G321 Structural Geology

03/12/04
Pre-Lab 6. Fault Analysis

Faults
Faults represent significant crustal discontinuities across which bodies of rock are
displaced. Like joints, faults are simply surfaces across which the rock has lost cohesion,
however, unlike joints some amount of fracture plane parallel slip has occurred. Faults
are fundamentally
brittle features and
can be distinguished

Shear Zone
from ductile shear
Fault zones in that rocks
within faults and
fault zones are
broken and
disintegrated while
they tend to deform
plastically in shear
Figure 1. zones. Faults are
typically inferred to
be largely planar features, though they commonly exhibit major steps and curvi-planar
segments. Motion across faults is generally parallel to the fault plane, though some
minor components of motion perpendicular to the plane is not uncommon.
Notwithstanding, faults may be distinguished from fissures in that the latter generally
form as a result of dilation perpendicular to fracture planes.

Fault Surfaces
When rocks slip past each other across a fault surface it is common, as you might
well imagine, for that surface to become polished and grooved. This process can be so
effective that the fault surface shines like that of
a newly washed car. Such polished surfaces are
commonly referred to as slickensided surfaces.
In some instances, the polishing of these surfaces
may be due to the abrasive affects of small
particles on the surface but in others the polished
look results form the development of neomineral
coatings (Davis and Reynolds, 1997). Some
slickensided surfaces commonly exhibit the
presence of very fine and typically straight
striations known as slickenlines. While these
structures commonly occur on slickensided
surfaces they need not nor do all slickensided
surfaces exhibit slickenlines. Slickenlines,
however, are unique in that they record the last
direction of slip across the fault surface or at least

Figure 2.
they can narrow it down to one of two directions without necessarily recording the
relative sense of slip across the surface. Slickenlines are formed as rigid objects within
the fault surface dig into the rocks on either side of the fault. Sometimes these rigid
objects will break apart and pile up in elongate masses along the fault surface parallel to
the motion of the fault. Additionally, some slickenlines can form as the result of
neomineralizations known as crystal fiber lineations (Figure 2, Davis and Reynolds,
1997). These are formed, according to Durney and Ramsay (1973), on the leeward side
of tiny steps along the fault plane. The new minerals, commonly quartz or calcite, are
precipitated from fluids present in the rocks as slip occurs opening space. As many such
crystal fibers appear to be segmented it may be appropriate to infer that the space for
these new minerals was created
Chatter Marks incrementally. It is also significant to note
that the growth direction of these fibers is
parallel to the direction of slip across the fault
surface. A final feature that is commonly
observed on fault surfaces are step-like ridges
oriented perpendicular to the slickenlines
known as chatter marks (Figure 3). These
features, when present, can aid significantly
in the determination of the sense of shear.
Like stairs, chatter marks tend to step down in
Figure 3. From Davis and Reynolds the direction of slip. One can assess the
(1997) direction of slip by wiping the hand across
the surface parallel to the slickenlines in both directions. The smooth direction is that in
which the side of the fault that is now missing moved relative to the side behind the fault
surface.

Fault Rocks
Slip events across fault surfaces can result in significant damage to the country rocks
on either side of the surface. The final nature of the fault-damaged rocks critically
depends on the initial lithology of the rocks, pressure, temperature and fluid content
during shearing, and the duration of slip events. Rocks produced as a result of faulting
are generated by pervasive disintegration and comminution of the rocks along the fault
surface. Structural geologists draw distinctions between different faults rocks on the
basis of the size the component particles achieve (Table 1). Fault gouge is a very fine-
grained, clay-like (<0.1 mm), fault rock, typically very light colored. Gouge is very
common to faults near to the surface where temperatures and pressures are very low.
Gouge can be differentiated from ultracataclasite in that it is not indurated while the latter
is strongly indurated. The descriptions for the rest of these rocks are given in Table 1.
Table 1. From Davis and Reynolds (1997).

Types of Faults
Faults can be named on the basis of the dip angles their surfaces make with the
horizontal and the relative sense of motion across the fault surface. To clarify the latter
aspect we need to first orient ourselves to the faults. For faults that are not vertical the
fault surface can be seen as separate the bounding country rock into plate or walls, one on
top of the other. The one that is on top is known as the hanging wall and the one below
as the foot wall (Figure 4). To clarify this, image you are standing in a mine that has
been dug right down a fault. The rocks hanging over your head in this mine belong to the
upper plate and those under your feet are of the lower plate (hence, hanging and foot
walls, get it?). When the slip across one of these kinds of dipping faults is parallel to the
dip direction of the fault plane we call that a special kind of fault known as a dip slip
fault. If that fault dips ~30° or less and the motion is such that the hanging wall moves
up with respect to the foot wall it is known as a thrust fault. If the motion on this fault is
reversed (i.e. hanging wall down) we call this a low-angle normal fault. Lets imagine
that the fault dips a little more steeply (e.g. 45-60°), then these two dip slip scenarios
would correspond to a reverse fault and a normal fault. The next type of fault is one you
are probably most familiar with living in southern California, strike slip faults. The fault
planes of most

Low angle normal fault

Right lateral or dextral strike slip

Normal fault
Dextral normal fault

Reverse fault
Sinistral reverse fault

Rotational fault

Figure 4. From Davis and Reynolds (1997).

strike slip faults are nearly vertical and we can distinguish between them on the basis of
which direction the rocks on one side of fault appear to move if you are standing on the
other side across from them. If the block opposite to you appears to move to your right
we call this a right lateral or dextral strike slip fault. Conversely, if those rocks appear
to move to your left the fault is named a left lateral or sinistral strike slip fault. You
should understand that faults slipping in a pure dip slip or strike slip manner are really the
exception in nature and that most faults will exhibit some combination of both dip slip
and strike slip components. Such faults are generically known as oblique slip faults.
Naming such faults simply requires the appropriate combination of the names described
above. Here it is necessary to identify the primary from secondary components of
displacement. For example, if the hanging wall were to move up and with a inferior
component of left lateral displacement then we would name this fault sinistral reverse
fault. Note that the minor component is used to modify the main component of slip.
The final type of fault is known as a rotational fault. Rotational faults, unlike the
other types described above, do not exhibit parallel displacement directions every where
in the plane of the fault. Rather, the blocks are spinning with respect to one another
about an axis of rotation which is perpendicular to the plane of the fault. You can
recreate this motion by placing a sheet of paper with a few holes punched into it on the
back of your stereo net. Place a dot in each of the holes onto the back of the net. Rotate
the paper a little bit and mark new dots. Do this a few times and then remove the
overlain sheet of paper. Connect the dots draw in from same individual holes and this is
what slickenlines formed in a rotational fault might look like.

Quantifying displacements
Geologic maps are designed to provide the reader with a three dimensional picture of
the distribution of rocks as interpreted from exposures at the surface of the earth, plus or
minus any drill hole or geophysical data. Using these maps we can, as the reader, make
some simple measurements of the magnitude of displacement across faults in a couple of
different ways. First of all, if a dike was displaced by a fault we could describe this in
terms of map distances in two ways; strike separations and offset (Figure 5). Strike
separation refers to the distance along the fault that now separates two once adjacent
points on the map. Note that this separation could be either dextral or sinistral. Offset is
the horizontal separation of a particular side of the dike, for instance the top, measured
perpendicular to the strike. We could also describe the two dimensional displacements in
a vertical plane perpendicular to the strike of the fault. This is known as dip separation
but is describe in terms of the horizontal (heave) and vertical (throw) distance between
the intersection of the same point on a planar feature, such as the dike, on either side of
the fault. Note that the dip separation could be either of a normal or reversed sense.
While these two dimensional measures of separation are useful in describing the
apparent displacements across a fault, the fact is they may have nothing to do with real
displacements or the net slip across the structure. Net slip is a vector quantity with both a
direction and amount of displacement. To determine the net slip across a fault we
require some fairly specific data. For example, we could calculate the exact amount and
sense of displacement if we had piercing points, which are linear features in the rocks.
An example of piercing points is the line of intersection between a dike and a bedding
plane, the trend, plunge and distance between the point of intersection of this line and the
fault plane on both sides is the net slip of the fault. Unfortunately, such a fortuitous
situation is about as rarely observed in the field as fair and honest judging are in figure
skating. Thus, we have to look a little deeper and make some assumptions. First, if we
find slickenlines on the fault surface we can make the assumption that this is the true
direction of displacement. This is a somewhat dangerous assumption because these
delicate structures are inferred to only record the final increment of slip. Hence, the
 O
ffs
et
Separation
50 65

Strike
A A’

50
A A’

Throw
Figure 5. After Rowland and Duebenforfer
(1994).

Heave

potential for a mistake here is very real. However, slickenlines may be the best we have
to go on until we find those piercing points.
The following procedures of determining the net slip across a fault utilize the
attitudes of slickenlines to determine the net slip across the fault. In this description of
the procedure (modified from Rowland and Duebendorfer, 1994) the slickenlines suggest
that the fault was a purely normal dip slip fault.
1. On an equal-area stereonet, draw the cyclographic trace of the fault plane and the
offset plane (Figure 6c)
2. Find the rake of the offset plane in the fault plane. In this example it is 44°.
3. Place a piece of tracing paper over the map and draw the fault trace (i.e. the
intersection between the fault plane and the earth’s surface) on the map view. Draw the
offset layer on the footwall. Mark the place where the offset layer in the hanging wall
intersects the fault trace but do not draw it in (Figure 6d).
4. The fault trace on your overlain paper is now considered a fold line where the area
to the upper left of the fault trace is the map view and the lower right area is the inclined
fault surface which, if you will use your imagination here, we have folded up. With the
fault plane now folded up to horizontal we can draw in the offset layer with a rake of 44°
on the lower right side of the fold line. This is what the layer looks like in the fault zone.
5. If we know the rake of the net slip direction within the fault plane we can measure
the total amount of net slip. Because we know that this is a normal fault, the net slip
direction is 90° from the fault trace in the fault plane that is, directly down-dip or in a
direction completely perpendicular to the fault trace. In this example the measured
distance between the top of the layer in the map view part Figure 6d and that in the fault
plane part is 280 m. Thus, the total net slip is 280 m towards 60° S40°E.

Figure 6. From Rowland and Duebendorfer (1994).