What do you believe is the single most important factor driving up the cost of living in Nigeria?

Earthquake researchers believed for decades that rock friction within fault lines follows a simple relationship with temperature.

However, a new study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences led by USC suggests otherwise. Its findings reveal that different underlying mechanisms affect the frictional resistance of faults, challenging a common understanding of seismic activity among researchers.

"The classical view of fault friction has always been that fault friction evolves continuously with temperature," said Sylvain Barbot, associate professor of Earth sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "But my study shows a direct effect of friction is largely unrelated to temperature up to the point of a rock's brittle to semi-brittle transition, where temperature effects change drastically."

Brittle transition

The research was conducted with data from experiments on various rock types, including granite, basalt and olivine, under conditions mimicking those deep in the Earth. Barbot found that when rock transitions from brittle to semi-brittle, a change occurs that is crucial to understanding rock mechanics and geology.

• Read More