2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Preservation of amorphous ultrafine material: A proposed proxy for slip during recent earthquakes on active faults
| Project/Area Number |
15K13578
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Research Field |
Geology
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| Research Institution | Osaka University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
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| Keywords | 活断層 / 地震 |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
Displacement of the Quaternary strata known of the sedimentary age is a unique proxy for evaluating the activity of the faults. However, such soft ground was often removed for the plant construction, falling in the difficulty (nearly impossible) to judge whether the faults beneath the plant are still active or not. Here we propose a new proxy, amorphous ultrafine particles preserved in the fault, to be evident that the fault recently slipped, after at least approximately a thousand years ago, by the chemical kinetic constraint of the dissolution reaction: Amorphous ultrafine particles with orders of size from 10 to 100 nm, formed by comminution during earthquake slip4,5, have faster dissolution rate than the corresponding crystalline form6. Evaluation of fault activity by using this proxy directly contributes not only to the earthquake risk assessment of the nuclear plants but also to the sustainability of urban civilization on tectonically active zones.
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| Free Research Field |
地震断層学
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