[1] To understand the chemical reactions of clay minerals in a fault zone during an earthquake, we analyzed the clay minerals in the Chelungpu fault, which slipped during the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake. X-ray diffraction spectroscopy showed that kaolinite and smectite contents were lower in the black gouge zone than in the surrounding gray gouge, breccia, or fracture-damaged zones. We applied a chemical kinetics approach to examine whether dehydroxylation of kaolinite and dehydration of interlayer water, dehydroxylation, and illitization of smectite occurred during coseismic frictional heating, and found that the first two reactions could complete under the temperature-time profile of the Chi-Chi earthquake, reconstructed by a previous study. Because dehydration of smectite interlayer water and dehydroxylation of kaolinite would have completed 3.6 and 8.2 s after the beginning of slip, the resulting release of water might have affected the frictional mechanism during the earthquake.
[1] We measured permeability in sandstone and granite sheared at slip rates from 10 −4 to 1.3 m/s under low-normal stress at confining pressures up to 120 MPa. As the slip rate increased, the permeability of Berea sandstone decreased by an order of magnitude, whereas that of Indian sandstone and Aji granite increased by 3 orders of magnitude at high slip rates. A fine-grained gouge layer of thickness developed during slip, and the wear rate was increased abruptly at high slip rates. Microcracks and mesoscale fractures formed at slip rates above 0.13 m/s. Numerical modeling showed that the slip surface temperature increased by several hundred degrees for slip velocities above 0.13 m/s and exceeded the a-b phase transition temperature of quartz at 1.3 m/s. Both the temperature rise and the temperature gradient at the slip surface were high at fast slip rates. We attributed reduced permeability after slip in porous sandstone to the low-permeability gouge layer. An abrupt permeability increase in low-permeability rocks at high slip rates was caused by heat-induced cracks. An increase in the rate of wear of gouge with increasing slip velocity was caused by frictional heating that reduced the rock strength. The host-rock permeability that separated reductions and increases in permeability was about 10 −16 m 2 at 10 MPa effective pressure. Our results suggest that abrupt increases in shear stress during slip in a low-permeability fault zone caused by thermal cracking, which may decrease the total slip displacement. The abrupt permeability increase at high slip rates in low-permeability rocks agrees with hydrogeochemical phenomena observed after earthquakes.
[1] We measured frictional properties and permeability of core materials from the megasplay fault zone (site C0004) and the frontal thrust (site C0007) in the shallow part of the Nankai subduction zone. Permeability was measured before and after 7.9 m slip displacement at high (1.05 m/s) and low velocities (0.013 m/s) under normal stresses of 1.5 MPa using the rotary-shear apparatus, from which we estimated the shear-induced permeability change in an experimental fault gouge prepared from core material. Gouge permeability (10 À18 m 2 ) decreased after sliding for wet gouge and increased for dry gouge. The high-velocity friction test under wet conditions yielded a smaller reduction in permeability than the low-velocity test, whereas the opposite trend was observed in dry conditions. We attribute the differences in permeability to the effects of thermal/ mechanical pore pressurization upon shear-induced compaction. Symmetric boudin structures may represent evidence of hydrofracturing induced by pore fluid pressurization. The large friction coefficient of the megasplay fault material in the slow and wet friction tests is explained by homogeneous shear deformation and higher permeability that promotes faster shear-induced compaction. The similarity in post-shear permeability for the gouges from the both faults may account for the similar friction coefficients in high-velocity friction, assuming that the pore fluid pressurization process controls high-velocity frictional behavior. This velocity dependence on friction suggests that a large dynamic stress drop is expected for the megasplay fault, implying that large slip displacement followed by a giant tsunami is plausible when a rupture from depth propagates to the megasplay fault.Citation: Tanikawa, W., H. Mukoyoshi, O. Tadai, T. Hirose, A. Tsutsumi, and W. Lin (2012), Velocity dependence of shear-induced permeability associated with frictional behavior in fault zones of the Nankai subduction zone,
[1] Since 1997, ocean color satellite images have revealed large-scale blooms of the coccolithophorid Emiliania huxleyi in the eastern Bering Sea. The blooms are often sustained over several months and have caused ecosystem changes in the Arctic Ocean, as well as in the Bering Sea. We examined continental shelf sediment profiles of alkenone, a biomarker for E. huxleyi, covering the past $70 years. The alkenone records suggest that large E. huxleyi blooms are a novel feature in the Bering Sea as they have occurred only since the late 1970s. Recent changes in alkenone content were closely related to the 1976-77 climatic regime shift in the North Pacific, implying that warming and freshening of Bering Sea waters promoted E. huxleyi blooms. The production rate of diatoms (total valves in sediment samples), the dominant primary producers in the Bering Sea, also increased during the past several decades. However, the ratio of alkenone content to total diatom valves in the sediments increased as E. huxleyi production increased, suggesting that the increase in the E. huxleyi production rate frequently exceeded the increase in the diatom production rate. Overall, our results indicate a possible subarctic region ecosystem shift driven by climate change.
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