Hi Brian, this probably needs additional comment from Penny, or John, or Roger. But, Penny's friend and/or professor Rick Sibson lead a field trip to see melted fault rock on some old fault (Vincent thrust?) in the San Gabriel Mountains. See the link on pseudotachylite.

So, sure, seems possible parts of the subduction zone could have melted (interesting calculations). I don't read the seismology literature unless it is a paper on one of the areas I am working on so or HW finds an especially interesting article (just read one by Sue Hough on New Madrid). So, I don't know if anyone has ever published on what implications might be for melting vs no melting.

There has been a controversy going on for decades on the lack of a heat flow anomaly around the San Andreas fault. One solution is a very weak San Andreas (very low friction). This is not universally accepted (Chris Scholtz for example).

Here is me showing that it has been 20+ years since I had physics: can the energy be released in a much more distributed way? For example, those animations of the flexing of the plate above the fault and then the snap-back during the quake (Beth may have linked some far below)? So, distributed through a large volume of rock? Doesn't a lot of the energy also go into seismic waves, tsunamis, etc? Someone (Brian? John?) please explain.

The megathrusts at subduction zones are loaded with fluids (as I suppose are all deeper faults, but conditions on sunduction zone likely very differnt than conditions on San Andreas.

Chris

• melted fault rock