberne et al. (2015).
We conducted experiments at a constant effective normal stress (σneff) of 50 MPa, as well as σneff-stepping tests employing 20 MPa ≤ σneff ≤ 140 MPa, at constant sliding velocities (v) of 0.1, 1, 10, or 100 µm/s. Samples sheared at v ≥ 1 µm/s showed a microstructure characterized by a single, 30 to 40 μm wide boundary shear, as well as a linear correlation of shear strength (τ) with σneff. Remarkably, electron backscatter diffraction mapping of polygonal shear band grains demonstrated a crystallographic preferred orientation. By contrast, samples sheared at 0.1 µm/s showed a microstructure characterized by homogeneous deformation and plastic flow, as well as a flattening-off of the τ-σneff curve. Our results point to a strain rate dependent frictional-to-viscous transition in simulated calcite fault gouge, and have important implications for the processes controlling earthquake nucleation at the base of the seismogenic zone.
Intergranular pressure solution creep is an important deformation mechanism in the Earth’s crust. The phenomenon has been frequently studied and several analytical models have been proposed that describe its constitutive behavior. These models require assumptions regarding the geometry of the aggregate and the grain size distribution in order to solve for the contact stresses, and often neglect shear tractions. Furthermore, analytical models tend to overestimate experimental compaction rates at low porosities, an observation for which the underlying mechanisms remain to be elucidated.
Here we present a conceptually simple, 3D Discrete Element Method (DEM) approach for simulating intergranular pressure solution creep that explicitly models individual grains, relaxing many of the assumptions that are required by analytical models. The DEM model is validated against experiments by direct comparison of macroscopic sample compaction rates. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the overall DEM compaction rate to the grain size and applied stress is tested. The effects of the interparticle friction and of a distributed grain size on macroscopic strain rates are subsequently investigated.
Overall, we find that the DEM model is capable of reproducing realistic compaction behavior, and that the strain rates produced by the model are in good agreement with uniaxial compaction experiments. Characteristic features, such as the dependence of the strain rate on grain size and applied stress, as predicted by analytical models, are also observed in the simulations. DEM results show that interparticle friction and a distributed grain size affect the compaction rates by less than half an order of magnitude.
The zip-file Van-den-Ende_2017.018.zip contains several folders with raw data from the laboratory experiments, output data from Discrete Element Method simulations, and Python 2.7 script files that read and process these data. All data are stored in ASCII format.