Data for injection-induced fault slip on smooth and rough laboratory faults

The datasets archived here act as supplementary materials to the study entitled ‘Surface roughness controls injection-induced slip on laboratory faults ’ by Wang et al. This study has been submitted to Science Advances for potential publication.

The authors have loaded cylindrical quartz-rich sandstone samples (50*100 mm) containing an inclined fault interface with varying surface roughness (saw-cut smooth surface vs. fractured rough surface) in a triaxial compression apparatus to a critical stress state and subsequently activated fault slip using defined fluid injection protocols. The authors have produced a series of injection-induced slip events on three samples, one containing a smooth fault and two samples cut by rough faults (Rough Fault #1 and Rough Fault #2, respectively) at a fixed confining pressure of 35 MPa. The datasets below summarize the experimental results of three experiments with the names of 'Smooth Fault', 'Rough Fault #1' and 'Rough Fault #2', respectively.

In each fluid injection experiment, the measured values of shear stress, fault slip, etc. are recorded as a function of time with a sampling rate of 10 Hz. The header of each column in the data tables gives the recorded parameter and its corresponding unit, as shown in the first row.