Skip to main content

A critical evaluation of crustal dehydration as the cause of an overpressured and weak San Andreas Fault

Dates

Year
2009

Citation

Fulton, Patrick M, Saffer, Demian M, and Bekins, Barbara A, 2009, A critical evaluation of crustal dehydration as the cause of an overpressured and weak San Andreas Fault: Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v. 284, iss. 3–4, p. 447-454.

Summary

Many plate boundary faults, including the San Andreas Fault, appear to slip at unexpectedly low shear stress. One long-standing explanation for a “weak” San Andreas Fault is that fluid release by dehydration reactions during regional metamorphism generates elevated fluid pressures that are localized within the fault, reducing the effective normal stress. We evaluate this hypothesis by calculating realistic fluid production rates for the San Andreas Fault system, and incorporating them into 2-D fluid flow models. Our results show that for a wide range of permeability distributions, fluid sources from crustal dehydration are too small and short-lived to generate, sustain, or localize fluid pressures in the fault sufficient to explain [...]

Contacts

Attached Files

Communities

  • USGS National Research Program

Tags

Provenance

Added to ScienceBase on Fri Apr 19 11:15:14 MDT 2013 by processing file <b>Multiphase Flow, Transport, Reaction, and Biodegradation.xml</b> in item <a href="https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/51117dcfe4b03611765639d6">https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/51117dcfe4b03611765639d6</a>

Additional Information

Identifiers

Type Scheme Key
DOI http://sciencebase.gov/vocab/identifierScheme 10.1016/j.epsl.2009.05.009

Citation Extension

citationTypeJournal Article
journalEarth and Planetary Science Letters
parts
typePages
value447-454
typeVolume
value284
typeIssue
value3–4

Item Actions

View Item as ...

Save Item as ...

View Item...