Deformation Experiment on Quartz Aggregates with High Porosity and High Water Contents at High Pressure and Temperature

Large earthquakes typically nucleate near the depth limit of seismogenic zones. In these areas, high Vp/Vs ratios are commonly observed, indicating the presence of high pore fluid pressures. Thus, it is important to understand how the water content (both water in the crystal and in the pores) and the pore structure affect the rheology of polycrystalline materials. We conducted deformation experiments on quartz aggregates using a Griggs-type deformation apparatus. Samples were hot-pressed from silica gels, which contain 9 wt% water within the amorphous structure and absorbed on the surface. Hydrostatic experiments within the α-quartz stability field at a pressure of 1.5 GPa and 900°C indicate that hot-pressed samples are composed of quartz and no relict of amorphous material is present. The average grain size and porosity of the hot-pressed aggregates is about 4 μm and 23%, respectively. The grain shape is equigranular and no crystallographic preferred orientation (CPO) is observed. Initial results from general shear experiments on the hot-pressed quartz aggregates at the equivalent strain rate of 1.5 x 10-4 1/s, a pressure of 1.5 GPa and 900°C show very low strength (equivalent stress of 140 MPa) and nominally steady state flow at shear strains up to 3.5. The samples show no CPO and evidence for strain localization along R1 riedel shears. In contrast, deformation experiments on cores of quartzite show dislocation creep at this pressure/temperature condition. The measured stress from the new experiments is significantly lower than predicted by the wet quartz flow law (e.g., Hirth et al., 2001). The low flow stress and absence of CPO suggest the operation of grain-size sensitive flow, or perhaps that the effective pressure law is still applicable and the sample deforms by a distributed semi-brittle flow process