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    Part 5: Strike-Slip Faulting: 12.113 Structural Geology

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    Alvaro Madrid
    Strike-slip faults have little vertical motion and are characterized by horizontal slip. They are often associated with secondary compressive or extensive structures related to the strain distribution around the fault zone. At bends or offsets in strike-slip faults, pull-apart basins can form at releasing bends while thrust-bound mountain ranges can develop at restraining bends. Strike-slip faults may shallow or connect with other faults at depth. Multiple intersecting strike-slip faults can boundary rotating crustal blocks and accommodate broad shear zones.

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    Part 5: Strike-Slip Faulting: 12.113 Structural Geology

    Uploaded by

    Alvaro Madrid
    23 views4 pages
    Strike-slip faults have little vertical motion and are characterized by horizontal slip. They are often associated with secondary compressive or extensive structures related to the strain distribution around the fault zone. At bends or offsets in strike-slip faults, pull-apart basins can form at releasing bends while thrust-bound mountain ranges can develop at restraining bends. Strike-slip faults may shallow or connect with other faults at depth. Multiple intersecting strike-slip faults can boundary rotating crustal blocks and accommodate broad shear zones.

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    Strike-slip faults have little vertical motion and are characterized by horizontal slip. They are often associated with secondary compressive or extensive structures related to the strain distribution around the fault zone. At bends or offsets in strike-slip faults, pull-apart basins can form at releasing bends while thrust-bound mountain ranges can develop at restraining bends. Strike-slip faults may shallow or connect with other faults at depth. Multiple intersecting strike-slip faults can boundary rotating crustal blocks and accommodate broad shear zones.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    23 views4 pages

    Part 5: Strike-Slip Faulting: 12.113 Structural Geology

    Uploaded by

    Alvaro Madrid
    Strike-slip faults have little vertical motion and are characterized by horizontal slip. They are often associated with secondary compressive or extensive structures related to the strain distribution around the fault zone. At bends or offsets in strike-slip faults, pull-apart basins can form at releasing bends while thrust-bound mountain ranges can develop at restraining bends. Strike-slip faults may shallow or connect with other faults at depth. Multiple intersecting strike-slip faults can boundary rotating crustal blocks and accommodate broad shear zones.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 4

    12.

    113 Structural Geology


    Part 5: Strike–slip faulting

    Fall 2005

    Contents
    1 Reading 1

    2 Required jargon 1

    3 Notes 1
    3.1 Characteristics of strike­slip faults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
    3.2 Relationships between strike­slip faults and compressive or extensional
    structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
    3.3 What happens to strike­slip faults at depth? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
    3.4 Systems of strike­slip faults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

    4 Review questions 4

    1 Reading
    Chapter 7 in TM is a short chapter on strike slip faults. Its particularly good at deal­
    ing with the problems of kinematic compatibility: this is the notion that informs a
    lot of analysis of how fault systems "work together". In particular, look at the dis­
    cussion of how strike slip faults terminate; the role of tear and transfer faults; why
    mountain ranges and sedimentary basins are found at bends in strike slip faults; the
    description of the active tectonics of Southern California. Look at the maps, draw
    simplified cartoons that show how all the faults "work together".

    2 Required jargon
    You should be familiar and know the significance of the following terms. Drawing
    little cartoons of these is a very good strategy for keeping track of all the jargon and
    being able to really learn the geometry so that you can recognize the structure out
    in nature.
    Piercing point – en echelon folds – flower structure – transfer fault – tear fault –
    transform fault – pull­apart basin – restraining bend – releasing bend – transpression
    – transtension.

    3 Notes
    3.1 Characteristics of strike­slip faults
    Strike­slip faults are faults with very little vertical component of motion, i.e.: the slip
    vector is nearly parallel with the strike line. Strike­slip faults are typically steep or

    1
    vertical and in Andersonian fault theory are associated with a stress regime where
    both maximum and minimum stresses are near horizontal.

    3.2 Relationships between strike­slip faults and compressive or ex­


    tensional structures
    Often a major strike slip fault (think the San Andreas or the North Anatolian fault in
    Turkey) is associated with many secondary extensional or compressive structures.
    Some of these are related to distributed strain around the fault zone – partic­
    ularly before the fault has localized. If a wide zone is accommodating strain, we
    can predict the orientation and rotation of extensional structures (tension fractures,
    normal faults) and compressive structures (thrust faults, folds) according to our un­
    derstanding of the progressive evolution of the finite strain ellipse in plane strain,
    simple shear. These secondary structures often form en­echelon arrays of folds or
    fractures.
    Other secondary structures follow from kinematic compatibility: if a straight
    strike slip fault takes a bend or a jog, then either a basin (pull­apart basin at a releas­
    ing bend) or a thrust bound range (at a constraining bend) needs to begin growing
    to solve the space problem that results from trying to move material parallel to the
    strike of the range.
    Many cross­sections of releasing or restraining bends shows that the normal or
    thrust faults associated with the restraining or releasing bend merge into the strike
    slip fault at depth. These are called flower structures.
    Finally, in areas that are dominated by extensional or compressional structures,
    strike slip faults are commonly found in order to transfer deformation from one fault
    to another. This is especially true at the terminations of faults. Transform faults in
    the oceans occur because spreading ridges form initially offset from one another
    (they do not offset the ridge, they are required by the offset of the ridge). In con­
    tinental extensional terrains, the kinematically equivalent structure is known as a
    transfer fault. In compressive environments, abrupt changes in the amount of dis­
    placement along a thrust fault can be accommodated by tear faults.

    3.3 What happens to strike­slip faults at depth?


    Many strike slip faults are idealized as being vertical cuts going, presumably, all the
    way to the core­mantle boundary. In truth, the geometry of apparently vertical strike
    slip faults is quite variable with depth.
    One example has been alluded to above: flower structures are associations of
    thrust or normal faults that merge into a master strike slip fault at depth. They are
    often associated with restraining or releasing bend.
    A strike slip fault that bounds a fold and thrust belt (thus accommodating the
    differential motion of the thrust belt from an undeformed region) need not pene­
    trate deeper than the decollement of the thrust belt. (See figures 7.10a and 7.14 for
    examples).
    For other strike slip faults, the change in geometry with depth is not abundantly
    clear. For one thing, at greater depths, the mechanisms of deformation will be ones
    that accommodate ductile flow (why?), and so we can expect some changes in fault
    geometry. Perhaps a narrow brittle fault zone at the surface is linked to a wide zone
    of mylonitic rocks at depth. But if the middle and lower crust is very weak, it is con­
    ceivable that the fault dies out into the lower, fluid like layer. Along these lines, there
    are two end­members of description of strike slip faults in the continental crust.
    The first is a “plate boundary” model, where the strike slip fault is a lithosphere­
    penetrating structure (but dies out in the ductile, flowing asthenosphere). Alterna­
    tively, some faults do not penetrate past the upper or middle crust, and the upper
    crust becomes essentially decoupled from the flowing lower crust.

    2
    Figure 1: Systems of strike­slip faults and block rotations.

    Transpressive plate boundaries Transpression refers to a combination of strike


    slip (“translational”) and compressional motion. A transpressive plate boundary is
    one where the relative plate convergence vector is neither parallel nor perpendicular
    to the plate margin. Transpressive plate boundaries are rather common, and include
    the Sumatra plate boundary. In these zones, the relative plate motion is commonly
    partitioned into separate structures – this is exactly analogous to breaking a vec­
    tor into separate components. In Sumatra, much of the strike­slip (plate boundary
    parallel) component of the relative plate motion vector is taken up by a prominent
    strike slip fault located near the volcanic arc (the localization of the strike slip fault
    where the crust is weakest is no accident). The question that arises, then, is what
    happens to the faults (i.e. the subduction zone megathrust and the strike slip fault
    along the arc) at depth. Does the strike slip fault cut the megathrust or vice­versa?

    3.4 Systems of strike­slip faults


    In many areas, many strike slip faults together form a complex pattern that is not
    immediately obvious how to interpret. In these places, strike slip faults define the
    boundaries of crustal fragments or blocks whose deformation can be characterized
    by vertical axis rotation. The overall effect of a system consisting of a mosaic of ro­
    tating crustal fragments may be to accommodate a broad zone of diffuse shear. Al­
    ternatively, block rotation may be a response to being caught between two indepen­
    dent strike­slip faults. Two examples are shown in figure 1. The first – where a broad
    zone of diffuse shear is accommodated – can be thought of as toppling dominoes or
    books on a shelf and parts of the complex deformation of southern California (par­
    ticularly the Mojave block) can be understood in this way. In this example, the strike
    slip faults are antithetic to the overall sense of shear of the zone.

    Alternatively, rotating blocks may owe their rotation to their being caught be­
    tween two independent strike slip faults. In this case (right side of the figure), faults
    bounding the rotating blocks will be synthetic with respect to the bounding faults.
    Distinguishing between these two models of block rotation has certain implications
    for what drives block rotation.

    3
    4 Review questions
    1. Draw the associated en­echelon folds and tension fractures you would expect to
    be associated with a left­lateral (sinistral) strike slip fault.
    2. Using Google Maps, satellite view, find Death Valley. Death Valley is the type­
    example (meaning it is the example that motivated the definition) of a pull­apart
    basin. What is the sense of shear on the Death Valley fault?
    3. To the south of Death Valley is the E­W striking Garlock fault. The Garlock
    fault is the type example of a transfer fault: in this case it accommodates differential
    extension of the crust to its north and south. What is the sense of shear on the Gar­
    lock fault? Follow the fault until its junction with the San Andreas. What is the sense
    of shear on the San Andreas? How do those two faults interact (i.e. does one cut the
    other, do they mutually deform one another)?
    4. Follow the San Andreas down to Los Angeles. Find the Big Bend of the San
    Andreas (going south, it takes a big jog to the east to join up with the Salton Sea and
    the Gulf of California). Is the Big Bend a releasing bend or a restraining bend?
    5. Explain the concept of kinematic compatibility.

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