Transient rheology of the continental crust

Postseismic relaxation after large earthquakes induces transient deformation of the solid Earth, particularly in the deeper part of the crust. The deformation of the upper and lower crust are mainly controlled by the rheological behavior of quartz and feldspar, respectively. The mechanical properties of quartz and feldspar at steady-state creep conditions are well constrained and flow law parameters are known from experimental calibrations. However, the physical mechanism underlying transient creep is poorly understood and the corresponding flow law parameters are unknown so far. Here, we constrain a constitutive framework that captures transient creep and steady state creep consistently using the mechanical data from laboratory experiments. The constitutive framework represents a Burgers assembly with a thermally activated nonlinear stress versus strain-rate relationship for the dashpots. Using the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method, we uniquely determine the flow law parameters for both quartz and feldspar. We find an activation energy of 70±20 kJ/mol and a stress exponent of 2.0±0.1 for transient creep of quartz. For feldspar, the best-fit activation energies are 280±30 and 220±20 kJ/mol with stress exponents of 1.0±0.2 and 0.9±0.1 under mid- and high-temperature conditions, respectively. The stress exponents and activation energies of transient creep are consistently smaller than those of steady-state creep for both quartz and feldspar. The flow law parameters determined in this study could be used to quantify the contribution of transient creep in the postseismic deformation following a large continental earthquake.