The determination of rock friction at seismic slip rates (about 1 m s(-1)) is of paramount importance in earthquake mechanics, as fault friction controls the stress drop, the mechanical work and the frictional heat generated during slip(1). Given the difficulty in determining friction by seismological methods(1), elucidating constraints are derived from experimental studies(2-9). Here we review a large set of published and unpublished experiments (similar to 300) performed in rotary shear apparatus at slip rates of 0.1-2.6 ms(-1). The experiments indicate a significant decrease in friction (of up to one order of magnitude), which we term fault lubrication, both for cohesive (silicate-built(4-6), quartz-built(3) and carbonate-built(7,8)) rocks and non-cohesive rocks (clay-rich(9), anhydrite, gypsum and dolomite(10) gouges) typical of crustal seismogenic sources. The available mechanical work and the associated temperature rise in the slipping zone trigger(11,12) a number of physicochemical processes (gelification, decarbonation and dehydration reactions, melting and so on) whose products are responsible for fault lubrication. The similarity between (1) experimental and natural fault products and (2) mechanical work measures resulting from these laboratory experiments and seismological estimates(13,14) suggests that it is reasonable to extrapolate experimental data to conditions typical of earthquake nucleation depths (7-15 km). It seems that faults are lubricated during earthquakes, irrespective of the fault rock composition and of the specific weakening mechanism involved

In northern Italy in 1997, two earthquakes of magnitudes 5.7 and 6 (separated by nine hours) marked the beginning of a sequence that lasted more than 30 days, with thousands of aftershocks including four additional events with magnitudes between 5 and 6. This normal-faulting sequence is not well explained with models of elastic stress transfer, particularly the persistence of hanging-wall seismicity that included two events with magnitudes greater than 5. Here we show that this sequence may have been driven by a fluid pressure pulse generated from the coseismic release of a known deep source of trapped high-pressure carbon dioxide (CO2). We find a strong correlation between the high-pressure front and the aftershock hypocentres over a two-week period, using precise hypocentre locations and a simple model of nonlinear diffusion. The triggering amplitude (10-20 MPa) of the pressure pulse overwhelms the typical (0.1-0.2 MPa) range from stress changes in the usual stress triggering models. We propose that aftershocks of large earthquakes in such geologic environments may be driven by the coseismic release of trapped, high-pressure fluids propagating through damaged zones created by the mainshock. This may provide a link between earthquakes, aftershocks, crust/mantle degassing and earthquake-triggered large-scale fluid flow.

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[ 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 ( W b )a s the excess of work over some minimum traction level achieved during slip. W b is equivalent to "seismological" fracture energy ( G )i np revious investigations. Our numerical approach uses slip velocity as ab oundary 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 W b by calculating the scalar product between dynamic traction and slip velocity vectors. This approach does not require specifying ac onstitutive law and assuming dynamic traction to be collinear with slip velocity.I ft hese vectors are not collinear,t he 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 as ingle 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 ap ower law (with exponent 0.59 and 1.18, respectively). Our estimates of breakdown work range between 4 10 5 and 2 10 7 J/m 2 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.Citation: Tinti, E., P. Spudich, and M. Cocco (2005), Earthquake fracture energy inferred from kinematic rupture models on extended faults,

[1] Pore pressure changes are rigorously included in Coulomb stress calculations for fault interaction studies. These are considered changes under undrained conditions for analyzing very short term postseismic response. The assumption that pore pressure is proportional to faultnormal stress leads to the widely used concept of an effective friction coefficient. We provide an exact expression for undrained fault zone pore pressure changes to evaluate the validity of that concept. A narrow fault zone is considered whose poroelastic parameters are different from those in the surrounding medium, which is assumed to be elastically isotropic. We use conditions for mechanical equilibrium of stress and geometric compatibility of strain to express the effective normal stress change within the fault as a weighted linear combination of mean stress and faultnormal stress changes in the surroundings. Pore pressure changes are determined by fault-normal stress changes when the shear modulus within the fault zone is significantly smaller than in the surroundings but by mean stress changes when the elastic mismatch is small. We also consider an anisotropic fault zone, introducing a Skempton tensor for pore pressure changes. If the anisotropy is extreme, such that fluid pressurization under constant stress would cause expansion only in the fault-normal direction, then the effective friction coefficient concept applies exactly. We finally consider moderately longer timescales than those for undrained response. A sufficiently permeable fault may come to local pressure equilibrium with its surroundings even while that surrounding region may still be undrained, leading to pore pressure change determined by mean stress changes in those surroundings.