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Dynamic rupture initiation and propagation in a fluid-injection laboratory setup with diagnostics across multiple temporal scales

Gori, Marcello; Rubino, Vito; Rosakis, Ares J; Lapusta, Nadia; (2021) Dynamic rupture initiation and propagation in a fluid-injection laboratory setup with diagnostics across multiple temporal scales. Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences of The United States of America , 118 (51) , Article e2023433118. 10.1073/pnas.2023433118. Green open access

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Abstract

Fluids are known to trigger a broad range of slip events, from slow, creeping transients to dynamic earthquake ruptures. Yet, the detailed mechanics underlying these processes and the conditions leading to different rupture behaviors are not well understood. Here, we use a laboratory earthquake setup, capable of injecting pressurized fluids, to compare the rupture behavior for different rates of fluid injection, slow (megapascals per hour) versus fast (megapascals per second). We find that for the fast injection rates, dynamic ruptures are triggered at lower pressure levels and over spatial scales much smaller than the quasistatic theoretical estimates of nucleation sizes, suggesting that such fast injection rates constitute dynamic loading. In contrast, the relatively slow injection rates result in gradual nucleation processes, with the fluid spreading along the interface and causing stress changes consistent with gradually accelerating slow slip. The resulting dynamic ruptures propagating over wetted interfaces exhibit dynamic stress drops almost twice as large as those over the dry interfaces. These results suggest the need to take into account the rate of the pore-pressure increase when considering nucleation processes and motivate further investigation on how friction properties depend on the presence of fluids.

Type: Article
Title: Dynamic rupture initiation and propagation in a fluid-injection laboratory setup with diagnostics across multiple temporal scales
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2023433118
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2023433118
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).
Keywords: Science & Technology, Multidisciplinary Sciences, Science & Technology - Other Topics, laboratory earthquakes, fluid-induced seismicity, earthquake source physics, fluid pore-pressure rate, nucleation length, EARTHQUAKE NUCLEATION, FRICTIONAL STABILITY, INDUCED SEISMICITY, EPISODIC TREMOR, SUB-RAYLEIGH, SLIP, PRESSURE, PRESSURIZATION, INSTABILITY, TRANSITION
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Mechanical Engineering
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10212523
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