Strength and Stress Evolution of an Actively Exhuming Low-Angle Normal Fault, Woodlark Rift, SE Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Quantifying lithospheric strength is essential to better understand seismicity in continental regions. We estimate differential stresses and principal stress orientations driving rapid slip (~10 mm/yr) on the active Mai'iu low-angle normal fault (dipping 15–24°; at the Earth's surface) in Papua New Guinea. The fault's mafic footwall hosts a well-preserved sequence of mylonite, foliated cataclasite, ultracataclasite and gouge. In these fault rocks, we combine stress inversion of fault-slip data and paleostress analysis of syntectonically emplaced calcite veins with microstructural and clumped-isotope geothermometry to constrain a syn-exhumational sequence of deformation stresses and temperatures, and to construct a stress profile through the exhumed footwall of the Mai'iu fault. This includes: 1) at ~12–20 km depth (T≈275–370°;C), mylonites accommodated slip on the Mai'iu fault at low differential stresses (>25–135 MPa) before being overprinted by localized brittle deformation at shallower depths; 2) at ~6–12 km depth (T≈130–275°;C) differential stresses in the foliated cataclasites and ultracataclasites were high enough (>150 MPa) to drive slip on a mid-crustal portion of the fault (dipping 30–40°;), and to trigger brittle yielding of mafic footwall rocks in a zone of mixed-mode seismic/aseismic slip; and 3) at the shallowest crustal levels (T<150°;C) on the most poorly oriented part of the Mai'iu fault (dipping ~20–24°;), slip occurred on frictionally weak clay-rich gouges (μ≈0.15–0.38). Subvertical σ₁ and subhorizontal σ₃ parallel to the extension direction, with σ₁≈σ₂ (constriction), reflect vertical unloading and 3-D bending stresses during rolling-hinge style flexure of the footwall.

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