Effect of seismic fault slips at various depths on the E center in Quartz

Tanaka, Kiriha*; Muto, Jun*; Takahashi, Miki*; Jayawickrama, E.*; Sasaki, Osamu*; Oka, Toshitaka   ; Nagahama, Hiroyuki*

A fault dating using electron spin resonance (ESR) is a developing direct method to estimate the age of the last fault movement. This method hypothesizes that natural radiation-induced ESR intensity, which is proportional to the concentration of charges trapped in defects accumulated in the interseismic period, is completely reset due to fracture, stress, and frictional heating by a seismic fault slip. The incomplete zeroing can result in age overestimation, hence, the understanding of its detailed conditions and mechanism is required. We have performed high-velocity friction experiments under various normal stresses to investigate the possibility for the signal zeroing by seismic fault slips at various depths. We infer that the degrees of grain fracture and frictional heating associated with the seismic fault slip originating from fault heterogeneity yield the complicated zeroing mechanism of the E center.