Far-field stress dependency of the failure mode of damage-zone fractures in fault zones; Results from laboratory tests and field observations of siliceous mudstone

Ishii, Eiichi   

Macroscopic failure modes (extensional failure or shear failure) in fault damage zones influence hydrogeological properties of fault zones. Based on the Griffith-Coulomb criterion and a simple assumption that the failures are predominantly induced by increasing of differential stresses and/or decreasing of effective normal stresses due to stress concentration along faults, it is implied that extension fractures can exclusively propagate from the faults when the effective mean stress is less than twice the rock tensile strength, whereas shear fractures also can develop when the effective mean stress is more than twice the rock tensile strength, which suppresses the formation of extension fractures. In this study, mechanical tests (the undrained triaxial tests and the unconfined compressive strength tests) using siliceous mudstone specimens given artificial fault(s) were performed under multiple effective confining pressures. Comparison between the damage zone fractures formed at the fault tips by the tests and the loaded effective mean stresses provided results consistent with the above simple model. The similar results are also suggested from the occurrence of natural damage zone fractures observed in the same siliceous mudstone by core logging. Laboratory-measured tensile strengths could be used as the lower threshold strengths considering the strain rate and scale effects and it is implied that hard-linked highly permeable fault zones involving many extension fractures are limited to rock domains which have experienced the effective mean stress less than twice the tensile strength.