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International audience In the upper crust, the chemical infuence of pore water promotes time dependent brittle deformation through sub-critical crack growth. Sub-critical crack growth allows rocks to deform and fail at stresses well below their short-term failure strength, and even at constant applied stress (\brittle creep"). Here we provide a micromechanical model describing time dependent brittle creep of water-saturated rocks under triaxial stress conditions. Macroscopic brittle creep is modeled on the basis of microcrack extension under compressive stresses due to sub-critical crack growth. The incremental strains due to the growth of cracks in compression are derived from the sliding wing crack model of Ashby and Sammis [1990], and the crack length evolution is computed from Charles' law. The macroscopic strains and strain rates computed from the model are non linear, and compare well with experimental results obtained on granite, low porosity sandstone and basalt rock samples. Primary creep (decelerating strain) corresponds to decelerating crack growth, due to an initial decrease in stress intensity factor with increasing crack length in compression. Tertiary creep (accelerating strain as failure is approached) corresponds to an increase in crack growth rate due to crack interactions. Secondary creep with apparently constant strain rate arises as an inflexion between those two end-member phases. The minimum strain rate at the inflexion point can be estimated analytically as a function of model parameters, e ective con ning pressure and temperature, which provides an approximate creep law for the process. The creep law is used to infer the long term strain rate as a function of depth in the upper crust due to the action of the applied stresses: in this way, sub-critical cracking reduces the failure stress in a manner equivalent to a decrease in cohesion. We also investigate the competition with pressure solution in porous rocks, and show that the transition from sub-critical cracking to pressure solution ...

Theoretical studies predict that during earthquake rupture faults slide at non-constant slip velocity, however it is not clear which source time functions are compatible with the high velocity rheology of earthquake faults. Here we present results from high velocity friction experiments with nonconstant velocity history, employing a well-known seismic source solution compatible with earthquake source kinematics. The evolution of friction in experiments shows a strong dependence on the applied slip history, and parameters relevant to the energetics of faulting scale with the impulsiveness of the applied slip function. When comparing constitutive models of strength against our experimental results we demonstrate that the evolution of fault strength is directly controlled by the temperature evolution on and off the fault. Flash heating predicts weakening behavior at short timescales, but at larger timescales strength is better predicted by a viscous creep rheology. We use a steady-state slip pulse to test the compatibility of our strength measurements at imposed slip rate history with the stress predicted from elastodynamic equilibrium. Whilst some compatibility is observed, the strength evolution indicates that slip acceleration and deceleration might be more rapid than that imposed in our experiments. ; This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no 804685/"RockDEaF") and under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (grant agreement n 614705/"NOFEAR") ; Published ; e2021JB022149 ; 3T. Fisica dei terremoti e Sorgente Sismica ; JCR Journal