A review of recent developments concerning the structure, mechanics and fluid flow properties of fault zones

Faulkner, Daniel R.; Jackson, Christopher; Lunn, Rebecca; Schlische, Roy W.; Shipton, Zoe K.; Wibberley, Christopher; Withjack, Martha Oliver

doi:10.1016/j.jsg.2010.06.009

Cited by 1,181 publications

(822 citation statements)

References 234 publications

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“…Strike-slip fault zones display two main units: the fault core and the damage zone, which is typical of fault zones (Chester and Logan 1986;Caine et al 1996, Billi et al 2003Faulkner et al 2010). Detailed field mapping across the fault zones within the PermoMesozoic strata shows their variable width, from a few metres to several tens of metres, limited by the size of ANDRZEJ KONON ET AL.…”

Section: Shallow Damage Zones Of Strike-slip Faults In the Area Adjacmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mnin restraining stepover – evidence of significant Cretaceous–Cenozoic dextral strike-slip faulting along the Teisseyre-Tornquist Zone?

Konon¹,

Ostrowski²,

Rybak-Ostrowska³

et al. 2016

Acta Geologica Polonica

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ABSTRACT:Konon, A., Ostrowski, S., Rybak-Ostrowska, B., Ludwiniak, M., Śmigielski, M., Wyglądała, M., Uroda, J., Kowalczyk, S., Mieszkowski, R. and Kłopotowska, A. 2016. Mnin restraining stepover -evidence of significant Cretaceous-Cenozoic dextral strike-slip faulting along the Teisseyre-Tornquist Zone? Acta Geologica Polonica, 66 (3), 429-449. Warszawa.A newly recognized Mnin restraining stepover is identified in the Permo-Mesozoic cover of the western part of the Late Palaeozoic Holy Cross Mountains Fold Belt (Poland), within a fault pattern consisting of dextral strikeslip faults. The formation of a large contractional structure at the Late Cretaceous -Cenozoic transition displays the significant role of strike-slip faulting along the western border of the Teisseyre-Tornquist Zone, in the foreland of the Polish part of the Carpathian Orogen. Theoretical relationships between the maximum fault offsets/mean step length, as well as between the maximum fault offsets/mean step width allowed the estimation of the values of possible offsets along the Snochowice and Mieczyn faults forming the Mnin stepover. The estimated values suggest displacements of as much as several tens of kilometres. The observed offset along the Tokarnia Fault and theoretical calculations suggest that the strike-slip faults west of the Late Palaeozoic Holy Cross Mountains Fold Belt belong to a large strike-slip fault system.We postulate that the observed significant refraction of the faults forming the anastomosing fault pattern is related also to the interaction of the NW-SE-striking faults formed along the western border of the TeisseyreTornquist Zone and the reactivated WNW-ESE-striking faults belonging to the fault systems of the northern margin of the Tethys Ocean.

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Section: Shallow Damage Zones Of Strike-slip Faults In the Area Adjacmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mnin restraining stepover – evidence of significant Cretaceous–Cenozoic dextral strike-slip faulting along the Teisseyre-Tornquist Zone?

Konon¹,

Ostrowski²,

Rybak-Ostrowska³

et al. 2016

Acta Geologica Polonica

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“…The strength and deformation behavior of the continental and oceanic crust is generally assumed to depend on observation scale (Paterson, 2001). Localized heterogeneities like fault zones control the development of the brittle upper crust (Ben-Zion and Sammis, 2013;Faulkner et al, 2010), whereas high temperature shear zones impose constraints on the mechanical behavior of the lower ductile crust (Bürgmann and Dresen, 2008;Handy et al, 2007;Platt and Behr, 2011;. Strain localization in the brittle regime may be described using damage rheology, continuum models or fracture mechanics-based approaches (Ashby and Sammis, 1990;Lyakhovsky and Ben Zion, 2014;Rudnicki and Rice, 1975).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strain localization during high temperature creep of marble: The effect of inclusions

et al. 2014

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The deformation of rocks in the Earth's middle and lower crust is often localized in ductile shear zones. To better understand the initiation and propagation of high-temperature shear zones induced by the presence of structural and material heterogeneities, we performed deformation experiments in the dislocation creep regime on Carrara marble samples containing weak (limestone) or strong (novaculite) second phase inclusions. The samples were mostly deformed in torsion at a bulk shear strain rate of ≈ 1.9x10 -4 s -1 to bulk shear strains γ between 0.02 and 2.9 using a Paterson-type gas deformation apparatus at 900°C temperature and 400 MPa confining pressure. At low strain, twisted specimens with weak inclusions show minor strain hardening that is replaced by strain weakening at γ > 0.1 -0.2.Peak shear stress at the imposed conditions is about 20 MPa, which is ≈8% lower than the strength of intact samples. Strain progressively localized within the matrix with increasing bulk strain, but decayed rapidly with increasing distance from the inclusion tip.Microstructural analysis shows twinning and recrystallization within this process zone, with a strong crystallographic preferred orientation, dominated by {r} and (c) slip in .Recrystallization-induced weakening starts at local shear strain of about 1 in the process zone, corresponding to a bulk shear strain of about 0.1. In contrast, torsion of a sample containing strong inclusions deformed at similar stress as inclusion-free samples but do not show localization. The experiments demonstrate that the presence of weak heterogeneities initiates localized creep at local stress concentrations around the inclusion tips. Recrystallizationinduced grain size reduction may only locally promote grain boundary diffusion creep. Accordingly, the bulk strength of the twisted aggregate is close to or slightly below the lower (isostress) strength bound, determined from the flow strength and volume fraction of matrix and inclusions.

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“…The development of foliated cataclasis enriched in mica leads to strain weakening of fault zone through a decrease of the friction coefficient from 0.6 to 0.1 with strain (Collettini et al, 2009;Faulkner et al, 2010). In the ductile crust, the progressive development of layering (shear zone and/or foliation) enriched in mica is also a characteristic of the midcrust and is related to intense weakening the rocks (Gueydan et al, 2004;Gueydan et al, 2003;Montési, 2013;Wintsch et al, 1995).…”

Section: / Geological Constraintsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because of the non-linear behaviour of the ductile crust and mantle, numerical modelling is required to capture the interplay between weakening and strain localization and to quantify the strength evolution of the ductile layers of the continental lithosphere. By contrast, strain weakening in the brittle crust simply consists of a change of the friction coefficient from 0.6 to 0.1 due to fabric development (Collettini et al, 2009;Faulkner et al, 2010). …”

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confidence: 99%

Strain weakening enables continental plate tectonics

2014

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Much debate exists concerning the strength distribution of the continental lithosphere, how it controls lithosphere-scale strain localization and hence enables plate tectonics. No rheological model proposed to date is comprehensive enough to describe both the weakness of plate boundary and rigid-like behaviour of plate interiors. Here we show that the duality of strength of the lithosphere corresponds to different stages of microstructural evolution. Geological constraints on lithospheric strength and large strain numerical experiments reveal that the development of layers containing weak minerals and the onset of grain boundary sliding upon grain size reduction in olivine cause strain localisation and reduce strength in the crust and subcontinental mantle, respectively. The positive feedback between weakening and strain localization leads to the progressive development of weak plate boundaries while plate interiors remain strong. 2 1/ IntroductionThe extrapolation of laboratory flow laws to geological scale suggests a complex layering of brittle and ductile layers within the continental lithosphere (Brace and Kohlstedt, 1980;Sawyer, 1985). For classical continental geotherm, the upper lithospheric mantle is expected to be brittle and support high stresses. Many analogue and numerical experiments indicate that such a rheological layering is important to reproduce first-order patterns of lithosphere deformation (Brun, 1999;Burov and Yamato, 2008). In particular, the presence of a brittle uppermost mantle is needed to explain strain localisation at lithospheric scale (Buck, 1991;Gueydan et al., 2008).However, recent geophysical studies question this classical view of the continental strength layering. Based on earthquakes distribution and elastic thicknesses of the continental lithosphere, including cratons, it has been proposed that the uppermost mantle could behave as ductile instead of brittle (Déverchère et al., 2001;Jackson, 2002;Maggi et al., 2000). However, the mechanical stability of cratons requires that the uppermost mantle supports high stresses (Burov, 2010). In addition, the post-seismic displacement field, i.e., the pattern of deformation at the surface of the Earth within weeks to years following an earthquake, suggests that the deep crust is stronger than the lithospheric mantle. (Bürgmann and Dresen, 2008;Thatcher and Pollitz, 2008). Note however that post seismic displacement field may also result from a complex combination of poro-elasticity and fault creep in the seismogenic layer and viscous flow in the lower crust (Barbot and Fialko, 2010). In this case, it may not be used to constrain strength ratios between the ductile crust 3 and lithospheric mantle. Finally, the recent discovery of non-volcanic tremors, i.e., long duration seismic events with small amplitudes, below the San Andreas fault suggests a zone of localized and easily modulated faulting in the lower crust (Nadeau and Guilhem, 2009;Thomas et al., 2009). Assuming high temperatures in plate boundaries such as the San Andreas...

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A review of recent developments concerning the structure, mechanics and fluid flow properties of fault zones

Cited by 1,181 publications

References 234 publications

Mnin restraining stepover – evidence of significant Cretaceous–Cenozoic dextral strike-slip faulting along the Teisseyre-Tornquist Zone?

Mnin restraining stepover – evidence of significant Cretaceous–Cenozoic dextral strike-slip faulting along the Teisseyre-Tornquist Zone?

Strain localization during high temperature creep of marble: The effect of inclusions

Strain weakening enables continental plate tectonics

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