The Spectrum of Slip Behaviors of a Granular Fault Gouge Analogue Governed by Rate and State Friction

Abstract

Currently, it is unknown how seismic and aseismic slip influences the recurrence and magnitude of earthquakes. Modern seismic hazard assessment is therefore based on statistics combined with numerical simulations of fault slip and stress transfer. To improve the underlying statistical models we conduct low velocity shear experiments with glass micro-beads as fault gouge analogue at confining stresses of 5–20 kPa. As a result, we show that characteristic slip events emerge, ranging from fast and large slip to small scale oscillating creep and stable sliding. In particular, we observe small scale slip events that occur immediately before large scale slip events for a specific set of experiments. Similar to natural faults we find a separation of scales by several orders of magnitude for slow events and fast events. Enhanced creep and transient dilatational events pinpoint that the granular analogue is close to failure. From slide-hold-slide tests, we find that the rate-and-state properties are in the same range as estimates for natural faults and fault rocks. The fault shows velocity weakening characteristics with a reduction of frictional strength between 0.8% and 1.3% per e-fold increase in sliding velocity. Furthermore, the slip modes that are observed in the normal shear experiments are in good agreement with analytical solutions. Our findings highlight the influence of micromechanical processes on macroscopic fault behavior. The comprehensive data set associated with this study can act as a benchmark for numerical simulations and improve the understanding of observations of natural faults.