Earthquake faults can heal on their own within a few hours, adding strength to catastrophic earthquakes

After deep faults in the Earth are shaken by a stress-relieving event, they can be patched up again to continue the endless cycle of earthquakes. However, this self-healing ability does not apply to the fast and violent earthquakes that many people are familiar with; Instead, it helps rocks recharge after a slower type of seismic event that we can't even perceive.

A new study published in Science Advances reveals the way faults repair themselves after a slow-slip event, which occurs when stress built up over several days, weeks or months is released. Even when this pressure slowly releases, faults can partially regain strength within hours and prepare for another rupture. Knowing the details of how this process works can help researchers understand how regenerating faults fuel major earthquakes.

Read more: How much concern is there about earthquakes in the US?

Tectonic pressures

Earthquakes tend to develop in subduction zones, where a dense tectonic plate slides under another, less dense plate. When these plates rub against each other, they sometimes close due to friction. Pressure then builds until the plates finally break out of their bind, creating massive earthquakes as a result.

This can occur in a number of subduction zones around the world, such as the Cascadia subduction zone off the Pacific coast of North America. Here, the Juan de Fuca plate slides beneath the North American plate.

The movement of these plates can trigger “superquakes,” which are powerful enough to exceed 9.0 on the Richter scale. However, large earthquakes occur infrequently; Only 13 of them came from the Cascadia subduction zone over the past 6,000 years, and each occurred hundreds of years apart, according to Earthquakes Canada.

Earthquake energy recharge

Slow strike events (SSEs) occur below the “transition zone” where tectonic plates close, and are characterized by more gradual tectonic movement that occurs over a long period of time, according to Earth Scope.

While slow slip action relieves some stress on certain parts of the fault, it simultaneously exacerbates stress in parts that are locked. So, even though the powerful waves under the Cascadia subduction zone, for example, are not strong enough to be felt by anyone living on the Pacific coast, they still increase the risk of a strong earthquake because they increase the pressure on the closing plates little by little.

Unlike typical earthquakes, ESEs do not exhaust all their energy at once before beginning the long process of rebuilding stress again in the first step. After releasing energy from the SSE, faults can reload stress in a short period of time, researchers in the new study observed from seismic data in the Cascadia subduction zone.

“We discovered that deep fractures can heal on their own within hours,” study author Amanda Thomas, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Davis, said in a statement. “This forces us to re-evaluate the faulty rheological behavior, and whether we have overlooked something very important.”

Glue them back together

To understand how defects heal on their own, the researchers replicated cases of SSE in experiments in which they packed quartz powder into a silver cylinder, soldered and sealed it, and placed it under a pressure of 1 gigapascal (10,000 times atmospheric pressure) at 500 degrees Celsius.

In essence, the researchers were simulating what happens in the aftermath of an SSE explosion by “cooking” a quartz sample. After measuring how quickly sound waves moved through the sample, they opened the cylinders and examined the sample's structure through an electron microscope. They found that when compressed, the mineral grains welded together.

This indicates that after SSE, the rocks in the faults stick together again. The concept of cohesion is something that may require more attention in earthquake models, the researchers say; It likely contributes to stress on shallow faults and other faults that cause major earthquakes.

Read more: Growing pressure in the Tintina Fault could mean dangerous earthquakes

Article sources

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