Shear behavior of DFDP-1 borehole samples from the Alpine Fault, New Zealand, under a wide range of experimental conditions

The Alpine Fault is a major plate-boundary fault zone that poses a major seismic hazard in southern New Zealand. The initial stage of the Deep Fault Drilling Project has provided sample material from the major lithological constituents of the Alpine Fault from two pilot boreholes. We use laboratory shearing experiments to show that the friction coefficient µ of fault-related rocks and their precursors varies between 0.38 and 0.80 depending on the lithology, presence of pore fluid, effective normal stress, and temperature. Under conditions appropriate for several kilometers depth on the Alpine Fault (100 MPa, 160 °C, fluid-saturated), a gouge sample located very near to the principal slip zone exhibits µ = 0.67, which is high compared with other major fault zones targeted by scientific drilling, and suggests the capacity for large shear stresses at depth. A consistent observation is that every major lithological unit tested exhibits positive and negative values of friction velocity dependence. Critical nucleation patch lengths estimated using representative values of the friction velocity-dependent parameter a−b and the critical slip distance D c , combined with previously documented elastic properties of the wall rock, may be as low as ~3 m. This small value, consistent with a seismic moment M o = ~4 × 1010 for an M w = ~1 earthquake, suggests that events of this size or larger are expected to occur as ordinary earthquakes and that slow or transient slip events are unlikely in the approximate depth range of 3–7 km

Spectrum of slip behaviour in Tohoku fault zone samples at plate tectonic slip rates

During the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake, extremely extensive coseismic slip ruptured shallow parts of the Japan Trench subduction zone and breached the sea floor1, 2. This part of the subduction zone also hosts slow slip events (SSE)3, 4. The fault thus seems to have a propensity for slip instability or quasi-instability that is unexpected on the shallow portions of important fault zones. Here we use laboratory experiments to slowly shear samples of rock recovered from the Tohoku-oki earthquake fault zone as part of the Japan Trench Fast Drilling Project. We find that infrequent perturbations in rock strength appear spontaneously as long-term SSE when the samples are sheared at a constant rate of about 8.5 cm yr−1, equivalent to the plate-convergence rate. The shear strength of the rock drops by 3 to 6%, or 50 kPa to 120 kPa, over about 2 to 4 h. Slip during these events reaches peak velocities of up to 25 cm yr−1, similar to SSE observed in several circum-Pacific subduction zones. Furthermore, the sheared samples exhibit the full spectrum of fault-slip behaviours, from fast unstable slip to slow steady creep, which can explain the wide range of slip styles observed in the Japan Trench. We suggest that the occurrence of SSE at shallow depths may help identify fault segments that are frictionally unstable and susceptible to large coseismic slip propagation

Shear behavior of DFDP-1 borehole samples from the Alpine Fault, New Zealand, under a wide range of experimental conditions

The Alpine Fault is a major plate-boundary fault zone that poses a major seismic hazard in southern New Zealand. The initial stage of the Deep Fault Drilling Project has provided sample material from the major lithological constituents of the Alpine Fault from two pilot boreholes. We use laboratory shearing experiments to show that the friction coefficient µ of fault-related rocks and their precursors varies between 0.38 and 0.80 depending on the lithology, presence of pore fluid, effective normal stress, and temperature. Under conditions appropriate for several kilometers depth on the Alpine Fault (100 MPa, 160 °C, fluid-saturated), a gouge sample located very near to the principal slip zone exhibits µ = 0.67, which is high compared with other major fault zones targeted by scientific drilling, and suggests the capacity for large shear stresses at depth. A consistent observation is that every major lithological unit tested exhibits positive and negative values of friction velocity dependence. Critical nucleation patch lengths estimated using representative values of the friction velocity-dependent parameter a−b and the critical slip distance D c , combined with previously documented elastic properties of the wall rock, may be as low as ~3 m. This small value, consistent with a seismic moment M o = ~4 × 1010 for an M w = ~1 earthquake, suggests that events of this size or larger are expected to occur as ordinary earthquakes and that slow or transient slip events are unlikely in the approximate depth range of 3–7 km