Search results for "Fault"
showing 10 items of 610 documents
Holocene surface ruptures of the Rurrand Fault, Germany—insights from palaeoseismology, remote sensing and shallow geophysics
2016
The Lower Rhine Embayment in Central Europe hosts a rift system that has very low deformation rates. The faults in this area have slip rates of less than 0.1 mm/yr, which does not allow to investigate ongoing tectonic deformation with geodetic techniques, unless they cover very long time spans. Instrumental seismicity does only cover a small fraction of the very long earthquake recurrence intervals of several thousands of years. Paleoseismological studies are needed to constrain slip rates and the earthquake history of such faults. Destructive earthquakes are rare in the study area, but did occur in historic times. In 1755/56, a series of strong earthquakes caused significant destruction in…
How to make a transverse triple junction—New evidence for the assemblage of Gondwana along the Kaoko-Damara belts, Namibia
2016
T-shaped orogenic triple junctions between mobile belts usually form in two unrelated stages by subsequent and oblique continental collisions separated by a significant time span. Besides these “oblique triple junctions”, another type, named “transverse triple junctions”, may exist. Such junctions are created by a more complex mechanism of partly contemporaneous convergence of three cratons in a restricted time frame, involving strike slip. The Neoproterozoic–Cambrian Kaoko-Damara junction between the Rio de la Plata, Congo, and Kalahari cratons in Namibia is an example of such a transverse orogenic triple junction, formed by at least four subsequent but partly related deformation events. I…
Growth processes, dimensional parameters and scaling relationships of two conjugate sets of compactive shear bands in porous carbonate grainstones, F…
2012
Abstract Three main sets of deformation bands are identified in the Lower Pleistocene carbonate grainstones of Favignana Island (Italy). A bedding-parallel set is interpreted to contain compaction bands, based on the lack of evidence for shear. The other two sets are oriented at a high-angle to bedding, forming a conjugate pair comprised of compactive strike-slip shear bands. In this study, we focus on the compactive shear bands documenting their development, as well as analyzing their dimensional parameters and scaling relationships. Single compactive shear bands are thin, tabular zones with porosity less than the surrounding host rocks, and have thicknesses and displacements on the order …
Birth and Early evolution of a Jurassic Escarpment: Monte Kumeta, Western Sicily
2002
The accurate reconstruction of the facies architecture in the Jurassic succession of Monte Kumeta, coupled with a detailed biostratigraphy, allow to define dynamics and genetic factors controlling the conversion of a Bahamian-type carbonate platform to a pelagic escarpment. A change from tidalites to oolites i.e. from the restricted, interior lagoon to a more open-marine sandy depositional environment, records the establishment of a basin south of the Monte Kumeta sector in late Hettangian-Sinemurian times. The oolitic limestones are overlain by earliest Carixian bioclastic grainstones and packstones with micritized grains and by wackestones with radiolarians and sponge spicules, organized …
Tectonics and seismicity of the Tindari Fault System, southern Italy: Crustal deformations at the transition between ongoing contractional and extens…
2006
[1] The Tindari Fault System (southern Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy) is a regional zone of brittle deformation located at the transition between ongoing contractional and extensional crustal compartments and lying above the western edge of a narrow subducting slab. Onshore structural data, an offshore seismic reflection profile, and earthquake data are analyzed to constrain the present geometry of the Tindari Fault System and its tectonic evolution since Neogene, including the present seismicity. Results show that this zone of deformation consists of a broad NNW trending system of faults including sets of right-lateral, left-lateral, and extensional faults as well as early strike-slip faults rewor…
Rapid conversion of elastic energy into plastic shear heating during incipient necking of the lithosphere
1998
An important and novel mechanism for ductile failure of the lithosphere is identified here, which is intrinsic to the thermal-mechanical feedback in a temperature dependent plastic body with coupled elastic fields. Both a temperature-dependent power-law visco-elasto-plastic rheology and a temperature-dependent elasto-plastic rheology are employed to study in a self-consistent fashion the deformation of the lithosphere subject to extension by means of a two-dimensional, finite-element code. A structural perturbation initially localizes elasto-plastic deformation only in its immediate vicinity. However, after 800,000 years have elapsed the localized zone of deformation takes off in a ‘crack-l…
3D Numerical Modelling of Salt Tectonics
2017
Summary Many factors have been suggested to affect the development of salt structures, including sedimentation, brittle sediment deformation, multiple tectonic events and basement topography. To unravel the relative importance of these processes, we performed high resolution 2D and 3D thermo-mechanical simulations that take these factors into account, while incorporating nonlinear salt creep laws and visco-elasto-plastic rock properties. Simulations show that the sedimentation rate affects both the speed with which structures form, and the spacing between the salt structures, which is larger for higher rates. Consistent with earlier sandbox experiments, we find that there is a feedback betw…
Miocene NNE-directed extensional unroofing in the Menderes Massif, southwestern Turkey
1995
Structural investigations in the central part of the Menderes Massif (Odemis-Kiraz submassif) reveal the presence of a large-scale, low-angle extensional shear zone with a top-to-the-N-NE shear sense. Regional ductile deformation was accompanied by the intrusion of two syntectonic granodiorites that have been dated with the Ar-40/Ar-39 method. One hornblende isochron age of 19.5 +/- 1.4 Ma and two biotite plateau ages of 13.1 +/- 0.2 and 12.2 +/- 0.4 Ma, respectively, constrain that extension was already active in the early Miocene. Successive tectonic denudation of the Odemis-Kiraz submassif resulted in the formation of a N-dipping detachment fault, in which ductile fabrics were severely r…
Geophysical investigation of Pleistocene volcanism and tectonics offshore Capo Vaticano (Calabria, southeastern Tyrrhenian Sea)
2015
Abstract Magma upwelling forming volcanic plumbing systems in back arc settings is typically controlled by extensional tectonic structures of the upper crust. Here we investigate this process in the area between the volcanic arc of the Aeolian Islands and the Calabrian arc (SE Tyrrhenian Sea) by integrating morpho-bathymetry and reflection seismic data with the outcomes of “Inverse 3D magnetic modeling” of previously gathered aeromagnetic data. Morpho-bathymetric data highlight the presence of a seamount ∼10 km offshore Capo Vaticano Promontory (eastern Calabria). This feature, named Capo Vaticano seamount is composed of a series of NE-trending ridges, the greatest of which (R1) is ∼12 km l…
Soil CO2 degassing along tectonic structures of Mount Etna (Sicily): the Pernicana fault
1997
Abstract Carbon dioxide emissions from the soil have been investigated along lines of equally spaced sampling points perpendicular to the Pernicana fault on Mt Etna. Anomalous values of soil CO2 have been found not only along the fault plane, but also along directions parallel to it, both to the N and to the S of the main fault. The acquired data seem to reveal a shallow step-like geometry of the Pernicana fault system with parallel faults being generally not deeper than the interface between Etna's volcanic cover and its sedimentary basement (a few hundred meters). The distribution of the anomalous CO2 emissions has also revealed that the Pernicana fault continues at least as far as the Io…