Interactive comment on “ High stresses stored in fault zones : example of the Nojima fault ( Japan ) ” by

In his comment (RC1), Frans Aben pointed out that several mechanisms are currently under discussion for inducing dynamic pulverization, and asked us to contribute to that discussion. Let us first resume our main observations. Compressive microstructures (alignments of tiny fluid inclusions in quartz, kink-bands in biotite) correspond to a compression perpendicular to the Nojima fault, and to less than 5% shortening. High stresses or strain-rate plastic deformation of quartz is synchronous with the compres-