Brittle Deformation

Brittle Deformation#

When rocks undergo rapid, localised deformation, refer to the process as “brittle deformation”. Typically brittle features in the Earth’s crust are faults and we can understand much about the stress and deformation if we understand faults, their rupture and associated seismic energy release.

Lecture Slides#

The slides are originally made using PowerPoint and then convert to html / javascript format through stacking a series of snapshots. Therefore it does not work well if printing them from your browser. But a pdf version of the original format is provided in the Wattle to have three slides each page on the left with space for notes on the right.

Overview of deformation mechanisms#

The first part of this module introduces the general concepts related to different deformation mechanisms, including brittle and ductile deformation.

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Fundamentals of brittle deformation#

The next part of this module focuses on some of the fundamental concepts related to the brittle deformation, such as fracturing and frictional sliding.

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Joints and Veins#

This part of the module introduces the structures of joints and veins, two important types of brittle deformation.

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Faults, fault zones and earthquakes#

This lecture covers the concept, characteristics and geometrical relationships to stress of fault and fault zone structures. It also introduces some fundamental concepts and theory related to earthquakes.

2021 Mansfield and 2011 Tohoku earthquake#

The last part of this module dives into two important earthquakes, the 2021 Mansfield earthquake and 2011 Tohoku earthquake, to link the concepts and theroy we have learned about the brittle deformation with real case studies.

Resources#

  • One detailed collection of news articles and other resources about the 2021 Manfield earthquake on the GeoDown Under blog.

  • One interactive web tool of Geosciences 3D by University of Lyon to simulate seismic wave propagation and related focal mechanism with user-defined fault structures.

  • Another interactive web tool called Visible Earthquakes to model real earthquake that were measured with InSAR data.

Contents