Assessment of the Relationship between ESR Signal Intensity and Grain Size Distribution in Shear Zones within the Atotsugawa Fault System, Central Japan

Abstract

For the first time, a relationship between ESR signal intensity and grain size distribution (sieve technique) in shear zones within the Atotsugawa fault system have been investigated using fault core rocks. The grain size distributions were estimated using the sieve technique and microscopic observations. Stacks of sieves with openings that decrease consecutively in the order of 4.75 mm, 1.18 mm, 600 µm, 300 µm, 150 µm and 75 µm were chosen for this study. Grain size distributions analysis revealed that samples further from the slip plane have larger d50 (average gain size) (0.45 mm at a distance of 30 - 50 mm from the slip plane) while those close to the slip plane have smaller d50 values (0.19 mm at a distance of 0 - 10 mm from the slip plane). This is due to intensive crushing that is always associated with large displacement during fault activities. However, this pattern was not respected in all shear zones in that, larger d50 values were instead observed in samples close to the slip plane due to admixture of fault rocks from different fault activities.