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S. H. Kirby

Publications and source records attributed to S. H. Kirby.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
USGS2017

Thin sectioning and surface replication of ice at low temperature.

We have developed a new technique for making thin sections and surface replicas of ice at temperatures well below 273 K. Cyanoacrylate glue forms a strong bond with ice and glass at 245 K, eliminating the need to fix the sample to the thin-section slide by melting and freezing. Surface replicas are made by melting away sample material once the glue has cured. Glue replicas are permanent and highly detailed, making them suitable for microstructural and textural studies at room temperature . Thin sections glued with cyanoacrylate glue are comparable in quality to melted-on sections. The ability to make thin sections without melting sample material is important in textural and microstructural studies of ice deformed at low temperatures because of annealing effects we have observed during conventional section making.

Journal of Glaciology↗
USGS2012

Tectonic stresses in the lithosphere: constraints provided by the experimental deformation of rocks.

The strengths of rocks clearly place an upper limit on the stress that can be sustained by the upper half of the lithosphere. Laboratory data on rock rheology are generally lacking at intermediate temperatures and pressures on the important rock types expected in the lithosphere, so a definitive accounting of the strength distribution with depth in the upper lithosphere is presently unattainable. Analogies are drawn between the fragmentary strength data on silicates at intermediate temperature and the more extensive experimental data on marble and limestone, and several tentative conclusions are drawn: First, brittle processes, such as faulting and cataclasis, are expected to control rock strength at low pressures and temperatures. The strengths associated with these brittle mechanisms increase rapidly with increasing effective pressure and are relatively insensitive to temperature and strain rate. Second, the transitions between brittle and ductile processes occur at critical values of the least principal stress σ 3 . I suggest that the concept of the deformation mechanism map of Ashby (1972) be extended to brittle-ductile transitions by normalizing the applied differential stress σ by σ 3 , i.e., the transitions occur at critical values of σ/σ 3 . Third, the high temperature flow law of olivine, widely applied to problems involving flow in the asthenosphere, is inappropriate to the conditions of temperature found in the lithosphere, because different dislocation flow mechanisms dominate at low to intermediate temperatures. The fragmentary rheological data suggest the following rheological structure of the lithosphere where it is inelastically deforming: A rapid pressure-driven increase in rock strength with depth culminates with a shear strength maximum of up to 8 kbar at depths that depend on the state of stress and on the temperature distribution. A review of the mechanisms of weakening associated with water suggests that water weakening effects are probably not important in the oceanic lithosphere but are likely to be controlling in the continental crust.

Journal of Geophysical Research Solid Earth↗
USGS2012

Deformation of clinopyroxenite: Evidence for a transition in flow mechanisms and semibrittle behavior

A systematic suite of constant strain rate experiments was performed on a vacuum-dried, high-purity, fine-grained clinopyroxenite using NaCl and NaF as confining media in a Griggs-type piston-cylinder apparatus. The experiments were carried out over a range of temperatures from 400° to 1100°C, strain rates from 10 −3 to 10 −7 s −1 , and confining pressures from 170 to 1990 MPa. At T = 600°C and = 1.1 × 10 −5 s −1 , three modes of deformation occur with increasing confining pressure: (1) Macroscopic faulting associated with low strength and stress drops, (2) stable microfracturing and plastic deformation associated with pressure-dependent strength, and (3) plastic deformation (mechanical twinning and 〈001〉 slip) with high strengths which are insensitive to pressure variations. In experiments at P = 1500 MPa, within this high-pressure plastic mode, two regimes of flow are clearly defined. At low to intermediate temperatures and high strain rates, flow strengths are insensitive to changes in strain rate and temperature. Optical and transmission electron microscope observations indicate that plastic strain is accomplished by mechanical twinning on (100) and (001) and by {100}〈001〉 slip. In contrast, at high temperatures and low strain rates the flow stress is strongly dependent on temperature and strain rate. Specimens deformed in this regime show evidence of recovery, multiple slip, and recrystallization; and plastic strain is much more homogeneous. The flow data within each regime can be satisfactorily fit to thermally activated power laws. In the low-temperature regime n (the stress exponent) = 83 ± 16 and E * (the activation energy for flow) = 220 ± 40 kJ/mol. We believe that these parameters reflect flow dominated by the kinetics of dislocation glide associated with mechanical twinning and (100)〈001〉 slip. In the high-temperature regime, n = 5.3 ± 1.1 and E * = 380 ± 30 kJ/mol. These parameters describe creep by multiple slip accompanied by increased rates of diffusion and recovery.

Journal of Geophysical Research Solid Earth↗
USGS2011

Transient and steady state creep response of ice I and magnesium sulfate hydrate eutectic aggregates

Using uniaxial compression creep experiments, we characterized the transient and steady state deformation behaviors of eutectic aggregates of system ice I and MgSO4 11H2O (MS11; meridianiite), which has significance because of its likely presence on moons of the outer solar system. Synthetic samples of eutectic liquid bulk composition, which produce eutectic colonies containing 0.35-0.50 volume fraction MS11, were tested as functions of colony size and lamellar spacing, temperature (230-250 K), and confining pressure (0.1 and 50 MPa) to strains ???0.2. Up to a differential stress of 6 MPa, the ice I-MS11 aggregates display an order of magnitude higher effective viscosity and higher stress sensitivity than do aggregates of pure polycrystalline ice at the same conditions. The creep data and associated microstructural observations demonstrate, however, that the aggregates are additionally more brittle than pure ice, approaching rate-independent plasticity that includes rupture of the hydrate phase at 6-8 MPa, depending on the scale of the microstructure. Microstructures of deformed samples reveal forms of semibrittle flow in which the hydrate phase fractures while the ice phase deforms plastically. Semibrittle flow in the icy shell of a planetary body would truncate the lithospheric strength envelope and thereby decrease the depth to the brittle-ductile transition by 55% and reduce the failure limit for compressional surface features from 10 to ???6 MPa. A constitutive equation that includes eutectic colony boundary sliding and intracolony flow is used to describe the steady state rheology of the eutectic aggregates. Copyright ?? 2011 by the American Geophysical Union.

Journal of Geophysical Research E: Planets↗
USGS2010

Rheology of the lithosphere: Selected topics

We review recent results concerning the rheology of the lithosphere with special attention to the following topics: 1) the flexure of the oceanic lithosphere, 2) deformation of the continental lithosphere resulting from vertical surface loads and forces applied at plate margins, 3) the rheological stratification of the continents, 4) strain localization and shear zone development, and 5) strain-induced crystallographic preferred orientations and anisotropies in body-wave velocities. We conclude with a section citing the 1983–1986 rock mechanics literature by category.

Reviews of Geophysics↗
USGS2010

Program and abstracts of the Second Tsunami Source Workshop; July 19-20, 2010

In response to a request by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for computing tsunami propagations in the western Pacific, Eric Geist asked Willie Lee for assistance in providing parameters of earthquakes which may be future tsunami sources. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Tsunami Source Working Group (TSWG) was initiated in August 2005. An ad hoc group of diverse expertise was formed, with Steve Kirby as the leader. The founding members are: Rick Blakely, Eric Geist, Steve Kirby, Willie Lee, George Plafker, Dave Scholl, Roland von Huene, and Ray Wells. Half of the founding members are USGS emeritus scientists. A report was quickly completed because of NOAA's urgent need to precalculate tsunami propagation paths for early warning purposes. It was clear to the group that much more work needed to be done to improve our knowledge about tsunami sources worldwide. The group therefore started an informal research program on tsunami sources and meets irregularly to share ideas, data, and results. Because our group activities are open to anyone, we have more participants now, including, for example, Harley Benz and George Choy (USGS, Golden, Colo.), Holly Ryan and Stephanie Ross (USGS, Menlo Park, Calif.), Hiroo Kanamori (Caltech), Emile Okal (Northwestern University), and Gerard Fryer and Barry Hirshorn (Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, Hawaii). To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the TSWG, a workshop is being held in the Auditorium of Building 3, USGS, Menlo Park, on July 19-20, 2010 (Willie Lee and Steve Kirby, Conveners). All talks (except one) will be video broadcast. The first tsunami source workshop was held in April 2006 with about 100 participants from many institutions. This second workshop (on a much smaller scale) will be devoted primarily to recent work by the USGS members. In addition, Hiroo Kanamori (Caltech) will present his recent work on the 1960 and 2010 Chile earthquakes, Barry Hirshorn and Stuart Weinstein (Pacific Tsunami Warning Center) will present their work on tsunami warning, and Rick Wilson (California Geological Survey) will display three posters on tsunami studies by him and his colleagues.

Open-File Report↗
USGS2009

Elastic wave speeds and moduli in polycrystalline ice Ih, si methane hydrate, and sll methane-ethane hydrate

We used ultrasonic pulse transmission to measure compressional, P, and shear, S, wave speeds in laboratory-formed polycrystalline ice Ih, si methane hydrate, and sll methane-ethane hydrate. From the wave speed's linear dependence on temperature and pressure and from the sample's calculated density, we derived expressions for bulk, shear, and compressional wave moduli and Poisson's ratio from -20 to 15??C and 22.4 to 32.8 MPa for ice Ih, -20 to 15??C and 30.5 to 97.7 MPa for si methane hydrate, and -20 to 10??C and 30.5 to 91.6 MPa for sll methane-ethane hydrate. All three materials had comparable P and S wave speeds and decreasing shear wave speeds with increasing applied pressure. Each material also showed evidence of rapid intergranular bonding, with a corresponding increase in wave speed, in response to pauses in sample deformation. There were also key differences. Resistance to uniaxial compaction, indicated by the pressure required to compact initially porous samples, was significantly lower for ice Ih than for either hydrate. The ice Ih shear modulus decreased with increasing pressure, in contrast to the increase measured in both hydrates ?? 2009.

Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth↗
USGS2009

Offshore double-planed shallow seismic zone in the NE Japan forearc region revealed by sP depth phases recorded by regional networks

We detected the sP depth phase at small epicentral distances of about 150 km or more in the seismograms of shallow earthquakes in the NE Japan forearc region. The focal depths of 1078 M > 3 earthquakes that occurred from 2000 to 2006 were precisely determined using the time delay of the sP phase from the initial P-wave arrival. The distribution of relocated hypocentres clearly shows the configuration of a double-planed shallow seismic zone beneath the Pacific Ocean. The upper plane has a low dip angle near the Japan Trench, increasing gradually to ???30?? at approximately 100 km landward of the Japan Trench. The lower plane is approximately parallel to the upper plane, and appears to be the near-trench counterpart of the lower plane of the double-planed deep seismic zone beneath the land area. The distance between the upper and lower planes is 28-32 km, which is approximately the same as or slightly smaller than that of the double-planed deep seismic zone beneath the land area. Focal mechanism solutions of the relocated earthquakes are determined from P-wave initial motion data. Although P-wave initial motion data for these offshore events are not ideally distributed on the focal sphere, we found that the upper-plane events that occur near the Japan Trench are characterized by normal faulting, whereas lower-plane events are characterized by thrust faulting. This focal mechanism distribution is the opposite to that of the double-planed deep seismic zone beneath the land area. The characteristics of these focal mechanisms for the shallow and deep doubled-planed seismic zones can be explained by a bending-unbending model of the subducting Pacific plate. Some of relocated earthquakes took place in the source area of the 1933 Mw8.4 Sanriku earthquake at depths of 10-23 km. The available focal mechanisms for these events are characterized by normal faulting. Given that the 1933 event was a large normal-fault event that occurred along a fault plane dipping landward, the earthquakes that currently occur just beneath or oceanwards of the Japan Trench are probably its aftershocks, suggesting that aftershock activity continues to the present day, 70 years after the main shock. ?? 2009 The Authors, Journal compilation ?? 2009 RAS.

Geophysical Journal International↗
USGS2007

Anomalous deepening of a belt of intraslab earthquakes in the Pacific slab crust under Kanto, central Japan: Possible anomalous thermal shielding, dehydration reactions, and seismicity caused by shallower cold slab material

[1] A belt of intraslab seismicity in the Pacific slab crust parallel to iso-depth contours of the plate interface has been found beneath Hokkaido and Tohoku. Hypocenter relocations have shown that this seismic belt does not run parallel to but obliquely to the iso-depth contours beneath Kanto, deepening toward the north from ∼100 km to ∼140 km depth. The depth limit of the contact zone with the overlying Philippine Sea slab is located close to and parallel to this obliquely oriented seismic belt, suggesting that the deepening of the seismic belt there is caused by the contact with the overlying slab. The contact with this cold slab hinders the heating of the Pacific slab crust by hot mantle wedge, which would cause delay of eclogite-forming phase transformations and hence deepening of the seismic belt there. The depth limit of the subducting low-velocity crust also deepens toward the north, supporting this idea.

Geophysical Research Letters↗
USGS2007

Simultaneous determination of thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity and specific heat in sI methane hydrate

Thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity and specific heat of sI methane hydrate were measured as functions of temperature and pressure using a needle probe technique. The temperature dependence was measured between −20°C and 17°C at 31.5 MPa. The pressure dependence was measured between 31.5 and 102 MPa at 14.4°C. Only weak temperature and pressure dependencies were observed. Methane hydrate thermal conductivity differs from that of water by less than 10 per cent, too little to provide a sensitive measure of hydrate content in water-saturated systems. Thermal diffusivity of methane hydrate is more than twice that of water, however, and its specific heat is about half that of water. Thus, when drilling into or through hydrate-rich sediment, heat from the borehole can raise the formation temperature more than 20 per cent faster than if the formation's pore space contains only water. Thermal properties of methane hydrate should be considered in safety and economic assessments of hydrate-bearing sediment.

Geophysical Journal International↗
USGS2007

Solidification and microstructures of binary ice-I/hydrate eutectic aggregates

The microstructures of two-phase binary aggregates of ice-I + salt-hydrate, prepared by eutectic solidification, have been characterized by cryogenic scanning electron microscopy (CSEM). The specific binary systems studied were H 2 O-Na 2 SO 4 , H 2 O-MgSO 4 , H 2 O-NaCl, and H 2 O-H 2 SO 4 ; these were selected based on their potential application to the study of tectonics on the Jovian moon Europa. Homogeneous liquid solutions of eutectic compositions were undercooled modestly (ΔT ~ 1.5 °C); similarly cooled crystalline seeds of the same composition were added to circumvent the thermodynamic barrier to nucleation and to control eutectic growth under (approximately) isothermal conditions. CSEM revealed classic eutectic solidification microstructures with the hydrate phase forming continuous lamellae, discontinuous lamellae, or forming the matrix around rods of ice-I, depending on the volume fractions of the phases and their entropy of dissolving and forming a homogeneous aqueous solution. We quantify aspects of the solidification behavior and microstructures for each system and, with these data, articulate anticipated effects of the microstructure on the mechanical responses of the materials.

American Mineralogist↗
USGS2006

Preferred crystallographic orientation in the ice I ← II transformation and the flow of ice II

The preferred crystallographic orientation developed during the ice I ← II transformation and during the plastic flow of ice II was measured in polycrystalline deuterium oxide (D 2 O) specimens using low-temperature neutron diffraction. Samples partially transformed from ice I to II under a non-hydrostatic stress developed a preferred crystallographic orientation in the ice II. Samples of pure ice II transformed from ice I under a hydrostatic stress and then when compressed axially, developed a strong preferred orientation of compression axes parallel to (10 1 0). A match to the observed preferred orientation using the viscoplastic self-consistent theory was obtained only when (10 1 0) [0001] was taken as the predominant slip system in ice II.

Philosophical Magazine A: Physics of Condensed Mat↗
USGS2006

Thermodynamic calculations in the system CH4-H2O and methane hydrate phase equilibria

Using the Gibbs function of reaction, equilibrium pressure, temperature conditions for the formation of methane clathrate hydrate have been calculated from the thermodynamic properties of phases in the system CH4-H 2O. The thermodynamic model accurately reproduces the published phase-equilibria data to within ??2 K of the observed equilibrium boundaries in the range 0.08-117 MPa and 190-307 K. The model also provides an estimate of the third-law entropy of methane hydrate at 273.15 K, 0.1 MPa of 56.2 J mol-1 K-1 for 1/n CH4??H 2O, where n is the hydrate number. Agreement between the calculated and published phase-equilibria data is optimized when the hydrate composition is fixed and independent of the pressure and temperature for the conditions modeled. ?? 2006 American Chemical Society.

Journal of Physical Chemistry B↗
USGS2006

Laboratory measurements of compressional and shear wave speeds through methane hydrate

Simultaneous measurements of compressional and shear wave speeds through polycrystalline methane hydrate have been made. Methane hydrate, grown directly in a wave speed measurement chamber, was uniaxially compacted to a final porosity below 2%. At 277 K, the compacted material had a compressional wave speed of 3650 ?? 50 m/s. The shear wave speed, measured simultaneously, was 1890 ?? 30 m/s. From these wave speed measurements, we derive V(p)/V(s), Poisson's ratio, bulk, shear, and Young's moduli.

Conference Paper↗
USGS2006

Grain size-sensitive creep in ice II

Rheological experiments on fine-grained water ice II at low strain rates reveal a creep mechanism that dominates at conditions of low stress. Using cryogenic scanning electron microscopy, we observed that a change in stress exponent from 5 to 2.5 correlates strongly with a decrease in grain size from about 40 to 6 micrometers. The grain size-sensitive creep of ice II demonstrated here plausibly dominates plastic strain at the low-stress conditions in the interior of medium- to large-sized icy moons of the outer solar system.

Science↗
USGS2005

Flow strength of highly hydrated Mg- and Na-sulfate hydrate salts, pure and in mixtures with water ice, with application to Europa

We selected two Europan-ice-shell candidate highly hydrated sulfate salts for a laboratory survey of ductile flow properties: MgSO4 ?? 7H2O (epsomite) and Na2SO4 ?? 10H2O (mirabilite), called MS7 and NS10, respectively. Polycrystalline samples in pure form and in mixtures with water ice I were tested using our cryogenic high-pressure creep apparatus at temperatures 232 ??? T ??? 294 K, confining pressures P = 50 and 100 MPa, and strain rates 4 ?? 10-8 ??? ???dot;e ??? 7 ?? 10-5 s-1. Grain size of NS10 samples was > 100 ??m. The flow strength ?? of pure MS7 was over 100 times that of polycrystalline ice I at comparable conditions; that of pure NS10 over 20 times that of ice. In terms of the creep law ???dot;e = A??n e-Q/RT, where R is the gas constant, we determine parameter values of A = 1012.1 MPa-ns-1, n = 5.4, and Q = 128 kJ/mol for pure NS10. Composites of ice I and NS10 of volume fraction ?? NS10 have flow strength ??c = [??NS10??NS10J + (1 - ?? NS10)??iceIJ]1/J where J ??? -0.5, making the effect on the flow of ice with low volume fractions of NS10 much like that of virtually undeformable hard rock inclusions. Being much stronger and denser than ice, massive sulfate inclusions in the warmer, ductile layer of the Europan ice shell are less likely to be entrained in convective ice flow and more likely to be drawn to the base of the ice shell by gravitational forces and eventually expelled. With only smaller, dispersed sulfate inclusions, at probable sulfate ?? < 0.2, the shell may be treated rheologically as pure, polycrystalline ice, with boundary conditions perhaps influenced by the high density and low thermal conductivity of the hydrated salts. Copyright 2005 by the American Geophysical Union.

Journal of Geophysical Research E: Planets↗
USGS2004

Dissolution rates of pure methane hydrate and carbon-dioxide hydrate in undersaturated seawater at 1000-m depth

To help constrain models involving the chemical stability and lifetime of gas clathrate hydrates exposed at the seafloor, dissolution rates of pure methane and carbon-dioxide hydrates were measured directly on the seafloor within the nominal pressure-temperature (P/T) range of the gas hydrate stability zone. Other natural boundary conditions included variable flow velocity and undersaturation of seawater with respect to the hydrate-forming species. Four cylindrical test specimens of pure, polycrystalline CH4 and CO2 hydrate were grown and fully compacted in the laboratory, then transferred by pressure vessel to the seafloor (1028 m depth), exposed to the deep ocean environment, and monitored for 27 hours using time-lapse and HDTV cameras. Video analysis showed diameter reductions at rates between 0.94 and 1.20 ??m/s and between 9.0 and 10.6 ?? 10-2 ??m/s for the CO2 and CH4 hydrates, respectively, corresponding to dissolution rates of 4.15 ?? 0.5 mmol CO2/m2s and 0.37 ?? 0.03 mmol CH4/m2s. The ratio of the dissolution rates fits a diffusive boundary layer model that incorporates relative gas solubilities appropriate to the field site, which implies that the kinetics of the dissolution of both hydrates is diffusion-controlled. The observed dissolution of several mm (CH4) or tens of mm (CO2) of hydrate from the sample surfaces per day has major implications for estimating the longevity of natural gas hydrate outcrops as well as for the possible roles of CO2 hydrates in marine carbon sequestration strategies. ?? 2003 Elsevier Ltd.

Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta↗