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Quartz Rheology and Short-time-scale Crustal Instabilities

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Computational Earthquake Physics: Simulations, Analysis and Infrastructure, Part I

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Abstract

We present numerical results of thermal-mechanical feedback in crustal quartz rheology and contrast this behavior to the vastly different character of an olivine mantle. In the numerical experiments quartz is found to have a very strong tendency for short-time-scale instabilities, while our numerical experiments show that olivine has a decisive tendency for a stable thermally lubricated slip. At the same time, olivine can also go through a transitional period of creep bursts, which are physically caused by multiple interacting ductile faults at various length and time scales which collocate quickly into a major shear zone. Since olivine has this strong propensity to self organize in a large apparently stable fault system, it lacks the dynamics of interacting ductile faults evident in other minerals. Quartz behaves totally different and keeps its jerky slip behavior for prolonged deformation. An example is shown here in which a 30×50 km piece of a wet quarzitic crust is extended for about 2 Ma. The associated total displacement field clearly shows the unstable slipping events, which have a characteristic time frame of one to several years. In contrast, olivine is very stable and has a much longer time scale for thermal, instability of 100 kyrs.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Earth and Geographical Sciences, University of Western Australia, Australia

    Klaus Regenauer-Lieb

  2. CSIRO Exploration and Mining, P.O. Box 1130, Bentley, WA, 6102, Australia

    Klaus Regenauer-Lieb

  3. Institut für, Geowissenschaften, Johannes Gutenberg University, D-55099, Mainz, Germany

    Klaus Regenauer-Lieb

  4. Department of Geology and Geophysics and Minnesota Supercomputing Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455-0219, USA

    David A. Yuen

Authors
  1. Klaus Regenauer-Lieb
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  2. David A. Yuen
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Earthquake Science, Chinese Earthquake Administration, Beijing, 10036, China

    Xiang-chu Yin

  2. Earth Systems Science Computational Centre, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 4072, Qld, Australia

    Peter Mora

  3. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive-Mail Stop 183-335, Pasadena, CA, 91109, USA

    Andrea Donnellan

  4. Dept. of Earth and Planetary Science, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo Bunkyo-Ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan

    Mitsuhiro Matsu’ura

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© 2006 Birkhäauser Verlag

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Regenauer-Lieb, K., Yuen, D.A. (2006). Quartz Rheology and Short-time-scale Crustal Instabilities. In: Yin, Xc., Mora, P., Donnellan, A., Matsu’ura, M. (eds) Computational Earthquake Physics: Simulations, Analysis and Infrastructure, Part I. Pageoph Topical Volumes. Birkhäuser Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7643-7992-6_12

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