Crossing of the w=-1 barrier in viscous modified gravity

We consider a modified form of gravity in which the action contains a power alpha of the scalar curvature. It is shown how the presence of a bulk viscosity in a spatially flat universe may drive the cosmic fluid into the phantom region (w<-1) and thus into a Big Rip singularity, even if it lies in the quintessence region (w>-1) in the non-viscous case. The condition for this to occur is that the bulk viscosity contains the power (2 alpha-1) of the scalar expansion. Two specific examples are discussed in detail. The present paper is a generalization of the recent investigation dealing with barrier crossing in Einstein's gravity: I. Brevik and O. Gorbunova, Gen. Relativ. Grav. 37 (2005) 2039.