Datafiles from elevated temperature velocity-step tests in a triaxial deformation apparatus
Datafiles are from a suite of frictional velocity step experiments on clay-bearing fault gouges, at elevated temperatures up to 180°C. The aim was to test if varying temperature reduces the stability of clay-rich faults, measured by the rate and state friction parameter (a-b). Data were collected in the Rock Deformation Laboratory at the University of Liverpool between Oct 2021 to May 2022 by Dr. Isabel Ashman, as part of her NERC EAO DTP studentship. The datafiles are text files of both the raw voltage and calibrated measurements from triaxial deformation experiments. The stability of synthetic kaolinite clay-bearing fault gouges was found to decrease systematically with elevated temperatures commensurate with those found at typical earthquake depths. In materials containing 25-50% clay, the stability of slip decreased with increasing temperature so that the gouges displayed unstable slip at temperatures between 100 and 180°C. At room temperature the same materials showed stable slip and velocity strengthening characteristics. The reduction in stability with increasing temperature coincides with a greater degree of compaction observed in the gouge microstructure and is inferred to result from progressive loss of water adsorbed on the clay surfaces. These results indicate that clay-bearing fault rocks can nucleate unstable slip at conditions common to the clay-bearing brittle crust; a result that adds to the observations of mature clay-bearing faults in nature that can nucleate and propagate earthquakes.
Simple
- Date (Creation)
- 2025-05-14
Originator
University of Liverpool
-
Dr Elisabetta Mariani
(
Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences
)
Herdman Building, 4 Brownlow Street
,
Liverpool
,
L69 3GP
,
Originator
University of Liverpool
-
Professor Daniel Faulkner
(
Professor in Geology and Geophysics
)
School of Environmental Sciences, 4 Brownlow Street
,
Liverpool
,
L69 3GP
,
Originator
University of Liverpool
-
Isabel Ashman
Jane Herdman Building, 4 Brownlow Street
,
Liverpool
,
L69 3GP
,
- Maintenance and update frequency
- notApplicable notApplicable
- GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
- BGS Thesaurus of Geosciences
-
- Rock mechanics
- Temperature
- Earthquakes
- Clays
- NGDC Deposited Data
- Citable Data
- dataCentre
- Keywords
-
- NERC_DDC
- Access constraints
- otherRestrictions Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- licenceOGL
- Use constraints
- otherRestrictions Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- The copyright of materials derived from the British Geological Survey's work is vested in the Natural Environment Research Council [NERC]. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a retrieval system of any nature, without the prior permission of the copyright holder, via the BGS Intellectual Property Rights Manager. Use by customers of information provided by the BGS, is at the customer's own risk. In view of the disparate sources of information at BGS's disposal, including such material donated to BGS, that BGS accepts in good faith as being accurate, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) gives no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the quality or accuracy of the information supplied, or to the information's suitability for any use. NERC/BGS accepts no liability whatever in respect of loss, damage, injury or other occurence however caused.
- Other constraints
- Available under the Open Government Licence subject to the following acknowledgement accompanying the reproduced NERC materials "Contains NERC materials ©NERC [year]"
- Metadata language
- EnglishEnglish
- Topic category
-
- Geoscientific information
- Begin date
- 2021-10-25
- End date
- 2022-05-16
Reference System Information
No information provided.
- Distribution format
-
-
Text File
()
-
Text File
()
- OnLine resource
- Data
- OnLine resource
-
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Ashman, I., Faulkner, D., Mariani, E. (2025). Datafiles from elevated temperature velocity-step tests in a triaxial deformation apparatus. NERC EDS National Geoscience Data Centre. (Dataset). https://doi.org/10.5285/7337c4aa-4fe5-4c8f-abe6-75deb0701e03
- Hierarchy level
- nonGeographicDataset Non geographic dataset
- Other
- non geographic dataset
Conformance result
- Date (Publication)
- 2011
- Explanation
- See the referenced specification
- Pass
- No
Conformance result
- Date (Publication)
- 2010-12-08
- Explanation
- See http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:323:0011:0102:EN:PDF
- Pass
- No
- Statement
- The velocity-step experiments were conducted in a triaxial deformation apparatus in a direct shear slider assembly. In addition to room temperature experiments (23°C), tests were run at controlled experimental temperatures of 60°C, 100°C, 140°C and 180°C (+/-0.4°C). The confining pressure was set using silicon oil at 150 MPa and a pore pressure using deionised water was set at 60 MPa. An axial load was applied using a motor-driven loading column. The initial 2 mm of displacement had a velocity of 0.3 μm/s, then in the ‘velocity-step phase’ the slip velocity was stepped between 3.0 μm/s and 0.3 μm/s every 0.5 mm of slip until the maximum displacement of 5.5 mm was reached.
- File identifier
- 353d8173-fe20-7d7d-e063-3050940aedbd XML
- Metadata language
- EnglishEnglish
- Hierarchy level
- nonGeographicDataset Non geographic dataset
- Hierarchy level name
- non geographic dataset
- Date stamp
- 2025-11-13
- Metadata standard name
- UK GEMINI
- Metadata standard version
- 2.3
Point of contact
British Geological Survey
Environmental Science Centre,Keyworth
,
NOTTINGHAM
,
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
,
NG12 5GG
,
United Kingdom
+44 115 936 3100
- Dataset URI
- http://data.bgs.ac.uk/id/dataHolding/13608414
NERC Data Catalogue Service