Samuel Thiele

This contribution reviews the use of modern 3D photo-based surface reconstruction techniques for high fidelity surveys of trenches, rock exposures and hand specimens to highlight their potential for paleoseismology and structural geology. We outline the general approach to data acquisition and processing using ground-based photographs acquired from standard DSLR cameras, and illustrate the use of similar processing approaches on imagery from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). It is shown that digital map and trench data can be acquired at ultra-high resolution and in much shorter time intervals than would be normally achievable through conventional grid mapping. The resulting point clouds and textured models are inherently multidimensional (x, y, z, point orientation, colour, texture), archival and easily transformed into orthorectified photomosaics or digital elevation models (DEMs). We provide some examples for the use of such techniques in structural geology and paleoseismology while pointing the interested reader to free and commercial software packages for data processing, visualization and 3D interpretation. Photogrammetric models serve to act as an ideal electronic repository for critical outcrops and observations, similar to the electronic lab book approach employed in the biosciences. This paper also highlights future possibilities for rapid semi-automatic to automatic interpretation of the data and advances in technology.

Two novel techniques, photo based reconstruction (photogrammetry) and computed tomography (CT), are used to investigate the formation of an exceptional array of sigmoidal veins in a hand sample from Cape Liptrap, Southern Victoria, and to provide constraint on models for their development. The accuracies of the photogrammetric models were tested by comparison with a laser scan generated three dimensional (3D) model. The photogrammetric model was found to be accurate to at least 0.25 mm and substantially more detailed than the laser scan. A methodology was developed by which 3D structural measurements could be extracted from the photogrammetric model. This was augmented with the CT model which, through its capacity to elucidate internal structure, was used to constrain the geometry and linkage of structures within the rock volume. The photogrammetric and CT data were then combined with detailed photomicrographs to evaluate the evolution of the sigmoidal veins in the sample. The angle between the sigmoidal vein margins and an inferred shear zone, as well as the orientations of the crystal fibres, were found to imply a rotation of >27
. However coeval pressure solution seams and older veinlets in the rock bridges between the veins were only found to have rotated by ~10
, an observation not easily explained using existing models for sigmoidal vein formation. A new model is proposed in which a significant component of sigmoidal vein geometry is due to localised dilation caused by slip on the pressure solution  seams. The process involves strain partitioning onto pressure solution seams, which leads to exaggeration of  sigmoidal vein geometries. If not accounted for, the apparent  vein rotation due to slip partitioning introduces errors into  calculations of simple shear and volume strain based on sigmoidal arrays of this type. Furthermore, the CT data demonstrated that in 3D the veins are continuous and channel-like, implying a far higher degree of connectivity and fluid transport than is suggested by their 2D form.