PARTICLE-SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF CATACLASTIC FAULT MATERIALS FROM SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA - A 3-D STUDY

The particle size distributions of fault gouge from the San Andreas, the San Gabriel, and the Lopez Canyon faults in Southern California were measured using sieving and Coulter-Counter techniques over a range of particle sizes from 2 mu m to 16 mm. The distributions were found to be power law (fractal) for the smaller fragments and log-normal by mass for sizes near and above the peak size. The apparent fractal dimension D of the smaller particles in gouge samples from the San Andreas fault, the San Gabriel fault and the Lopez Canyon gouge were 2.4-3.6, 2.6-2.9 and 2.4-3.0, respectively. The average D for the Lopez Canyon gouge was 2.7 +/- 0.2, which is in agreement with earlier studies of this gouge using planar 2-D sections. The fractal dimension of the finer fragments from all three faults is observed to be correlated with the peak fragment size, with finer gouges tending to have a larger D. A computer automaton is used to show that this observation may be explained as resulting from a fragmentation process which has a ''grinding limit'' at which particle reduction stops.