Title :

Faulting of natural serpentinite: Implications for intermediate-depth seismicity

Author(s) :

Gasc, Julien [Auteur]
Hilairet, Nadege [Auteur]
Unité Matériaux et Transformations - UMR 8207 [UMET]
Yu, Tony [Auteur]
Ferrand, Thomas [Auteur]
Schubnel, Alexandre [Auteur]
Wang, Yanbin [Auteur]

Journal title :

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

Volume number :

474

Pages :

138-147

Publication date :

2017-09-15

HAL domain(s) :

Planète et Univers [physics]/Astrophysique [astro-ph]
Physique [physics]/Matière Condensée [cond-mat]/Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]
Physique [physics]/Astrophysique [astro-ph]
Planète et Univers [physics]/Sciences de la Terre
Chimie/Matériaux
Physique [physics]/Physique [physics]/Géophysique [physics.geo-ph]

English abstract : [en]

The seismic potential of serpentinites at high pressure was investigated via deformation experiments on cored natural serpentinite samples, during which micro-seismicity was monitored by recording Acoustic Emissions (AEs). ...
Show more >The seismic potential of serpentinites at high pressure was investigated via deformation experiments on cored natural serpentinite samples, during which micro-seismicity was monitored by recording Acoustic Emissions (AEs). Deformation was performed at pressures of 3–5 GPa, using a Deformation-DIA device, and over a wide range of temperatures, both within and outside antigorite's stability field. Below 400 °C, serpentinite deformation involves “silent” semi-brittle mechanisms, even in cases where strain localization is observed. At high temperature (i.e., above 600 °C), despite conditions propitious to dehydration embrittlement (i.e., fast strain rates and reaction kinetics), joint deformation and dehydration lead to ductile shear, without generation of AEs. Brittle behavior was observed in a narrow temperature window ca. 500 °C. In this latter case, AEs are consistently observed upon faulting and extremely sharp strain localization is observed in recovered samples. The resulting microstructures are consistent with the inverse ductile-to-brittle transition proposed by Proctor and Hirth (2016) in antigorite. This may therefore be a source of seismicity in subducting slabs at mantle pressures and temperatures from 500 to 600 °C. However, the acoustic signal observed here is orders of magnitude weaker than what is obtained at low PT conditions with brittle failure, consistently with low radiation efficiency of serpentinite faulting (Prieto et al., 2013) and suggests that other mechanisms are responsible for large intermediate-depth earthquakes. In fact, the present results are in line with a recent study (Ferrand et al., 2017), that suggests that intermediate earthquakes are likely induced by mechanical instabilities due to dehydration in partly hydrated peridotites.Show less >

Language :

Anglais

Audience :

Internationale

Popular science :

Non

Administrative institution(s) :

Université de Lille
ENSCL
CNRS
INRA

Collections :

• Unité Matériaux et Transformations (UMET) - UMR 8207

Research team(s) :

Matériaux Terrestres et Planétaires

Submission date :

2019-05-16T17:20:50Z
2024-07-08T11:57:09Z