The Influence of Roughness on Experimental Fault Mechanical Behavior and Associated Microseismicity

Fault surfaces are rough at all scales, and this significantly affects fault‐slip behavior. However, roughness is only occasionally considered experimentally and then often in experiments imposing a low‐slip velocity, corresponding to the initiation stage of the earthquake cycle. Here, the effect of roughness on earthquake nucleation up to runaway slip is investigated through a series of dry load‐stepping biaxial experiments performed on bare rock surfaces with a variety of roughnesses. These laboratory faults reached slip velocities of at least 100 mm/s. Acoustic emissions were located during deformation on bare rock surfaces in a biaxial apparatus during load‐stepping experiments for the first time. Smooth surfaces showed more frequent slip instabilities accompanied by slip bursts and larger stress drops than rough faults. Smooth surfaces reached higher slip velocities and were less inclined to display velocity‐strengthening behavior. The recorded and localized acoustic emissions were characterized by a greater proportion of large‐magnitude events, and therefore likely a higher Gutenberg‐Richter bGR‐value, for smoother samples, while the cumulative seismic moment was similar for all roughnesses. These experiments shed light on how local microscopic heterogeneity associated with surface topography can influence the macroscopic stability of frictional interfaces and the associated microseismicity. They further provide a laboratory demonstration of roughness' ability to induce stress barriers, which can halt rupture, a phenomenon previously shown numerically. Plain Language Summary Earthquakes occur when slip develops on a fault. However, the geometry of the fault's surface can affect how this slip occurs and whether or not the fault will radiate large amounts of seismic energy. By performing experiments on bare rock samples with imposed surface geometries, the load experienced by the laboratory fault is steadily increased. The laboratory faults' slip velocities develop across seven orders of magnitude, providing insight across a large portion of the earthquake cycle. By analyzing the slip events that occur along the faults as well as the stiffnesses during the recovery phase of these slip events, it is demonstrated that rough surfaces result in the arrest of propagating slip fronts such that the laboratory‐scale fault does not completely slip. Specifically, increased microscopic surface heterogeneity causes stress barriers that are less prone to begin slip