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Science 9 May 1969:
Vol. 164. no. 3880, pp. 713 - 715
DOI: 10.1126/science.164.3880.713
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Articles

High-Pressure Mechanical Instability in Rocks

James D. Byerlee 1 and William F. Brace 2

1 U. S. Geological Survey, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910
2 Department of Geology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge

At a confining pressure of a few kilobars, deformation of many sedimentary rocks, altered mafic rocks, porous volcanic rocks, and sand is ductile, in that instabilities leading to audible elastic shocks are absent. At pressures of 7 to 10 kilobars, however, unstable faulting and stick-slip in certain of these rocks was observed. This high pressure-low temperature instability might be responsible for earthquakes in deeply buried sedimentary or volcanic sequences.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Mechanical compaction and the brittle--ductile transition in porous sandstones.
T.-F. Wong (1990)
Geological Society, London, Special Publications 54, 111-122
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Instability, softening and localization of deformation.
B. E. Hobbs, H.-B. Muhlhaus, and A. Ord (1990)
Geological Society, London, Special Publications 54, 143-165
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Numerical simulation of earthquake sequences.
J. B. RUNDLE and D. D. JACKSON (1977)
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 67, 1363-1377
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Natural faulting and the mechanics of brittle shear failure.
S. A. F. MURRELL (1977)
Journal of the Geological Society 133, 175-189
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Aftershocks Caused by Pore Fluid Flow?.
A. Nur, A. Nur, and J. R. Booker (1972)
Science 175, 885-887
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California Earthquakes: Why Only Shallow Focus?.
W. F. Brace, W. F. Brace, and J. D. Byerlee (1970)
Science 168, 1573-1575
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