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Volume 54 Supplement 11

Special Issue: Slip and Flow Processes in and below the Seismogenic Region

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Tribochemical wearing in S-C mylonites and its implication to lithosphere stress level

Earth, Planets and Space volume 54, pages 1103–1108 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

A new approach for revealing the brittle origin of C-surfaces as localized high shear strain zones in S-C mylonites (mylonites with C-surfaces cutting through a mylonitic S-foliation) is presented. A compiled worldwide catalog of width (W) and displacement (D) data for shear zones indicates that ductile mylonites show a constant W/D ratio of 10−0.3 and ratios of brittle ‘cataclasites’ vary in magnitude from 10−1 to 10−3, implying that the ratio is a diagnosis for discriminating ductile and brittle shear zones. A newly measured W-D data of shear displaced minerals along C-surfaces in granitic S-C mylonites from the Hatagawa shear zone in northeast Japan is added on the worldwide W-D catalog, being plotted on a brittle origin with the high W/D ratio of 10−1.5. Using this result and a tribochemical wear theory which accounts for wear formation under hydrothermal conditions, C-surfaces in the S-C mylonite might have been formed by cataclastic deformation under the lithosphere stress level of ca. 300 MPa at temperature of 400°C with water for granite. This result suggests a high lithosphere stress level at the depth of the S-C mylonite formation where deformation is predominantly plastic.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Center for Higher Education, Tohoku University, Sendai, 981-8576, Japan

    Norihiro Nakamura

  2. Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Tohoku University, Sendai, 980-8578, Japan

    Hiroyuki Nagahama

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  1. Norihiro Nakamura
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  2. Hiroyuki Nagahama
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Correspondence to Norihiro Nakamura.

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Nakamura, N., Nagahama, H. Tribochemical wearing in S-C mylonites and its implication to lithosphere stress level. Earth Planet Sp 54, 1103–1108 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03353309

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