Quantifying dynamic pressure and temperature conditions on fault asperities during earthquake slip

Hayward, Kathryn S.; Losq, Charles Le; Cox, S. F. J.

doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2020.116701

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 41 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Previous triaxial experiments on dry sawcut cohesive rocks (e.g. French et al, 2016;Hayward et al, 2021;Lockner et al, 2017;Passelègue et al, 2013) or gouge layers (e.g. Xing et al, 2019) have achieved peak slip rates ranging from mm/s to m/s and slip displacements of up to few mm under high confining pressures of up to 400 MPa, though the short "seismic" slip pulse in these experiments was controlled by stress loading rather than an imposed slip-pulse function.…”

Section: Current Knowledge Of Fault Dynamics In Small-magnitude Earth...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental and Numerical Perspectives on The Role of Localization and Heating in Small-Magnitude Earthquakes

Hung

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Small-magnitude earthquakes (M < 4) have received escalating attention in recent years owing to the global surge in human-induced seismicity. Subsurface activities such as hydrocarbon production can lead to triggering of faults cutting the reservoir system, sometimes bringing significant societal unrest. To evaluate the risk of induced events, it is important to understand the strength and behavior of the fault during fast movement (i.e. slip velocity > 1 m/s). This requires a full characterization of the process of where slip occurs and how faults strength breaks down due to frictional heating from rupture nucleation to propagation. This thesis focuses on Europe's largest gas field, the Groningen gas field in the Netherlands, as a case study for small-magnitude earthquakes under upper crustal conditions. Against this background, I performed laboratory experiments on sandstone-derived fault gouge materials, coupled with numerical modeling to simulate Groningen earthquakes under (near) in-situ conditions. A key finding is the pivotal role of pore fluid in weakening a gouge-filled fault during seismic slip, attributed to thermal expansion of pore fluid. This weakening process operates at various scales, from millimeter-scale shear-bands to micrometer-scale grain-to-grain contacts, leading to distinct stages of weakening. Pore fluid properties and host-rock materials influence the efficiency of heating and weakening, with microstructural analyses revealing the impact of initial gouge microstructure and slip localization development. The results provide better constraints on slip-weakening parameters enhancing geomechanical models of seismicity in the Groningen reservoir system but can also provide input for feasibility studies of future projects in the subsurface.

show abstract

Section: Current Knowledge Of Fault Dynamics In Small-magnitude Earth...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental and Numerical Perspectives on The Role of Localization and Heating in Small-Magnitude Earthquakes

Hung

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Large dynamic range, high resolution optical heterodyne readout for high velocity slip events

Forsyth

Hayward

Roberts

et al. 2022

Review of Scientific Instruments

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We present a free-space optical displacement sensor for measuring geological slip event displacements within a laboratory setting. This sensor utilizes a fiberized Mach-Zehnder based optical heterodyne system coupled with a digital phase lock loop, providing a large dynamic range (multiple centimeters), high displacement resolution (with an amplitude spectral density of [Formula: see text] m/[Formula: see text] for frequencies above 100 Hz), and high velocity tracking capabilities (up to 4.96 m/s). This displacement sensor is used to increase the displacement and the time sensitivity for measuring laboratory-scale earthquakes induced in geological samples by using a triaxial compression apparatus. The sensor architecture provides an improved displacement and time resolution for the millisecond-duration slip events, at high containment and loading pressure and high temperatures. Alternatively, the sensor implementation can be used for other non-contact displacement readouts that required high velocity tracking with low noise and large dynamic range sensing. We use 13 high-velocity slip events in Fontainebleau sandstone to show the large dynamic range displacement tracking ability and displacement amplitude spectral densities to demonstrate the optical readout’s unique sensing capabilities.

show abstract

Quantifying dynamic pressure and temperature conditions on fault asperities during earthquake slip

Cited by 2 publications

References 41 publications

Experimental and Numerical Perspectives on The Role of Localization and Heating in Small-Magnitude Earthquakes

Experimental and Numerical Perspectives on The Role of Localization and Heating in Small-Magnitude Earthquakes

Large dynamic range, high resolution optical heterodyne readout for high velocity slip events

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About