Scaling and geometric properties of extensional fracture systems in the proterozoic basement of Yemen. Tectonic interpretation and fluid flow implications

Garzic, Édouard Le; L'Hamaide, Thibaut de; Diraison, Marc; Géraud, Yves; Sausse, Judith; Urreiztieta, Marc de; Hauville, Benoît; Champanhet, Jean-Michel

doi:10.1016/j.jsg.2011.01.012

Cited by 41 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 50 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The most widely employed method of producing spatial representations of fracture networks in outcrop is via the creation of trace maps, whereby indi vidual fractures are digitized from photo-imagery (e.g., Barton et al, 1995;Le Garzic et al, 2011;Odling, 1997;Renshaw, 1997). The construction of fracture trace maps from optical images provides a convenient means of representing the trace pattern and termination relationships of a given network, with the delineation of traces on an image plane being a more straightforward operation than polyline interpretation within a 3D object space.…”

Section: Fracture Trace Mapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extraction of three-dimensional fracture trace maps from calibrated image sequences

Seers

Hodgetts

2016

Geosphere

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The routine application of digital survey technologies such as terrestrial lidar and photogrammetry to the characterization of fault and fractures in outcrop over the past decade has resulted in major advances in terms of the efficiency of discontinuity data acquisition. However, the reliance upon meshand point-cloud-based analysis approaches means that data sets obtained from these sources commonly offer heavily abstracted views of the measured fracture network due to the limited resolution of the input model. Here, we pre sent an alternative approach that combines conventional two-dimensional (2D) image analysis with ray-tracing techniques to extract three-dimensional (3D) fracture trace maps from photogrammetrically calibrated image sequences. These 3D trace objects may be interrogated to obtain fracture network properties (trace length, intensity, and connectivity), with probabilistic methods used to estimate fracture orientation for high collinearity traces.Our approach possesses a number of advantages over existing digital surface reconstruction-based methods, with the use of a 2D pixel-based approach allowing established image-processing routines (e.g., edge detection/ connected components analysis) to be applied to the characterization of fracture and fault properties. Moreover, the innately high resolution of the input images results in practically lossless 3D fracture trace representation, limiting truncation effects. As a result, the method is capable of resolving local variability in higher-order fracture properties such as fracture intensity, which are difficult to derive using existing approaches. We demonstrate the approach on pervasively faulted Permian age exposures of the Vale of Eden Basin, UK.

show abstract

Section: Fracture Trace Mapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extraction of three-dimensional fracture trace maps from calibrated image sequences

Seers

Hodgetts

2016

Geosphere

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…During its evolution, the topographic relief advances toward a dynamical steady state (Bonnet and Crave, ; Lague et al ., ). Space–time scale‐invariant dynamics could characterize this process (Reinhardt and Ellis, ; Singh et al ., ), thus explaining the scale invariance observed for the landscape, as well as for many processes modeling the Earth's surface and their resulting landforms, like river networks (Tokunaga, ; Turcotte, ; Donadio et al ., ), landslides (Liucci et al ., ), fracture systems (Bonnet et al ., ; Le Garzic et al ., ), coastlines (Xiaohua et al ., ; D'Alessandro et al ., ) and erosion triangular facets (Paliaga, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The fractal properties of topography as controlled by the interactions of tectonic, lithological, and geomorphological processes

Liucci

Melelli

2017

Earth Surf Processes Landf

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Landscape topography widely exhibits fractal structure. Because of the complexity of relief geometry this structure is not homogeneous in space, and the study of its spatial characteristics represents a powerful method for investigating the interrelationships between landforms and underlying processes. We explore these interrelationships using the digital elevation model (DEM) of an area located in central Italy, where landscape topography is strongly linked to its geological evolution, being characterized by alternating intermountain basins and mountain ranges trending NW–SE. A modified version of the method based on the standard deviation of relief elevations is used to evaluate the fractal parameters of relief after tiling the DEM in spatial units characterized by homogeneous fractal geometry, and statistical methods in conjunction with spatial analysis techniques are applied to the resulting terrain datasets. Both the lowest and (to a lesser extent) the highest values of fractal dimension are found to follow the ridge‐and‐valley trend. Low fractal dimension is observed in the mountain ranges characterized by massive strata of limestone, and along the fault scarps defining the contact between the intermountain basins and the surrounding slopes, where sediment deposition prevails. High fractal dimension is observed in regions characterized by highly erodible terrigenous lithology, and in areas where tectonic activity favors erosional processes mainly by rivers. The analysis of the (fractal) power law parameters also suggests that each major lithological complex has its own characteristic fractal signature. These results provide new insights into the link between the fractal properties of topography and the tectonic, lithological, and geomorphological features of the area, and show that the analysis approach proposed is useful to depict key aspects about the geomorphological and geological setting of an area, using only a DEM. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

show abstract

“…Actually we can also see from Fig. 5b that the landscape coverage can lead to a curvature at the small scale in the density distribution of fracture lengths, which may be related to the socalled ''truncation effect'' (Pickering et al 1995;Bonnet et al 2001) that is always present in the length distribution plot of outcrop data (Davy 1993;Odling 1997;Odling et al 1999;Bour et al 2002;Davy et al 2010;Le Garzic et al 2011;Bertrand et al 2015;Lei et al 2015;Lei and Wang 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

“…However, the quality of photogrammetric measurements is often affected by groundcover effects due to the presence of forests and other plant species over the Earth's surface (Belayneh et al 2009;Le Garzic et al 2011). This may result in some biases in the measurement of fracture network geometries, such as an exaggeration of clustering behaviour, an underestimation of fracture density, and superficial truncation of large fractures (Lei and Wang 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of Landscape Coverage on Measuring Spatial and Length Properties of Rock Fracture Networks: Insights from Numerical Simulation

Cao

Lei

2018

Pure Appl. Geophys.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract-Natural fractures are ubiquitous in the Earth's crust and often deeply buried in the subsurface. Due to the difficulty in accessing to their three-dimensional structures, the study of fracture network geometry is usually achieved by sampling two-dimensional (2D) exposures at the Earth's surface through outcrop mapping or aerial photograph techniques. However, the measurement results can be considerably affected by the coverage of forests and other plant species over the exposed fracture patterns. We quantitatively study such effects using numerical simulation. We consider the scenario of nominally isotropic natural fracture systems and represent them using 2D discrete fracture network models governed by fractal and length scaling parameters. The groundcover is modelled as random patches superimposing onto the 2D fracture patterns. The effects of localisation and total coverage of landscape patches are further investigated. The fractal dimension and length exponent of the covered fracture networks are measured and compared with those of the original non-covered patterns. The results show that the measured length exponent increases with the reduced localisation and increased coverage of landscape patches, which is more evident for networks dominated by very large fractures (i.e. small underlying length exponent). However, the landscape coverage seems to have a minor impact on the fractal dimension measurement. The research findings of this paper have important implications for field survey and statistical analysis of geological systems.

show abstract

Scaling and geometric properties of extensional fracture systems in the proterozoic basement of Yemen. Tectonic interpretation and fluid flow implications

Cited by 41 publications

References 50 publications

Extraction of three-dimensional fracture trace maps from calibrated image sequences

Extraction of three-dimensional fracture trace maps from calibrated image sequences

The fractal properties of topography as controlled by the interactions of tectonic, lithological, and geomorphological processes

Influence of Landscape Coverage on Measuring Spatial and Length Properties of Rock Fracture Networks: Insights from Numerical Simulation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About