Research Data
Data Publication
Reaction weakening and the seismogenic potential of dolomite fault gouges
Elisabeth Kozlov
Utrecht University
(2026)
Descriptions
An understanding of the evolution of the frictional behaviour and deformation mechanisms in dolomite faults is required to better understand earthquakes in carbonate terrains. Therefore, we investigated the seismogenic potential of dolomite and the dominant deformation mechanisms using rotary shear experiments on simulated fault gouges at fixed temperatures (T) ranging from 20–600 C. The experiments were performed wet, using pore fluid pressures of 50 MPa. The experiments covered five orders of magnitude in sliding velocity, stepped from 0.003–300 μm/s. Our results show that temperature sensitive viscous deformation becomes active at temperatures greater than 200 C, weakening dolomite up to T ∼ 400 C, followed by a restrengthening up to T ∼ 600 C. Microstructural analyses indicate that the reduction in strength can be linked to dissolution of dolomite and precipitation of new mineral phases (calcite and brucite), also known as incongruent pressure solution creep. Frictional stability rate and state analysis reveals a transition at T ∼ 300 C from stable to potentially unstable behaviour. Furthermore, we observe shear stress instabilities at velocity steps where rate and state friction response is stable. Instabilities at velocity-strengthening steps combined with microstructural observations indicate that temperature and time dependent viscous deformation mechanisms and stress dependent frictional mechanisms act simultaneously for a wide range of experimental conditions. This might explain observations of earthquakes alongside slow slip events on dolomite faults. Our observations furthermore highlight frictional differences of dolomite from other rock-forming minerals, and, by extension, advance our understanding of seismicity in carbonate-bearing fault zones.
Keywords
MSL enriched keywords
sedimentary rock
dolomite
fault rock
fault gouge
minerals
carbonate minerals
dolomite
simulated fault gouge
oxide mineral
brucite
calcite
Apparatus
deformation testing
shear testing
rotary shear apparatus
Measured property
friction - controlled slip rate
friction coefficient
rate and state friction (RSF) parameters
coupled mechanical-chemical effects
rate of pressure solution
Inferred deformation behavior
deformation behaviour
frictional deformation
viscous deformation
microphysical deformation mechanism
time-dependent mechanism
pressure solution
Apparatus
characterization of modelling material
frictional property determination
rotary shear apparatus
Measured property
friction - controlled slip rate
friction coefficient
rate and state friction (RSF) parameters
tectonic deformation structure
tectonic fault
Inferred behavior
anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility and remanence
ductile deformation
Originally assigned keywords
FOS: Earth and related environmental sciences
friction of dolomite
brittle to ductile
seismicity in dolomite
shear stress of dolomite
incongruent pressure solution
deformation mechanisms in dolomite
hydrothermal rotary shear
microstructures
flow to friction
Metadata
MSL enriched sub domains
rock and melt physics
analogue modelling of geologic processes
paleomagnetism
Resource Type
Source publisher
| Utrecht University |
Creators
| Elisabeth Kozlov |
| Personal |
| https://orcid.org/0009-0000-6172-6970 |
| Utrecht University |
Citation
Kozlov, E. (2026). Reaction weakening and the seismogenic potential of dolomite fault gouges [Dataset]. Utrecht University. https://doi.org/10.24416/UU01-9YNSZM
Dates
| Issued | 2026-06-11T13:42:02 |
| Updated | 2026-06-11T13:42:10 |
| Collected | 2023-11-01/2025-07-01 |
Language
en
Funding References
| Funder Name | European Union under the Horizon Europe (HORIZON) program |
Rights
| Name | Open - freely retrievable |
| URI | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Name | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International |
| URI | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode |
| Identifier | cc-by-4.0 |
| Identifier Scheme | SPDX |
| Scheme URI | https://spdx.org/licenses/ |
Locations
- no geo-locations found -