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Earth science

Radon and rock deformation

Nature volume 399, pages 104–105 (1999)Cite this article

What happens when stress is applied to rocks in the Earth's crust so that the crust deforms? This is a question tackled by Trique et al. on page 137 of this issue1. They have used a natural laboratory in the French Alps — the Roselend reservoir — to monitor the geophysical signals that result from the greater or lesser pressure on the underlying crust exerted by the weight of water in the reservoir. This area is not itself prone to earthquakes. But the broader interest of this work is in what it may tell us about the events, induced by crustal deformation, that precede earthquakes.

Trique et al.1 now report that various phenomena — bursts of radon gas, changes of electric potential, and departures of ground tilt from that predicted on an assumption of linear rock elasticity — consistently accompany water-level variations behind the Roselend dam. These phenomena occur together, usually within days after an abrupt change in the reservoir's filling or emptying rate. At Roselend, radon emissions and electrical changes are produced by a well-quantified driving force — the lake ‘load’, or weight of water — instead of the poorly understood processes that precede earthquakes. But the observations do provide indications of the relationship between radon and electrical anomalies, and the deformation of crustal rocks.

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Figure 1: The radon and strain data for the magnitude-7 Izu-Oshima earthquake2,9 of 14 January 1978 show changes preceding the earthquake.
Figure 2: Rock friction, which depends on slip rate and sliding-induced changes on a fault surface, implies that seismic slip should be preceded by accelerating aseismic slip near the hypocentre of an impending earthquake.

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  1. US Geological Survey, 5400 MacArthur Boulevard, Vancouver, 98661, Washington, USA

    Evelyn Roeloffs

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Roeloffs, E. Radon and rock deformation. Nature 399, 104–105 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/20072

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