Frictional melting mechanisms of rocks during earthquake fault slip.

ABSTRACT: Rapid slip, at rates in the order of 1 m/s or more, may induce frictional melting in rocks during earthquakes. The short-lived melting has been thought to be a disequilibrium process, for decades. We conducted frictional melting experiments on acidic, basic, and ultrabasic silicate rocks at a slip rate of 1.3 m/s. The experiments and microstructural observations reveal that all minerals in the rocks are melted at temperatures below their known melting temperatures (T_m); e.g., quartz is melted at ~ 1000-1200 °C, not ~ 1720 °C, while olivine at ~ 1300 °C, rather than ~ 1700 °C. The low-temperature melting is incompatible with the conventional disequilibrium melting, and may be caused predominantly by grain size reduction and phase boundary reactions during the early and later stag

SUBMITTER: Woo S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10397195 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature