HR: 10:20h
AN: T22A-01    [Abstracts]
TI: Microstructures, Chemical Composition, and Viscosities of Fault-generated Friction Melts in the Shimanto Accretionary Complex, Southwest Japan: Implication for Dynamics of Earthquake Faulting in Subduction Zones
AU: * Ujiie, K
EM: ujiiek@jamstec.go.jp
AU: Yamaguchi, H
EM: harukay@jamstec.go.jp
AB: The pseudotachylytes (PT) were recently found in the Cretaceous Shimanto accretionary complex of eastern and western Shikoku, southwest Japan, but their microstructures under a backscattered electron image, chemical composition, and effects of frictional melting on co-seismic slip in the accretionary prism remains poorly understood. The PT bearing fault is the 1-2 m thick roof thrust of a duplex structure, which bounds the off-scraped coherent turbidites above from the imbricated melange below without a thermal inversion across the fault. The fault zone consists of foliated cataclasite of sandstone-shale melange in origin and dark veins. The PT commonly occurs as brecciated fragments in dark veins. The PT matrix is transparent under plane-polarized light and is optically homogeneous under cross-polarized light, similar to glass matrix. Under a backscattered electron image, the PT clearly shows the evidences for frictional melting and subsequent rapid cooling: rounded and irregularly shaped grains and vesicles in matrix and fracturing associated with grain margins. These textural features of the PT are very similar to those of experimentally generated PT. The EPMA analysis indicates that chemical composition of the PT matrix corresponds to illite with 5.7-9.9 wt% H2O and that partially melted grains are dominated by orthoclase and quartz. This indicates that the temperatures of the PT melt could reach the breakdown temperatures of orthoclase (1150 C) and quartz (1730 C), greater than the maximum temperature recorded in host rocks (170-200 C). We calculated the viscosity of friction melt, based on the chemical composition of the PT matrix and the volume fraction and aspect ratio of grains in the PT. We considered both Arrhenian and non-Arrhenian models for viscosity calculation. Our result demonstrates that the melt viscosity is much lower than PT in continental plutonic and metamorphic rocks: 10^3 Pa s (Arrhenian model) and 10^2 Pa s (non-Arrhenian model) even at 700 C and 10 Pa s (both models) at 1200 C. The extremely low melt viscosity is caused primarily by the formation of liquids (release of OH-) from hydrous illite, and secondarily by small volume fraction (< 20%) of grains in the PT. Because illite is commonly present in accretionary prisms, generation of a low viscosity melt from illite would lead to fault lubrication and hence control the efficiency of stored strain energy release and earthquake magnitude in subduction zones.
DE: 8010 Fractures and faults
DE: 8030 Microstructures
DE: 8045 Role of fluids
DE: 8160 Rheology--general
DE: 7209 Earthquake dynamics and mechanics
SC: Tectonophysics [T]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting