Dual-Driven Fault Failure in the Lower Seismogenic Zone

Frictional instability leading to fault rupture may be driven by increasing differential stress or by increases in pore-fluid pressure within the rock mass. Geological evidence (from hydrothermal vein systems in exhumed faults) together with geophysical information around active faults support the localized invasion of near lithostatically overpressured hydrothermal fluids, derived from prograde metamorphism at greater depths, into lower portions of the crustal seismogenic zone at depths of about 10–15 km (250°C