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We study experimentally the fluctuations of deformation along a shear faultnaturally emerging within a compressed frictional granular medium. Using laserinterferometry, we show that the deformation inside this granular gouge occursas a succession of localized micro-slips distributed along the fault. Theassociated distributions of released seismic moments, the memory effects instrain fluctuations, as well as the time correlations between successiveevents, follow exactly the empirical laws of natural earthquakes. Using amethodology initially developed in seismology and social science, we reveal,for the first time at the laboratory scale, the underlying causal structure.This demonstrates that the spatio-temporal correlations of the slip dynamicseffectively emerge from more fundamental triggering kernels. This formalanalogy between natural faults and our experimentally controllable granularshear band opens the way towards a better understanding of earthquake physics.In particular, comparing experiments performed under different imposeddeformation rates, we show that strain, not time, is the right parametercontrolling the memory effects in the dynamics of our fault analog. This raisesthe fundamental question of the relative roles of strain-dependent structuralrearrangements within the fault gouge vs that of truly time-dependent,thermally activated processes, in the emergence of spatio-temporal correlationsof natural seismicity.

Micro-slips inside a granular shear band as nano-earthquakes