Coseismic fault sealing and fluid pressurization during earthquakes

Earthquakes occur because faults weaken with increasing slip and slip rate. Thermal pressurization (TP) of trapped pore fluids is deemed to be a widespread coseismic fault weakening mechanism. Yet, due to technical challenges, experimental evidence of TP is limited. Here, by exploiting a novel experimental configuration, we simulate seismic slip pulses (slip rate 2.0 m/s) on dolerite-built faults under pore fluid pressures up to 25 MPa. We measure transient sharp weakening, down to almost zero friction and concurrent with a spike in pore fluid pressure, which interrupts the exponential-decay slip weakening. The interpretation of mechanical and microstructural data plus numerical modeling suggests that wear and local melting processes in experimental faults generate ultra-fine materials to seal the pressurized pore water, causing transient TP spikes. Our work suggests that, with wear-induced sealing, TP may also occur in relatively permeable faults and could be quite common in nature.