Thermo-hydro-mechanical–chemical (THMC) processes in natural and induced seismicity
Thermo-hydro-mechanical–chemical (THMC) processes in natural and induced seismicity
Editor(s): Christopher J. Spiers, Jean Sulem, Andre R. Niemeijer, Jianye Chen, and Suzanne Hangx
As urban populations grow, destructive natural earthquakes pose an increasing threat in tectonically active regions. At the same time, seismicity caused by geo-resource extraction, geological storage and other subsurface activities is becoming increasingly widespread. The need to improve our understanding of faulting and seismogenesis is therefore reaching new levels of urgency. Yet these phenomena involve some of the most complex and highly coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical–chemical (THMC) processes imaginable. The initiation, propagation and cessation of slip instabilities on faults, for example, embody damage accumulation, frictional deformation, heat production, pore fluid pressurization, phase changes, chemical reactions, creep and reactive fluid flow at multiple temporal and spatial scales. Advances that contribute to earthquake hazard assessment and mitigation depend on integrating different research fields and disciplines to address such processes and their coupling.

This special issue aims to collect studies that consider THMC processes in earthquake and faulting mechanics building on insights from laboratory and computational experiments and from induced and natural seismicity.

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16 Aug 2021
Cross-diffusion waves resulting from multiscale, multiphysics instabilities: application to earthquakes
Klaus Regenauer-Lieb, Manman Hu, Christoph Schrank, Xiao Chen, Santiago Peña Clavijo, Ulrich Kelka, Ali Karrech, Oliver Gaede, Tomasz Blach, Hamid Roshan, Antoine B. Jacquey, Piotr Szymczak, and Qingpei Sun
Solid Earth, 12, 1829–1849, https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-1829-2021,https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-1829-2021, 2021
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16 Apr 2021
Cross-diffusion waves resulting from multiscale, multi-physics instabilities: theory
Klaus Regenauer-Lieb, Manman Hu, Christoph Schrank, Xiao Chen, Santiago Peña Clavijo, Ulrich Kelka, Ali Karrech, Oliver Gaede, Tomasz Blach, Hamid Roshan, and Antoine B. Jacquey
Solid Earth, 12, 869–883, https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-869-2021,https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-869-2021, 2021
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16 Feb 2021
The competition between fracture nucleation, propagation, and coalescence in dry and water-saturated crystalline rock
Jessica A. McBeck, Wenlu Zhu, and François Renard
Solid Earth, 12, 375–387, https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-375-2021,https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-375-2021, 2021
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25 Jan 2021
Effect of normal stress on the frictional behavior of brucite: application to slow earthquakes at the subduction plate interface in the mantle wedge
Hanaya Okuda, Ikuo Katayama, Hiroshi Sakuma, and Kenji Kawai
Solid Earth, 12, 171–186, https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-171-2021,https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-171-2021, 2021
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26 Nov 2020
Rupture-dependent breakdown energy in fault models with thermo-hydro-mechanical processes
Valère Lambert and Nadia Lapusta
Solid Earth, 11, 2283–2302, https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-2283-2020,https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-2283-2020, 2020
25 Nov 2020
Extracting microphysical fault friction parameters from laboratory and field injection experiments
Martijn P. A. van den Ende, Marco M. Scuderi, Frédéric Cappa, and Jean-Paul Ampuero
Solid Earth, 11, 2245–2256, https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-2245-2020,https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-2245-2020, 2020
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13 Nov 2020
The physics of fault friction: insights from experiments on simulated gouges at low shearing velocities
Berend A. Verberne, Martijn P. A. van den Ende, Jianye Chen, André R. Niemeijer, and Christopher J. Spiers
Solid Earth, 11, 2075–2095, https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-2075-2020,https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-2075-2020, 2020
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26 Jul 2020
Frictional slip weakening and shear-enhanced crystallinity in simulated coal fault gouges at slow slip rates
Caiyuan Fan, Jinfeng Liu, Luuk B. Hunfeld, and Christopher J. Spiers
Solid Earth, 11, 1399–1422, https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-1399-2020,https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-1399-2020, 2020
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