STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY

Prof. Santanu Misra

Civil Engineering
IIT Kanpur
 INDEX
S. No Topic Page No.
Week 1
1 Introduction-I 1
2 Introduction-II 19
Week 2
3 Structural Elements and Measurements 36
4 How to measure strike-dip-pitch/rake-plunge 58
5 Stereographic Projection in Structural Geology 68
Week 3
6 Concept of Strain and Deformation (Part-I) 98
7 Concept of Strain and Deformation (Part-II) 122
8 Strain Measurement 138
Week 4
9 Stress (Part- I) 157
10 Stress (Part- II) 183
Week 5
11 Basics of Rheology (Part-I) 214
12 Basics of Rheology (Part-II) 227
13 Basics of Rheology (Part-III) 239
14 Complex Rheology 256
15 Role of External Parameters 275
Week 6
16 Crystal Defects and associated structures 287
17 Cataclastic Deformation 310
18 Intracrystalline Deformation 338
19 Diffusive Mass Transfer 373
Week 7
20 Planar Fabrics (Foliation/ Cleavage/ Schistosity)- I 400
21 Planar Fabrics (Foliation/ Cleavage/ Schistosity)- II 427
22 Linear Fabrics (Lineation) 452
Week 8
23 Folds and Folding: Basic Concepts 481
24 Folds and Folding: Classifications 506
25 Folds and Folding: Dip Isogons and Mechanisms 531
26 Folds and Folding: Superposed Folding 556
Week 9
27 Porphyroblasts 589
28 Boudinage & Pinch-and-Swell Structures-I 613
29 Boudinage & Pinch-and-Swell Structures-II 637
30 Stereonet Problem I: True dip from two apparent dips 663
31 Stereonet Problem II: True dip from strike and one apparent dip 666
32 Stereonet Problem III: Pole to the Plane 668
33 Stereonet Problem IV: Fold axis and Axial plane 671
34 Stereonet Problem V: Fold geometry from pole data of two limbs 674
Week 10
35 Fractures and Joints I 680
36 Fractures and Joints II 718
37 Faults and Faulting I 737
Stereonet Problem VI: Fold geometry from interlimb angle and fold
38 axes 768
Stereonet Problem VII: Fold geometry from pitch of the limbs on
39 another plane 776
Week 11
40 Faults and Faulting II 782
41 Ductile Shear Zones I 811
42 Ductile Shear Zones II 842
43 Basic of Litho-Structural Mapping 890
Week 12
44 Paleostress analysis 923
45 Graphical Problem 933
46 Three point problem 937
47 Construction of topographic profile 942
48 Construction of Geological Cross-section 946
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Introduction (Part I)

Hello everyone. Welcome to this NPTEL Structural Geology course. This course is being
offered for the undergraduate students and designed accordingly. In the first two lectures, we
will cover the introduction and then slowly we will jump into the other topics of the subject.

Before going into the actual course, we will have some administrative parameters that we will
follow in this lecture and then we will proceed. So, before we start, I am your instructor. My
name is Santanu Misra. I am a faculty member in the Department of Earth Sciences of IIT
Kanpur.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:01)

About my academic background: I studied Geology in Jadavpur University. I had my

Bachelor degree, Master degree and also PhD degree from Jadavpur University. Then I
moved to ETH Zurich in Switzerland for a post doc, later I became a lecturer in the same
institute. I learnt mostly Experimental Rock Deformation and worked on high pressure
temperature deformation behavior of rocks. Then I moved to another beautiful country, called
New Zealand. The institute was GNS Science. I worked there on earthquakes and landslides
phenomena.

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In 2015 I decided to come back to India and joined IIT Kanpur as a faculty member. My
research interest mostly includes primarily experimental rock deformation, rock physics,
structural geology and tectonics. Throughout this course or even later you can contact me via
this email. You also can call me during the office time and to know more about my research,
my research group and other activities, you can follow me via my webpage.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:13)

Saquib and Manab, are the two TAs of this course. They are teaching assistants. Both of them
are my PD students. They are CSIR Senior Research Fellows in IIT Kanpur. Saquib joined in
2015 and Manab as well. Saqib works on petrology of structure of Nagaland Ophiolite
sequences, and Manab works in the direction of rock physics and he works on enhanced coal
bed methane recovery via CO2 sequestration.
About the study materials for this course there are n number of books, there are n number of
online resources that you can explore.

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(Refer Slide Time: 03:02)

I particularly recommend these four books and a few online materials which will be helpful
for this course. And, I also derived most of the study materials from these four books and
these online materials. The first book is the book of Structural Geology, Fundamentals and
Modern Developments written by Professor S K Ghosh, who was a Professor in Jadavpur
University, Kolkata. This book is little bit of advanced level for an undergraduate student but
initial sections are written in a very general way, in a very scientific way so that one can
understand.

What I like about this book, particularly for the students of India, that the examples of
geological structures are cited from Indian continent, or different Indian fields. So, if you go
to the field you can see those structures and relate yourself. The second and third book are the
two classic ones.

The second book is Structural Geology which is the second edition of Twiss and Moores. It
covers entire span of structural geology. And the third one of Professor John Ramsay,
Folding and Fracturing of Rocks is a classic textbook of structural geology ever considered. It
is very important to have this book in your library and it is worth reading book.

Fourth book is relatively new in the structural geology field written by Professor Fossen.
What I like about this book is it is written with examples with lot of applications; the
language is very easy to comprehend and understand. And most importantly this book has
fantastic field photographs, colored field photographs and in addition to this, a

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complimentary CD of illustrations which are essentially helpful to understand different
structural features.

About online materials, I recommend these three. So, the first one is a textbook in pdf by
Professor Ray Patrice, the second one is lecture note from Professor Jean-Pierre Burg. And
the third one is one YouTube lecture series given by Professor Janos Urai of Aachen in
Germany.

In all these three materials you will get excellent illustrations, very nice texts and particularly
for Professor Urai’s lecture he has given lots of analog models and numerical exercises which
will be helpful for you. Needless to mention, there are n number of, there are series of online
materials which are available.

You just have to type online that what you are looking for, you just type the keywords or the
phrase or the sentences and you will get series of suggestions from Google or whatever
search engine you use and you can figure out what you are looking for. I am sure you will get
it. If not, you are always welcome to contact me or the two teaching assistants of this course.

(Refer Slide Time: 06:25)

This is the course template of this course outline of this Structural Geology course. The
course is designed mostly following the general undergraduate courses that is being followed
in India and globally. So it is a twelve weeks course. Initially we learn at least in this lecture
and in the next lecture, introduction and basic concepts of structural geology. Then we will

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follow the certain different aspects sequentially one after another to cover different structural
elements, their measurements, stereographic projection. We learn about strain and stress. We
learn about rheology and deformation mechanism of rocks, then slowly we will go to the
actual real rock structures that we see in the field like foliation and lineation, different types
of folds, their formation mechanisms, superposition of folds, then boudinage and related
structures, fractures, joints everything. Then we move to the ductile domain that is the ductile
shear zone which is very important in structural geology and in general. And finally, we will
end up with some notes on structural mapping, summarize this course and do some
discussions for the future developments and studies.
The question that one should ask at the very beginning that, why I should study structural
geology? Personally, I like this subject very much. We will see in course that this subject
makes you like a detective. Like you have something in your hand, this is a puzzle. You have
no clue what happened in the past. So, your challenge or your task is to, whatever you have in
your hand, just looking at it, observing it, analyzing it, you have to go and understand what
has happened in the past. So, in a way, this is a very challenging work and I like it very much.
Apart from this, you of course would like to ask what are the job opportunities, what are the
different aspects like, what is the use of studying structural geology in the context of present-
day society? The answer is: it is significant.

(Refer Slide Time: 08:36)

So, if you are structural geologist, your demand is in many industries and also certainly in
academia. You can be recruited or you can be hired if you are good enough in exploration
and mining industries. You can be also hired in litho-structural mapping and survey
companies, construction engineering and structural analysis of different surface and sub-

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surface materials. If you are interested to that, there are many industries who are involved in
this type of work and they will certainly be interested to hire you.

For natural hazard analysis, earthquakes, landslides and so on, your job is secured if you are
good at it. Hydrogeology is also one of the areas where structural geologists are in high
demand. And apart from this, I can certainly join in academia and petroleum industry and
other places where you can work on science and technology development.

As I said that structural geology is a subject that unravels the past of the earth, the history of
the earth in a certain way and there is no clear picture of that. We have to figure out things
what we have today in our hand. So, these three terms, predictions, uncertainties and risks are
somehow very much associated with this subject. Whatever you do, you should have some
sort of prediction, some sort of risk and some sort of uncertainty in your discussions and in
your results. Always keep this in mind.
(Refer Slide Time: 10:33)

Ok, so what is structural geology? Now if you have heard this term before then you must
have heard also these two terms that are being always said or always used together with
structural geology. One is tectonics and another is geodynamics. Now these three terms,
structural geology, tectonics and geodynamics, their origin comes from Latin and Greek
languages. So structure is, comes from the Latin word “struere” that means build, “tektos” is
a Greek word from which we have this word tectonics that means builder and then “dunamis”
is a Greek word which means power or force. So, you can see that if these three terms,

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structural geology, tectonics and geodynamics, well geology is “ge” that means the earth. It is
also a Greek word.

So, these three terms as I was talking about, structural geology, tectonics and geodynamics,
these three, from their origin of these three words can suggest you that with the help of, or
with this action of power and force, how you can build something and who is the builder for
that? So the structural geology is certainly all about power, forces, building something. And
if you apply power and force, you have to deform, you have to move something from one
point to another. So scientifically you can finally conclude that the subject structural geology
together with tectonics and geodynamics concerns in general with the shape, that is the
geometry, the displacements which is kinematics and forces so mechanics in our earth and
other planetary bodies.

Now interestingly if you have these terms, geometry, kinematics and mechanics, you can
certainly comprehend the fact that the subject is highly interdisciplinary and it is indeed. We
take assistance, help and collaborate actively with people from material science, mechanical
engineering, physicist, computer science and remote sensing. Within the broader umbrella of
earth sciences we also collaborate with geophysicists, petrologists, igneous, metamorphic and
sedimentary domains. We also take active help from survey people, and of course nowadays
we are also taking people from Geodesy on board. So this interdisciplinary nature of the
subject makes it highly broad and in overall geology it makes it a complete science topic
together with physics, chemistry, maths and biology.

Now these three subjects or which are commonly used together, structural geology, tectonics
and geodynamics, these three form a very coherent and interdependent sub-disciplines of
geology. And together with these three topics, we try to understand that how these rocks,
different rock formations and earth systems in general, crust, lithosphere, asthenosphere so on
deform and how do they deform via which processes? You can understand when you see a
rock which is deformed. We will learn in this lecture how to look at a deformed rock. It
contains a lot of information. A piece of rock gives you a series of information. Your idea or
as a structural geologist or geologist in general, your aim is to unravel this information and
use this information to study different processes that happened at the past in the earth, and
also what could happen in the future.

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(Refer Slide Time: 14:27)

So let us talk about these three topics, structural geology, tectonics and geodynamics, what
these are? Whether these are different, whether they are similar or if there is any difference
then where is this, where is the difference? Well these individual topics, structural geology,
tectonics and geodynamics, from science point of view; from approach point of view they are
very similar. Three of these subjects essentially deal with displacement, forces and
kinematics, the geometry, shape etc. But the fundamental difference between these three
topics are the scales of observation.

So structural geology generally we study in field based, it is a field-based discipline and it

operates from very microscale, about 100 microns or less to 100 meters or maximum 1 or 2
kilometers. So, we can say that from a grain to outcrop if you study rocks then you are doing
structural geology, of course in the context of deformation. The tools that are used to study
structural geology include field study, that is very important, rock deformation experiments;
you can do analogue experiments and essentially numerical models.

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(Refer Slide Time: 15:46)

In contrary tectonics is certainly a large scale. As you can see the entire plate tectonics
discipline is pretty large. But it does not involve what is happening at the bottom of these
plates. It just deals with the movement of the plates, their mutual interactions and so on. So,
tectonics in general deals from about 100 meters to 1000 kilometers in scale. In structural
geology we learn that it is below 100 meters. So, tectonics is certainly a large-scale study of
structural geology, you can consider it this way. The tools we use here are again field study,
you can do field work, you can do analogue experiments and you can do numerical models.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:35)

Geodynamics is the subject that discusses about the forces and processes that drive the plate
tectonics and the deformation of the materials inside the earth. So you can consider the
mantle convection, plumes etc. So as you can imagine the scale from just, from the plate

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tectonics to where the plates are to the core of the earth or at the core mantle boundary the
scale is huge. So it is, it operates at the scale more than 100 kilometers. And there is no way
you can do field work at core mantle boundary or even cross mantle boundary. So there is no
scope of doing field work. So what tools we are left with are analogue experiments and
numerical models.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:24)

Now to study structural geology as I was talking about, even for, within the subject of
structural geology apart from tectonics and geodynamics, scale is something that is very
important that you always have to remember. Or always have to take into account what is the
scale you are looking at, what is the scale of observation? And structural geologists do it
very, very frequently. They jump from one scale to another.

Looking at a single grain, the deformation of the single grain, one structural geologist can
immediately interpret an entire mountain building process. So this is a fun, this is a scale as
well. Apart from the scale, there are three pairs of terms. One is continuous versus
discontinuous. Second one is homogeneous versus heterogeneous, and third one is isotropic
versus anisotropic. We are all familiar with these terms but let us have a look at these six
terminologies in the context of studying structural geology.

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(Refer Slide Time: 18:35)

For the scales we generally cover three different terms, microscopic, mesoscopic and
megascopic. As the name suggests, microscopic is something that you observe under
microscope, be it optical microscope or electron microscope and we call it microscopic scale.
Mesoscopic scale is something that you can cover just by a view. So it is scale that to
structure that can be observed without the aid of the microscopes on a hand specimen or a
single outcrop and so on.

So it is about 1000 meters or 1 kilometers or something like that. And we call it outcrop scale
or outcrop study and then macroscopic scale is something that you are doing a large scale
field study or regional scale field observations, so this is greater than 1 kilometer and so on.
So it is to be completely exposed in the outcrop that you may not get in the field. You may
get something here, something there, in-between there is no rock exposure.

So it is your background, it is your intellectual quality of the structural geology background

that how you can correlate from this outcrop to that outcrop. And when you do that, you are
actually doing a macroscopic field observation or macroscopic study, macroscopic scale
study of structural geology.

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(Refer Slide Time: 20:15)

So here is an example of what do we understand by scale. What I try to convey with this
slide, you have learnt probably already that if a layer is horizontal or at any orientation and if
there is a layer parallel compression this layer is ductile enough then it makes a curved
feature which is known as fold.

Now in these three images, in the first one you can see that the width of the image from the
scale is given, is about 750 microns. In these 750 microns from here to here, approximately
what you see this green material is an aggregate of biotite mineral which is a kind of mica.
And you can see this biotite is not straight here, it is folded. So there must be a layer parallel
compression here.

Now if I jump to the next image, we see a very similar structure which is fold but here the
scale is, or this distance in this entire image is close to 50 meters. And if we look at here, this
distance is about 4 kilometer and we almost see a very similar structure. Now if I see fold in
the first image and if I see fold in the second or last image, then they characteristically may
be same, mechanically they may be developed in a very similar way but their scales are
different.

So, therefore I was talking about, the concept of scale is very important in structural geology.
And one has to jump from one scale to another scale to solve the geometrical problems that

12
we see in the field and also in the experiments and when you do observations under
microscope.
(Refer Slide Time: 22:16)

Now about the continuity and discontinuity of structures, this is something that is also scale
dependent. So for example this picture here, you can understand that this is a layered rock,
we are not going into the fact that how did it form and what it is, but we can figure out
certainly that it has alternate dark and white colored bands. Now if I follow any of these
bands I see in this scale of observation of this photograph I am looking at, these layers are
continuous. That is, there is no discontinuity.

However when this layer got extended and it formed a structure called boudinage we can
figure out that few of these layers are continuous here, for example if I try to draw it here but
there are few layers. For example if I take this little packet of layers, it comes here then it
vanishes and then it starts again from somewhere here. So there is certainly a discontinuity.
This is something what we call continuity and discontinuity, or continuous and discontinuous.

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(Refer Slide Time: 23:30)

We have few more examples and here we would like to highlight the fact that why this
continuity and discontinuity are also scale-dependent? For example here in the first image we
see this, this is a shear zone, ductile shear zone and this layer, this black layer is continuous.
However if I consider this white layer in the second image it is going like this and then we
have some other material inside and then probably it continues somewhere here.

Now looking at it I have a discontinuity from here to here, the layer is not continuous. So this
is a discontinuity. Here in this image, you see again a layered rock and we have n number of
fractures which made these layers discontinuous. Now at this scale of observation I see them
as a discontinuous layer, an individual layer. But if I look it from far, I may not see these
fractures and I may consider this as a continuous feature. So therefore continuity and
discontinuity in rocks are essentially a function of the scale you are looking at.

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(Refer Slide Time: 24:51)

Again you have another example where I try to provide, for example here this is a little
complex structure. To understand it better or to highlight its features I made a sketch of this
which is on the right side. And you can see few layers which are marked by this arrowhead
are continuous, and few layers here, these are getting discontinued. And also the entire
outcrop or entire image that we can see, we can see a little discontinuous line here that is
separating by a sleeve. So there are many ways you can produce discontinuity. And that is
also important to understand that what is the reason for the discontinuity in the structure you
are looking at?

(Refer Slide Time: 25:49)

Coming back to two other terms that is homogeneous, heterogeneous, isotropy and
anisotropy, now these are very classic terms which are being used in almost all subjects. So in

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brief, homogeneous materials are of uniform composition throughout, or any properties that
you are looking which has uniform properties throughout the material. And if that doesn't
hold then this is heterogeneous material.

Isotropic material is on the other hand, is one which the physical properties are equal in all
directions. And if that does not happen then it is anisotropic materials. You can also consider
it in a way that material properties are independent of the direction in which they are
measured. We will learn more about it with time but again I would like to remind you the fact
that this concept of homogeneity, heterogeneity, isotropy and anisotropy are again function of
the scale.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:55)

So let us have some, have a look on some examples. On the left side we have a photograph of
a sandstone, hand specimen of a sandstone. This is the scale. So if it is 10 centimeters then
may be, this would be around 80 or 90 centimeters altogether. And we see here that if we
look at the color, that is one of the physical properties then color is mostly homogeneous. It
does not vary. The appearance is mostly homogeneous, it does not vary.

And if we have some tools, if we can measure some other properties like electrical
conductivity of rocks, hydraulic conductivity and so on, then we might find that this material
is very much homogeneous. And if I make a thin section of this little rock and then I observe
it in this scale then I figure out that it is not at all a homogeneous material. So same piece of
rock I am looking at two different scales, one is homogeneous, another is heterogeneous.

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(Refer Slide Time: 28:04)

About this isotropy, anisotropy these two are the photographs of two granite hand specimens.
The first one is sort of a massive granite. You can see many different scales but statistically if
I consider this entire specimen then doesn't matter if I am measuring a property from here to
here, that is in two different directions, they would appear more or less same.

However in this sample if I try to measure a property from here to here then I actually
encounter different layers. However if I measure from here to here, the properties would
remain same because I am following the same material. With time we will know this is
known as transverse isotropic material which is a layered material and most of the cases our
rocks are so. So again the concept of isotropy and anisotropy could be something that you are
considering with respect to the scale.

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(Refer Slide Time: 29:04)

So we are almost at the conclusion of this lecture. And what we learnt from this lecture is
very important when you see or when you go to the field or when you see a photograph of a
deformed, of a rock sample, the first question you should ask as a structural geologist, am I
looking at a deformed rock? And if yes, then what is the scale of the structure I am looking
at? If this rock deformation or different layers or different features that I am looking at are
homogeneous or heterogeneous, and if this rock is isotropic and/or anisotropic? So with this
note I conclude this lecture.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:50)

And in the next lecture we will mostly learn what are the different ways structural geologists
approach to look at deformed rocks. Thank you very much and stay tuned.

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 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Introduction (Part II)

Hello everyone. Welcome to this NPTEL Structural Geology course. We are at our lecture
number 2 and we will continue today with this introduction.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:26)

So where we stopped at our last lecture that what are the different ways to look at the rocks,
particularly, when you see a piece of rock or a photograph the questions you should ask were,
whether you are looking at a deformed rock, whether it is homogeneous, heterogeneous,
isotropic, anisotropic, whether the structure is continuous or discontinuous and most
importantly what is the scale?

Now in this lecture we will mostly cover what are the different ways to observe and interpret
a rock structure? The question we would ask mostly today is what does a structural geologist
do or what are the different processes that a structural geologist follows to interpret a rock
structure? To answer this question what does the structural geologist do, is essentially to
observe deformed rocks in very, very intelligent way and explain with some scientific
observations and evidences why and how they ended up at their present state.

And to do so, a structural geologist has many approaches. And one can categorize it in three
different sections. The first one is field observation, second one laboratory experiments, it can

19
be real rock deformation experiment or analogue experiment and of course analog, and the
third one is the analytical and numerical modelling.

Now these three basic tools have their own limitations. We will learn it later but at the same
time these three tools are also complimentary to each other, that what you cannot observe or
understand from the field, you can understand if you perform an experiment in the laboratory.
So to continue this question again that the main job of the structural geologist is to interpret
and define on the basis of scientific data and at the same time a structural geologist also does
geologic reconstruction.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:46)

So, in the first part. to interpret and define structures, a structural geologist has to deal with
very complex interaction of natural elements. We will look at it, all these processes soon.
Then most of the geologic structures as you can imagine, these are extremely large in their
extent. For example, you can think of Himalaya or the complexity of South India and so on.
And these structures have formed with time scales that ranges from million to billion years.
And few processes are still happening.

And with our human life span, we cannot see it happening, right? So, we see the end product
and almost fossilized. A structural geologist has a challenge to interpret this large scale in
space and time. And one more important thing that structural geology has, which is somehow
advantageous to us is that most of the processes that happen in nature are non-repeatable or

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non-reversible in nature. If something has happened then you cannot go back with time, in
most of the cases.

Geological reconstruction is another type of challenges because it has several limitations and
structural geologists have to solve a series of jig-saw puzzles. For example, as I was talking
about the, that it takes a lot of time to produce a structure. The rate of deformation in earth is
extremely slow in almost every case. There are of course few deviations of this. For example,
if you have an earthquake, or if you have an impact crater formation so that, these, there are
few things that happen very quickly but most of the other cases, the rate of deformation in
earth is extremely slow and it is almost impossible to track through a human life. And then
you do not have any initial picture. That how it was, how it looked before? You don't have
the entire picture as well, because some pieces are missing. You also cannot access all the
areas, even if you can access, maybe there is no exposure.

And on the top of that, the deformation that we look at on the surface, it is not a single
deformation. That means one deformation has happened sometime ago and then later some
other deformation which is occurring from other directions or in a completely different
nature, it is either demolishing or overprinting the previous deformation. So this is a
challenge of a structural geologist to reconstruct and interpret, separate out these
deformations and what has happened at the first deformation, what has happened in the
second deformation and so on. So at one point, at one time this is really challenging,
sometimes frustrating for a structural geologist, but at the same time it is extremely fun. And
this is why structural geologist, most of the structural geologists like their job very much.

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(Refer Slide Time: 06:11)

So there are three basic ways a structural geologist looks at the structures in earth, or in
nature. So these are geometric models, kinematic models and mechanical models and you can
classify them together as direct methods of observations. To understand that geometric
models, these are mostly qualitative and sometimes quantitative. It does not involve any other
detailed scientific, what it does, it simply tries to interpret from what we are observing, its 2D
or 3D representation, its orientation, how it is, in a more comprehensive way. We will look at
some examples later and these are mostly done using some data obtained from field studies or
some experiments.

Kinematic model on the other hand is the next stage of the geometrical model where a
structural geologist after constructing the geometric models try to understand what are the
different motions at different parts of the structure? That which part has moved which way
relative to the other parts. That helps you in the next stage to understand the deformation,
displacement, motion of things. You can imagine plate tectonics which actually deals with
the motion of the plates, is a kind of kinematic model.

The mechanical model which is the most developed or the most advanced model among these
three, or we call it dynamic analysis which is highly quantitative; this model involves
interaction of material properties and forces and so on. So, these are mostly done by
performing some experiments, reconstructing the features in the laboratory and so on. These
three geometric models, kinematic models and mechanical models are very important direct
methods of structural geology study.

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Then there is another method. We call it indirect method. In indirect method a structural
geologist may hypothesize a feature that Himalaya has formed by this, this and this and then
he or she tries to understand it by performing some models, experiments or numerical
models. The structural geologist collects data from the field and then either prove this
hypothesis or disapprove this hypothesis. So, this is some sort of models or ideas that most of
the structural geologists nowadays do and these are done mostly for the processes that we do
not see.

For example, we do not see the plumes, we do not see the mantle convections, so there are
many hypothesis and models by which a structural geologist or tectonics expert or a geo-
dynamic expert, they try to work on some indirect methods and these are known as analytical
models. In the following slides we will mostly focus on these geometric, kinematic and
mechanical models and I will try to give you a very basic idea that what are these, how these
are done and most importantly how these are being applied to the real field. Okay so let us
start with the geometric model.

(Refer Slide Time: 09:44)

If you remember in the last lecture, I talked about fold and this is a fold. So what we see
here? These light yellow and dark brown alternate layers, these are folded, and the thickness
of these layers did vary during the deposition and it remained intact while it got folded. Now
if it was a simple fold then no problem, we can simply trace one layer and figure out how did
this fold happen, which layer is what.

23
But this structure is somehow discontinued with some slips, for example this is one. We can
see from this relative displacements that it moved from one to another. But this is part of the
kinematic model which we are not looking at. But the challenge is to trace, that if I look at
this layer, this brown layer here then where it is in the other side. In this case, it is simple, it
comes here.

Now similarly if I look at this brown layer and again, I have a discontinuity here then my
challenge is to find out whether it is this one or the other one. Now whatever interpretation
you make out of this, that whether this is this layer or the other layer, you have to come up
with some sort of logics and this logic is the fundamentals of geometric model.

For example, with this model, with this photograph I prepared this geometric model. I did not
cover all these layers but few of the layers are color-coded and they are represented in this
way. So this is a very simple example how geometric models in structural geology are
constructed. Can we apply it to a little large scale? The answer is yes.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:49)

Here we have one syn-sedimentary deformation and you can see that this alternate black,
white and few light brown layers got disturbed by a series of faults. To understand it better
what I try to do? I tried; I made a geometric model of it which looks like this. And here you
can better understand what are the different geometries of the layers, which layer moved
where, which layer is continued to where and so on.

24
(Refer Slide Time: 12:31)

Now talking about the large scale, this is a seismic reflection image of a subduction plate, a
plate which is subducting under the sea floor. Now looking at it, apparently it looks very
homogeneous with some sort of topography and some other little features. Now creating a
geometric model of this reflection seismic data is a daily routine of a seismologist and a
structural geologist helps in this process significantly. So if someone who is an expert of
constructing geometric models apparently which is look extremely homogeneous and most
likely there is nothing but this person would interpret this structure in this way.

So what you can see, it has a basal decollement and then series of thrusts are imagined from
this basal decollement with the reflection data and some velocity calculations, one can also
find if there are some different lithologies and so on. Again I repeat, this model does not
include any of the material parameters. I had some data and with this data I had to interpret
what has happened there. That is it. This is the geometric model. Can it be applied in other
fields? The answer is yes.

25
(Refer Slide Time: 14:05)

What we see here, this is integration of different sets of data. This is a

computer-generated image. It involves millions and billions of data. This is hydrocarbon
reservoir somewhere in the North Sea. I took it from the internet so dynamic graphics is the
website, you can go and check. What we see here with this geometric model, these red
patches that we see at different areas, these are oil-rich areas.

So once the geometric model comes up properly with the interpretation of different
geophysical, structural and other petrological data it is possible for an oil engineer to design
the wells and then it can actually intrude different parts of this, hydrocarbon reservoir and
extractor. So geometric model is essentially important not only for understanding the
structures but at the same time, after understanding the structures one can also explore simply
by constructing a perfect geometric model.

26
(Refer Slide Time: 15:19)

Let's look at the kinematic models. As I said kinematic models are one step advanced from
the geometric models because after constructing the geometry, the kinematic model includes
the relative displacements, motions of the observation we are making at. Now what we see
here at the top photograph is a very classic structure that we commonly observe in ductile
shear zone. We will learn about it later. This is known as delta structure.

Now looking at it, if we try to construct this geometric model without all these arrows and so
on, this is how it should look like. Now it is possible to look at this structure and with some
other observations that this little ball which is inside, maybe it is rotating this way, and
therefore you have some sort of tail-like features at the both ends. You can also construct this
foliations or little layers outside that concave embayment that also proves that while this little
ball is rotating, it was also dragging the other layers.

Now again this model doesn't consider what is this material of this ball, what is the material
outside, and so on. It simply constructs first the geometric model and then it considers that
what was the relative motion and this is very important as shear sense indicators in structural
geology. There are many other shear sense indicators but this is one of the most important
ones.

27
(Refer Slide Time: 17:06)

Now here is another one. This is microstructure observed under microscope. You can see the
scale here this, this length here is about 500 microns. What we see here, a mineral grain is
broken along this lens and then there are some sense of steps. Now these steps indicate that
one grain has moved past another grain. And just looking at this we can construct that this
grain has moved down relative to this and similarly others. Now this is a classic structure of
structural geology in ductile shear zone as well, in brittle ductile shear zone and this is known
as bookshelf structure. So this is how it happens. So if you have a series of books you tilt the
books then they rotate past each other. And this is how they slip individually. So this is a
kinematic model again.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:05)

28
This is a field photograph and looking at it, I color-coded the two layers with green and
orange and this displacement plane that has happened. So you can quickly, just looking at this
geometric model you can say that this entire block has moved this direction relative to the
other block. So once you interpret this, this you are actually working on a kinematic model.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:37)

Now in large scale as I said, you know in the past lectures the tectonic model, the plate
tectonics is some kind of a kinematic model. Why? Because it doesn't involve the individual
material properties of the plates, what are their different properties and so on. It simply
constructs that how one plate moved relative to other, what was the mutual interaction
between them and so on. So this is how Himalaya is conceived, the development of
Himalaya.

So on the south side you can see, this is south, you have this Indian plate and then here you
have Tibetan plate and then Indian plate moved with time and then we have formed series of
thrust faults and then this is the present day configuration of Himalaya where we have lot of
faults, major faults are known as MCT, MBT, MFT, STD and so on and there is also
certainly a basal decollement which is MHT, Main Himalayan Thrust. Now this is a
kinematic model. It does not involve any sort of forces. It does not involve any sort of
material properties, the dynamics of these plates and so on. But if we have to involve that
then actually we are approaching to develop a dynamic model.

29
(Refer Slide Time: 20:03)

Let us have a look. So this is again the cross-section of Himalaya and what we see here that,
in this side you have India, the southern part, so here you have India and here you have Tibet.
So in-between you had this Tethyan sediments that got squeezed out from series of crusts,
from series of thrusts and we have this present configuration of Himalaya. Now to understand
this entire process how did it happen, one can perform a dynamic model by conducting
sandbox experiment.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:36)

So a sandbox experiment is a very simple experiment which is scaled down from the nature.
So this is a typical sandbox. What it does that, in this space you actually add series of layers
of sands. You add different colors to distinguish the different layers which represent or which
are analogous to the sedimentary layers and then you drag this belt so that these sand bodies,

30
entire sand bodies move from one side to another side and this is a block which is analogous
to the rigid Tibetan plate where the entire Tethyan sediments are hitting and we would like to
see what is happening here.

Now what you see here, that we are involving the materials. We would like to see what is
happening with them. So this is a dynamic model. We are involving some sort of forces as
well. So let us have a look of this movie and see how it works.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:33)

So this alternate yellowish dark blue, then again yellowish green, yellowish and the dark
blue, these are different sand layers representing or analogous to the sediments, sedimentary
layers and you see deformation has already started. The belt started moving from this side.
What we see here with more displacements a series of thrust folds are being formed. So these
type of models not only discuss the dynamics of the processes but it also tells you the
evolution of the process, that how from one setup, one geologic setup you actually achieved a
different geologic setup just by adding some sort of deformation.

31
(Refer time slide: 23:31)

So this is a quick view of this entire experiment. You can see series of thrusts being formed.
They formed at different angles initially and while they rotated they achieved a different
angle. It also achieved some sort of elevation and these are the very basic or key ideas of
mountain building processes and one can observe all these processes using a dynamic model.
(Refer Slide Time: 24:04)

Now if we try to look at to another geological process which is folding and we try to
understand how one fold interferes with another fold in nature, then one can perform the
analogue experiments. So here is an example that we have performed in the laboratory. What
we see in Stage 1, we have prepared one fold, one set of folds here where you can see the
folds are here and these are the hinge lines of the fold marked by the black lines.

32
Now the folds are at an angle and then if I compress it, this is what we have done, then we
see some tiny folds are coming up. And these experiments were performed to understand
whether the new folds are generating are as big as the previous one or they are small of the
previous one or even larger than the previous one and we figured out that no, these are small,
at least these are very small in this case.

But this is a dynamic model. We tried to, why? Because we tried to see, we tried to mimic the
layers of the geological features like the layers when we form folds. These are ductile so we
used some putty or plasticine layers which are ductile in nature. The scales and other things
are also maintained with respect to the geological scales. So this is again a dynamic model.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:32)

Now, one can also do real rock deformation experiments at high pressure and temperature
because most of the deformation processes in nature, that happen at depth and there we have
pressure and temperature. So here is an example. A series of experiments performed by one
of my colleagues OK, in ETH Zurich with his famous Color marble experiments.

So the first image what we see here is an intact, un-deformed color marble. You can see the
grain size is in equilibrium, more or less similar grain size. It has nice triple junctions and so
on. And then OK, sheared this at high pressure and temperature and you can see, if this is the
shear direction, he applied and with evolution of the strain, this is shear strain 1, this is shear
strain 2 and this is shear strain 11, you see first what you observe is that the initial grain size
of Color marble has reduced to a very fine grain size rock.

33
And with time you can also see that here we are trying to develop some sort of directional
layers, okay in the rock and this is exactly what happens in nature and in experiments you can
produce that with real rocks. So this is a dynamic model.
(Refer Slide Time: 26:59)

And based on that, with the stress-strain curve one can actually understand that at which stage
of this deformation what kind of features you see in your microstructure.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:10)

So we are at the end of this lecture so some review comments from this introduction section
that we had in this lecture and the previous lecture. So structural geology is highly inter-
disciplinary subject as you have understood and it was initially little bit of descriptive subject
but now it is very much quantitative science.

34
The key skill of a structural geologist is essentially how you observe a particular feature in a
piece of rock, or in an outcrop and then based on your observation you try to answer these
questions why, how and when. One of the most important conclusions that we would like to
make from this introductory lecture that it is the rock that contains the information. You have
to go and see the rock in the field. So therefore field geology is very important for structural
geologists. The scale is one of the very important parameter to study structural geology.

Whatever interpretation you do from a structure, it is important that you remember what is
the scale. Experiments, numerical models etc have their own limitations but they are
excellent to mimic the complexity of the nature and they also complement each other.
Whatever interpretation you do out of your experiments or numerical models, it is important
that you validate them with the nature. So I conclude this lecture.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:41)

And in the next lecture we will start a new topic that what are the different structural
elements that we measured lines, planes and their mutual relationships. Thank you and stay
tuned.

35
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture 3
Structural Elements and Measurements

Hello everyone. Welcome back again to this online structural geology course. We are in our third
lecture and today we’ll learn about structural elements and measurements.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:33)

So the topics that we will cover in this lecture are listed here. We will first very briefly, okay,
very basic ideas on geological contacts and their applications in structural geology and from that
we will switch to attitudes of planar, linear and some angular features that we see in deformed
rocks and then we will ask the questions. What to measure and most importantly why? Then we
will go to the theory of structural measurements what the principles behind all sorts of structural
measurements and then we learn how to measure all these linear and planar features together
with how to plot them in the map.

36
(Refer Slide Time: 2:43)

It is very important that in the field what we see. Exposed rocks and you must have understood
so far that these rocks, the way they appear to us are extremely puzzling and this is mostly
because the exposures that we see these are not always continuous. You see some parts here,
some parts there and so on. At the same time it is also difficult to access all these features
because they are not preserved everywhere and these are some sort of characteristics of the field
geology which we cannot avoid.

For large structures to interpret how it is, what is the disposition and how to interpret the large
structures, it is extremely challenging. There is also one point that I would like to mention here
that most of the geological observations that we make in the field, particularly in the large scales
are generally two dimensional. Though we see in the field a few meters elevations or few
kilometers elevation when we work on active orogenesis but otherwise when we think of the
long or large horizontal scale then the third dimension does not matter.

However, it is important that we also interpret the third dimension unless we are working in our
2D models. But third dimension geometry is important because most of the geological
deformations do happen in the 3 dimensions and to understand all these deformation features, we
have to identify and mark the various geometric elements that we see in rocks and these elements
we can broadly classify in 2 different categories. One is planar and another is linear.

37
To give examples of planar features or planar elements in deformed rocks you can consider
bedding elements, you can consider foliations, schistosity, cleavage, etc and then on the other
side the linear features are mostly intersection of 2 planes or we call intersection lineations, fold
axes, mineral lineation, paleocurrent directions, etc.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:34)

Now before we go to all these structural elements, planar and linear structural elements it is
important we understand their disposition in the space and time and there it is very important that
you always remember the geological timescale and the stratigraphy of the region you are
working with. So this is important because the establishment of the lithological and stratigraphic
sequence is a pre-requisite in any large scale structural interpretation and also to unravel the
history of the area. It is also important to remember that any structural information if you do not
provide that what is the age, what is the lithological consequences of this does not make any
sense to anyone.

38
(Refer Slide Time: 04:34)

So their age, their lithology, their stratigraphy with respect to overall geological timescale is
essentially important and these become somehow more complex when we see different kind of
stratigraphic contacts. We will see it later what are the different kinds of stratigraphic contacts
are but it is important that there are some sort of normal stratigraphic contacts. That means that
we have older layers at the bottom and slowly you will stack up with the new layers. So if we see
this then there is no problem. However in the field commonly also observe an inverted sequence
or inverted stratigraphy that means we have younger layer at the bottom and older layer at the
top.

Sometimes some layers are missing that means either they are eroded later or after the deposition
or there was no sedimentation at that particular time. So if something is missing then we assign it
unconformity. There are different types of unconformities we are not going into that part. You
must have learnt it in your sedimentrology or stratigraphy lectures but if there is unconformity
this is something that we need to consider. There is also a possibility that you see repetition of
the stratigraphic sequence. That means same lithology you encounter when you walk along your
field and all these have very important structural implications and tectonic implications in
interpretation of geological structures.

39
(Refer Slide Time: 05:57)

So in nutshell if I try to summarize what we discussed so far that why stratigraphic sequences are
important. The first thing to remember is that if it is possible, if it is there try to first figure out
what is your primary bedding plane or sedimentary bedding plane. Most of the structurally
deform rocks are metamorphic rocks as well and it produces many different other layers. We will
learn about it later but it is important that you learn or you are skilled to distinguish between
primary layers and secondary layers and once you identify the primary layers, then it is important
that you try to understand what is the direction.

Any deformation structure that we see in the field are essentially younger than the host rocks.
That something that you need to remember and it is obvious and if you see that we discuss in the
previous slide any sorts of unconformity in the stratigraphy, inverted stratigraphy, repetition of
stratigraphic sequence, etc all these things if you encounter in the field they suggests
immediately that there must be either a single or multiple events of structural deformation or
tectonic phenomena.

40
(Refer Slide Time: 07:26)

So with this we move to the next part of this lecture that what to measure in the field. Now we
know that when we deposit rocks, when the sedimentary layers get deposited then they generally
deposit in horizontal manner. So all layers initially are horizontal, they get lithified, they also
stay horizontal but if you have visited any deformed terrain you must have seen that these things
do not remain horizontal. So if they do not remain horizontal that means there must be some sort
of deformation in large or small scale. So in this image we see that these layers are essentially
horizontal and if these are horizontal there is no problem. These rocks are probably not deformed
or even if they are deformed they remained as they are.

41
(Refer Slide Time: 08:17)

However, you must have seen in the field or if you go to a deformed terrain for example
Himalaya, you must have seen that most beds are tilted towards the north side in the Himalaya.
For example, this photograph here. Here at the beds are not horizontal compared to the previous
image so these beds are tilted. How to represent fact, how to interpret it that is the challenge that
is the question? We have to measure the orientation of these tilted bedding plants. In the second
image we see that a layer is folded. In one side of this fold the orientation at least in this section
is like this and in another side is different than the other side of this fold.

Now the question is can we measure it and can you represent. It is also important to understand
that when these two planes with orientations like this and with orientation like this when they
meet, they produce a line. Two planes they intersect to produce a line and this line also should
have some sort of orientations and these orientations will learn later is known as fold axis and
these we can plot as well. All these kinds of geometric dispositions of deformed rocks allow us
to measure and plot them differently in the map and this is what we are going to learn now.

42
(Refer Slide Time: 09:49)

So the basics are that as I said that there could be points, there could be lines and there could be
plains and there are many ways you can construct a point line and planes but in a nutshell if I
have 3 planes they intersect, you can generate a point if I have 2 planes they intersect, you
generate a line and then 2 intersecting or 2 parallel lines can produce a plane. So, given this
background with us and given the idea that most of the geological maps that we produce are in 2
dimensions. We produce them in the piece of paper. It is important to understand or to plot them
such a way that these 3 dimensional features or 3 dimensional measurements are represented in
the map in 2 dimensions and this is exactly what we are going to learn now.

43
(Refer Slide Time: 10:50)

What we measured in the field or the basics of the measurements are considered in general on
two planes. One is your horizontal plane, which is represented on the left side and we call it
azimuth. Anything that you measure with respect to the North in degrees on horizontal plane, we
call it azimuth. So clearly you have in terms of degrees 360 divisions from 0 to 360. At 90
degrees you have East, at 180 degrees we have South, at 270 degrees we have West and there are
many in between. Apart from the measurement on the horizontal plane because we will be
talking of the third dimension as well.

So there must be something that you are measuring away from this horizontal plane and this is
known as measurement of inclinations. Inclinations measures the angle of tilt or slope at which
the plane or line is oriented from the horizontal plane. So clearly in horizontal plane, you
measure 360 degrees, but when you measure in vertical it is generally 0 degree to 90 degree and
then 90 degree to 0 degree again, but because this is mostly symmetric so we cover from 0
degree to 90 degree.

44
(Refer Slide Time: 12:17)

So based on this background the structural geologists have their own vocabulary and these
vocabularies considered all these terms. For example, trend, strike, plunge, pitch, back bearing,
front bearing, dip angle and so on. Now what are these and how to present them in the map, how
to measure them in the field is something that we need to learn.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:46)

45
So first how to measure the orientation of planes or how to represent the orientation of a plane.
What we see in this image that this is an inclined plane, this light brown plate that you see and if
you imagine a horizontal plane is intersecting this inclined plane then intersection of this inclined
plane and the horizontal plane would produce a line. Now this line is lying on the horizontal
plane and the orientation of this line with respect to the north gives you the azimuth of the strike
or the strike of this inclined plane. We will have the definition in the next slide

So if I have an inclined plane, I know what is the strike of this plane now and the inclination or
the slope of this plane is known as dip angle. Pictorially you can understand that this is the same
plane. I just rotated it and this angle that it makes with the horizontal plane is the dip angle and
the direction this plane slopes is the dip direction. Now, there are some techniques of measuring
it. Generally structural geologists do follow right hand rules. We learn about it later but there are
many other ways people do measure dip strike and dip directions. I hope the concepts are clear.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:25)

Let us have the definitions. I read what is strike. Strike is direction of the line of intersection
between an inclined plane and a horizontal plane. You can also define it. The strike is the
compass direction of the horizontal line lying in an inclined plane. If you have the concepts clear
from the previous slide, you can understand what these two statements mean. Dip angle is
inclination of a plane below the horizontal. It essentially ranges from 0 to 90 degrees. You can
also define it that the dip is the large angle made by the plane with the horizontal.

46
Dip direction is the compass direction towards which the plane slopes and if you do not measure
your dip angle perpendicular to the strike line, so there is many more there are many
possibilities. These are all apparent dip angles and the angles along which you are measuring the
direction is your apparent dip direction.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:28)

Let us have a look how to measure the linear features. So I have the same plane here and in this
plane, I have a series of linear features as you can see. Now our aim is to measure the orientation
or attitude of these linear features. Now, there are 3 terms associated with these linear features
measurements. One is trend, one is plunge and another is pitch. Let us have the principles behind
the measurements.

47
(Refer time slide: 16:11)

For example, if I take this plane as an inclined plane and I have a series of lines here then what is
trend? So if I project this line on the horizontal plane, then this back of this pointer is indicating a
direction on the horizontal plane. Now if this is my North, then the angle it makes with the, along
the horizontal plane, this is my trend. The plunge is the angle I have to rotate this line to project
it on the horizontal plane. And the pitch is if this is the line then if I measure it on the plane the
angle directs the pitch or wreck.

So if I try to define it in words, it goes like this. Trend is the direction or azimuth of a vertical
plane containing the line of interest. The trend points the direction of the line it plunges. The
plunge is the inclination of a line below the horizontal and pitch is the angle measured on a plane
of a specified orientation between one line and the horizontal line. This horizontal line is
essentially the strike. Now from this image we can also realize that trend is azimuth that is you
measure on the horizontal plane, plunge is inclination that you measure on the vertical plane and
pitch or rake you measure on the plane itself, inclined plane itself you measure the pitch or rake.
We learn more about it later.

48
(Refer Slide Time: 18:08)

Now what is the instrument that you can measure all these attitudes in the field? So the common
weapon or common tool that structural geologists do use are compasses. There are different
types of compasses available but in this course, we will mostly look at very commonly used
compass that is Brunton compass. So you have the image here and a Brunton Compass when it is
a packed or kept in its original shape.

(Refer time slide: 18:23)

It looks like this. It weighs about 50 to 100 grams or something like that and you can open this
compass. So once you open then you open this lead. So this part is the lead of the compass then

49
you have the fundamental part the important component the dial and then you have one thing that
is called sighter. Now as you can see you can rotate it all along from 0 to 180 degrees same here
and then you can make everything straight as it looks like here. So we use differently, different
orientations of this compass to measure different things and here in this slide you have the
different components written here. Now what is important that this is the lead, this is the main
dial and this is the sighting arm.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:30)

Now, let us have a look what we have inside this dial because this is most important part that you
need to know. So in this dial we have one needle and this is a magnetic needle. One end always
points towards the North and another end towards the South does not matter how you orient or
how you keep it. Of course you have to keep it in the horizontal plane. Now how to make sure
that you are keeping your compass along a horizontal plane. To do that we have one circular, if
you look at the slide, we call it bull’s eye level. So keeping this little bubble inside the circle
makes sure that your compass is horizontal.

So measurement of azimuth that is all measurements on the horizontal surface is assured by

keeping this bubble in the center, bull’s eye bubble. Now how to make sure that your compass is
vertical. To do that you have another level inside we call it long level, which is you can see it is
this one or in the slide it is this one. You can actually rotate this bubble using an arm or lever at

50
the back. So if I rotate this arm as you can see here that this lever rotates and this lever is known
as clinometer and you can see that this clinometer is graded and also the dial at the back.

So you have to rotate such a way that these long levers, bubble stay at the middle and that makes
sure that your compass is held in particle manner. So holding it horizontal or vertical gives you
the idea or gives you the measurements in horizontal along horizontal planes and along vertical
planes respectively. There are some other features like you have when you keep it horizontal this
needle generally swings. So to make quick measurements, you have a little pin here, with this pin
you can freeze this needle when it oscillates extremely less.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:48)

So there are some different ways of measuring dip, strike, trend and plunge in the field but the
principles are always same. Different schools have different ways of measuring it. Make sure
that while you measure your dip and strike or trend or plunge or pitch you do it so that you do
not damage or you do not break the rocks and rock surfaces. That is the very important message I
would like to give you. Do not mark also unnecessarily on the rock surface like your permanent
marker pens and so on.

I will upload a separate video on how to measure a dip and strike. There are also many YouTube
videos You just search in YouTube and you can find how to measure dip and strike and while

51
you are doing this it you also make sure that the instructor there is showing you the right hand
rule of dip and strike measurement. Here are the instructions. I am not going into the details of it
because I will upload a separate video that you will click and see it later but few things you have
to make sure that your compass is essentially horizontal when you are making strike.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:19)

When you are measuring dip, it is also important to make sure that here in this lead your, in this
long lead your bubble is right at the middle of this lead. Otherwise, you would not get the actual
a true dip okay?

52
(Refer Slide Time: 23:38)

Now how to note dip and strike in your field book, that means you measured in the field fine, but
you have to note it so that you can reproduce it in the map or later use it for analyzing data
because in the field you measure 100, 200 and so on dip and strike data. Interestingly there are
many styles structural geologists used to note dip and strike and sometimes they are confusing.

So I am giving you what are the general ways people try to write. The usual convention that
people follow, first you write strike, then you write dip angle and then you write dip direction but
if you follow this right hand rule of measuring strike, then you do not have to mention dip
direction. You just have to add 90 degrees with your strike and then you get your dip direction.

There is also very important convention that you have to remember when you write strike or
anything you are measuring on the horizontal plane. That means any azimuth you have to write
using three digits. If your strike is 78 degrees just do not write 78 write 078. It must be in three
digits. Now how to note it? So, what example I have given here that if you have a plane with a
strike 120 degrees that you measured following the right-hand rule and dip angle is 45 degrees
that means the strike line is 120 degree and the plane is dipping 45 degrees. So there are 3 ways
you can measure. You can note it.

First one is just 120 slash 45. This is if you use your right-hand rule. You can also write 120
degree 45 and then an arrow 210 that is the direction it is sloping. That means it is sloping
towards southwest so you can also write it 120-degree slash 45 southwest. So, a 3-digit slash 2-

53
digit format. Now this is how you note in the field notebook your dip and strike and dip direction
data, but how to plot them in the map or how to read them in the map. If you are looking at a
structural geology map or a structural map you will see many symbols.

Now, you have to understand what is what. If you have a normal dipping bed with the same
orientation 120-degree 45 degree, then the symbol is something like that. You have a longer line
that it dictates or that indicates the strike line. So, it is generally drawn or it is generally
mentioned with respect to the north of the map and then perpendicular to this giving the direction
it gives you the value of the dip and dip angle and also the dip direction. If the bed is overturned
then the symbol is like this. If the bed is horizontal then the symbol is like this and if the bed is
vertical then it is given like this where the strike is given with a longer line.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:16)

So there the plunge you also measure in a similar way. I'm sorry. It is not the similar way in a
different way, but it is done with the same compass and it is done differently but the technique or
measurement principles is always same. How you do it? It is written here but as I said I will
upload a separate video on the measurement of trend plunge and pitch of a linear feature in the
rock surface.

54
(Refer Slide Time: 27:42)

Okay so we will now look at how to note or write in your notebook trend and plunge and also we
will see how we should plot this trend and plunge in the map. Now interestingly, unlike dip and
strike where geologists do right dip and strike in different ways but for trend and plunge there is
more or less a very unique style and the unique style is first we write plunge and then we write
trend and the same rule applies here. That means if you have to write strike, then you have to
always write in 3 digits. That means if your trend direction is 78 degrees you do not write it as
just 78 you write it as 078.

This is simply because trend is measured on the horizontal plane, this is azimuth so it is better
you add you write this in three digits and if we assume a linear element that has a trend of 080
degrees and it's plunging 56 degrees. That means it plunges 56 degrees towards 080 degrees.
Then you can write it 2 different ways in your notebook after measurement in the field 56 slash
080 or 56 indicating an arrow towards 080. Now both of them have more or less similar
meaning.

The first digit first 2 digits, this indicates your plunge value and then next 3 digits indicate your
trend value. Now in the map again it is the trend because it is measured on a horizontal plane. So
given the north of this map is in this direction. Then you draw a line and then this line would
indicate your trend and if the trend is, if the plunging is happening on 56 degrees then you
actually mark this 80 degree towards this side and then you mark the 56 degrees.

55
I repeat that you draw a line and then the plunge if it is directing towards 80 degrees, then you
mark an arrow towards that side not in this side but in this side because this is the direction your
plane is sloping or plunging or your not plane sorry, your line is sloping or plunging and it is 56
degrees. So this is how you write. If it was say, for example 0 degrees is your trend and 40
degrees your plunge. Then with respect to this is your north then you would probably would
make it like this. So that indicates 0 degree and 40 degrees plunge. So you write it like this.

(Refer Slide Time: 30:43)

Once you have all these data measured here, I show you a very classic example of how to plot
this data and represent them in the field. So on the left side, you have a Google Earth image
showing the two classics syncforms that we see and of course when antiform in between in
Singhbhum area. So these 2 syncforms this one and this one around dolma volcanic you have
classic Singhbhum shares in here the river Subarnarekha is flowing in between and the entire
range is known as Chaibasa formation.

You have this classic place Ghatshila located somewhere here. Now once we see this and you
would like to represent it structurally, the one of the classical maps I like of this region is made
in 1962 by Sarkar and this is how it is. You can download this paper and look at this map but in
general our students also do plain paper mapping where you don't have any help of the
topography.

56
(Refer time slide: 31:45)

So this is one of the maps our students produced in the field and all symbols here are different
measurements of planar and linear data and this is how a map can be produced. So with this note
I conclude this lecture.

(Refer slide time: 32:07)

In the next lecture we will learn how to analyze all these structural data. You cannot plot all your
data in the map and even if you can plot it is important that you summarize them, you interpret
your structural data and to do that we use a technique called stereographic projection. That will
be the topic of the next lecture. Thank you for now and see you in the next lecture. Bye.

57
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture 3
How to measure strike-dip-pitch/rake plunge

Hello everyone, welcome once again to NPTEL course on structural geology. I am Manab
Mukherjee, one of the teaching assistants of this course and along with the help of one of my co-
teaching assistants Saqib Abdullah, in this video demonstration, we will deal with how to
measure strike, dip, pitch, plunge of a planar and linear features in deformed rock. Now we will
straight get started.
(Refer Slide Time: 00:44)

Let us consider this white board as a planar structural feature is a deformed rock. Now we will
measure the attitude of strike and deep of this planar feature. We will follow the convention of
right-hand rule. The convention of right-hand rule goes in this way. We will place our hand over
the plane and our index finger will point down dip direction and our thumb will point to a certain
direction.

58
(Refer Slide Time: 01:10)

Now to measure the strike we place this basal edge of this compass against the plane we want to
measure.

(Refer time slide: 1:22)

Once we do this, we have to make sure that the compass is in horizontal position.

59
(Refer time slide: 1:32)

The horizontality of the compass is ensured when we know that the bubble in the circular level is
in the centre which is now the case. In order to note the reading, it has to be carefully kept in
mind that the, we would take the reading of the northern end of the magnetic needle to which it is
pointing in the 360-degree graduated scale. When the pointed arm is pointing towards the
direction towards which our thumb was pointing.

(Refer time slide: 2:00)

60
So, when everything is ready bubble is in centre, the northern end of the magnetic needle reads
220 degree when the pointed arm is pointing towards the direction in which the thumb was
pointing. So, the strike in this present case is 220 degree.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:17)

Now we draw the strike line along the basal edge of this compass so the position we were
holding. So, this comes out to be our strike line and this end of the strike line is the 220 degree
end so we mark this as the 220 degree end.

(Refer time slide: 2:52)

61
Now, we place the compass perpendicular to the previous position so that this plane is
perpendicular to this line. When we ensure this plane is perpendicular to this line this position is
sure, the pointed arm will point towards the down dip direction of this bed. Then we will adjust
the back lever of the compass so that the bubble in the elongated level comes in the centre.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:24)

When the bubble in the elongated level have come in the centre, the dip value is the value with
which the 0 mark in the vernier coincides with the 180-degree graduated scale and in our case
the dip is 55 degrees.

62
(Refer Slide time: 03:41)

So now put this edge to measure the dip direction against this plane and in the strike line. So the
edge is placed against the strike line and now we measure the dip direction. As we know from
right hand rule the dip direction would be 220 plus 90 so 310 degrees. But we still would
confirm it. So, in order to confirm it, the compass position is this and now we will make it
horizontal.

(Refer Slide time: 04:14)

63
Once we have achieved the horizontal position in the compass, we would take the note of the
northern end of the magnetic needle. So, we now see the circular bubble in the circular level is in
the centre and our pointed arm is pointing towards the down dip direction and the northern end
of the magnetic needle is pointing towards 310 degree in the 360-degree graduated scale. So, the
dip direction of this planar feature is 310 degrees.

(Refer Slide Time: 04:57)

Now we will measure the pitch of the lineation. Consider this line on the white board as linear
elements in the deformed rock. The pitch is basically the acute angle of the lineations with the
strike line on the plane containing the lineation itself. So, this is our acute angle in the plane
containing the lineation, of the lineation with the strike line. Now in order to measure this acute
angle we will help use of a field tool called a diagonal scale which almost same as a conventional
protractor. The pointed arrow in the diagonal scale corresponds to the zero mark in the
protractor.

We will place this pointed arrow in the intersection of the strike line and the lineation and the
edge of the diagonal scale will be parallel to the strike line. So, once we obtain this position, we
will compute the value of pitch; the acute angle, which in our case is 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 55, 56
degree from the 220-degree end of the strike. It is always worthwhile to note from which end of
the strike line we are measuring the pitch.

64
(Refer Slide Time: 06:18)

Now we will measure the plunge direction or trend of the lineation. In order to measure it the
pointed arm will remain parallel to the lineation and we will hold the compass in this way and
with the see-through arm we will make sure that the pointed arm is parallel to the lineation. Now,
from this position we will rotate the Brunton compass in a horizontal position making sure the
pointed arm is parallel to the lineation and then the bubble in circular level should come in the
centre.

(Refer Slide Time: 06: 59)

65
Once we achieve this position, we take the reading which is the value with which the northern
end of the magnetic needle points in the 360-degree graduated scale. In our case the value comes
out to be around 270 degrees.

(Refer time slide: 7:15)

When we measure the plunge of a lineation, we will have to place the compass vertically. So, we
will place this edge of the compass along the lineation and this edge will be elevated at a certain
height so that the compass remains in the vertical plane. The pointed arm will point towards the
down plunging direction of the lineation.

66
(Refer Slide Time: 07: 50)

So, once we achieve this position, we will rotate the back lever so that the bubble in the
elongated level comes in the centre.

(Refer time slide: 7:52)

When the bubble in the elongated level will come in the centre we will note the value of plunge
in the 180-degree graduated scale to which the zero mark of the vernier will coincide and in our
case the amount of plunge is 44 degree. So, thank you all for watching this video and please stay
tuned for further videos.

67
 Structural Geology
Prof. Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences, IIT Kanpur
Lecture No 04
Stereographic Projection in Structural Geology

Hello and welcome, everyone. We are in the fourth lecture of this online structural geology
course and today’s topic is stereographic projection and its application in structural geology.

(Refer time slide: 0:34)

So what we will cover today is mostly the basic concepts and construction of stereographic
projection. The different components of stereonet and finally will see how to plot structural data
on stereonet.

68
(Refer time slide: 0:44)

Now, before we go to the actual topic of stereographic projection let us have some ideas that
what is a projection? Now imagine a globe that we have all seen and you also have seen the map,
the world map, which we see in our computer screen or a piece of paper, which is flat and what
we see in a sphere is not flat.

Now how this spherical map is converted to this map is a question. And if you try to do that, that
means, say, if you break this globe and then try to make a rectangular area interestingly, you
cannot do it. If you have to fit it, you have to stretch some areas you have to deform some areas
of this globe and then only you can make this flat map.

Now the stretching or deformation of this globe or pieces of this globe is the concept of
projection and the stretching or deformation of the pieces why you just don't do it randomly, you
do it using some mathematical relations, mathematical formulations and therefore you achieve
the projection of the map on a flat surface from a globe.

69
(Refer time slide: 2:14)

Now there are many ways one can project the map. So the different ways are essentially a
function of that what is your need of projecting the map so based on that, people do project the
map in different ways.

(Refer time slide: 2:32)

Now, this is not only valid for map, you actually can project anything in any different ways. So
this illustration that we see these are human faces is one human face and you can see that based
on the different grids that we see the face has been projected differently in this area.

70
So this is one of the classic projections that I took from a book and it dates back of 1921. What is
important that I said already that, any projection or any projection operation involves extremely
complex mathematics. So you can do with them whatever you want to, as long as each point on
the map or on the object you are projecting to are mathematically defined.

(Refer time slide: 3:23)

So there are many ways of projections. But in structural geology, there are mostly four different
ways we project maps. One is conformal, one is equal area one is equidistant and another is
equal angle. Now all these four are somehow related to each other. For example, in conformal
projection, it preserves the same skill in every direction locally, thus it maintains the correct
shape and the features. On the other hand, the equidistant projection depicts the correct distance
between a point at the center of the projection and points in any direction away from the center.

So conformal mapping keeps the shape and equidistant projection keeps the distance between
two objects. Equal area and equal angle, equal area map you preserve the area, but it distorts the
shape and in equal angle you keep all the angular relationships equal to the projected map. Now
it is important to understand here that you cannot have all of the above or all of this conformal
mapping, equal area mapping, equidistant mapping and equal angle mapping in a single map
because, though they are somehow related, but you cannot project them together.

71
(Refer time slide: 4:51)

So in structural geology we use stereographic projections mostly to plot or display orientation

data. We have learnt about different orientation data about planar features, about linear features
and so on. What is most important that you can collect data from the field and then you can
gather in a single place and plot them in the stereonet. So, in addition to that, a stereonet can also
used to do complex calculations such as rotations, calculating lines of intersections etc, we learn
all of these.

So in general, what do you see in stereonet, what we generally see it is essentially looks like the
globe in plane and it has some grids. There are some vertical grids, and there some horizontal
grids, the vertical grids are known as great circles and it is very analogous to what we call
longitude, running from one pole to another pole. And then there are some small circles that runs
that run from east to west of this circle. So in this image, the great circles are marked by blue
color and small circles are marked by orange color.

72
(Refer time slide: 6:14)

Now, as I said that there are many different projection styles, there are many different
possibilities. So in structural geology there are two different types of stereonets that we use. One
is equal area, and another is equal angle. The equal area map is also known as Schmidt Lambert,
Net and equal angle Projection is also known as Wolf Projection or the stereonet is also known
as Wolf Net. The advantage of equal area projection is that it minimizes the area distortion as it
defines, so it better analyzes the data accuracy and it is also easier for data contouring.

On the other hand, the equal angular, Wolf Net it does an excellent Kinematic analysis, it does a
good job in analyzing the angular relationships, and therefore it is suitable for strain analysis. In
this lecture and in most of the structural geology operations, at least in basic levels, people use
mostly equal area net. So in this lecture will also use the equal area net unless we state otherwise
in some places.

73
(Refer time slide: 7:23)

Okay, let us go to the concept of the stereographic projection. A stereographic projection

generally, as we have seen it is a circular area, but what is this circle? Now this circle is achieved
by inserting a horizontal plane inside the sphere. As you can see here on the left side you have a
sphere. And if I insert this green horizontal plane through the equator of this sphere, then it
creates a circle in the middle and this is your stereonet or projection plane.

The circle is also known as primitive circle. As you can see here, here are, these are your great
circles on different sides and these are your small circles running from west to east. So we will
see now that how using this concept of stereographic projection; what we have learnt in our last
lecture that we will plot a line, we will plot a plane and we will also learn how to plot the normal
of a plane in the stereonet.

74
(Refer time slide: 8:51)

Let us look how to plot a line. Now, the fundamentals of plotting a line in the stereonet is you
have a line which is inclined and you have to pass this line through the center of this sphere and
also through the center of this primitive circle or projection plane. If you do that, then the line
would intersect the surface of the sphere two times, one at the upper hemisphere, which is the
point A here and one at the lower hemisphere, which is point B here. Now this is only possible if
the line is inclined. If the line is horizontal, then it would probably lie on the equatorial plane.
But that is on, that is not the case we are discussing here.

(Refer time slide: 9:42)

75
So, because we will be projecting on the lower hemisphere, we call it lower hemisphere
projection. So, we will be concerned or we will be concerning with only the point B. So, this
point B, if we consider which is actually the line, this would also intersect at a middle point of
this projection plane or the primitive circle.

(Refer time slide: 10:08)

Now to project this line on this primitive circle, the task is to draw a line connecting the zenith of
the sphere, which is the point C here and the point P, that is the intersection point between the
line we are concerned with and the sphere. Now, while we do that when we connect this line
from B to C it also passes through the projection plane and we get a point here, which is D.

76
(Refer time slide: 10:46)

Now this point D is actually your projection of the line that we have seen before. So if I now
project this circle in plane, then the point D would appear somewhere here and this is the
projection of this inclined line on the stereonet.

(Refer time slide: 11:03)

Let us have a look how to project a plane on the stereonet, or what is the basic of projecting a
plane on the stereonet. It is very similar the way we projected the line, but because it is a plane,
so it involves a little complexity. But first, let us define the plane. In this diagram what we see,

77
we have this blue sphere. The zenith is there. Then this is your equatorial plane and we have a
plane which is orange in color here and inclined. And also we have a green horizontal plane.

Now this green horizontal plane and this yellow and the orange sloping plain would intersect
along the line, and from the definition we learnt on the last lecture, this line is your strike line
and the orientation of this line with respect to magnetic north is your strike of this sloping orange
plane. The angle it makes with the horizontal on particle plane is the dip angle, in this case, this
is Alpha. Now this plane is inserted such a way through this circle that it passes through the
center of the sphere.

(Refer time slide: 12:25)

Again, we are concerned with the lower hemisphere, so I sort of made the top part little
transparent to get better focus on the lower hemisphere and what we see here that when this
plane is passed through the center of this sphere intersects the projection plane or the primitive
circle along the line A and B. Okay, now, this line is very important because this is your strike
line.

78
(Refer time slide: 13:00)

We can also figure out that the intersection of this sphere and this plane also makes an
intersection plane, which is highlighted by orange color here and this is the intersection plane
between the dipping plane and the sphere. So the challenge or the task is to project this
intersection plane in the projection plane. And you can clearly visualize that this sort of semi
circle is the actual plane we were concerned with. So we have to project it on the projection
plane.

(Refer time slide: 13:42)

79
Now to do that, as we have done with the line, we will draw a series of lines from the edge of
this intersection plane and the sphere to the zenith. So all these violet lines, if we can connect
continuously, it would produce some sort of a cone and this cone, individual lines of this cone
would also intersect on this projection plane. Now it is possible that you can connect all the
points starting from A to B by a curved line. Now, this curved line is actually the projection of
the dipping plane on the projection plane.

(Refer time slide: 14:50)

So if we now see the projection plane, only then it appears something like this. So this A and B,
these are the two points and this blue line actually, these are different points that you have drawn
which at the intersection lines between this plane at the lower hemisphere and connecting it to
the zenith of the sphere and we have connected this points through a curve and this curve is
actually the projection plane that represents the dipping plane on the stereonet and the dip angle
is this one. Now how to read it or how to interpret all these types of features differently we will
learn it later.

80
(Refer time slide: 15:42)

So to visualize this in a different way that whether we are actually projected our plane to the
stereonet, here is a different illustration. Now what do we see here? This is the sloping plane that
we are concerned with. This sloping plane passed through the center of the sphere. Now, this is
the half sphere. This is the lower hemisphere. So, this line, this intersection line between the
equatorial plane and this projectable plane is your strike line and this angle here is your dip
angle.

Now, if I make this and see this in plane view, then this is the strike line, this is the projection of
the plane and this angle defines the dip angle of this plane and rest is 90 degree minus your dip
angle or which is in this case, Alpha. Let us have a look how to plot the pole of a plane or what
are the basics or what are the theoretical ideas when we plot the pole of a plane on the stereonet.
So pole of a plane is nothing but the normal line on the plane.

81
(Refer time slide: 17:10)

So, if I have a sloping plane like this, then the normal to the plane is the pole of this plane. Okay?
The challenge is to plot this line on the stereonet given I have the plane on the stereonet.

(Refer time slide: 17:29)

Tt is very similar the way we have plotted the line. But we use somehow different technique
because we do not have the data of the line or the line is not there, we have the plane only. The
normal of a pole of a dipping plane is an imaginary line perpendicular to the dipping plane and as
I said, it can be considered as a linear element.

82
So, projection or projecting the normal or the pole of the dipping plane therefore has a similar
principle of projecting a line. What we see here in this diagram? This is again you can, you may
remember this is the plane we were concerned with and then we have to draw a normal on this
plane. This red line here is the normal to the plane.

Now, because we will be doing lower hemisphere projection, so we will extend this line so that it
passes through the lower hemisphere and intersects the lower hemisphere and here is the point
where it intersects with the lower hemisphere. Now the task is simple, we have the intersection
point at the lower hemisphere then we connect this point to the zenith, it would intersect
somewhere on the projection plane or on the equatorial plane or on the primitive circle. And this
point is the pole of this plane projected on the surface.

(Refer time slide: 19:09)

So this is how it looks like once we are ready with the projection. So the plane is similar plane
that we have projected before, this blue line and now this point A here is the projection of the
plane of the blue line, which is a dipping plane on the stereonet. Now, this is your dip angle, as
we have seen before and this angle from here to here is 90 degree and therefore it is the pole of
this plane, which is a blue line in this diagram.

83
(Refer time slide: 19:45)

Now, I believe the concept is clear. We will try to see how if a data of plane, line or any other
structural measurements are given, then how to plot them in the stereonet. Now, generally in
classes, we show students directly but here because this is an online lecture, it was not possible
to show you one to one or sitting on a desk. So what I try to do, I try to give a series of
illustrations that would at least help you to understand how it is done.

All the illustrations are given very clearly with arrows and other features and what is being done
with all these illustrations, I have given instructions or the steps written on the right side. So
again, the way we understood how the projections are done, or what are the basic concepts of the
projections from line then to plane and then pole of a plane will follow the same sequence and
refers to it. First start with plotting a line in stereonet.

So let us start with a lineation with an attitude 30 310, that means it has a plunge 30 degrees and
trend 310 degrees. To plot this data on the stereonet, you need a stereonet. You can download it
from Internet but be sure that you are downloading on equal area stereonet and if you cannot find
you can write to me or you can ask any of the teaching assistants, they can help you and then
once you downloaded this stereonet you print it, keeping the aspect ratio constant and mount
carefully on a hardboard.

Once you are done, then you have to have a tracing paper to cover entirely the stereonet. So in
this illustration or in the following illustrations this background the white color is your stereonet

84
and it will be referred as stereonet throughout. And this translucent bluish paper with a little
folding on this southeast corner is your tracing paper.

(Refer time slide: 22:20)

So to plot this line, what you have to do first, you have to trace the circle on the stereonet, the
primitive circle on the stereonet and mark the north with an arrow head as it is done here at point
B.

(Refer time slide: 22:34)

85
Now, our linneation trends 310 degree. So you have to find the 310 degree on the primitive
circle. In this case, the 310 degree is point C in this illustration.

(Refer time slide: 22:55)

Now, you have to rotate this tracing paper such a way that this 310 degree trend mark aligns with
either the east or west side of the stereonet along the equatorial plane. Now, once it is done then
you count the plunge angle, which is 30 degree along the equator from the 310 degree mark
which is aligned with the equator and mark the point as D. So in this stereonet, which is at the
bottom, each grid is 10 degrees. So here we count 10 20 30 and we arrive at this point D.

86
(Refer time slide: 23:39)

And then once you are done then you rotate back the tracing paper so that the north mark on it
that you made on the tracing paper at the very beginning aligns to the north of the stereonet and
this would also align simultaneously the 310 degree mark on the tracing paper to the 310 degree
mark of the stereonet. Now, this would also rotate this point D that you have marked in the
previous step.

(Refer time slide: 24:13)

So this is the point D and this point is the plot of the lineation with the altitude 30 degree 310 on
the stereonet.

87
(Refer time slide: 24:23)

Now, let us see, how we can plot a plane on the stereonet. In this case, we have the example of a
dipping plane with the data 060 slash 75 degree southeast. That means its strike is 60 degree. It
dips 75 degree towards southeast direction. Now the initial steps are very similar, that means you
have to mount carefully your stereonet on a hardboard and then you have to find a tracing paper
that covers the entire stereonet and then you place it over the stereonet.

(Refer time slide: 25:00)

Again, you mark or you trace the primitive circle on the tracing paper and you mark the north,
which is here the point B on the tracing paper.

88
(Refer time slide: 25:13)

Now, as the strike is 60 degrees, so in a very similar way you mark the strike 60 degree on the
tracing paper, the way it is done in the previous step and then you this time you do not align this
60 degree towards the east or west, you align this to the north.

(Refer time slide: 25:36)

So you rotate the stereonet such a way that it aligns to the 60 degree, the 60 degree mark to the
north of the stereonet okay. As the strike line is aligned vertical because this is your strike line
and you can see this is aligned vertical, so the dip direction should be on either side of the strike
line.

89
So if I have this my strike line, it can dip either this side or it can dip either this side unless the
bed is not vertical. But in this case, it is not vertical. We know it is dipping 75 degree towards
southeast. So now I have rotated my stereonet and with this arrowhead here, I know that this is
my north. If this is north then this is my south, this would be west and then this would be east.

If this is so and the bed is dipping on the southeast side so it must dip in this direction. So we
have to count therefore from the east or the equatorial intersection here, 75 degree towards the
center of the stereonet. So again, the grids are 10 degrees. So you count 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70
and here you have 75 degrees and you mark this 75 degrees point with a dot.

(Refer time slide: 27:02)

Now this task require requires a little skill but with practice you can do it very easily. What do
you have to do? You have to carefully draw a great circle containing the strike line intersections.
That means your North Pole and South Pole and the 75 degree dot that you have made on the
previous step. These other great circles, which are printed below, would guide you to draw the
great circle.

Please note you cannot draw a straight line. If you draw a straight line, then you will indicate that
your plane is actually vertical but this is not because it is dipping 75 degree towards the southeast
direction. So this is how you carefully draw a great circle containing North Pole, South Pole and
the dip angle 75 degree that you have plotted on the stereonet.

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(Refer time slide: 28:06)

Now your task is to rotate the stereonet back again and align your north mark on the tracing
paper to the north mark of the stereonet, doing so your 60 degree mark on the tracing paper
would also align to the 60 degree mark of the stereonet and the great circle that you have drawn
in the previous step it would appear like this and this is the projection of the dipping plane 60
degree, 75 degree southeast.

(Refer time slide: 28: 40)

So if you take off it from the stereonet it would look like this. You just write the value here.
What is the data of this plot? And you are done by plotting a plane on a stereonet.

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(Refer time slide: 28:54)

Let us have a look how to plot the pole of a stereonet. I remind you, pole of a plane is nothing
but an imaginary line which is normal to the plane. So we will follow the similar process and in
this case, we have the dipping plane with the data 246 degree, 40 degree northwest. That means
the strike is 246 degrees. 40 degrees is the dip angle and it is dipping towards Northwest. We
will follow the similar procedure, that means we will, mount the stereonet on the hardboard. We
find the tracing paper and cover the interested unit with the tracing paper.

(Refer time slide: 29:41)

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Next stage is to trace the primitive circle on the tracing paper and mark the north on the tracing
paper which is point B in this illustration.

(Refer time slide: 29:55)

Now our Strike line is 246 degrees. So we have to mark 246 degree on this primitive circle based
on the data which we have at the stereonet. So in this case, this is your 246 degree marks that is
point C here and this is how you mark it. Now we will follow very similar process.

(Refer time slide: 30:22)

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Now, this 246 degree mark we will rotate it such a way that it aligns with the North of the
stereonet. Now, once it is done, we will follow the same practice. This is the north, so this must
be the south, this must be west and this must be east. This is based on the orientation of the
tracing paper because north is always marked. And what do you see that the dipping plane is
dipping 40 degrees towards northwest. So in this case, it must be on this side. So again we can
count 40 degrees, which is the dip angle.

So 10, 20, 30, 40 and we get our dip angle here in the stereonet. But that is not the end, because
we have to plot the pole. Pole is 90 degrees added from the dip point towards the center of the
primitive circle. So we further proceed counting 90 degrees from this point. So 10, 20, 30, 40,
60, 70, 80 and we come to 90. Did I make a mistake? 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90. No, it is
right. So this must pass to the center of this primitive circle and this point, E you can mark by a
dot.

(Refer time slide: 32:02)

So again you have to rotate it back so that this 246 degree marks comes back to 246 60 degrees
and also the north that you marked on the tracing paper aligns to the north of the stereonet. In
this case, what we see this point E that we have marked in the previous slide is actually the pole
of this dipping plane 246 degrees 40 degrees northwest and if you would see that this blue dotted
great circle is actually the projection of the plane 246 degrees 40 degrees northwest.

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(Refer time slide: 32:53)

And if you take it off from the stereonet it would look like this.

(Refer time slide: 32:58)

Okay, so because we are doing it here online and I just have given you some illustrations and
some advices how to plot it but you can do it sitting at your home or at your classroom. So I have
given a series of data, 8 data for plotting the planes, 8 data for plotting the lines and 8 data for
plotting the poles of the planes. You do it manually the way I have advice to you; once you are
done and to see that if you are done it correctly, you can actually download a stereonet software
from this website. The link is given here and you can check whether your manual plottings are

95
correct by plotting them also with the softwares. And if you have any questions, you can always
write me back or you can contact the teaching assistants.

(Refer time slide: 34:00)

If you are interested with this operations and would like to know more then I have given two
references you can download them and read them. These very interesting to read and you would
have a very good idea and you will be a skilled expert of stereonet if you follow these texts and
do the exercises which are given in these two PDF’s.

(Refer time slide: 34:25)

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What we have learnt today in this lecture that the basics of stereonet, different components of the
stereonet and we learnt three very basic plotting- how to plot a line, how to plot a plane and how
to plot the pole or normal of a plane. These are the very basics but on the fundamentals of these
basics we structural geologists do very complex analysis and sometimes simple analysis as well.
So we learn all this analysis in time when we learn about more complex structures, we will deal
with complex data sets but for the time being we are done with the stereonet.

With time with associated lectures, we will include the exercises with stereonets. For example, if
I have two differently dipping planes of a fold, then I can figure out what is the fold axis using a
stereonet. If I have the data of fault planes I can and the lineations and other features, then I can
figure out what is the direction of the fault movement using the stereonet. So this is how this
stereonets are useful for structural geology but we learn it in course of time. So in the next
lecture will focus on the Kineamatic parts of structural geology and we will learn more about
deformation and strain. Thank you very much and bye for now.

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 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture 05 - Concept of Strain and Deformation (Part-1)

Hello everyone! Welcome back again to this online Structural Geology course and today we
are at our lecture number 5.

(Refer slide time: 00:25)

Today we will cover concept of strain and deformation, part-1. The topics we will learn today
are mostly of overview of deformation or what is strain. Then, we will look at this
displacement, velocity, vectors, particle paths etc. We will have some basic understandings
on homogeneous and heterogeneous deformation. We have learned it before but we will learn

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it in a different way today. Then we will look at strain in one dimension and two dimensions.
We will look at strain ellipse and its descriptions and finally we will conclude this lecture
with coaxial or pure shear and non-coaxial or simple shear deformation.

(Refer slide time: 1:07)

So, what is strain or what is deformation? In a very simple way, it is defined as a change in
form or shape. That means I have a form; I have a shape. Due to some applications of
external force this form or shape can change and that change if someone describes
quantitatively is strain or deformation. Now deformation is the transformation from an initial
to a final geometry. So, form or shape change is essentially change of the geometry and this
can happen in various processes.

One is rigid body translation, it can happen via rigid body rotation, it can happen via
distortion and it can happen also with volume change or dilation. Now all these four
individual processes can happen individually or they can club together. For example, you can
have the combination of the rigid body translation and rotation together, you can have rigid
body rotation and distortion together and so on.

As it is an analysis of geometry, quantitative analysis of geometry, it relates the positions of

the points or particles of the body, initial body before and after the deformation history, and
the positions of points before and after deformation can be connected with a victor and this
victor is known as displacement vector. We will learn about it soon.

Very similarly, from one point to another point when it moves and when it just connect one
point to another point by a vector but not necessarily it moves from here to here following a

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vector, it may move in a different way following a different path. Not necessarily along the
victors. So, the actual path that each particle followed during the deformation history is
referred as particle path. So, in the following slides what we are trying to learn that what
would be the displacement vectors and what would be the particle paths for rigid body
translation, rigid body rotation, distortion and volume change.

(Refer slide time: 3:37)

Rigid body translation is defined as it moves every particle in the rock mass in the same
direction and in the same distance. So the displacement field consists of parallel vectors of
equal length. I have two examples here; in the first column we have initial position or initial
form or initial shape of this object. What I have here, I have a coordinate frame and then I
have a circle inscribed and I have a square. To mark the orientation I have made one end of
this square as orange. Now I translated position which is column two is at time 2.

So position 1 was at time 1 which is T1 and position 2 was T2. The translated position is
given by this and the initial position is somehow made transparent. Now what I have done in
the next two columns, the first one is displacement field, second one is particle path. I have
considered, let me show it here these two sides of this form and then due to translation I have
taken some points here. And how these points moved with respect to the reference frame?

So as per the definition of the displacement vector or the displacement field, initial point and
end point if I connect them through a line and at a vector it is displacement field, and particle
path again from the definition it is the path it followed from T1 to T2. What do you see here
as is the definition of rigid body translations, this was your point at T1 and this is a point at

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T2. So each and every case it moved very similarly, similar distance and they are parallel to
each other.

The particle path is also very similar. The second example, it moved along the north, east
direction or it moved towards the first quadrant, so this point has moved to here, this point
has to moved here and this point has moved to here and so on. And if you represent it in the
displacement field it appears this way, so this was the initial point at T1 and this is your end
point at T2. So this is how in rigid body translation the displacement field or displacement
vectors and particles paths look like.

(Refer slide time: 6:28)

Let us have a look how does it work with the rigid body rotation. To do a rotation you need
an axis of rotation. Here I have again cited two examples and in rigid body rotation it
involves the uniform physical rotation of rock volume relative to an external coordinate
system and along a rotation axis. So in the second column which is your rotated position at
T2, time 2, the rotation axis is marked by this red cross. So in the first one it rotated keeping
the origin of this coordinate system and it rotated 45 degree clockwise.

So again if I consider this line and this line of this initial position and I try to see that how this
line has moved to this line and then I connect the individual points, the displacement field
that is point 1 to point 2, point 1 at T1 and point 2 at T2 then it would look like this. So this is
how it shows and you can see that it is showing a clockwise rotation. But particle path not
necessarily it has to follow a straight line because this point moved to this point not
necessarily by a straight line, it actually moved following a curve line.

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Therefore particle path would not be a straight line but a curve line. In a very similar way in
the second illustration you have here your rotation axis at the one end of this object and then
it rotated 45 degree clockwise. So what do we see here? The rotation axis is here and it
moved this way. When we consider the displacement field all are straight lines and as you
can see we are approaching to the rotation axis. The magnitude of these vectors are reducing
towards the center of the rotation axis. On the other hand the particle path essentially would
be curved and they should look like this.

(Refer slide time: 8:59)

Now if we consider that what could be the examples of rigid body translation and rigid body
rotation, I would request you to think the great movement or great travel of our Indian plate
from the southern hemisphere to where it is now. So Indian plate was initially positioned at
70 million years ago, somehow like this in the southern hemisphere. With time it moved this
way here. So it is actually if you considered Indian plate was rigid, one can explains its
movement through rigid body rotation and rigid body translation, it is a very simple example.
But let us have a look what happens when we talk about deformation or distortion and
volume change.

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(Refer slide time: 9:47)

So distortion or strain at constant volume is defined as any non-rigid change in shape without
change in volume is referred to as constant volume strain. The particles in the rocks should
have changed positions relative to each other involving either or both translations or
rotations. There are series of end members, here I have given, the are 2 end members one is
simple shear, another is a pure shear, we will learn about it later. But let us have a look how
the displacement field and particle path look like.

So again the concepts or initial considerations are very similar. This is your initial position or
initial shape or form and then if I make this object like this without changing the volume, that
means it is a constant volume strain, then the particle paths, I am sorry the displacement field
would look like this, that means from this side it move this way, from this side it moved in
the opposite way and this is how the particle path would look like, I am sorry displacement
field would look like.

The particle path would look like in a very similar way. For another type of distortion or
strain in this case what we see that if I compress this shape and extend it towards this side
then it takes this rectangular shape, or the circle becomes an ellipse keeping the volume
constant and in this case the displacement field would look like this, that it is converging
towards the extensional side and particle paths are very similar but they are curved because
this point did not move following a straight line but it moved along a curve line. And
therefore particle paths for this type of formations are little curved.

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(Refer slide time: 12:10)

Then volume deformation is something where you do not keep the volumes constant during
deformation. So you can keep the shape similar but not the volume. So even if the shape of a
rock mass is unchanged it may shrink or expand during deformation. We therefore have to
add volume change that means area change into dimensions for a complete description of the
deformation. So volume change generally refers or also it is referred as dilation. So if the
volume increases then we call it positive dilation or positive volume change and if it is, if the
volume decreases or shrinks then it is negative dilation or negative volume change and
together it is referred as volumetric strain.

And here we have a very similar examples, I have the very similar configurations, two
configurations. In the first case if I look at here the volume expanded, therefore the
displacement fields and the particle paths are outwards. In the second case the volume shrink
and therefore both displacement field and particle path are towards the center of this object.
Now given these concepts of rigid body translation, rigid body rotation, distortion and
volumetric strain, you may think that do we apply it in geological contexts? The answer is
yes. So here we will see few examples that where and how we can apply these concepts of
translation, rotation this to a rigid body and distortion and volume changes.

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(Refer slide time: 13:59)

So here is an example of experiments that I performed in the laboratory. What do you see in
this undeformed sample? This is a polymer (PMMA) polymethyl methacrylate, it has a cut in
the middle like this and then I made some grids, square grids, each grid is about 2 millimeter
squares, and then I compressed it. And when I compressed because of this cut in the middle
there are some distortions in the deformed sample.

Now it is possible because I have the initial shape and I have the deformed shape and
considering each of these grids, I can actually determine the displacement vectors of this
deform sample and if I do it then it looks like this. As you can see along this cut all these
materials on the top side of this cut moved downwards, the field at the bottom of this cut
moved upwards and this is how we can interpret what was deformation at different points of
this sample.

105
(Refer slide time: 15:30)

Now this is an example of an earthquake. You know when this earthquake happens the
psychologists generally describe these earthquakes on the surface in 2 vectors, one is vertical
ground motion, another is horizontal ground motion. So they actually try to look because of
the earthquake how much vibrations you have vertically, how much vibrations you have
horizontally. So this is an example from 2011, the Tohoku-Oki earthquake in Japan, this is a
movie of about one minute.

And you can see here that all these arrows which you do not see right now are there in
stationary mode, we will see the main earthquake and then aftershock and we will see how
vertical and horizontal ground displacements would happen during the earthquake. So on this
side you have horizontal displacement and on this side you have vertical displacement, let us
have a look. So the earthquake happened, these arrow heads are exaggerated and there is a
time laps, you can read the time here.

So this is due to main shock and then you had a second shock somewhere here with the
magnitude of 7.9, the first earthquake had magnitude of 9 and this is how one can interpret by
this rigid body translation that how much vertical and how much horizontal displacement you
can have during an earthquake.

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(Refer slide time: 17:51)

Now again an example from Indian continent. Now GPSs are something that can give you
that with time how displacements are happening or how a continent is suffering or enjoying,
you never know through strain. So here is an example from a very fascinating paper, what do
we see with all these arrow heads that how Indian continent is moving towards the Tibetan
plate. Now this is with respect to a reference point and therefore it is showing in a different
way but if I stand on Indian sub-continent the arrow heads would be in a different direction.

But however let us have a look, we have rotational movement of Indian sub-continent. So it is
actually with reference to an external frame, it is moving this way. So these GPS vectors and
seismicity of north-western India and southern Tibet where you keep the Indian plate fixed
and then you can have different vectors from the GPS data which are nothing but what we
have learnt as rigid body translation or rigid body rotation or combination of these two. So
with this background we will move on.

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(Refer slide time: 19:15)

And we will look at the different concepts or different aspects of deformation. The first thing
we will takeover is homogeneous and heterogeneous deformation. In one of our first lectures
we have learned what is homogeneous and what is heterogeneous. Now we will describe
them in detail and understand them in the context of strain. So in a body strain can be
accumulated due to application of external force in many different ways. But where the
deformation applied to a rock volume is identical throughout the rock volume then the
deformation is known as homogenous deformation.

So for homogeneous deformation characteristically you can consider or you can appreciate a
homogeneous deformation if originally straight and parallel lines remain straight and parallel
after the deformation. You can also consider identically shaped and oriented objects will also
be identically shaped and oriented after the deformation. So these two are the key parameters
to assign a homogenous deformation or in a very general way that each point of this body
have suffered or enjoyed similar ways of deformations.

So here are some examples we have an undeformed object here, I just took a photograph and
then mark these circular features in this image with some circle and then made two diameters
which are perpendicular to each other. Now I compressed this using a computer program and
then I see that it remained deformed keeping the volume of this area constant. So it is volume
constant deformation and the question is, whether it is homogeneous deformation or not?

Now for homogeneous deformation the definitions say that originally straight and parallel
lines should be straight and parallel lines after the deformation. So this was originally a

108
straight line it is also a straight line, it was parallel to this line it is also parallel to this line. So
in that context it is homogeneous. The second context was identically shaped and oriented
objects will also be identically shaped and oriented after deformation.

What we see here, these were circles and after the deformation all of them become ellipse. So
shape has changed but they changed in a similar way. In the second example which is a
simple shear example what we see here, these two were parallel lines. In this case they
rotated but they still become parallel they still are parallel. And the shapes are also similar in
these cases.

So from the definition we can say that these features that we see here, this is the original and
then deformed two different ways, these two are homogeneous deformation or these two
represent homogeneous deformation.

(Refer slide time: 23:05)

For heterogeneous formation it is as simple as you can define it if the deformation is not
homogenous then it is heterogeneous deformation. People also refer it as in homogeneous
deformation. So in a very similar way where the deformation applied to the rock volume is
not identical throughout that volume, the deformation is heterogeneous, and you can again
say that for heterogeneous deformation originally straight and parallel lines will not be
straight and parallel after the deformation and that is applicable for the shapes as well.

So initially shaped and oriented objects will also not be identically shaped and oriented after
the deformation. And here is the example of heterogeneous deformation. So I have a very
similar object and using a computer simulation I deformed it into two different ways. What

109
we see here that apparently this geometry looks probably it going to give you a homogeneous
deformation but it is not. These two lines were parallel to each other but in this case in the
deformation they are not parallel to each other. The shapes here also changed.

So therefore this is essentially heterogeneous deformation and in the next case which is sort
of crumbled but the volume more or less remains same. But you can see here the parallel
lines are not parallel and also the shapes are different in different objects which were initially
similar to each other. So now we have a very good understanding I believe on what is
homogeneous deformation and what is heterogeneous deformation. Let us have a look in a
different way.

(Refer slide time: 24:54)

What I have done here in this drawing that I gridded this image and with some square grids
and field some of the grids not randomly, with orange colors. Now what I would do, I would
deform this in heterogeneous manner and if I do it then it looks like this. Now the question is,
when everything or the bulk deformation appears to be heterogeneous it is possible to
discretize this entire deformation in smaller areas and find if they are homogeneous or not.
For example if I consider this area highlighted by this little rectangle, I can see that initially
this was square.

So these two are not similar at all, so along this direction the deformation or if I consider this
area the deformation is heterogeneous. However if I try to see here along this area this yellow
shaded area I see here that, here the squares have transformed to this shape here to this shape

110
here to this shape and they are all identical. The parallel lines also remain parallel and their
shapes also remain very similar to each other.

So it does not matter how heterogeneous is you deformation. It is possible to discretize it in

small areas and understand that in terms of homogeneous deformation. That makes life easier
for analyzing the deformation and also for mathematical descriptions.

(Refer slide time: 27:02)

So strain in one dimension as it is one of our topics, we will first understand in terms of one
dimension then we will go to two dimensions and then in the next lecture we will learn in
three dimensions. There are 3 basic terms one is elongation, one is stretch and another is
quadratic elongation. So here I have a representation of un-deformed rock with length say
120 meters L0 and if I make a normal fault on these layered rocks then say the length changes
to 130 meters because it is, it has extended.

Now how to describe or how to quantify the strain? One parameter as I said is elongation
which is the ratio of the change in length to the initial length and if we calculate this for these
values which are given here it would be 0.083. As it is ratio of 2 length parameters it is
dimensionless. The stretch is the ratio of deformed and un-deformed length. So L1 versus L0
or you can algebraic manipulate it to get this form 1 plus elongation and in our example this
is 1.083, again it is dimensionless. And quadratic elongation is nothing but the square of the
stretch and in our example this is 1.174.

111
As you can see that these three parameters they are not independent, if I know one then I can
also get 2 other parameters very easily however they are used for different reasons and
different purposes in analyzing strain.

(Refer slide time: 28:59)

Now angular strain is defined as some sort of deformation which is not linear. So angular
shear which is in this case in this diagram which is 5 and in this case this is 40 degrees is the
change in angle between two originally perpendicular lines in a deformed medium. So what
do we see here this was the line and then it is deviated to this way. So this angle in this case
45 degree, so strain the angular strain which is known as shear strain or we generally say it
gamma is the tangent of this angular shear angle. So in this case because this is 40 degrees so
it is 0.84 again it is dimensionless.

112
(Refer slide time: 30:03)

Now if we look strain in 2 dimensions, in 2 dimensions during homogeneous deformation

and imaginary circle, on the surface of the deforming rock takes a shape of an ellipse. Now
this ellipse is known as strain ellipse and describes the amount of elongation and shortening
in any direction in a plane of homogenous deformation. Now we will see the descriptions of
the strain ellipse in the following slides:

(Refer slide time: 30:33)

So if I consider that the 3 parameters are required to describe a strain ellipse, the dimensions
which is the long axis, short axis and also the orientation of the principal strain axis, so the
strain ellipse is conveniently described by a long and short axis. So in our example we will
use it X and Z you can ask where is Y, now Y we kept it for 3 dimensional deformation. So

113
and the principal and we will see later that this X and Y directions are actually your principal
strain directions, I am sorry X and Z directions.

So the length of the long principal strain axis, we can call it stretch axis or elongation axis is
defined by 1 plus epsilon 1 or square root of lambda 1 and the length of the short principal
axis can be defined as 1 plus epsilon 3 or square root of lambda 3. So the orientation is
usually the anti-clockwise angle between the abscissa and the longest principal axis.

(Refer slide time: 31:58)

So this is how the pictorial description of the principal axis in 2 dimension of a deformation
of a circle. Now if this is the circle and then if I deform it then keeping the volume constant it
takes the shape of this ellipse, now this is the long axis of this ellipse which is 1 plus epsilon
1 and this is the short axis of this strain ellipse which is 1 plus Epsilon 3. And these two are
your principal axis of strain in 2 dimensions. So let us have a look how we can describe the
strain ellipse with respect to the principal strain axis.

114
(Refer slide time: 32:54)

So it is very important that how do you define the shape of this ellipse, now the shape of this
ellipse as it is done in mathematics or in geometry it is defined by the ratio of the long and
short axis. So in this case we define it as R which is the ratio of long axis 1 plus E1 of the
strain ellipse with the short axis which is 1 plus E3 and if we plot them, here 1 plus E1 along
the X direction and here 1 plus E3 short axis along the Z direction.

Then we certainly get this 45 degree line which is R equal to 1, that means along this line no
ellipse would be produced because your long axis and short axis have similar value. So this
value 1, 1 plus E3 and 1 plus E1 where it is 1, it would be a circle. But if we increase them
along this line both E1 and E3 would increase equally. So this originally orange I am sorry
originally blue circle would take a shape of circle but with positive volume strength.

If we come towards the down side where E1 and E3 have values less than 1 then it would
shrink to produce a smaller circle, now in this domain that is above this R plus, R equal to 1
line any strain ellipse is not possible and that is because the consideration that E1 is the
longest axis and E3 is the shortest axis. Then the bottom side of this R equal to 1 line we can
divide it in 3 domains field 1, field 2, and field 3.

In field 1 epsilon 1 and epsilon 3 both are greater than 0 so that means here you will have
your volume increased. In field 3 both epsilon 1 and epsilon 3 have values less than 0 that
means your volume would shrink. In field 3 E1 and E3 have opposite sensors, that means E1
is greater than 0 and E3 is less than 0. So at the top part you can have your volume increased,

115
at the bottom part you can have your volume decreased and there should be a line along
which there should not be any volume change.

This diagram is also known as Flinn diagram in 2D. We will learn about this Flinn diagram
when we learn more about strain in 3 dimensions.

(Refer slide time: 36:12)

Here I try to give you some sort of description strain ellipse with 3 terminologies, we will
learn about it later but I think it is important at least to introduce you with the terms. So there
are two types of strain ellipses at any stage of deformation. One is finite strain ellipse that
means cumulative or total deformations. So it sums all deformations and the end product or
end ellipse that you get is finite strain ellipse and then there is infinitesimal or instantaneous
strain ellipse.

So that is instantaneous, so the strain ellipse for any instant of time. Now in 2 dimensions
there is also one term that we call infinitesimal or instantaneous stretching axis and these are
the instantaneous deductions of maximum elongation and maximum shortening. We will
learn more about it later.

116
(Refer slide time: 37:14)

Finally we will learn about what is pure shear and what is simple shear. So if we approximate
the overall strain is homogeneous and can be discussed in 2 dimensions, that means it is plane
strain, your Y axis has no deformation then no area dilation has taken place that is also a
consideration. Then in the inter-range of 2 dimensional homogeneous area constant
deformation has 2 end members, one is pure shear which is coaxial deformations sometimes
referred to, and another is simple shear or non-coaxial deformation.

I must remind you that this concept of pure and simple shear are strain regimes and they are
just the end members to better understand or mathematically define or approximate the
natural deformation. In nature it hardly happens in pure shear and simple shear manner, or
other words you can say that there is nothing pure and nothing simple in natural deformation.

117
(Refer slide time: 38:28)

So a coaxial deformation is defined as a principal strain axis remained parallel to the same
material lines throughout the straining process. That means the axes of the finite and
infinitesimal strain ellipses remain parallel throughout the deformation. So the coaxial
deformation is irrotational, that means the principal axes of strains do not rotate. It also can
be defined as a pure shear deformation where at constant volume coaxial and pure strain and
plane strain deformation, all lines except the principal strain axis deflects towards the line of
maximum extension, and you can define mathematically as your principal elongation axis 1
plus E1, actual the inverse of principal shortening axes.

So here is the example the first one is an un-deformed state, and what I have given E1 is the
elongation along the X axis, E3 is the shortening along the Z axis, S1 and S3 are stretches in
the corresponding X and Z axes and lambda 1 and lambda 3 are the quadratic elongations
along the X and Z axis respectively.

What we see here if we consider the X axis then this is, this has experience strain 0.2, this has
experience strain 0.5, this has experience strain 1 and this has experience strain 2. What is
interesting here as per the definition of coaxial deformation and pure shear that these two
axes they have changed their length. But they did not rotate and therefore this deformation is
coaxial and irrotational.

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(Refer slide time: 40:41)

To understand this coaxial deformation or irrotational deformation or pure shear let us have a
look of this illustration or this combination of all this strain ellipses in a different way. So this
black circle is your initial un-deformed strain ellipse or strain circle and then slowly this
green, light green and even lighter green are different progressive stages of shear
deformation.

This is your stretching axis, stretching direction and this is your shortened direction. Now
what we see here there are 3 different kinds of material lines possible in this description of
these strain ellipses. Now certainly you have learned about the principal axes of stretches. So
the material lines along the principal strain axes they do not rotate but deform. For example,
this line now deform to this then in the next it deform to this and in the third it deforms to this
length.

Any other material lines than these two principle axes of strain axis they rotate and they also
deform and these lines rotate towards the stretching direction of the principal of the strain
ellipse. Interestingly there are 2 other lines that never deforms but rotate. So therefore they
always define the diameter of the primary or initial circle. In this case you can see for this
circle it is at 45 degrees and what happens with progressive deformation, these lines they do
not change their length.

The still are inscribed as a radius of the circle but they continuously rotate towards the
extension direction. So in 2 dimensional strain ellipse you have 2 lines that never deforms but
rotate, is this one.

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(Refer slide time: 43:02)

Let us have a description of the simple shear or non-coaxial deformation. Now in non-coaxial
deformation the axes of the finite and infinitesimal strain ellipses are not parallel, so detailed
observation reveals that the principal axis of the strain ellipse rotate through different
material lines at each infinitesimal strain increment. Therefore this is a non-coaxial
deformation and it is rotational and it is also known as simple shear deformation because it
requires a constant volume, a non-coaxial deformation and a plane strain deformation.

So what we see here in this illustration, a square or rectangle subjected to simple shear
changes to a parallelogram as you can see here this is the square and it changes its shape to a
parallelogram. The vertical sides of the square rotate but remain parallel to each other during
deformation and therefore it is a homogeneous deformation. What do you mean by this, these
two lines are the vertical lines, so with deformation it rotates. For example, here the rotation
is 20 degrees and therefore the shear strain is 0.4.

But these two lines remain parallel. Again it does not matter how much you rotate them by
means of simple shear these two lines remain parallel and therefore this is a homogeneous
deformation. Interestingly these two axes you can see they are also rotating with progressive
simple shear, therefore this is rotational deformation. We will learn more about it later with
time with particularly with when we discuss the 3 dimensional strain.

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(Refer slide time: 45:00)

But for the time being I conclude this lecture and in summary in this lecture we looked at
some basics of deformation and strain in two dimension. But in nature we know that most of
the deformations do happen in three dimensions, so it is important that we describe the strain
in three dimensions. And that is the topic of the next lecture. Thank you very much, have a
nice time.

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 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture 06 - Concept of Strain and Deformation (Part - 2)

(Refer Slide Time: 0:20)

Hello everyone! Welcome back again, we are in our lecture number 6 and we will continue what we have learned in the last lecture, so it is a topic, concept of

strain and deformation and we are in part 2. In this lecture will cover strain in 3 dimensions and we will mostly look at strain ellipsoids, their shapes and

orientations, then we will move to Flinn diagram and there we will see constriction, plane strain and flattening types of deformation. After that we will see the

different ways to look at progressive deformation from where we will switch to vorticity and conclude the lecture.

(Refer Slide Time: 1:00)

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This above mentioned slide shows strain in three dimensions is very similar to which we have learned when we discussed the strain in two dimensions, there we

had X and Z and this time because we will be dealing with three dimensions we will add Y, so homogeneous deformation without volume change in three

dimensions generally like we already described previously with strain ellipse, presently we will described as a strain ellipsoid which is a shape change from an

imaginary or a material sphere. Now the sphere becomes ellipse, so we have to define its shape and orientation to describe the strain and the ellipsoid can be

described by this equation.

So the three principal axes of strain are here and then it is a Cartesian coordinate system XYZ, so this is the equation of the strain ellipsoid which is essentially

the function of your three principal axes of strain, now the three axes of strain we know, the principal axes of strain are the maximum, intermediate and minimum

principal strain axes, so they are also mutually perpendicular to each other and like we have described the X and Z axes in the 2-D, we have to add here the

intermediate axis which is Y equal to 1 plus epsilon 2 or root over of lambda 2. The other 2 remains the same that is X equal to 1 plus epsilon 1 and Z equal to 1

plus epsilon 3.

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(Refer Slide Time: 2:46)

Now let us have a look of what do we mean by strain ellipsoid which is a transformation from a sphere. So if we deform a sphere homogeneously then ideally it

should take a shape of an ellipse, what we see here, this is a sphere and if we cut it perpendicularly from the middle then we can get the three ready of the sphere,

in this case all these are units, so this is one, this is one and this is one. Therefore this is un-deformed and XYZ are all equal to 1, if it transformed to an ellipse

due to homogeneous deformation, then this X, Y and Z would change and therefore their values would change as well and the sphere would take form of an

ellipse.

In that case Z would be 1 plus epsilon 3, X would be 1 plus epsilon 1 and Y would be 1 plus epsilon 2 and therefore at least from this visualisation as X has

elongated most that is our considerations, so X is the stretching axis, Y is the intermediate one compared to Z, so Y is the intermediate axis and Z which got

compressed most, so therefore Z is the shortening axis, so these XYZ these three play a very important role, their deformations, their shortening, their extension

relative to other two.

Now based on these relative elongations or relative shortenings of XYZ, we can actually describe a number of possibilities or end members of strain ellipsoid, but

this time instead of ellipses we looked with a unit cube.

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(Refer Slide Time: 4:37)

This diagram presents, this is the unit cube highlighted by a circle where X is vertical, Y and Z are oriented horizontally, this is un-deformed cube therefore XYZ

equal to 1, now one can deform this cube in many different ways, but here what is shown by these five illustrations at these five sides, these are the some sort of

end members of the deformation in three dimensions.

The first one will take over is uniaxial compression or compaction, so, before I go to this, go to the description of this deformation as you see this blue cube is the

un-deformed cube and what we see in the green colours these are deformed shaped or from the cube, it got transformed to the shape of this and these are all in

three dimension. So what we see here, uniaxial compaction as Z is the shortening axis, so the compaction happened along Z, X and Y remain same, as we can see

this is the X direction, so X is constant, this is the Y direction, Y is constant, but Z instead of this length, it is now got shortened and it got shortened in one

direction along one axis, Z axis, so therefore this is uniaxial compaction.

Now in this side, you can do also uniaxial extension, in that case, X is the maximum stretching direction, so extension should happen along the X direction, so

this was your initial length along X, but now it got changed to this magnitude, whereas Z and Y remained same. Therefore this is uniaxial extension, now there

are three other possibilities, one is axially symmetric extension, that means it gets extended in one direction and shortened in other two directions.

And therefore it got extended along X direction, but got shortened along Y and along Z direction, the other possibility is plane strain, this is very important term

that you need to learn. Plane strain is when in one direction there is no strain but in other directions yes, in this case, this illustration what we see here, this unit

cube got extended along X direction, it got shortened along Z direction, but it is Y direction remained constant length as it was, so then it is plane strain that is

along one direction, there is no strain.

And the final one is axially symmetric flattening, what happens in this case that only one axis shortened very much and other two axes they extend highly, so

what we see here as you can see the Z direction, it got highly shortened and this is the X and Y both, this is Y and this is X, they both got extended significantly

compared to Z and this is known as axially symmetric flattening.

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Now before we switch to the next slide there are many books or many texts or manual materials, you may find these X, Y and Z these are oriented different ways,

so you may find that X and Y these are placed horizontally and Z is vertical. We may use in some cases these illustrations as well, but whenever you look at such

diagrams, it is very important that you first make sure you know where is your X, where is your Y and where is your Z compared to the deformation pattern.

Now based on this idea of deformation of an un-deformed cube to this different possibilities, you can understand that once these materials they do deform

different ways, you would produce different types of strains, that means the rocks would deform differently and at the same time, because the rocks would be

deforming differently, you will see different types of features in your rocks and we will see this now.

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(Refer Slide Time: 9:53)

So the best way to explain these different types of deformation is known as Flinn diagram, the description of three-dimensional strain ellipsoid is best represented

in Flinn diagram. So, in two dimension the shape of the strain ellipse that we have described by only one number, if you remember that was R which was the ratio

of long axis versus short axis but in three-dimension the shape of the strain ellipsoid is described by two numbers, one is R1,2, which is the ratio of long axis

versus intermediate axis and another one is R2,3 which is the ratio of intermediate axis versus short axis.

Now the ratio of these two parameters that is ratio of R1,2 and R2,3 describes and distinguishes the different shapes of the strain ellipsoid and this number is

known as K, where K is defined as R1,2 minus 1 divided by R2,3 minus 1, so from this equation and our understanding on XYZ we can figure out that minimum

values of R1,2 and R2,3 possible is 1 and K can be from or could be equal or greater than 0 and equal or less than infinity.

Now given this condition that K could be 0 to infinity, so you can report the all possibilities of strain ellipsoids in the Flinn diagram and the Flinn diagram we

will see in the next slide, it is actually a sort of two-dimensional Cartesian plot where X axis is represented by R 2,3 and Y axis is represented by R1,2 and you

can plot a number of K values in between, so the diagonal of this plot as we will see soon that is where R 1,2 equal to R2,3 is actually defining the plane strain

condition, that is Y axis of the finite strain ellipsoid is constant during the deformation, that means we have learned it before that there is no stretching or no

shortening along the Y axis. Whatever deformation happens that happens along the X and Z axis and therefore on the XZ plain.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:28)

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And this is the Flinn diagram we are talking about, as you can see that along the X axis we have plotted these and in this case, this is again long axis which is X

and here, this is Y and again all these things is under log, now this log is used, sorry, this is LN, so this log is used to accommodate different shapes or sizes of

the measurements. So different magnitudes of the measurement if you have a high value and you have a small value of the measurements, then you can plot

everything in the same diagram.

Let us try to understand this diagram in detail, so as we said that along this line which is running 45 degrees with respect to this X and Y axis, this is where K

equal to 1 and as we have said K equal to 1 you have plane strain at constant volume, as you can see here at this magnitude of strain the Y axis remained constant,

even I increase the strain magnitude Y axis remained constant, but it extends along X and shortens along Z direction. So whatever left on both sides of this K1

value, if I go to the top side that says that it is under the constriction domain, that means that in this domain everything would deform, I mean I am sorry, along X

axis it would extend and other two directions it would shrink.

Therefore with progressive deformation you would produce something which is like a pencil or like a long object, on the other hand if we go to the flattening

side, which is a downside of this K equal to 1 direction, there the deformation would happen in axially symmetric manner, or axially symmetric flattening manner

where X is greater than or equal to Y and these XY values are much, much greater than Z, therefore you would produce something like a pancake or like a

flattened disk.

So if I go towards this side K equal to infinity then I produce rocks characteristically with some sort of linear features and if I come to this side K equal to 0, the

deformed rock would show a lot of flattened objects or disk shaped objects. Now considering this idea, you can figure out, if I am in the constriction domain, then

the rocks would tend to produce more linear features through deformation and at K equal to 0, the rocks would tend to produce more flattened or planer fabrics.

Therefore these rocks here would be prone with schistosity and therefore K equal to 0 or in this domain whatever we produce towards this side, we call it S-

tectonites and here because we will be producing lineations dominantly these are known as L-tectonites and whatever stays in the middle it would have both

lineations and schistosity, therefore these are known as LS-tectonites. We will learn more about L-tectonites, LS-tectonites and S-tectonites when will study

foliation and lineation in one of the next lectures, so we will come back to this Flinn diagram again and again for more interpretation of deformed rocks.

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(Refer Slide Time: 17:15)

Now let us talk about the volume change, so we have discussed so far it is homogeneous deformation without volume change, but volume change like it happens

in two dimensions, it can also happen in three dimensions. So pure volume change or volumetric strain of an object as we, it is a very similar equation that we

have seen, so it is a ratio of the change of the volume with respect to the initial volume. So you can say that volume change or if you say this is delta then it is

they define as V minus V0 by V0, where V0 and V are volumes of the object before and after the deformation respectively.

Thus the volume factor delta is thus negative for volume decrease and positive for volume increase, now volume decrease and increase whatever happens, it can

happen either isotopically or anisotropically, if it happens isotopically means that all principal axes of strain are either extending or shortening equally and if that

does not happen, then it is anisotropic volume change. So isotropic volume change therefore could happen when XYZ, they are all greater than, there all equal

and greater than 1, therefore you would have volume increase and if these are all equal, but the values are less than 1, then you have volume decrease.

So here I have tried to show these with some illustrations, so again we have these un-deformed cubes, un-deformed cube here, you have X, you have Y, you have

Z direction here. As you can see in the first illustration where volume has decreased isotopically, all these directions the shortening was equal and along all these

directions the shortenings were equal. In the second diagram where the volume has increased, again along all directions the extensions or elongations are equal.

Now anisotropic volume decreases essentially where your XYZ would not remain same of values, so they could be either greater than 1 or less than 1, they could

be equal to 1 or not equal to 1, does not matter, but they cannot be equal to each other. So here there are three examples, so in the first case what we see that

volume has decrease anisotopically where X and Y did not change, so therefore your X remain constant, Y remain constant but along Z it decreased its volume.

In this case, the second example, which is also anisotropic volume increase but in this case, X has extended but Y and Z, this is your Y and this is your Z, I am

sorry, this is Y, this is Z and this is your X, so you can see X has extended but Y and Z they remain constant. So therefore volume has increased but

anisotopically and in the third and final example what we see here, volume has decreased again anisotopically where nothing has changed along the X direction,

but it got shortened along Y direction and also it got shortened along Z direction.

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Now, so we have learned so far that homogeneous deformation in three-dimension and also volume deformation that means you can change your volume in

three-dimension as well.

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(Refer Slide Time: 21:02)

The next topic we discussed in this lecture is progressive deformation, now if you remember the first lecture of strain we talked about initial position, final

position and then one set of examples we talked about displacement vectors, where we corrected the initial position with the final position and added these two

points by an arrow and from initial to final position we added that arrow heads and that was a vector.

But then there was also another column that was particle path where we actually could track that how this point was moving from its initial position to the next

position or to the final position and depending on whether you are doing rigid body rotation or translation or deforming the material by simple shear, pure shear

or any other ways we can see or we can understand that, this displacement vectors are not necessarily equal or they are not necessarily similar to those of the

particle paths. Now the study of these particle paths actually falls in the domain of progressive deformation.

So there could be many different ways to achieve the same deformed state that is the point, what we see here? We have initial state in these two rows, both are

circles and the final stage both got in 2 dimension we are looking at, and we have got a strain ellipse. Now what we see here, from here to here, if we look

directly then they look similar. So the displacement vectors if we try to draw from this position to this position in both cases, it would be similar but in between

there could be many different possibilities.

The first example is very straightforward that I had a circle then little more strain, even more strain and further more strain I achieved to this state. But in the

second row what we see that it took a different shape, it deformed differently from here to here, from here to here, from here to here and finally we could reach

here. So displacement vectors here in these two cases will be very much similar but not the particle paths, again the study is progressive deformation.

Now in the next three slides, we will have a look that what could be the possibilities or what could be the characteristic particle paths or flow patterns of

deforming rock in terms of pure shear, simple shear and the combination of these two and before that what is flow pattern? A flow pattern of a deforming rock is

actually, it refers the sum of particle paths at different times steps during deformation, so it is you add each and every particle path and cumulate them, what you

get is your characteristic flow pattern of a particular type of deformation.

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(Refer Slide Time: 24:34)

So what do you see in this slide on the left side, I particularly would request you to focus in this side, that here I had in 2 dimensions I had a square and then

progressively I deform this square to achieve a finite elongation or finite deformation along X direction of two, of course you do not see the individual squares

and later rectangles just because I had to fit them in a single slide, but they are cascaded in this way. So the strain progressed this way, so first one it is

undeformed and then slowly 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 1, 1.5 and 2, so this is how it progressively deformed in a pure shear manner.

Now if I club them together all these images, then they would appear something like that and I try to track this little red points in the form of particle paths, then

this point would move to here and then so on. So characteristically all these points, at least from the two sides, the top side and the bottom side and how they have

arrived to their N shape N deformed shape, if we track each and every instances of deformation, then the characteristic flow path would be like this, what you see

here in this diagram by red arrows. So tiny red arrows heads and finally you achieve a pattern, we will analyse this later.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:35)

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At this time let us go to what happens if you have simple shear deformation, again the plots are in a very similar way. So I have a square and then I deform this

square with progressive simple shear, so here at the shear strain magnitudes given one after another and again I can club them together as you can see here and I

see the particle paths or the flow patterns if I try to connect each and every point from one stage to the next stage then it would be given as you can see here with

this red arrows in this side and this side. And what is interesting that if you remember the previous slide then it is characteristically different from pure shear.

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(Refer Slide Time: 27:21)

Now if we deform the same square, this square in both pure shear or simple shear manner, that means I combine pure and simple shear, so here again in a similar

way we have the cascade of these rectangles and then what we see here again, if we club them and try to see the flow patterns then it is extremely different. We

see that these things are going this way; these things are going this way and so on, so again, this is very different to what we have seen with pure shear and simple

shear separately.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:17)

So what do these flow patterns tell us? Let us have a look. So if we see the pure shear, this is the simple form, these yellow arrow heads are showing that this is

your compression direction and this is your extension direction in pure shear. What we see here that any material point here is moving and slowly it is going

towards the extension direction and while doing so initially this material line or points are in the compression domain, in this direction they are in compression

and similarly this is symmetric along the axis. These are your compression domain and on the other side, this is your extension domain.

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In simple shear it is not so easy to apprehend the compression or extension looking at the flow pattern, but you can see the flow patterns are very much straight

and they are moving opposite to other side of the flow lines. Now in this case because if I had a circle here, the circle would deform to an ellipse of this and

therefore I can assume that or I can conclude that this would be my compression domain, that means compressions are coming from this direction, and this would

be my extensional domain.

At this moment if you bring in between this combined pure and simple shear then it would look like this, here I have both symbols for pure shear and simple

shear. What we see here that, unlike pure shear here the material lines initially have some sort of compression but then again they flow towards the extension and

try to achieve something that we see in the simple shear pattern. Now here again, it probably would have a compression direction in this side as we can see here

or compressive domain like this and these are extensive domain.

Now because I have compression from one side and extension on the other side and also all materials as we see that in these three very basic examples, they tend

to flow towards the extension direction. From here, if I consider a material is sitting in between or then it may have a rotation or it may stay stationary. So based

on a flow pattern and nature of deformation if we try to analyse whether the materials would stay stationary or materials would rotate, based on this study we can

go to another topic which is known as vorticity.

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(Refer Slide Time: 31:37)

So vorticity is actually the study of, it describes how fast a particle do rotate in a soft medium during deformation and there is a term which is known as kinematic

vorticity number. In mathematical expressions, it is expressed as Wk and Wk is, as I said, it is kinematic vorticity number is assigned for pure shear as 0 and 1 for

simple shear.

So whatever stays in between is the combination of pure shear and simple shear, so again we can have a look of the same diagram that here Wk. is 0, so this is

pure shear, here Wk. is 1, this is simple shear and whatever stays in between from 0 to 1, this is your sub simple shear flow pattern. Okay and if I increase the

Wk. value, then actually I achieve something which is flow pattern is very similar to rigid body rotation and we see the effects of rigid body rotations in many

different geological structures, including the shears on features like delta structures we have seen it in one lectures and will see it more in when you study the

ductile shears.

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Now I conclude this lecture, but before concluding this is important to remind you that all this strain and deformation that we have learned so far, these are just

not the descriptions, this include mathematical analyses which is not the scope of this lecture series. But I recommend you to read these books I recommended

and also look and search in the web to have at least some basic ideas of the mathematical descriptions of strain. So in this lecture, I believe and together with the

previous lecture we have some sort of theoretical basis and more or less know the terminologies that we deal with deformation and strain, particularly in the

context of structural geology.

At this moment the challenge is how to apply this knowledge to the natural field that means if I see a deformed structure then how to analyse or how to get strain

or how to measure strain out of it and this is the topic of the next lecture. Thank you very much, meet you in the next lecture. Bye.

137
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture 07 - Strain Measurement

(Refer Slide Time: 0:24)

Hello and welcome everyone to this online Structural Geology course and today we are in our
lecture number 7 and the topic of this lecture is strain measurement. So the topics or the areas
we will cover in this lecture are mostly concept of strain measurement and analysis, now we
will learn about different geological markers that we use for strain measurements. They are in
one dimension, two dimensions and three dimensions and then we will present some

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examples of strain measurements from linear markers, spherical objects and then we will go
to measurements of strain in three dimensions.

So we will employ a method called Fry Method or Centre-to-Centre method, and then we will
see how using these other techniques we can also go and plot in Flinn diagrams and use Flinn
diagram to analyse the strain of deformed rocks.

(Refer Slide Time: 1:23)

We have already have learned from the last two lectures of deformation and strain, there are
some sort of theories, there are some sort of backgrounds and it is possible that one can
retrieve the strain from rocks through a range of different methods and mostly you can
determine strain in one dimension, two dimensions and three dimensions based on the
outcrops you have, based on the features you look or you get in your deformed rocks.

So strain analyses generally, essentially the primary aim is to measure the strain of the rock,
so this gives you an opportunity to explode the state of the strain in a rock and also to map
out the strain variations within a sample or in an outcrop or a region. So if you are analysing
the sample, by means of strain analysis you can actually figure out whether the strain is
homogeneous, heterogeneous, isotropic, anisotropic etc, etc.

As a result the primary aim is of course the shape and orientation of the strain ellipse and
ellipsoid, this is what you need to figure out. In most of the cases we try to do that and then
this when you figure out that what is the shape and the orientation of the strain ellipse or
ellipsoids, this also give you a lot of information about the overall deformation of this region.

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So for example, you can think of that in a sheared zone setting, we learn about sheared zones
later that you can figure out that whether the deformation was actually the simple shear or
not. Then in a folded layer you can also do the strain analyses and it can give you some ideas
of fold mechanisms, how did fold happen in past and then some sedimentary rocks also you
have some markers we learn about it soon. These also give you some information of the
deformation processes.

(Refer Slide Time: 3:24)

You have probably figured out so far that you need a strain marker, if your rock or the scale
you are looking at is homogeneous, and then it is not a good idea to measure the strain from
this rock. So, you need some sort of markers or strain gauge that actually gives you the idea
that was the original shape and now what we see in the field, this is your deformed shape. So
you need to know the geometry and some sort of angular relationships of the object you are
looking at which was initially in a different shape and therefore you actually figured out that
your rock is deformed.

So the common geometries that you use for strain analyses mostly include sphere, circle,
ellipse, then some symmetric forms mostly fossils we will look at them soon and some forms
without symmetries, but which has some other special geometric relationships. And to do
that, to figure out that these shapes like say sphere, circle, ellipse etc etc. structural geologist
generally use as strain markers mostly some geological features like we use fossils, we use
some conglomerates, breccias, then oolites. Again these are kind of fossils, some individual

140
grains, if we have to study the grains, the strain in very microscale, then reduction spots and
so on.

In addition to that some deformed features also are helpful for analysing the strain, for
example if you have a fault or if you have a fold then you know what was the initial
disposition of this formed surfaces of the fault and the fold and by bringing it back or
unfolding the fold or making the fault to its initial position by some sort of analysis, you can
figure out that how much strain was involved in these processes.

(Refer Slide Time: 5:56)

And so let us have a look that what are the different markers that structural geologists do use
for analysing the strain and we will look at from linear objects to the spherical objects one
after another. The first image or first slide discusses the objects which were initially linear
and there we generally consider some sort of fossils, for example what we see here, this is a
belemnite an artist’s impression which is an extinct animal and if it gets fossilized, then it
takes a shape of this.

So this is a fossil of belemnite, of course, in this image this is undeformed but now imagine
that you know the orientation of the belemnite, you know the shape of the belemnite and now
this is deformed, this piece then you can figure out the strain using some methods that you
have learned. Then also the bedding planes are linear, the traces of the bedding planes are
linear, so I have this bedding planes and now, for example if I consider this black layer and
this got folded, so I can unfold this black layer which is now folded and can figure out that
what was the magnitude of the strain involved in making this fold.

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Then we know that he have a sedimentary feature which is cross bedding, so this angular
relationships not always, but if you can get the same rock in a different place with known
angles, that can be also useful or helpful to measure the strain.

(Refer Slide Time: 7:32)

Now let us have a look some spherical or cylindrical objects and here we mostly use some
fossils and some typical geological features. What we see in the first image is a
microstructure, this is ooids this you mostly find in limestones and then also in limestones
you find a very typical geologic feature which is in this case, this circular thing that is known
as reduction spot. So these are very much circular and these are excellent strain markers, also
you know that there are many creatures that do burrows in beach sands or in riverbanks, so
these burrows are later filled by sediments and therefore it remained cylindrical if it is
undeformed, for example here, these are undeformed burrows.

So deformation of which can give you an estimate of the strain of the rock and similarly, if
you have the burrow holes preserved and they can also deform, so a cross-section of these
burrow holes if undeformed would be circular approximately and if they are deformed the
cross-sections would be elliptical, so these are essentially very good strain markers.

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(Refer Slide Time: 8:45)

The elliptical objects you see on this slide may not be considered as ellipses or ellipsoids, but
statistically you can consider them that they are of similar shape and geometry. For example,
pebbles or conglomerates as you can see in these two photographs, so these two photographs
you know what is conglomerate; it is some pebbles embedded or hosted in a fine grain
matrix. So these are pebbles, at least in this image these are not necessarily of equal shape
and geometry, but statistically if you consider say 10, 15, 20, 30, 50, of such pebbles then you
actually if they are deformed you actually can get an estimate of the strain of these deformed
rocks.

(Refer Slide Time: 9:39)

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And the next one is of course if you have some objects of known shape and their angular
relationships and here we mostly use fossils, the first one you see is a fossil, image of a fossil,
the creature is bivalve and is known as brachiopod, this is an extinct one and the brachiopods
were available or they were prolific in the earth in the Paleozoic time. So you can see that it
has a sort of a bilateral symmetry, so this line and this line if you consider, so this is 90
degrees if it is undeformed. So if it is deformed or if you do not see that these angular
relationships are not maintained in some sort of exposures then your rock is deformed and
using this you can analyse the strain.

The second photograph this one is also a photograph of an extinct animal, so this is a fossil
and this is a trilobite you know probably from your palaeontology lectures and trilobites were
also prolific more or less at the same time when brachiopods were there in the Paleozoic
time. Now what do we see here that if I draw the axis in an undeformed trilobite, these ribs
like features that come out from this creature, they are essentially perpendicular, so if that
relationships are not there, then you can figure out that what is the strain of this rock where
this brachiopod got fossilized.

Now the last two images, the first one is, again an extinct fossil but this was prolific and this
have, this animals have seen dinosaurs because these were prolific in the Mesozoic time
because these and also this image, these two have a very typical geometric feature on their
coilings. So I as you can see here, this actually follow, this coiling actually do follow a
geometric formula which is known as Golden ratio, so if this Golden ratio is not maintained
in your deformed rock then you can figure out what is the strain in by analysing this
geometry.

So based on these ideas we will now have some very basic understandings or very, we will
learn some very basic methods where we analyse the strain from a deformed rock using all
these markers. One very important thing to remember before doing all this strain analysis
from deformed markers, the first consideration we do while we measure strain out of these
geological markers is that these materials more or less had same physical properties in terms
there, in terms of their geology with respect to the overall country rock and you can be sure
that this is not the case because this material is different, your host rock is different, so they
cannot be deformed in a very similar way.

Then also these individual creatures or individual line elements they can also deform within
themselves differently to that of the country rock which is also suffering the strain. So all

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these things you must remember while you do the strain analysis, so this type of strain
analysis mostly gives you very first-hand ideas of the strain, but to do a detailed strain
analysis, there are some other methods and we may learn this in a course which is Advanced
Structural Geology or so on.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:41)

So to moving on let us start with a strain measurement from linear object. What do we see
here in this image, this creature as you see that some broken square like features like here,
here and fill some materials, so this is a belemnite fossil that got boudinaged, so how did it
happen? That you had a belemnite fossil like this, which is embedded in a rock and now if
you compress this rock this way, then this belemnite fossil initially got fractured this way and
with time it get some, it makes some pieces and this feature in geological context is known as
boudinaging.

Accordingly now you can imagine that if again come back to this, if I join or add all these
lengths that would give me the L0 or the initial length of this belemnite and if I add from here
to here or from here to here that would give me the final length or deformed length, so this is
exactly I tried to do here. I sketched this and plotted it here, so these are the individual
lengths, you also need a scale or you can do some relative measurements as well. So in this
scale the photographer has given a scale and if I see here, this individual out of this scale, I
can actually figure out what is the length of this individual boudins or individual segments of
this belemnite.

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So if I add them together, then I get the initial length and also the way they are disposed,
including the gaps between is my final length. In this image the initial length is 6.37 cm and
the final length is 10.07 cm, using the formula of elongation which is this one we can actually
calculate the elongation of this belemnite and also the surrounding rocks which is 0.58, so
this is how you figure out the deformation of or you get the strain, linear strain of an area if
you have an object like this.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:59)

But sometimes life is not that easy, for example what we see in this photograph that we have
this black layer here, this one. You see very similarly that we have seen in this belemnite
fossil that these amphibolite layer got boudinaged, so you have, I try to make a sketch at the
top with the white one, but at the same time while it is boudinaging maybe before or after,
you see that it also has a gentle buckling, that means it also got folded. The layer is not
straight the way we have seen in the previous slide, so if you try to do measurement out of
this it is difficult, first of all, it is not recommended and if you do then you have to be very
careful considering other factors.

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(Refer Slide Time: 17:01)

Now it can be even difficult if you have a boudinaged layer which is tightly folded, here in
this case again, this is an amphibolite layer. I made a sketch of this amphibolite layer on the
other sides, so here the white one is your amphibolite layer which got boudinaged and folded,
we are not going to discuss which one happened first or they happened simultaneously or not,
but it is, if you would like to do linear strain measurement we can also see that in some parts
this layer got thickened, in some part the layer got thinned. So measuring linear strain out of
this type of boudinaged and folded objects is not that much recommended unless you have
some other clues from somewhere else.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:50)

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Let us have a look at that how to measure the strain from some sort of regular relationships.
As we have learned that again, this is a fossil of trilobite and we know that it has an initial
relationship where this angle is 90 degree. Now I have two deformed images which I
collected from the web and I can clearly see that at least in this case this angular relationship
is not maintained and also in this case this angular relationship is not maintained. Now if I
focus only on angular relationships, then certainly I can measure the shear strain, these two
fossils and therefore the rock in this case, in these two rocks the host rocks have suffered.

But again you can figure out probably that these materials also underwent some sort of other
deformations like pure shear or combination of pure shear and simple shear, so that may not
be possible out of these, but we can certainly measure the magnitude of the shear strain at
least from the concept of this angular relationship. So if we try to do that again this is 90
degrees, then what we see here that deviation from the right angle which is the dotted line and
what is now is 43 degrees, so simply by putting the formula shear strain equal to tan of this
43 that gives you almost close to 1, 0.93 and in the second case, this is 0.53.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:35)

We can do a similar strain analysis from a very simple shear zone, so what do we see here in
this photograph that this layer which was supposed to be like this, now it got deflected this
way. Okay, so this deflection is essentially due to some this angular deflection is probably
some sort of shearing, okay. Now if that shear happened therefore this thing got a deflection
and if we can measure this angle we will see how it is done then we can actually calculate the
shear strain involved in deforming this particular piece of rocks. So in this case, this angle is

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32 degree and again using the same formula shear strain equal to tan of 32 degrees you will
get this.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:30)

Now if I have some spherical objects which are exposed only in one surface, that means you
do not see on the other sides of this rock, then they can deform to form some ellipses. If you
have this type of features in your field or in your rock or in your sample then you can get a
very basic or primary idea of the strain, it does not give you the strain magnitude, but it gives
you the strain ratio. So here is a very simple example that I had some initial circles and these
circles got deformed to form these ellipses.

So you can measure the long axis and you can measure the short axis, so what you do in one
column you write long axis and in one column you write short axis and then you plot this,
you write the values 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on and then if you plot long axis versus short axis then
if this rock has any deformation then you should see a deflection of course from the 45
degree. If it is 45 degree then X equal to Y or long axis equal to short axis therefore you have
your spherical geometry maintained, but if it is not then you may have some deflections from
the 45 degrees and that may give you the very first or basic, first-hand idea of the
deformation. Just to remind you that these plots are, these data are from different objects not
from the image that you see here, but you can try this one and plot it, it would come in three
different clusters because I used three different shapes here.

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(Refer Slide Time: 22:31)

The second one, the one of the most used strain analysis from spherical objects in two
dimension is known as Fry Method, so it is given by Professor Fry, it is a paper, two
consecutive papers one in 1979 and then another one in the same year with Hanna he wrote
this paper. So this Fry method is very interesting and it has some very interesting concepts
behind, now the first concept is it is written here, but I would love to read it for you.

Before deformation, the centres of the spherical objects had an isentropic and uniform
distribution, that is, the distances between the neighbouring centres were statistically uniform.
It can be used even if there is a ductility contrast between the spherical objects and their host
matrix. The second point is when a set of points with statistically uniform distribution is
deformed, the average distance between the neighbouring points in any direction increases or
decreases in the same ratio as the length of the marker line in that direction.

The maximum increase takes place in the direction of the long axis that is obvious of the
strain ellipse and the average distance between the points decreases the most in a direction
parallel to the short axis of the strain ellipse. The axial ratio of the strain ellipse and its
orientation is determined by a graphical method which is the Fry method.

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(Refer Slide Time: 24:33)

So what is written here, try to understand this in an illustration, what do we see in this image,
or in this illustration that I had some spherical objects which are now sphere in two
dimensions. This is my X direction; this is my Z direction, these red lines or network of red
lines actually defining the distance from one centre to another centre of the neighbouring
circle. Now in this setting if I deform it by pure shear manner like this, so here the elongation
along X direction is 0, then it is 0.16, 0.33, 0.05 and 0.66, four incremental progressive
deformation stages are given.

And so clearly, if I deform this piece this way that means the vertical direction is the
compression direction and shortening direction and the horizontal direction is extension
direction, we can see that with progressive deformation all distances along the vertical, along
the horizontal line are progressively increasing. Here and here it has increased to this amount,
if you see the vertical distances for example here if we consider this distance, it is also
decreasing with progressive deformation and that is a principal of Fry method that in
horizontal direction all the centres would move horizontally and then tend to stretch and so
on.

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(Refer Slide Time: 26:25)

Therefore based on this now we learned how to plot or how to work with the Fry method to
get your strain analysis. So here the techniques are described. What you have to do that, so in
this case what I have shown that I have some circular objects here and that got deformed to
strain of 1.5 and you will give this in your field or in your thin sections when you look at
microscope. So it could be stretch grains, it could be some fossils or whatever.

Now the methods are described here you have to first of all trace this, this individual ellipses
and then you have to mark their centres in a piece of paper and then with another piece of
tracing paper, you have to move one point to another point such a way that once you keep in
one centre your points, your single point, then you mark in all tracing papers, in the tracing
paper all centres of the visible.

So on the basis of this idea or the basics of this Fry method, now we learnt how to plot this
Fry plot in a piece of paper or how to do this analysis of strain using some deformed spheres.
But in 2D it would be deformed circles, so what you get is deformed objects, deformed
circular objects which are ellipses, you can get conglomerates which are deformed, you can
get oolites or ooids in thin sections. You can get many other features like reduction spots and
so on, you can also use stretched or deformed grains, so you can take an image and do the Fry
analyses or Fry method analysis for measuring the strain.

Therefore you need two sets of tracing papers for that. The best idea is the take a photograph
and have a printout and in this printout you overlay a piece of tracing paper and then what

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you do that first you mark the boundary of this tracing paper or circular or square boundary
and then on that tracing paper you mark a dot somewhere and this is the base and you do not
have to worry that where you are putting the centre or what you are putting the dots because
it would be statistically done, the method is statistical method, so it will be taken care of by
itself.

Then if you take another tracing paper and draw the very similar border keeping the borders
that you have made on the first tracing paper or your based tracing paper. Okay, now in this
tracing paper, you match the centre points that you have marked in the previous tracing
paper. Now when you are done then it would superimpose your borders, it would
superimpose your centres, then keeping that you hit all the centres of this deformed ellipses
and mark them as a dot that is your first dataset.

At the moment you move this tracing paper without rotating, so that means you have to
translate and go to the centre of another grain and then you do the same process and you
continue doing it, so you have datasets for each and every centre of these ellipses. And while
doing this, you will figure out that you are clouding your tracing paper with a lot of dots and
while you are plotting the dots when you are at the end you will slowly see that an ellipse
would emerge like this and based on your orientation you can figure out once you are done,
then this is your long axis, so this is 1 plus E1 and this is your short axis 1 plus E3.

However this orientation it may not remain as horizontal as it is, you may have a strain ellipse
like this, so this would also give you the angular relations or angular strain. So this is a very
basic method that we always use for measuring strains from deformed ellipses or deformed
circles which you get in form of ellipses. There are many softwares you can also use it, so I
recommend that you download some images of deformed objects it is available or you just
type Fry method, then take a printout and then do it by yourself and you can send it to me or
the two TAs for checking.

Now the final one is three-dimensional strain analysis, if you remember the Flinn diagram,
then actually you can get three different types of deformed rocks, in three-dimensions, one is
L-tectonite, one is S-tectonite and in between, you have LS-tectonites.

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(Refer Slide Time: 32:17)

Now also because we have a three-dimensional scenario here, you can also in the field with
some techniques or with some typical observations you can figure out what is your X
direction, what is your Y direction and what is your Z direction of the principal axis of the
strain ellipsoid. Now here I have three photographs that we commonly do for or commonly
go this place for, with our students for undergraduate field training, this is near Singhbhum
shear zone behind rock mines and there you have a layer or marker layer of deformed
conglomerates and this place nicely exposes the three different sections because we have
foliations. It is possible to identify the different, the three different principal axes of strains
and their orientations.

So I have three photographs here taken along XZ, along XY and along YZ sections, as you
can see here, maybe not very clear from these images but I highlighted some of this stretched
or deformed conglomerates on each planes. What you see here in XZ planes these
conglomerates are extremely stretched on XY and XZ planes they appear, at least in terms of
their ellipticity more or less similar, what the students do in the field? They measure this long
axis versus short axis and then out of this on each planes they figure out the stretch and then
they plot it in the Flinn diagram which is you see here and when they plotted it, they got an
excellent cluster along the K-1, K equal to 1.

So that gives the students idea that the Singhbhum shear zone at least the area, they are
looking at the strain was flattening or sorry the strain was plane strain. So if it was in this
side, it would be flattening if it was in this side, it would be constriction, we get these features

154
in other places, but in this area as an example, this is a very beautiful example. We can see
that the strain here is plane strain, so this is how you do three-dimensional strain analysis
using Flinn diagram.

(Refer Slide Time: 35:03)

Before I conclude this lecture, I would like to give you some remarks that I have given you in
the very beginning as well, so strain markers in deformed rocks reveal how much the rock
has been strained and information about the nature of the deformation that is whether it is
flattening, constriction and the direction of strain axes etc, you can get it.

There are number of techniques, I have just given you some very commonly used and easily
can be operated in the field or with your computer or with a piece of paper, but there are
many other techniques for measuring strains. I just mentioned few like Wellman method,
Breddin method and RF Phi method, the books I referred all these three techniques are
described, so if you interested you can go and have a look.

What is most important the theory and technique behind all these methods, they do have
certain limitations and they have some sort of boundary conditions, you cannot do everything
using a single and simple method. So based on this I conclude this lecture and I believe with
these three lectures on strain, we have now a very good knowledge on this topic.

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(Refer Slide Time: 36:12)

So strain deformation and strain analysis in the context of deformation of rocks, when the
question comes next that how do the rocks deform? So what are the different forces that
deform the rock? How to identify, understand and classify these different type of forces and
their actions? So the answer of all such questions are hidden in the study of stress and stress
tensor and their different components. So that would be a topic of the next lecture and we
cover this in one or two lectures, so for the time being thank you very much. Enjoy reading
strain chapters. Thank you.

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 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture 08 - Stress (Part – I)

(Refer Slide Time: 0:16)

Hello everyone. Welcome back again to this online NPTEL Structural Geology course. We
have delivered so far almost 7-8 lectures including lab part to measure deep and strike. I hope
you are enjoying these lectures and it is not too difficult to follow. I repeat again, if you have
any issues with any of these lectures or any of these points, or slides, you are most welcome
to right back to us to teaching assistance or directly to me to get clarifications of your
questions or whatever confusions you have about the subject.

Today, we will discuss a new topic very much related to the topics we covered before; strain
and this lecture will focus stress. And I must say that in structural geology stress is one of the
very important components or pillars, without understanding of this particular topic stress it is
extremely difficult to understand or to comprehend the structures that we see in the field.

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(Refer Slide Time: 1:29)

Subject stress includes concept of mechanics. Forces and stress, their dimensions, their units.
Then we will slowly move to some sort of very basic mathematical operations to understand
what is the stress on a surface, what is the stress at a point and then we slowly move to a
concept that is called stress tensor. After that we will look at stress ellipse and stress
ellipsoids and we will conclude this lecture with a concept of compressive tensile and shear
stresses. We will also look at what are positive stresses and what are negative stresses that we
consider in particularly structural geology and how do these concepts that we particularly
apply in structural geology do vary from other subjects?

At this time it is very important to feel that stress is something that we do not see but we feel
its effect. In the context of geology or to be very specific structural geology we are convinced
now so far the lectures we have that rocks do get strained and if you have strain in your rock
that you are considering with, that means it must have moved from its original place and at
the same time it also has changed its shape and dimensions that means it got distorted.

Now to achieve this strain in this rock masses, who does it or who is a driving mechanism
responsible for the strain in the rock? And the answer is that this strain material when it was
getting strained it must have experienced some sort of natural forces or pressures or it was
subjected to some sort of natural forces and pressures. And I repeat that we do not see these
pressures or forces, but we feel it. And this is what we would like to continue in these
lectures, but before that let us have some basic ideas of this general topic overall.

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First of all I want to tell you that you must have heard this word stress from your school life.
You must also have heard this word force again from your high school levels. And we know
that the forces or stresses whatever we consider these two things they have to act on some
materials. Now rocks as we can figure out, that is essentially some sort of materials. Special
kind of materials, you can think so. But, so the study of deformation of rocks under forces fall
certainly, falls under the subject mechanics.

(Refer Slide Time: 4:53)

Now mechanics is something that, it is a topic. It is a sort of topic that we cover in physics
mostly that deals the science related to the behaviour of physical materials. That means that
you can visualise, you can feel, you can touch it subjected to force and displacements. So
therefore, if we consider rocks as our materials then we have learned that these materials,
rock materials do get strained bcause of some sort of forces and pressures and if so, then we
can study the effect of forces and pressures on the rock materials to achieve some sort of
strain. We can study it under the broader umbrella of this subject mechanics. And we
generally call it, I am sure you have heard this term rock mechanics.

So it is very interesting that we will see how rocks as well like all other materials we can
study under this subject of mechanics and at the same time, we will look at that there are
many branches of mechanics. So you must have heard quantum mechanics, you must have
heard continuum mechanics, solid-state physics is also type of mechanics that people do
study. And we will see that in rock formation or in structural geology we will consider a
particular type of mechanics and this is known as continuum mechanics. So, before that, let

159
us get the idea that what is a continua or what you consider continuous in the context of
structural geology or in the context of general behaviour of materials.

(Refer Slide Time: 6:37)

As it is written in the slide that body is and remains a continuous under the action of external
forces. We learn very soon what is force. So it must have some sort of criteria that only we
learned what is continuous and discontinuous and that same concept more or less I can apply
here as well. So it says that consisting of continuous material points, that means if you
consider a material that should not have any voids in your scale of observations, so it should
have continuous materials. It can be different materials, but it has to be very much
continuous.

And we can see that for rocks or we can feel that for rocks this is true, it holds good. And
before and after that information the neighbouring points remain neighbours. That is one of
the primary considerations of a continuous deformation. Now this may not hold true for the
rock deformation. We have seen a number of examples of discontinuous, discontinuity in
rocky formations, some structures we have seen where the continuity did not remain. Let us
keep this in question.

And it does neglect all sorts of atomic structures. That means it does not go to the very
detailed atomic scales features. So if we consider these three and of course in the rock mass
looking at its scale though we do nowadays study very detailed microstructures, even we go
to nano-scales, but we hardly except a few cases, few very specialised cases, we deal with
atomic structures and their distributions for studying deformation of rocks.

160
But in general, we can figure out that if these three conditions hold good for any material and
we are studying its deformation under the action of forces than we call that it falls under the
subject of continuum mechanics. So therefore continuum or continuous medium, you can
consider as it is written here, is represented as a continuous aggregates of idealized material
particles. That means it must have some sort of elemental volumes.

Now these elemental volumes they are small enough that their position can be given in terms
of points, in a set of coordinate systems, whatever coordinate you can consider. But it is large
enough that local value of any variable does not depend on fluctuations at the atomic scale in
the immediate neighbourhood of the points. So this subject is being studied under a sweet
spot. That it is not that small that you cannot plot it in a coordinate system. But at the same
time, it is not that big that some small fluctuations at the atomic scales can affect your
system.

So again, this is little confusing for studying the earth because earth is really big. And little
fluctuations somewhere can cause large fluctuations in other places. So again there are some
sort of approximations and what is most important? That when you model something or when
you study something, you actually ignore some very microscale features. What I try to say
here, that if you are studying called a grain or grain scale processes then you do not take care
probably what is happening at the top of the mountain. Or you do not carry if there is a lot of
deglaciation or there was a huge rainfall. These things probably do not affect your scale of
study.

Now if you go to little larger scales, for example if you are studying a rock specimen, then
you do not take care of these internal features inside a grain. For example, dislocations or
some crystal or some crystal vacancies or some interstitial impurities inside the crystal. When
you study a rock specimen you do not consider all these little things, you ignore them, you
believe that these things do not affect this. If you are doing, studying a scale of Platictonics,
then you do not consider the different layers that we see in rock systems. For example, you
do not consider a shear layer or sandstone layers and then limestone layers and so on. These
things we ignore when you study the scale of Platictonics.

At the moment if you consider the scale of geodynamics, then we consider crust, mantle and
core. We hardly consider the fact that the crust has different layers, mantle has two different
layers or maybe we consider but the scale increases. We do not really consider that whether
in the crust we have carbonates or we have silicates or whether in silicates we have shear

161
layer somewhere or sandstone layers somewhere. These things do not influence the research
of your study.

If you would like to study the solar system entirely, then you consider all the planets just as a
sphere. So there you do not consider what is your core, what is your mantle, what is your
crust and so on. So the bottom-line is based on the scale you are observing, so scale term is
very important as I said in the first lecture. Based on the scale you are observing or your area
or your interest, you somehow approximate some features and you somehow neglect features
by approximating that these features which are, which do not really fit to your scale carrying
out or can influence your measurements or your analysis.

So this is a concept of continuum mechanics and we will see that stress and most and strain as
well that you have learned, these are being studied and the next, after a few lectures we will
study rheology. These are subjects which are being studied under the broad umbrella of
continuum mechanics.

I hope I will be able to convey the message to you of why we should or what is justification
of studying stress, strain and rheology like subjects, particularly important for structural
geology under the umbrella of continuum mechanics. There is also one important point that
the approximations, the assumptions, the equations everything in continuum mechanics is
little simpler compared to other topics. And it is easy to understand, easy to employ, easy to
apply in the problems that we generally face in structural geology and tectonics in general.

So we move on to first get the very basic idea of what is force. Now if I ask you what is
force, then generally the common answer we get that force is pull or push of a body or that
you apply to a body. Say you are pulling a body that means there is a force, you are pushing a
body that means there is a force. Now this is true, but this is not absolutely true in defining
the force. For example, I am standing here, apparently no one is pulling me or no one is
pushing me. But there are some forces, there is at least one force acting on me.

So that is the gravitational force, which is going down and then there is an opposite and equal
force, which is acting from the ground to me and that is why I am more or less balanced here.
So it is an interaction of the material to some quantity.

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(Refer Slide Time: 14:28)

Accordingly we can define that an object in motion or in equilibrium is a function of the

objects mechanical interaction with the other objects. Now force is the quantitative measure
and description of this particular mechanical interaction. So that means if you have a material
then how this material is interacting with its neighbouring or other objects, is the study of
force or it is defined as force if you can measure it quantitatively. And that means not
necessarily all the bodies have to be in motion to identify or to measure force. Now force we
know from high school level is a vector quantity. That means it is a first order tensor.

Now this is something a new term, maybe you are hearing. We will not go into the very detail
of what is tensor. But any scale quantity we call it zeroth order tensor. That means it has zero
order. That means it has only magnitude, no directions nothing. So it is zeroth order tensor.
Vectors it has magnitude and directions. So therefore it is first order tensor and there are
possibilities of some second and third order tensors and these are not typically vectors or
even high order tensors. We learn about it soon, but not in detail, but we will just describe
what is this. So a vector is generally first-order tense. Let us get into that only. So force as it
is a vector quantity, it has a magnitude and direction and point of application.

The SI unit of force, you know it is Newton. 1 Newton is required to accelerate 1 kg mass at
1 meter per second square and if we see its dimensions then it is mlt -2. That means mass,
length and time. So this is how mlt are considered, so would vary when we consider under
materials. Then there is also 1 unit of force that people commonly use is called Dyne. So 1
Dyne is required to accelerate 1 gram mass at 1 centimetre per second square.

163
To get the concept of Newton or just to see that what is 1 Newton, you can actually do it
very simply. I just tell you that it is about 102 grams weight if you keep it and leave it on the
earth surface. Then you are generating actually 1 Newton force on the earth surface. So you
just have acceleration of gravity of earth and then you add it to this weight and then you
figure it out that it would come to almost 102 grams.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:51)

Now because force is vector, so you can represent it through a coordinate system in two-
dimensional and four dimension and three dimensions I am sorry. What do you see here in
this illustration? So this is a force, a point which is say being applied to this direction, to the
centre of this coordinate system X1, X2 and X3. And we can resolve this force factor in three
different components, acting parallel to X1, X2 and X3. And if we assign it Fx1 which is
acting parallel to X1 direction then it is Fcosa, where a is the angle between the force factor
and the X1 axis.

And similarly you can have Fx2 where you can represent by Fcosb, where b is the angle
between the force vector and the X2 axis of this coordinate system and Fx3 where Fcosg
where g is the angle between the vector F and the axis X3 of this Cartesian coordinate system.
And because these are related to each other with this equation, that means square of this force
vector would be sum of the squares of Fx1, Fx2 and Fx3. This relationship holds good, you
know it from your high school level.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:09)

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Now there are classifications of forces. There are different classifications but in general
forces when it act on a body we can basically divide in two groups, one group is internal
forces and another group is external forces. Now internal forces is something that you can
define it that it represents the interaction between the particles in the body. So triatomic
forces, interatomic forces, inter or intermolecular forces, these are generally considered as
internal forces.

External forces on the other hand that is something when you have interactions of your
concerned material on the particles. Other particles of the given body or what I mean by that
it refers to the action of other bodies on the particles of a given body. That means it has to
come some sort of externally. And this is something we generally consider. And external
forces are also classified in two different ways or in two different subsets.

One set is body force and another set is surface force. At first I will discuss regarding body
force and then surface force. Body force is when it acts on unit mass or unit volume of the
body. And in the context of geology or structural geology in particular gravity or
gravitational force is a force that you can consider as body forces. Then there could be the
magnetic forces that also as a type of body force.

Now I will focus on surface force. surface force that is something very important to us is
defined as, is the surface forces do act on the surface of a body when it comes in contact with
another body. The surface forces are mostly responsible for the deformation of rocks at
various scales. So you need a contact to have some sort of surface forces. Otherwise, your

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body will not deform and if there is no distortion, no deformation, then you are not dealing
with surface forces, you probably are dealing with bodies forces or some other forces.

Now surface forces because it has to act on an area of the object, you are considering with, so
this is often referred as traction. So we will see what traction is. That when a force acting on
an area sometimes we call it traction, you remember this term we will use it soon.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:09)

So let us have a look first on the stress term when it is acting on a surface or we define it as
traction. The stress on a surface can be idealised in geological context in many different
ways; for example when you have a fault plane, then two planes are moving past each other
keeping a contact or you can imagine that two grains are in contact in a very micro scale and
one grain is transferring its stress to the neighbouring grain. That means it is generating
traction at a grain boundary. You can consider of meteoritic impact and so on. These are
some very visual examples, but wherever there is a deformation there is traction. You can
think this way.

In this context of giving the definition of stress, generally we say or you commonly say that
what is stress? Force per unit area, you are right. But that is not absolutely true. It is actually
the reactive force per unit area. That means if I apply a force here and if I calculate, if I know
the magnitude of this force that I am pushing my left palm with this right punch, right-hand
punch, then if I apply, take this force and divide it by the area of my left palm, I will certainly
get a value.

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But that is not stress. Stress is I am applying this force, and my left palm is working or
pushing with opposite and negative force, to the force is being applied by my right hand. And
this force is reactive force, it acts following the Newton’s third law. And this force divided by
the surface area is the stress generally defined.

So the stress on a surface or you can say traction we will define it as T, as defined as the ratio
between the reactive force F and the surface area S on which the force is acting. So therefore
we define that this is what is your reactive force. It is a vector force. Then this is area you
would like to work with. So this T is a stress or the traction. Now because force is a vector, so
the stress on a surface traction must be a vector as well.

Now because we are adding some area or dividing the Newton by area, then unit of stress
should be Newton per metre square. Now this Newton per metre square has a name and the
name is Pascal. And sometimes it is written as Pa. Now 1Newton metre, 1 Newton per metre
square is generally you can sort of expand it. So it is 1 kg per metre per square.

And the dimension here changes to ml power minus 1 t power minus 2. Now there are many
other units of stress, sometimes we also call it pressure in the context. So 1 Pascal is
equivalent to 10-5 bars. Now this 10-5 bars that means 5 zeros after 1 and this is about
0.000145 psi pound per square inch. And 1 mega Pascal therefore, 106 Pascal, equivalent to
10 bars and 145 psi.

Now what is 1 Paschal or what is 1 mega Paschal? How much it is? I give you an idea or it is
written here we can read. The normal bicycle that we write everyday, the tyre of these
bicycles have some pressures, we have to pump it. So the general range is mostly 0.5 to 0.7
MPa in a normal bicycle tyre. In a car tyre it goes to 0.24 mega Pascal or 0.3 mega Pascal
maximum. But that is in a very rare case.

So the pressure on the bicycle tyre is 0.6 mega Pascal and the Lithostatic pressure at the
lower upper mantle boundary which is around 670 kilometres down from the surface is about
25 Giga Pascal. That means 1 MPa multiplied by 10 to the power 6 multiplied by 25 gives
you the Giga Pascal. At core mantle boundary it is about 330 Giga Pascal and at the centre of
the earth it goes close to 400 Giga Pascal or the temperature is close to 6000 or 7000 degree
Centigrade.

So this is the range of pressure or this is the magnitude of the pressures that structural
geology tectonics or geodynamic people think and work with. So we will look at now that

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how to mathematically describe the stress on the surface element. But before that we will take
a break, we will continue this lecture in the next segment.

Welcome back. Now we rercaptulate what we learned? That what is stress on a surface, what
is its dimension, what are the units and more or less we have an idea that what is mean by
stress on a surface. Now in this segment, we learn mathematically how to express what is
stress on a surface. And for that we consider some sort of approximations under the broader
umbrella of continuum mechanics.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:48)

So stress on a surface element to the consider that, let us consider a continuous medium
which is occupying volume V which is this larger area that you see this one. Okay. So this is
volume V in Cartesian space and within this you have a very little element, volume element
which is Delta V inscribed in the volume V. Now if we consider this volume V, now why I
am considering this? I am considering this entire V is a very large body and it is a continua
and within this continua I am considering a very small volume.

Okay, now if I consider this very small volume Del V then as we have learned the two
different forces would apply on this. One is body force, which is acceleration of gravity,
which is X i and then surface forces that must act on a very small surface. So let us consider
that this is Del S, which is this entire area. On the surface of this volume, a force is acting.

Okay, now we can consider that this very small surface within this volume Del V, which is
Del S and on this Del S, this course which is acting say some sort of F or whatever or Del F i.

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Now what is this i hear? Like as we said this N i, N i is a unit normal vectors. So if I consider
any surface or any plane then it must have three unit normal vectors parallel to the coordinate
axis, right.

So if I have this very small area and then this Del F i is the surface force acting on that very
small area Del S of this body, then this little green, I am sorry, this little blue surface area
would react to this force Del F i, right. So it would exert and equivalent and opposite force,
and it would produce a couple.

Now I repeat that I have a large volume V, within this large volume I have small volume,
which is Delta V, which has a surface area Delta S. And within this small volume, small area
Delta S we have a very small area Del S where a force is acting. And because the force is
acting on that, on that little surface, it would exert an equivalent and opposite force and
produce a couple on the surface Del S from inside.

(Refer Slide Time: 32:19)

So now if we consider Del S tends to be 0. That means it is a very, very small area then the
couple vanishes and the ratio, that means Del F i and Del S tends to be a finite limit and can
be defined by a vector which is traction. Now by doing this, that means I have a very small
area. I am applying a force, so we are getting an opposite force on this same point from the
other side. And this is Del S, this is Del F i.

So if this area goes very small, therefore I have an area which is Del S and I have a force
acting on this Del F i and if I reduce this area that means the area tends to 0, then I get some
sort of a very, in a very small area the stress or the traction on a surface. So mathematically

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we can define it this way, even if you not consider these strange mathematical notations n and
I, so traction is equal to the limit where Del S tends to 0, is if Del F i divided by Del S.

So this is the mathematical expression of stress on a surface area, now this is not really very
straightforward expression as force per unit area or reactive force per unit area. So in stress,
in considering stress this is how we apply the definition of stress on a surface element. Now
we clearly see that if we have a surface and I have a force acting on this surface, say this is
how it is working.

Now because this is a vector we have understood before that traction is a vector, I can resolve
this vector one way that is perpendicular to this plane and another way parallel to the plane.
The force vector or the component of this force, which is perpendicular to the plane is known
as normal stress vector or we define it or mathematically write as Sigma. That acts normal to
the surface and there is a force that acts parallel force component we can resolve that acts
parallel to the surface, and this is known as shear stress vector or mathematically generally
written as Tau which acts parallel or along the surface.

We can say in most of the geological cases the stress vectors in general act obliquely to the
planes. So structural geologists have to decompose these stresses, I repeat again. A structural
geologist therefore has to decompose the stress vector to normal and shear stress components,
with respect to the orientation of the concerned surface. Now we learn about this technique
later. But what I try to convey with this statement that if we have a force acting on this
surface, we can immediately resolve it to the normal and stress component by simple vectors.

But for stress or for traction it is not that straightforward because you have to also consider
the orientation, the area and its orientation where the traction is working with. Now, once we
have more or less a steady idea that what is stress at a point, now we would like to see a stress
on a surface, I am sorry and then we would like to switch to another part and which is even
more relevant that is stress at a point.

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(Refer Slide Time: 36:51)

So let us talk first about the concept. As I said in structural geology, we often consider stress
at a point, for example a point inside a crystal or mineral, or a very tiny inclusion within a
grain and we would like to know what is the stress acting or what is a stresses in this point.
Now we will follow the same process. So we have the same drawing again, we have this
volume V somewhere outside and I just highlighted the area here, where you have Del V.
Then you have Delta V, Delta S and then Del S small surface. And we have again the same
point P along which or on which we have already derived, we have generated a very small
surface and we looked at how we can get the stress on a surface resolved.

Now to get the stress at this particular point, if we consider a point is now inscribed in the
volume Del V. And if I considered this as a point P then it is possible actually, I can draw

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infinite number of surfaces around it. What I mean by this? If I have this point P then I can
draw infinite number of surfaces and so on. And these surfaces are very small because these
are around a point and on each surface, you can calculate what is the stress because stress
classically is defined as reactive force per unit area.

So in short that you can imagine infinite number of very small planes around the point and
resolve the tractions on these small planes and defined the stress at a point. Now this is some
sort of approximation or consideration. And these areas have to be very, very small. Now on,
each pair of opposite planes around the point, we can resolve to perpendicular and oppositely
directed with equal magnitude. Therefore equal length component of the stress vectors, we
will learn about it very soon.

Now if I have a little point here and I have two planes oppositely directed, I have two planes
oppositely directed, I have two planes oppositely directed and so on, and a force is acting on
this plane, then it is highly possible that this oppositely directed magnitudes are equal. But
with other pair of oppositely directed planes the magnitude may be different. That means if I
have a point here. I have two surfaces it may be acting like this and I have two points here,
the magnitude. In these two cases, here and here the magnitudes are same. But the
magnitudes are different in the other two pairs.

So if I consider many such planes and these magnitudes may vary constantly. And this would
come or this would finally yield what we would call very soon as stress ellipse. When you
consider it 2D and what we call stress ellipsoid when we consider in three-dimension. But
before that let us again come back to this particular topic, stress at a point.

Now what we can do actually, we can draw a very small unit cube around this point P
considering six of these many surfaces, that is possible to draw around this little point. Now
these six surfaces, one pair of each are aligned perpendicular to one of the principal axes of
stresses.

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(Refer Slide Time: 41:09)

So how it would look like? It would look like something like this, what we are seeing here.
We have these reference frames in Cartesian coordinates X1, X2, sorry, X2, and here is X3.
This blue dot here is a point P and we have considered six planes. In the positive side, we are
now seeing three planes, there are of course three planes on the other side.

In this context this plane where I am marking a little dot is perpendicular to your X3. This
plane is perpendicular to your X2 and this plane is perpendicular to your X and these three
planes and their opposite planes hold this point P. So this is a very magnified view of around
point P.

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(Refer Slide Time: 42:01)

We already know that a force is acting. Now we know that a force is acting here and for each
surface we have defined following a traction that there should be a normal stress and there
should be a shear stress. Now normal stress, for the normal stress if we consider this plane,
which is perpendicular to the X1, the normal stress on this plane which is perpendicular to X1
certainly would be directed along the S1 direction, which in this case is Sigma 11.

And the shear stress again we can resolve it in two different components. Because one would
go along the X2 direction and one would go towards the X3 direction. So we actually get
three mutually perpendicular set of stress components. One of them which is a normal stress
component and two of them are the shear stress component. And one of these two is aligned
to X2 and this one is aligned to X3.

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And a similar case happen, if we consider the plane which is perpendicular to X3. That means
Sigma 33 is a normal stress component working along the direction of Sigma 33. Then two
shear stress component Tau 32 and then Tau 31. And then similarly on this plane, which is
perpendicular to X2 direction we would have normal stress component which is acting
towards X2 and then to shear stress components.

(Refer Slide Time: 44:11)

Now you have seen that three different nomenclatures or different notations are given. Let me
explain what it is. What we see on this plane, I come back again to this plane, so Sigma 11,
Tau 12 and Tau 13. In this case, this first index in each of these stress components indicate
the plane it is acting or the plane perpendicularly it is acting. So in this case, this plane is
perpendicular to X1. So therefore, in all cases, this is first component is 1. That means this

175
Sigma, this Tau and this Tau, these stresses are working on a plane which is perpendicular to
X1 direction.

The second component 1, 2 and 3 at the direction along which the stresses are working, so in
this case, the second component here is 1. So it is working along the X1 direction, Tau 12
second component is 2. So this is working along the X2 direction and this is 3, Tau 13. 3 is
the last component, so it is working along the X3 direction. And this is also obvious or
applicable for the other two planes.

The other three negative planes that we do not see in this image and exactly oppositely
directed and. But similar magnitudes stresses would work there. So if we now come back to
our traction idea or what we have learned from the traction. So on the surface we have, in this
case, this is parallel to or sorry, perpendicular to X1. So here I can, I am sorry, here I can
write that this is T1. That means traction working on the plane which is perpendicular to X1.
Traction working perpendicular to X3 which is T3 and this one is T2.

Now for each of these T1, T2 and T3, we see that we have three components to define the
stress on this plane which is perpendicular to X2. But everything we are doing to define the
stress along this point P. So to define the state of stress along this point P, we first have to
resolve the stresses acting along the three surfaces. So for T1, we see that this is Sigma 11,
Tau 12 and Tau 13 for the face normal to X1.

Tau 21, Tau 22 and Tau 33 for the face of normal to X2, which is Tau 2 for a traction 2 and
then traction 3 is Tau 31. I am sorry, this must be, Tau 31, Tau 32 and Sigma 33, which is
normal to X3. Now all these nine components that we see here are required to define the
stress at this point P. And each of them as we have understood this T1, T2 and T3 it is
tractions and tractions are vector.

But when we have, when we need all these nine components 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

components to define the stress at a point, it does not remain a vector anymore. It comes to a
new component or new sort of dimensions or description of the parameters and this is known
as tensor. So you can write these three components in a matrix form, Sigma 11, Tau 12, Tau
13, Tau 21, Sigma 22, Tau 23, Tau 31, Tau 32 and Sigma 33 and you can simply notify or
note it in the form of index notation Sigma i j and this is your stress tensor which is neither a
scalar quantity nor a vector quantity but a tensor. But I tell you this is a second-ranked tensor.

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So force, traction was the first order tensor and stress at a point is a second-order tensor. And
this is neither a vector nor a scalar. So I believe you have now the idea that from the traction
which was a vector, now we arrive to a new concept, when we have to define the stress at a
point. It cannot be a vector it is a tenser and in three dimensions you need nine components
and in two dimension you can define it only with four components. But it would still remain a
tensor.

(Refer Slide Time: 49:50)

Now there are some fundamental equations that we need to know, learn and which is known
as equilibrium concepts of stress tensor. I am not deriving these equations but as I have noted
here you can get this from the book, one of the books I referred Professor Ghosh’s book. If

177
you go to chapter 5, you can see what is this. But the concept of this equilibrium or stress
equilibrium is that this cube would stay in a static mode.

That means it does not translate along X1, X2, or X3 direction or it does not rotate. So if it
has to translate then we have to consider the body and surface forces. That means body and
surface forces, the sum of body and surface forces in a particular direction should be 0, that
means they are balanced. So this is for X1 direction, this is for X2 direction, this is for X3
direction, you can get these equations. And in index notation form, you can write it this way.
And if that this is not rotating, that means it is not rotating this way. Say for example
clockwise.

Therefore this Tau 32 has to be counterbalanced by on the other side, Tau 23 and we can
show that in equilibrium condition, this is possible. That is only condition that it does not
rotates. So this is the equilibrium that we consider for moments and therefore it defines as I
said, Tau 32 has to be equal to Tau 23. Therefore, Sigma i j should be equal to Sigma j i when
your body is in equilibrium and therefore here we had Sigma j i you can simply represent
Sigma j i to Sigma i j.

I did not dedicate too much time on this because you can get these derivations from other
books, but I hope you have now understood the concept of stress on a surface which is a
vector, traction and stress at the point which is a tensor. Now let us come back to the concept
of stress ellipse and stress ellipsoid.

(Refer Slide Time: 52:32)

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As I said that on this particular point P here, we can consider N number of planes,
surrounding this point P and oppositely oriented planes would have same magnitude. That
means same length, but different directions, different senses of action. So if we look at this is
the point P here and if we look at in two-dimension, then we may get actually, so these are
actually for example if I consider these two red arrows, so around this we had this plane and
this plane around the small arrows, we had this plane.

So here it is working on this side and also it is working in this side. Their lengths are equal,
that means magnitudes are equal, but their orientations or action, action directions are
different and similarly here. Now of course you can have N number of planes around it and
you can draw their normal components with their respective magnitudes. So if you connect
all these points, you certainly would get or end up with an ellipse and this ellipse is known as
stress ellipse when you consider in two-dimension.

The maximum length you get will define it as Sigma 1 and the minimum length, we get of
this stress magnitude we define it as Sigma 3. In three dimension very similar to the strain
ellipsoids, we will look at we would get a very similar shape. So at the maximum we would
get Sigma 1. At the minimum we get Sigma 3 and intermediate we get Sigma 2. Now what is
Sigma 1, Sigma 2 and Sigma 3 and how does it differ from this Sigma 11 or Sigma 33 or
Sigma 22? We will hear it in the next lecture, we will learn it on this next lecture. But before
that, let us get some more ideas about the stress ellipsoid.

(Refer Slide Time: 54:47)

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So the geometric disposition of the stress ellipsoid, its shape and orientation is generally
described by the stress ellipsoid and it reveals the state of the stress at a given point in a rock
mass deforming or if it is even in a static mode. Now this is something very important that we
have just learned. Not necessarily you have to deform a material, that there is a stress or
because there is a stress not necessarily the rock mass has to deform.

And we have just learned that the largest, smallest and intermediate axis which will define
Sigma 1, Sigma 3 and Sigma 2, respectively of these stress ellipsoids, this one, this one and
this one are known as principal stress or principal axes of stresses of the stress ellipsoid. This
is something which is very interesting, we will again learn about it later in the next lecture.
But let us have some very basic ideas.

That the stress and strain ellipsoids, they look very similar. I just changed the colours, but
they look very similar. Their physical appearances are very similar, their mathematical
descriptions are also very similar. However always remember that these are different. A
stress ellipsoid may not lead to a strain ellipsoid, that I just said that rocks are not deforming.
An important the shape and the orientation of the strain ellipsoid may be very different to
those of a stress ellipsoid responsible for the strain.

(Refer Slide Time: 56:48)

And now we see that what are compressive stresses, tensile stresses, shear stresses and what
are their sign conventions. Now compressive stress is the stress on rock mass which tend to
shrink or shorten the material along the direction of applications. And if you have a domain
of compressive stress, you form structures like folds, buckle folds or thrust faults. So for

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example, he if I have a layer embedded in a body, embedded in a matrix and if I apply the
stresses directing towards each other, I will produce a fold and it is a compressive stress.

If there is tension on the same layer, then I may produce a structure which we call boudinage,
we will learn about it soon. Then stress is tensile stress. In structural geology interestingly,
we consider compressive stress as positive and tensile stress as negative. If you read literature
of any other engineering subjects or physics like mechanical engineering, material science,
you will see their conventions are exactly opposite. Compressive stress is negative and tensile
stress is positive and this is because we learned later that tensile strength of any material is
less than its compressive strength. And because material scientists or mechanical engineers
they everyday use or their applications are mostly with the practical materials, so therefore
they are most concerned with the tensile stress.

And in earth most of the stresses are mostly compressive. So we deal mostly with
compressive stresses. So mostly to deal with some sort of mathematical easiness we use
compressive stress as positive and tensile stress as negative. Now, shear stress is the stress on
rock mass, we have learned that acts along or parallel to the surface. That means you can
consider the stress along the fault plane.

In this case, if I have shear stress working like this on this elliptical object and the rotation of
this elliptical object due to application of shear stress is anticlockwise, then we consider is
positive, if not, that means if it rotates clockwise, than we call it negative. Though we do not
call it positive or negative way, general in structural geology we call this type of, that means
when top part goes towards your left side we call it sinistral and this one we call it dextral, we
learn about it soon.

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(Refer Slide Time: 59:33)

So with this note, I conclude this lecture and in this lecture we have learnt the basics of force,
stress on a surface and stress at a point and we also learnt that why is stress on a surface is
vector and stress at a point is a tensor. This is something confusing, but this is how it is. And
we also learnt what are principal axes of stresses.

But we learn about it soon. So this is the topic of next lecture, we will focus upon the
characteristic of the principal axes of the stresses, how they are derived, what are different
mathematical considerations involved, their different components and we will also look at in
detail the shear stress components. Thank you very much, see you in the next lecture.

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 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture 09 - Stress (Part – II)

(Refer Slide Time: 0:29)

Hello everyone. Welcome back again to this online NPTEL Structural Geology course, we
are learning stress. In the last lecture we have learned about the part 1 of the stress and today
we are on the part 2 of this lecture and in this lecture we will particularly focus on principle
axes of stresses, their magnitude and orientation, we learned about it in the last lecture. And
in this lecture we will learn about it in more detail. How to derive them? How to get them?
What are the different meanings of these principle axes of stresses?

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Then we will move to components of stress tensor. We will also focus on isotropic and
deviatoric stresses. We will also discuss after that shear stress components and their
orientations along which it works and what are the different structures we produce because of
the shear stresses. And then we will directly go two examples, how to calculate stresses on a
given plane which we will apply in many cases, if you continue with structural geology.

(Refer Slide Time: 1:32)

So a little bit of review of this last lecture. We learned about principal stresses and principal
directions. So I just read this text. The principal directions are the directions such that no
shear stresses act on the planes normal to this direction. As we have seen that if I consider the
plane perpendicular to the X1, again this plane, then if I consider these stress components
Sigma 11 and along this direction because this is the normal stress, no shear stress acting
along Sigma 11.

So therefore if I consider a plane perpendicular to X1, Sigma 11 is a principal stress

perpendicular to that plane. And because X1, X2 and X3, these 3 are my coordinate frames in
a Cartesian system, so Sigma 11, Sigma 22 and Sigma 33 are my principal directions as well,
along the direction it is working.

In 3 dimensions, there should be three such directions as we have seen which are mutually
perpendicular and may have equal or different values. We learned what would be the
meaning if they are equal and what is the meaning if they are different. So stress acting along
the principal directions, that means their magnitude along the principal directions which are
essentially normal stress components are known as principal stresses. So we learned principal

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stresses which other magnitudes and we also learned principal directions which are the
directions along which the principal stresses do act or do work.

Now altogether principal stresses and principal directions they are known as principal axes of
stresses. The principal directions and principal stresses are commonly referred together as it
is written here as principal axes of stresses. Now if I consider a three-dimensional system,
then it is quite obvious that I would have three principal stresses and I would have three
principal directions. So altogether, it requires six components to determine the state of
principal axes of stresses acting on a body.

(Refer Slide Time: 4:17)

Now as we have seen in the previous diagram, that if this Sigma 11, Sigma 22 and Sigma 33,
which are the normal components aligned along the principal axes of stresses, if that happens,
that means if the unit cube under stress is aligned perfectly so that the principal stresses are
aligned along the 3 axes of the coordinate system, then we can define this Sigma 11 as Sigma
1 which is the magnitude of principal axes of stress along X1 direction, Sigma 22 as Sigma 2
and Sigma 33 as Sigma 3.

So therefore it gives three principal stress vectors: Sigma 100, Sigma 020 and 00 Sigma 3.
Now I wrote it as sort of here as row matrix, but generally they appear as column matrix. So
if I write Sigma 100 and so on, so three stress vectors working on three different planes,
where Sigma 1, Sigma 2 and Sigma 3 are normal stresses and along these directions there is
no shear stress acting on the planes perpendicular to Sigma 1, Sigma 2 and Sigma 3.

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Now if this unit cube that we are considering is not aligned, that means the edges of this unit
cubes are not aligned to the coordinate system, then we cannot simply replace Sigma 11 by
Sigma 1 and so on. We have to calculate what would be the Sigma 1, what would be the
Sigma 2, what would be Sigma 3 first to get the principal axes, principal stresses. And then
we have to get the principal directions. That means first the directions, first this direction, the
magnitudes and then the directions.

Now in matrix algebra, this is an interesting eigenvalue problem. But it is very simple, we
learn about it soon. So the eigenvalues of the stress tensor matrix or the principal stresses and
the eigenvectors of the same are the principal directions. Now we will learn how to derive it.
We will learn how to get it. Nowadays, of course, we have to learn it, how to do it manually?
But there are many computer programs where you can actually apply and you just give your
input. This basic stress tensor matrix and then it would automatically give you what would be
your eigenvalues. That means your principal stresses and eigenvectors, what are the principal
directions?

So before we jump into that particular part, that what would happen for the stress let us have
some very basic idea, idea is one, what are eigenvalues and what are eigenvectors? What do
you mean actually by this? And this is a very classic operation that not necessarily for this
case but for many deformation related issues, people do use eigenvalues and eigenvectors.

Now this Eigen the term means the characteristics of something. So eigenvalues or
eigenvectors certainly describes that some values which are characteristics, some vectors.
That means it has some directions, these are also characteristic for that particular object or
particular matrix you are dealing with. Now we will try to see it in a very simple way that
what are eigenvalues, what are eigenvectors and what are their meanings.

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(Refer Slide Time: 8:34)

What do we see here? We see a square grid and we can consider that these are of unit lengths.
Now I can deform this square grid applying some sort of deformation tensor. We did not
learn about it. I said that in a strain lecture that there are lot of mathematics involved in the
strain. We did not go through that, but I am sure that you read some books or online
materials.

So if I apply in this grid this deformation, so this is the deformation. So that means if I have a
point, what this matrix tells us or what this some sort of equation written in a matrix form tell
us? It says that X’ and Y’ are column matrix. Then there is a 2 by 2 matrix; 3, 0, 1, 2 and then
XY is in another column matrix. So this XY is the original coordinate and X’Y’ prime are the

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transformed coordinate, deformed coordinate. And this 2 by 2 matrix is the matrix which
characterises, or which describes, quantifies the transformation from XY to X’ Y’.

Now this is just an example, this 3, 0, 1, 2. And if I apply this deformation matrix to this
square grid, it would look like this. So your original state was this grey square grids and after
if I apply the deformation, then what is coming here is the yellow, now it is not square, but
yellow grids. Now what did it do?

We see that if I consider any point, for example here X, let us consider here, then this point
along the X direction it moved here. Okay, so it moved three units along the X direction. So
therefore this is defining it moved three units along the X direction and no movement along
the Y direction. So therefore it is somewhere like this.

For the Y, if we consider that this point has moved to here, and this is applicable for
anywhere, if you see this has moved here and for Y direction, it has moved along X direction
1 unit and along Y direction 2 units. So these 2 units are coming here. So this point has
moved here and here as well. You can like any point of this square grid and you would see
this feature.

So this is the meaning of this matrix or we call it D-matrix or deformation matrix. So this
defines everything, it also defines your strain ellipse in two dimensions and if there are nine
components, then it defines a strain ellipsoid in 3 dimensions. In that case, you would have X,
Y and Z. So if I try to look at in a vector form, so that means I have this red vector, unit
vector which is (1,0), the coordinate here and then I have the green vector which is along the
Y direction. The coordinate is (0,1).

And if I apply this transformation matrix, or the de-matrix, then this 3 comes, then the red
matrix (1, 0) changes to (3, 0) and (0, 1) changes to (1, 2) which actually is defining your D-
matrix, deformation matrix. Now from here, we would move to these two terms, eigenvalues
and eigenvectors. Now if we see this transformation, we have just taken two unit vectors
aligned along the X and Y directions of this square grid. But there should be N number of
vectors.

That means you can draw vectors like this any direction, is not it? And they would also
deform following this matrix. To define the eigenvalues and eigenvectors because these are
characteristics, you would consider some sort of feature which is known as span. What I

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mean by this? That means if I have, if I consider this vector 1, 0, the red one, then it has a
span like this and after the transformation, I see the span remains same. It did not change.

But this green vector if I consider the span here like this and if I just import this it was here.
But after the application of this deformation matrix, this span of this green matrix has rotated
from its previous position.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:41)

And if you try with many other such examples, for example here, apart from this red and
green, we can consider this blue vector which is actually (1, 1) and this line is the span of this
blue vector. And we see that after deformation because this was (1, 1), if we apply this
transformation matrix, it would come to here. Therefore the span which was initially like this,
now moved to this plane or this orientation and this is how it has rotated. Similarly, if we
consider this orange vector, we will see that it has also rotated after we apply the de-matrix.

If we consider the opposite vectors of (1, 1), that means along X direction, it is -1 and Y
direction, it is +1. Another vector, this purple one and this is the span of this purple vector.
Then after this application of this D-matrix, it takes the form like this and interestingly the
span remains same, it did not rotate. So we found two vectors, one is this one, this red unit
vector and this purple unit vector. That did not rotate after application of this transformation.

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(Refer Slide Time: 16:52)

And interestingly, let me wipe this one out, all other unit vectors do not matter how they are
oriented, except this red and purple, this red and purple, all other vectors oriented in any
directions if you try, you would see that there are spans which were initially oriented in theta
direction. And after the application of the D-matrix the theta direction is not remaining same,
except these red and violet vectors.

So we can consider that these two vectors, this (1, 0) and (-1, 1), the purple one. These two
vectors are characteristics for the application of this deformation matrix. What does it mean?
Further, that I see that does not matter whichever point I take, this unit red vector has a
stretch of unit 3 anywhere, you consider it was here and then from its initial position it took 1,
2 and 3, it came here. It was here, it came here 3 units.

Similarly, this purple vector I can see that it did not change its span. That means its direction
is maintained. But along this direction, it moved two units and it is obvious for any
directions. If it is was here, then it moved 1, 2.

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(Refer Slide Time: 18:51)

Will see that these two characteristics vectors, this red and this purple these are known as
eigenvectors. That means in two dimensions, if I apply this matrix, does not matter, I take any
point of my deforming body, these two directions would remain, that means remain constant,
that means their orientations would remain same, and therefore they are very much
characteristics of this matrix, deformation matrix.

And the red unit vector which is one of the eigenvectors of this deformation matrix has
eigenvalue 3. Because if I apply this deformation then it would be always multiplied by 3 and
if I take this purple vector, its next incremental position would be always multiplied by a
factor of 2. So in general if I consider, in two dimension if I deform a material, there should
be to characteristic directions, along which the material lines do not change their orientations.
But they only get stretched and when they get stretched, they get stretched in each and every
increment of deformations equally.

The first one that there are directions are maintained and these directions are known as
eigenvectors. And the second one that the multiplication it does in each and every increment
of strain or deformation is known as eigenvalues. And if you have eigenvalue for each and
every direction, in three-dimension you would have three eigenvectors and three eigenvalues.

Now you can consider it in a different way. If you have a cube and if you stretch the cube
along a particular axis, say you are stretching it along X direction, then you would get your
three directions, three perpendicular directions X, Y, Z would remain constant. So in that

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case, X, Y and Z are your eigenvectors. And eigenvalues for X and Y, for Y and Z would be
zero because it is not getting stretched. But for X each increment you are deforming it would
maintain the same direction. But it would get increased, increased and increased with the
same factor.

Now this concept is applied for calculating the principal stresses and also principal direction
of stresses. But before that this is how we have understood geometrically that this is the red
and purple, these two are my eigenvectors with some eigenvalues. But how to calculate them
mathematically?

(Refer Slide Time: 22:18)

In this context eigenvalues or eigenvectors are defined in this way. So if S is a transformation

matrix, then I can multiply this X with a vector which is X and then I equal it to a scaler
quantity, which is your eigenvalue and then multiply it again by the same vector X. So your
transformation matrix multiplied by a very unique vector which is your eigenvector should be
equal to your eigenvalue which is your scalar term multiplied with the same vector.

Now here you may have a confusion that S is a matrix, X is a matrix, here lambda is a scalar
and X is a vector. So matrix vector multiplication and scalar vector multiplication, you can
imagine that how it happening together. To avoid this confusion, you actually can multiply
this lambda to bring a vector here, to bring matrix here, I am sorry, you can write a matrix
which is known as identity matrix. If I write in two dimension, I am sorry in three-dimension
then it would look like this 100, 010, 001. This is identity matrix.

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So if you add it here, it does not change anything but then you are convinced with the fact
that in this side we are doing matrix, matrix multiplication and here we are also doing matrix,
matrix multiplication. Now taking over from this equation, we certainly can write this
equation. Okay, where I just changed the positions opposite to the sides. And the easiest
solution, you can get out of this for X vector is when X equal to 0. But that is very easy for us
and this is exactly what we are not looking for. We need a non-zero X vector solution for
that.

And to do this, we have to get the determinants of this matrix, of this term, which is this, and
then all its components should be vanished. That means determinant of S minus lambda
multiplied by your identity matrix should be 0. Now if we rewrite or expand this equation
with our transformation matrix which was 3012, then we can write this equation determinant
of 3 minus lambda 102 minus lambda should be 0.

Now if we do the determinant, if we identify or calculate the determinant of this matrix, you
can do it and it would yield a quadratic polynomial. So it would take a shape of, I am not
doing it here, but it would take a shape of, anyway this is 0. So you actually get the equation
lambda minus 3 multiplied by lambda minus 2 equal to 0. This is easier because it is 0, right.
So you get the two values, lambda two real values, lambda equal to 3, lambda equal to 2.

Otherwise, you would get the equation in the form of lambda square plus some constant,
lambda plus some another constant. Okay, let us try it this way, it would be much easier, say
A lambda square, where A is a scalar or a constant. Then B lambda and then you would get
another constant here C that would be 0. So this is your quadratic equation for two dimension
and you can get the solutions. The roots of this equation, roots of this lambda and this would
be your eigenvalues for this particular matrix that you are dealing with.

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(Refer Slide Time: 26:37)

So now we know the eigenvalues for the particular matrix we are concerned with. So one
eigenvalue we found was 3 and another was 2. Now the task is to determine the eigenvectors
for corresponding eigenvalues. Now the operations as you can imagine this is very
straightforward, so we again see this same equation, where S is your concerned matrix,
lambda is your eigenvalue, I is identity matrix. And here X is eigenvector for lambda equal to
3. This is what we have to determine that what is the value of this vector X in terms of X and
Y coordinates.

Now you can expand this equation in this form, very simply can put the value of lambda and
then it takes the shape of the equation like this and from this equation, you have to solve the
values for X and Y. Now if you solve it, then it comes to 1 and 0, that is the eigenvector for
lambda 3 and if you remember this is exactly what we have considered.

So you see that mathematically we can derive, we do not have to draw the curves or plots and
so on. Of course we can do it for better understanding, but otherwise just doing some simple
matrix algebra, you can calculate this. By the way, just to let you know that from this
equation to solve it for X and Y, you can use reduced row echelon form RREF to find the
solution of X and Y. And you can find the process of RREF from any matrix algebra standard
book or text.

So similar way we found that it was 1, 0 for lambda 3 the eigenvalues, eigenvectors and then
for lambda 2 eigenvector 2 we can similarly replace the lambda, lambda value in this

194
equation as 2 here and here by replacing this lambda and this lambda. And then we see sort of
an equation of similar way that we have derived here and again, if you solve for X and Y
using RREF method, you can find the values for X and Y as minus 1, 1. And this is exactly
what we found or what we have seen before, which was the eigenvectors for eigenvalue 2. So
this is how mathematically you can figure out what are your eigenvalues and eigenvectors.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:16)

If we go back to our previous slide, we can see that these are your matrix. So 1 minus 1, 1,
when you have this and it is when the eigenvalue is 3 you get 1, 0. Now, we can apply this
concept now of this eigenvector and eigenvalue to calculate the principal directions and
principal stresses and we learn this in the next segment of this lecture.

Okay, so in the previous part we learned how to calculate or what is the meaning of
eigenvectors, eigenvalues and how to calculate them. And now we will apply the same
technique for our calculation of principal stresses and the principal directions and I remind
you that we need to find 6 values, three for principal stresses and three for principal
directions.

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(Refer Slide Time: 30:23)

So let us start with this consideration in this slide. So we can consider very similar way the
same arbitrary element which is Del S as surface area. And it has an unit normal which is N i.
That means N1, N2, N3 in three different directions and this is the traction you are working
and with the traction it is making an angle which is beta.

Now clearly if this beta angle is 0, then you are N i is essentially your, along the N i
directions, you do not have any shear stress. So therefore it automatically gives you the
direction of principal stresses and at the same time if you can calculate the magnitude then
these are your magnitude of the principal stresses. But if that does not happen, then you have
to figure out, particularly the orientations where your shear stresses are 0.

That means, where Sigma is one of the principal stresses and it must follow this convention
that Sigma i j must be replaced by Sigma and these two vectors would switch their positions
that means N j to and N i. Now to do that, you can actually figure out an equation, I am not
going into the details of how to get this equation to this. Where you get this particular term
Sigma involved here and if you expand this equation in 3 directions, so you would get things
like this. And based on this, you actually have to calculate the 3 directions which are your
principal directions and you have a condition where that we have learned also with the force
that N1 square plus N2 square and N3 square, they should be the sum of this should be 1 and
then of course you have to figure out the value of Sigma.

Now very similar way, if you have this equation then you can only get a nontrivial solution,
where your vector is not 0. That means it is not aligned so that means of beta is 0. Then you

196
can get a nontrivial solution of these equations, these three questions only if the determinant
of the coefficient vanishes. So this is the part that you have to solve the determinant and you
have to figure out what your eigenvalue.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:10)

Now if you do that, then essentially it would take the shape. So this equation would if you
expand it in matrix form, it would come to this part and if you solve it, I recommend that you
try to solve it, if you know how to get the determinant of a matrix, a three-dimensional
matrix, recursive matrix, then you will arrive to third-degree or third-degree polynomial or a
cubic equation like this. Now if you have that equation with you, where I1, I2 and I3 are three
constants, you learn what these are soon.

Essentially this would yield three values, 3 real roots of this equation and you can say root 1
is Sigma 1, root 2 as Sigma 2 and root 3 is Sigma 3 and they are the values of the principal
stresses and these are also eigenvalues of the stress matrix that we are dealing with. So this is
the way you get your principal stresses. Now this I1, I2 and I3 that you also get along with
these principal stresses, they have very important contribution in the understanding of
mechanics and also in structural geology.

You can express them in terms of stress components like this. That there are many forms you
can write these three terms, you can express these three terms. But this I1, I2 and I3 these are
known as stress invariants. These are not eigenvalues but they also do not vary, they also
characteristically represent the stress matrix.

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And most important that their values also do not change with the coordinate transformation.
That means you are not be deforming your material, but if you are transforming your
coordinates, these values would remain constant, they would not change. So therefore these
are some sort of characteristics but these are not eigenvalues. Now the first one I1, I1 is stress
invariant. That is a mean normal stress and is a constant independent of the coordinate
system. We learn soon what is mean by normal stress. The second stress invariant which is
commonly expressed this way or in the matrix from this way is generally applied when you
try to understand the flow or plastic yielding of rocks.

So that means, you would learn soon later, that what the (())(36:18) criteria and other things
there you use, it is failure criteria, so the yielding of the materials this I2 is used very
frequently. The third stress invariant is not used in structural geology or hardly used and is
mostly ignored. At least I did not see any application of this 3rd stress invariant. So this is how
we derive the principal stresses.

(Refer Slide Time: 36:48)

And for the principal directions I have given some instructions, how to derive that? But
otherwise it is very easy because you now have solved your equations. So you have actually
some number of unknowns and you have also this relation N1 square plus N2 square plus N3
square equal to 1. So using this equation and these three equations, where you Sigma are
known and for each Sigma 1, each Sigma 2 and each Sigma 3 or each Sigma, that means
Sigma 1, Sigma 2, Sigma 3, you can get the values of N1, N2 and N3. The instructions are
given here and also you have these stress invariants.

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So I am not going into the detail of this, you can read it and it is better if you get any strain
matrix, any stress matrix, stress tensor. And you try to deform it or you try to rotate it, and
then figure out what are the invariants or what are the principal directions and principal
stresses, you can do these exercises by yourself. And again, as well as I tell that if you have
any confusion, if you cannot solve it, you are more than welcome to come back to us. So you
can contact the TAs and also you can write to me.

(Refer Slide Time: 38:54)

So let us go to another very important topic of this stress subject that we always consider,
particularly in structural geology which is isotropic and deviatoric stress. And you can
actually decompose your stress tensor, the general stress tensor to the isotropic or sometimes
we call it hydrostatic and deviatoric stress matrices or stress tensors.

Now what is isotropic state of stress? As it defines it is written here, where the principal
stresses are equal in magnitude, the state of stress is considered to be isotropic or hydrostatic.
That means the magnitude of Sigma 1, Sigma 2 and Sigma 3 are equal, but of course they are
mutually perpendicular to each other.

In the stress tensor, so now if I have Sigma 11, Sigma 22, Sigma 33 all are equal, then I can
replace them with a single value. In this case what I have done is Sigma 0. Okay, so all other
components are 0, you have only three principal stresses, have similar magnitude. Now if the
stress tensor all of diagonal components, that means the shear stress components are 0 and on
diagonal components are not equal, that means you do not have any shear stress acting but
your Sigma 1, Sigma 2 and Sigma 3 are not equal to each other.

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Then you can actually get something which is called mean stress. A mean stress is actually
the sum of the principal axes of the stresses divided by 3 or is the average or of the on
diagonal components gives you the mean normal stress. So if I have non-equal values, here
Sigma 11 is not equal to Sigma 22, not equal to Sigma 33, in that case I can sum them, and
then divide them by 3 and therefore I get something called Sigma 0 and this I can separate out
and then can write the stress matrix also in this way.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:54)

Then all other components which are not isotropic in the stress matrix or stress tensor matrix
with or without shear stress components except the mean normal stresses are considered as
deviatoric stresses. So you can write it this way. Okay, so this is written without shear stress
component and you can also add your share stress components, sorry, not this one. So your
on diagonal components and off diagonal components are working here. And these are
deviatoric stresses where you have taken the mean stress Sigma 0 which was actually Sigma
11 plus Sigma 22 plus Sigma 33 divided by 3.

So this is your deviatoric stress component. So in general, if I consider the overall stress
matrix Sigma i j I can decompose it in two stress tensors. The first one I came keep only the
diagonal components, keeping all the diagonal values equal that would give you the isotropic
stress tensor. And the deviatoric stress tensor is whatever is remaining and if you sum them,
you will get your total stress tensor.

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(Refer Slide Time: 42:27)

So now we will discuss what are the meanings of isotropic and deviatoric stresses? Now
isotropic stresses as we can understand that all the values are equal. Their magnitudes are
equal. So therefore, isotropic stresses are mostly responsible for the volume change. It could
be positive or negative, depending on the direction it is working. But it does not change the
initial shape of the rock volume under consideration.

The deviatoric stress on the other hand, it measures the departure of the stress tensor from the
symmetry and therefore that means, it does not consider the symmetric part of it. Okay, so
therefore the deviatoric stress is responsible for the strain or distortion of the body and
therefore it changes the shape of the body.

Now sometimes we use few different terms like Lithostatic pressures or Overburden
pressures. So stresses in rocks at depth that are isotropic and due solely to the overlying rock
masses. That means if I am at 600 kilometres then I have a huge 600 kilometre pile of rocks
above me or I have of the grain you are looking at. Of course I cannot go to 600 kilometres.
So this pressure due to this overlying rock mass is known as lithostatic pressure or
overburdened pressure. And it is important to understand these lithostatic pressures are not
necessarily correspond to the mean stress. Okay.

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(Refer Slide Time: 44:06)

Presently will look at the share stress part and we will do it a very different way. You can get
the derivations or the detailed maths involved in it from any book. I again recommend
Professor Ghosh’s book, you can see how we have arrived to this type of considerations. But
the basics, I am going to explain you how it is done.

Now, clearly, I have three orthogonally oriented principal axes of stresses and if I consider
about the shear stresses then there are three possibilities and these 3 possibilities are shown in
point 1, 2 and point 3. Now in the first possibility you can get a pair of planes which are
intersecting along the Sigma 2 axis. So I have these two planes, one is blue, one is green,
there are intersecting along the Sigma 2 axis. Okay.

And they are inclined to the Sigma 2 axis with a value of plus and minus 45 degrees. So if I
make a cross-section then I see this is my Sigma 2, which is projecting away from the board
and then you have Sigma 1 and Sigma 3. So it would intersect like this and each intersection
would indicate you, would have the value of 45 degrees if the rock you are considering is
perfectly isotropic.

So the shear stress values you would have along these two possibilities, one is plus of this
half of Sigma 3 minus Sigma 1 and another is minus of 0.5 Sigma 3 minus Sigma 1. A
similar case would happen if you have intersection happening along the Sigma 1 axis. So the
two planes are intersecting along the Sigma 1 axis and you can get a very similar way. So in

202
this case, the Sigma 1 is projecting upward of this board and you have Sigma 3 and Sigma 2
left on this plane you are considering. And you would get two different planes.

Again for the third consideration what is left? That you can have the intersection along the
Sigma 3 axis and therefore here in this case, Sigma 3 is this direction. So it is perpendicular
to board and you have two different planes that you generate. Now from this discussion it
may sound little abstract that why you would have these two planes intersecting along a
particular stress, principal stresses and its orientations and then why it has to be 45 degrees.
These are theoretically calculated but do we see this in nature? The answer is yes.

(Refer Slide Time: 47:11)

So here I have a few examples for you. What you see here? That this is a piece of sandstone,
we took the photograph from the field, he took this image and what do we see here? This
rock is apparently homogeneous but is characterised by a set of fractures, one set is like this
and then there is a second set of fracture which goes like this, is it not?

Now it is why is to imagine that these intersection lines because these are planes is one of
your principal axes of stresses and directions. And therefore if it considers this, this two are
your other principal axis of stresses. So I do not know which one it is, but if I consider this
one is which is projecting upward from the board. If it is Sigma 2 then you can consider this
one would be Sigma 1 or Sigma 3 and this one would be either Sigma 3 or Sigma 1.

Now there are some considerations as we have seen that this has to be 45 degree, this has to
be 45 degree. In this case, it is not and this is because this rock is not perfectly isotropic or

203
they are some other considerations. But generally one angle is acute and another angle is
obtuse and there are some relationships for that, we will earn it later. But these two sets of
fractures, one like this, one like this, these are known as conjugate sets of shear fractures.

(Refer Slide Time: 49:07)

Do we see it somewhere else? Yes, we see different scales. For example here you can see,
you are generating two sets of shear fractures, conjugate sets of shear fractures and this is a
classic experiment that have done with high-pressure temperature. So this you see a copper
jacket, actually rock sample is inside and these two lengths are covered by some alumina
disks. So it got compressed from this the diameter of the sample was 15 mm. This must be
wrong, there should be 15 mm.

And then what do we see? Because of the compression we generate two sets of fractures.
They have some sort of displacements which we are not looking at right now. But we see that
this must be intersection of 2 principal axes of stresses and we know this is a compression
direction. So if you calculate this must be acute and this is the obtuse angles.

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(Refer Slide Time: 50:10)

Now we see it also in a very different way, we have learnt it when you have an earthquake.
That there are two different motions or you can resolve it in two different motions, one is
vertical ground motion and another is horizontal ground motion. Now you can imagine if
there is an earthquake, then because of the vertical ground motion, you would have some sort
of stress building along the vertical directions and therefore all the walls that we see we get
actually some sort of conjugate fractures and where your application of stress must be like
this.

So based on these considerations we are convinced that maybe the consideration of stress, so
far we learnt are purely based on mathematics and theoretical calculations. But we see strain,
we see deformation of rocks, we see there are some sort of similarities or some sort of
geometric relationships from one set of deformation to another set of deformation and if we
can resolve this through the concept of stress, life become much easier and this is what we
have learned because we have seen that it the expresses it perfectly.

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(Refer Slide Time: 51:28)

And now there is also one point that we would like to learn at this stage. That we have
considers so far stress at a point or stress on a surface. But you consider lithospheric scale or
few kilometres or few 100 kilometres. So and we have to visualise this that stress at each and
every point is not constant. So they do vary, they do vary significantly in the rock volumes
under stress. So the overall stress consideration from each and every point, we generally call
it as stress field and this stress field, in this stress field the stresses do vary from one point to
another point.

This stress variation can be represented and one can analyse it using stress trajectories, which
are the lines showing the continuous variation of the principal stresses, principal stress
orientations from one point to another point within the rock volume. Now when you do, we
will see the diagram soon. The individual trajectories in a stress field that means in a single
point you can draw the 3 different axes which are perpendicularly perpendicular to each
other. And then you have to connect it to the next point, next point, next point and so on.

So overall, it may vary in a very curvilinear way, but it is important when you measure and
draw the stress trajectories, the orientation of the principal stresses always must be
perpendicular to each other and at every point.

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(Refer Slide Time: 53:18)

So here is a very classic work, theoretical work by W. Hafner and it is a paper of 1951 where
he has calculated the stress trajectories. The different symbols are given here, in the top part,
the top diagram that we see these are complete solutions of the internal stress distribution in
the form of stress trajectories and the lines of equal maximum shearing stresses.

Accordingly these lines are the, these strong lines are the maximum principal stresses and
these dotted lines are minimum principal stresses. The boundary conditions for the theoretical
model was that he applied a significant amount of horizontal stress here. And here he applied
also horizontal stress but this is much less and what we see? That because we have large
horizontal stress, large magnitude horizontal stress in this side, it is slowly declining towards
the low magnitude of the horizontal stress and this decline is mostly happening due to
gravity.

At the same time, because he has also plotted the shear stresses which are like this and based
on this shear stress and these two maximum and minimum principal stresses, it is possible to
resolve also that what would be the potential failure planes or where you can generate faults
in this theoretical model. So this is one of the very classic diagrams that Hafner gave and
people still do follow his model to calculate the stress trajectories in different scales.

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(Refer Slide Time: 55:16)

Okay, now we will learn two applications of the theory of stress that you have understood so
far or discussed so far. The first is a problem that we generally solve or try to figure out when
you do rock deformation experiments in the laboratory and second one is also we apply in the
rock deformation experiments and at the same time in the field and in the many other
applications. So we will first take the problem that we generally solve in the laboratory for
rock deformation experiments.

What we see in this slide? It is a sandstone and you can see that there is a fracture running
across the sample. What happened with this sample? So it was a sandstone, we drilled a core
and after coring the sample we cut the top and bottom sides, keeping two faces perpendicular
to the axis. So that means this surface and this surface, so they were perpendicular to the axis
of the sandstone sample, sandstone cylinder to be very specific.

And then a load has been applied from the top, where this bottom was fixed and then it got
deformed. And while it deformed, it produced a major fracture and a very minor fracture on
this side and we just learnt the theory of shear stresses and you can see here very nicely that
two surfaces were formed. One is prominent and another is not that much. But now we know
that we have applied the load here, say the load was as well F.

And we know the area of this cylindrical sample. The top part of the cylindrical sample, say
for example I know this is 2.54 cm. That means it is 1 inch, so we have the area of this
sample surface, we have the force and we can calculate the stress. And this is the stress-strain

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curve of this deformation, so we see that the sample deformed at 32 MPa strains. So that its
strength that is 32 MPa.

This is some sort of routine activities. But if you would like to go further for analysis, then
we would like to know that what was the shear stress and what was the normal stress on this
fracture surface. So if I summarise this image of this sandstone deformed, sandstone, then it
looks like this, you can approximate this plane as this red dotted line here and you can figure
out the angle is about 52 degrees with the horizontal plane. Now the challenge is, or the task
is to find out what was the normal stress on this surface and what was the shear stress on the
surface.

(Refer Slide Time: 58:26)

So to do that what we generally do in laboratory? We first have to make some sort of

drawings and then figure it out what is working. Sort of working drawing and as we have
understood from the force descriptions of this course that if this is the force being applied on
this surface, then I can resolve this force on this surface very easily. Say, if I have this force
acting on this, then normal to this would be your normal force. That is your FN and then
parallel to this surface that would be your FS.

Now this would be a simple vector additions or vector operations. So, FN would be F cos
theta and FS would be F sine theta. So this is how we can calculate the forces acting on this
plane, one is normal component another is shear component. But for the stress it is not that
straightforward, simply because stress is the function of the area. Now clearly the area here is
not the same of the area of this fracture plane.

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Now if I know this angle, which is theta, so this area if I designate it as A1, then A1 actually
is a function of the area A and this angle with cosine. So A divided by cos theta is the A1, the
area of the surface. So therefore to calculate now the normal stress clearly we have the FN
and we have the A1, so that would be your normal stress working on the surface. And if you
resolve it through some algebraic manipulations, you would get it is actually Sigma cos
square theta where Sigma is a stress, the peak stress that we got which was 32 MPa.

Similarly for shear stress it would be. The shear stress, shear force component that is FS
divided by the area A1 and again, if you do some algebraic manipulations you would arrive,
it would be half of Sigma sine to theta. So this is how we calculate the stress acting on a
fracture plane after a deformation experiments. And this you can apply in many other fields
depending on your problem.

(Refer Slide Time: 61:05)

The second problem, we would look is sort of calculating the shear stress and normal stress
on an inclined surface. So here I try to give you or give you a demonstration of the problem.
Now what we see here in this photograph, this is a sheared surface, fault surface and this, all
these striations that you these are known as silicon lines, we learn about it later. And this
white thing that you see here, this we have done in the field just to sort of take a cast of this
silicon lines for a different purpose. So it is still there.

But what is important? That because this is a fault plane, what do we see in this photograph?
Certainly there was some sort of shear movement along this direction. So shear stress were
active there, you see, I am giving double headed arrows because at least from this image, I do

210
not know which way the fault moved. But certainly it moved in this direction. So we would
like to know what was the shear stress here.

Imagine that just for this problem imagine the shear stress was in this direction. Okay,
downwards, that may not be true for this exposure, but for this particular problem let us
assume this it was on the down direction, down deep direction. So this would be your shear
stress and then of course something. There must be a normal stress component, which was
perpendicular to the surface.

Now if you would like to know that how to get it, the basic thing you need, the primary
requirement for this is you have to have the regional or local stress field. That means the
principal axes of stresses. Now if we consider this is the 2-D problem, then you need Sigma 1
and Sigma 3.

(Refer Slide Time: 63:13)

So if I would like to see this problem geometrically, then I can consider it that because
Sigma 1 and Sigma 3 these are perpendicular to each other, so this is Sigma 3 and this is
Sigma 1 and this is your fault plane, this blue line that you see here AB, right. So that Tau is
acting along the fault surface, and this is your normal stress. The consideration is that this
normal stress if I project it towards the origin of this coordinate frame Sigma 1, Sigma 3, then
it makes an angle of theta.

Now we have to figure out what is the shear stress and what is the normal stress acting on a
plane. Now clearly you cannot resolve it directly, so we have to first convert these stress

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components to the force components. So if we consider AB is the unit length, then OA, that
means this would be sine theta and OB would be the cos theta. Remember, this is your theta,
so this has to be also theta.

Now the forces acting on OA, that means along this particular side and OB that is this
particular side would be Sigma 3 sine theta and Sigma 1 cos theta respectively. Okay, this is
simple geometry. So therefore we got the forces along OA and along OB and if we have that,
then we can actually calculate these forces, out of these forces we can transfer it to the stress
because we have the areas. So therefore we can finally figure out what would be your normal
stress component which is Sigma here and what would be your shear stress component which
is Tau here and of course you can do some algebraic manipulations and you would arrive in
these two equations.

I read these two equations and I will tell you why? Sigma equal to Sigma 1 plus Sigma 3
divided by 2 plus Sigma 1 minus Sigma 3 divided by 2 cos 2 theta and Tau equal to Sigma 1
minus Sigma 3 by 2 sine 2 theta, now these two equations are very, very important not only
for structural geologists, but any engineering geologist, someone who does structural stability
analysis and so on. Because one has to know that what would be the shear stress of a given
plane once we know the forces or stresses in that region.

So with this note I conclude this lecture on stress. I hope we have more or less a very good
understanding on the strain in the previous lecture series and now this stress.

(Refer Slide Time: 66:17)

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So our discussion so far, all together on strain and stress were mostly focused if we look at on
geometric aspects. We did not consider what is a material, what was the material property
and so on. But we know that rocks have different compositions and various physical
properties. So they also do experience different pressures and temperatures at different
regime when they stay in the earth.

At the surface conditions they do not experience that much pressure and temperature, but
when you take all these rock materials deep inside the earth, the experience significant
amount of pressure and temperature. Accordingly in the next lecture we will actually try to
understand how these rock materials at different earth conditions based on the composition,
based on their physical properties do behave under stress and this would be a topic of
rheology which we will take over in the next lecture. Thank you. Stay tuned.

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 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture 10.1
Rheology I Basics of Rheology

Hello everyone, welcome back to this online Structural Geology course. And, today we are at
our lecture number 10, where we will study rheology. We have used this term at the time of
discussion of strain, stress and even in the very beginning when we were working with the
geometric, kinematic and, dynamic models. In, dynamic models particularly we used this
term rheology, but did not explain it in detail. So, in this week we will learn about this topic
rheology.

We will cover it by 3 lectures. In the first lecture; we will discuss about very basics of
rheology. The second lecture will mostly consist of some sort of complex rheology. And in
the third lecture we will talk about what are the parameters, the natural parameters that we
commonly experience in earth or; rocks to experience in earth how this parameters influence
the rheology. Before, we go to this topic, in this lecture we mostly cover; and will introduce
the subject so sort of an introduction.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:33)

That what is, what do you mean by the behavior of rocks under stress? Which is we learn
later that is the definition of rheology. We will classify the rheology in three end members
and these are elastic, viscous and plastic rheology. So, we will sort of discuss this entire three
briefly and at the same time we will discuss their applications in structural geology together

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with geodynamics. So, before we go to this particular or we take this particular topic
rheology to the domain structural geology.

It is very interesting that, we as a human being we use the rheology or, applications of
rheology every day or in our actions. we actually use applications of rheology very frequently
knowingly or unknowingly. So, in the next slide I will have a few questions for you. And, I
am sure you do this things knowingly but, if you do not do it unknowingly. Then you can try
to answer why do we do that, or why it is so?

(Refer Slide Time: 3:00)

We all have used or we still use the ball point pens, and there are few ball points pens with
spring at the front part of the refill. So, we just press it like this, and then we have sound
tiktok tiktok. And then we see that there is spring, if you open the pen. What is the use of the
spring? If you ask yourself this question I am sure you can answer. That we use the spring so,
that after we press it holds the refill outside so that your nib of the ball point stays outside of
the pen outside jacket of the pen.

And if you press again then the spring releases and it comes back to its sheltered position
inside the pen. It is done so, that it does not dry up, or maybe it does not hurt you when, you
put it in your pocket or somewhere this pointed end of this refills. So, do we use the real logic
here, the answer is yes. Next we all use now a day’s tomato ketchup, right?

How many of you shake the tomato ketchup bottle, before poring it to the side of the plate,
which is fool of snacks. Most of us do and if do not do it, you just do ones without shaking,
and you do second time with shaking the bottle of the tomato ketchup. And you will figure it

215
out difference why shaking makes your life little easier. This is something that athletes or
bodybuilders or waver they do very frequently.

They punched the sand bags but, you do not have to do that, what of course if you wish you
can do it. But, this think that if you have a loose weight sand body. And, you are sort of
pushing your feast within the sand body very slowly. You will see there that your feast is
going in. You can try another way that you just punched it, and you will a pain at your pam if
you punch it. So, same material you are going slowly, you do not feel any pain on your palm
and it goes inside very smoothly.

But, if you punch it you cannot go very far in, and you will feel some pain, the question is
why, why do you experience that? Now, this is also something very interesting you might
have seen; that soccer players, athletes they sometime practice or they run along the beach.
They could do it on the side of the roads or on the grounds. But, sometimes they do it on the
beach and if you have walked or run along a beach for quite a long time; you feel the pain in
the night in your calf muscles.

Then, the similar walk if you do on the roads or grounds, it does not make any difference. If
you have not experience, do that if you get a chance it is the good things to do. And again the
answer is or the question is, why do we feel or why it is harder to walk or run on the beach
than on road grounds? Now another thing that we use every day, particularly in the morning
the toothpaste. When you squeeze the toothpaste, it comes like a fluid from the tube.

But, when it comes out and we allow it to rest on the bristles of the toothbrush. Then it stays
if it do it perfectly, then it stays like a cylinder over the bristles; it does not flow it does not
deform it remains as a cylinder it does not flow. The question is why, why it is so, why it
does not flow? But when you squeeze it is flowing very easily. And, the final example I
would like to give you is that; if we have to push a table a heavy table and if you again of
muscle not like me.

Then you cannot move the table instantly after you push, you have to push a little bit, then
apply some sort of force and then the table starts moving. Now, when its starts moving then,
it become easier to move it again the question is why. Now, all this things that we do that a 1,
2, 3, 4, 5, 6 examples that I have given here is more or less our not routine all but, few of
them we do it every day and routinely. The question is what is the common in this things in
all these examples, if you can find something common of it?

216
I tell you these are all applications or examples of rheology, that is why the header of this
slide is everyday rheology. If, I try to see that what is common, in all this examples in terms
of mechanics. Then, I will all ways find that in all examples, there is one or more components
of force, stress, one or more components of the deformation or strain. So, when you push the
tip of the ball point pen, you apply some force and then the refill comes out. So, you apply a
force the deformation is happening, you shake the tomato bottle; then you squeeze it applying
a force and then tomato ketchup comes out.

You apply a force to the sand body, in different ways and you get different response. The
similar way in all examples you can figure out. So, based on this ideas that based on
examples that we see in our daily life, these are nothing but at one side application of force,
stress or in general that we have learned are dynamitic parameters. And on the other side you
have your strain, deformation, displacement, rotations, and so on. And these are you
kinematic parameters. So, we have learned about stress we have learned about strained.

(Refer Slide Time: 09:59)

Now, this the point that we should asked in the context of studying mechanics, or in very
particular studying structural geology or the deformation of rocks. That, whether these two
terms stress and strained which are applicable to our subject very much are related each other
or not? And, if they are related then how they are related, and what are the controlling
parameters in their relationship? And the study of the relationship between stress and strain is
the study of rheology.

217
That is not only valid or not only important for our subject, but for most of the subjects
particularly food industries and so on. So, if I have to define rheology it is very simple. The
second point narrates the definition of rheology. The study of the behavior or flow of
materials under deformation is rheology. Now, rheology is derived from a Greek word rhei
that means flow in Greek. Now, there is a Greek philosopher Heraclitus, he coined a term or a
phrase panta rhei.

So, panta rhei in Greek means everything flows and in his philosophy everything means
everything. And, we should be happy with this phrase. When, someone says everything flows
because, than we can immediately connect that do the rocks flow as well. And, we try to see
the answer and Is will tell you the answer is ‘ye’s rocks also do flow. So, this everything
flows concept is very interesting and, there are therefore different deformational response to
the applied stress.

And, these responses are functions of their physical properties of the concern material that,
you are thinking of or working with and together with their some sort of external parameters.
That, means the envy and the environment you are exposing your material and allowing it
deform. Needless to mention that because, its relationship between stress and strain. The
mathematical or the physical understanding of this subject rheology is also consider under the
umbrella of continuum mechanics. Now, we will again go back to this very interesting term
of panta rhei means everything flows.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:55)

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And, here therefore, when we talk about flow the definition of solid and fluid are not really
classical, as do people define it based on atomic structures of the material. So, there is one set
of definitions what is solid, fluid, and gas, in terms of solid liquid and gas, in terms of their
atomic structures there interaction some arrangements. But in the study of rheology, as i said
that everything flows, so the definition fluid goes little funny it is a materialist fluid
independently on its atomic structure.

When, it flows under constant stress and of course certain conditions please note it does not
define time. In generally know that water is a fluid, because it takes a shape of container you
feel it up with. So, I have a tea cup and there is tea inside so, it takes the shape of the cup, if it
was a beaker it would take shape of beaker and so on. Now, fluid in rheology is not defining
in such a way, so its independent on its atomic structure. So, anything that flows under stress
is fluid in rheology.

It does not talk about time, and let us think of certain experiment. Say you have sloping board
with uniform friction or no friction if you can make it. And, then from one end you have an
opening, where water can flow. Then, series of opening so if cooking oil, then may be raw
glycerin, wall paint, tomato ketchup, syrup ,honey, tar oil, asphalt and so on the last one you
may ignore. We will see this but, if you want you can also put some glass.

And, if you release all this fluids at the same time, you will see the water is the fastest to
touch the base of this sloping plain. And, probably tar oil and asphalt are extremely sluggish
and to touch the base it may take few days. Now, we generally classify all of them as fluid or
we consider them as fluid. So, the difference between water, cooking oil, raw glycerin,
tomato ketchup, and asphalt and so on, there is something in their material properties is that
they are their fluids that hey flow differently under the same conditions.

So, the gravity is the force working on them, the slope is same the frictional surface is same.
And, why do they flow differently what are the conditions that can change their flow
differently? That can change their flow properties; that what should I do if I have to make the
flow faster of tar oil or asphalt for some particular applications? So, if we have these
questions in our mind then we study all in this things under the subject rheology.

219
(Refer Slide Time: 16:46)

Now, rheology is essentially a very old topic. So, here is I found something very interesting,
it is very old text by Lucretius, he was a roman philosopher and also poet. And, he wrote a
book on the nature of things something like that if am not a remembering correctly, on the
nature of things. So, he wrote for water moves and it made to flow by the slightest force.
Because, is made of little rolling particles. In contrast honey is more stable, its flow more
sluggish, and its movements slower for it has an internal ovation.

The lightly reason is that, it is formed of particles that at not so smooth nor so fine and round.
Now, he wrote this at around up he was there 99 to 55 b c. So, wrote it long time back and the
one of the most famous generals of rheology, that is journal of rheology: and one editorial on
him on Lucretius one of the pioneers of rheological studies. So, there is something and you
see he is mentioning some sort of he is finding the difference between the water and honey.
And people also knew the rheology in the ancient Egypt’s.

So, this is the picture that we see here so, this people found from the tomb of Ramesses 3.
And, what we figure out that the series of paintings. So, they are making breads so it is a
bakery, and they all it court bakery of Ramesses 3. What this two people were trying to do
here, probably this container has door so flour and water, and there doing it with and they are
sort of trying to press it or role it with their feet. And then this two little rods or whatever are
there to check consistency of this flour. And they know that when the, by experience

220
probably they know when the consistency is their then they send it to the next stage. So, the
study of rheology is very old and we use it for pretty long time.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:27)

Now, let us slowly move to sum similar materials that we commonly, see through commonly
compare rocks. Talk about the flow of the glass now of course we all have done it, you had
played cricket and soccer and we have broken glass. So, this is an example, so if you apply
some load on the glass normal glass that we every day. If we heat it with some peace of
stones, or you cricket ball, or soccer ball then the glass breaks. It produces fractures and you
can certainly say it does not flow.

But, the glass where you make it when you elevate the glass at high temperature. Then it
flows like honey, as if you can see this is a jar or whatever; and then he is designing it by
rolling with another glass ball. And interestingly you can also cut it by a creaser. So, it is
extremely frazzle it produces fracture, here it rolls like honey and here you also can cut it. So,
temperature at least from this example you can figure out, that it certainly has an influence on
the flow of the materials.

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(Refer Slide Time: 20:54)

Let, us talk about relatively closer examples to the rocks, if the ice the flow of ice in glaciers.
Now, what we see in this image this if I remember it is from a Switzerland from glee oval.
We went for tracking here, and you see this looks like that a river is flowing. But, a river of
frozen ice. And the flow of this ice is much slower than the water in a river.

We also see that top part is characterized by, a lot of fractures bottom part may be not and I
tell it is not. And it flows extremely slowly but, the flow is certainly faster when the
temperature is high that has been recorded. So, it does not flow like water, it does not flow
like honey; it flow like ice should do but, certainly it flows much slower rate than water, or
honey, or even tomato ketchup.

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(Refer Slide Time: 22:14)

Now we really have to ask the questioned that does the rock flow? As we live, or survive
mostly on the upper crafts on the surface of the earth. We do not see every day the rocks are
flowing except some videos of magma flows, and things like that from Hawaii and some
other places. So, what common assumption is that? Those rocks do not flow, and they mostly
fractures under deformation. And, this assumption is perfectly right, when you consider them
with the ambiance of the surface or near surface conditions.

But, when you go to mountains or when you go to a hilly terrain or in rocky terrain we see a
number of structures, which may not be produce by fracturing or cracking. Look here are
some examples I have given folding, pinch and swell structures, ductile shear zones and
many associated features within the ductile shear zones the salt zone magma flows I
mentioned these are the evidences that rocks do flow. We do not see it most likely because,
the flows are extremely slow. It is so slow that we not see it

But, it certainly flows and the evidences are structure that we see like folds pinch n swell and
so on. So, based on that we now are convincing the fact that, the study of rocks act under
some conditions can be expressed; or can be evaluated we this subject rheology that people
have been using historically. And, if we can do that then maybe we understand the process of
deformation of rocks in a better and comprehensive way.

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(Refer Slide Time: 24:21)

So, when you do that then there are many subjects, or many branches of art sciences were
applied by us in the rheology. I must say that which was written in the previous slide, that the
typical study of rock mechanics is not included under the bordered umbrella of rheology. But,
sometimes it is included particularly the strength of the rocks at little elevated pressure and
temperatures for their engineering, and mining applications. Structural geology and tectonics
essentially we use the rheology particular to understand better. The mechanics of folding
ductile share zones and various tectonics processors at different scales.

We, consider rheology heavily when, you try to understand the process of soldiery of physics.
Like mechanism of earthquakes, a physical properties of the interior of the earth and so on.
And, of course geodynamics that uses the applications of rheology heavily. So, plate tectonics
and its driving mechanisms, creep and convection currents in the mantle. A Polling of (())
(25:33) and what not. So, all these things are being studied under the topic of rheology.

Now, we will move to the consideration of the fact that how we can express or how we can
study rheology. So, we have stated earlier that mechanical state of a body is defined by,
mostly by dynamic parameters, and kinematic parameters. So, kinematic parameters mostly
include motion, displacement, velocity, acceleration, distortion etc. Whether dynamic
parameters mostly include different type of forces; and their derivatives acting on the rock
volume.

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(Refer Slide Time: 26:25)

So, therefore one has to derive or one has to find, a balanced equation to mathematically
describe the relationship between the dynamic parameters, and kinematic parameters. And
these are known as constitutive laws or constitutive equations. And this term constitutive
emphasizes the importance of the constitution or composition of the materials. So, if I try to
write in general, any rheological equation should have a form like this dynamic parameters,
kinematic parameters should be equated by a constant.

And, if you see that this is probably coming to the second law of newton where, force is
equated to the acceleration multiplied by mass. Where acceleration is your kinematic
parameter, mass is a constant, and force is the one of the dynamic parameters. Now, in earth
sciences or in many other subjects including structural geology and so on. The relationships
are mostly obtained the rheology relationship that is particularly the constant finding the
constant is the challenge.

And these are mostly obtained and conceived by deformation experiments at various
conditions in the laboratory. So, they are seen in the form of a stress strain or stress strain rate
curves. Where, strain or strain rate is plotted along horizontal axis, and stress in plotted along
the vertical axis. And the disposition of the curves they are different orientations different
way they appear within the frame work of the stress strain or stress strain rate plot. One can
figure out what are the rheological properties or rheological constants for that particular
formation behavior.

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So, we will take a break and we will move to the next segment where we try to classify the
rheological part and that we will cover in the next segment.

226
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Science
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture No 10.2
Rheology – 1 (Basics of Rheology)

Okay, so with the basic understandings of what is rheology and whether it is applicable to our
art systems or not. Now we are in this slide to classify the different types of rheologies that
we commonly see in all materials and also within the rocks, so we can have 3 different kinds
of rheology one is elastic rheology, then the second one is viscous rheology and the third one
is plastic rheology.

(Refer Slide Time: 1:02)

With the course of time we will see that elastic rheology when a material is deforming under
elastic manner, the strain or deformation is recoverable and when they are deforming the
following Viscous or plastic manners they are non-recoverable. Now, I would like to remind
you one very important thing that we commonly mistake in describing structural geological
deformation features and with these 3 rheological terms elastic, viscous and plastic we
sometimes use more or less similarly the 2 terms brittle, ductile and sometimes brittle ductile.

Now it is very-very important to remember that the classification of rheology has nothing to
do with the brittle and ductile deformation. Now brittle and ductile deformation only
considers whether the cohesion of the materials are maintained or not during the deformation,
that is. It does not consider the rheological part, if the cohesion is maintained then it is
ductile, if the cohesion is not maintained then it is brittle.

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So, you can say very generally but that is not strictly true for all cases that brittle deformation
is most of the time plastic and ductile deflation is mostly include everything which are not
elastic and not brittle but remember brittle and ductile these 2 terms have nothing to do with
elastic, viscous and plastic rheology.

So, we will now slowly describe the concepts of what is elastic? What is viscous and what is
plastic? I will mostly show you the classic considerations of this rheological terms, their
analog visualisations that what is best way to represent this rheology with some known
materials we have and then we will derive some sort of different material constants or
rheological constants, we will see their implications also in the study of structural geology.

(Refer Slide Time: 3:34)

So, let us start with the elastic rheology, now the definition of elastic rheology is given by the
Hooke’s law and it says that stress is linearly proportional to strength and the later is fully
recoverable as I said in the previous slide that in elastic rheology you can recover the strain
and the elastic rheology is best visualised by a spring or in other ways you can have any
elastic band or rubber band and then if you stretch it, it expands and if you release it, it comes
back to its original position but if you stretch it more it does not come back to its original
position but that is something different.

Accordingly let us see what we can take out of it, so what we have is this particular group of
images here, this is written T1, at T1 we have one spring, it has a finite length and then at T2
I have added one little load here with this green bar because I have added this little load on
the spring you can understand if spring is hanging I added load at the end, so spring would

228
expand and therefore the length has changed, if I add more load the spring would further
expand and change the length and so on.

Now if I start releasing the load or taking off this green bars one after another, the first one…
after the first one it would come back to the load very similar, it showed the expression with
the 2 green bars. If I take one more out then I have only one then it would come back to the
load that we have or to the shape or to the length that we had with the one bird at the
beginning and if we remove all this loads then it would come back to its original position and
original shape.

So, if I now plot them in this placement versus Force curve then with the application of force,
the 3 different loads I have, when we are loading it then we can get some points and if I
connect this points they generally fall in a linear pattern and when I release these loads that
means this side they also fall, they come back in a very similar fashion and also maintain or
linear relationship.

We can also visualise this image in a different plot what is given here, in 1 plot we have
stress versus time, in another part we have strain versus time. This strain you can visualise in
terms of elongations, so till this point it wars T1 where it did not have any load, any stress
and the strain was also 0. Now then we slowly started applying the load with this green bars
and we see this strain also or elongation also increased.

Now if we leave it with the 3 green bars here for quite some time the strain would remain
constant and if we release the load by removing the green bars then it would come back to its
original position, so what we see that this stress versus strain in this diagram has a linear
relationship, so stress disproportional to strain and the linearity constant is defined by E
which is Young’s modulus or the elastic modulus or sometimes it is known as stiffness of a
material. Now in some books or texts you may find that E has written…people are writing E
as Y, so you just have to see what is the common understanding.

The Young’s modulus is defined as the slope of the stress strength curve, we will see later. So
this is also known as, this equation is also known as Hooke’s law and it is a constitutive
equation because we have dynamic parameter on one side, kinematic parameter on one site
and they are related by constant, so physically E is quantified how hard a rock is to deform
elastically and that is why the term stiffness came in the picture.

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(Refer Slide Time: 9:01)

Now to talk more about elastic rheology as we have seen or we have understand that
elasticity is time independent that means does not matter how long you keep the green bars it
would stay at its position and then you will remove the green weights or green bars it would
come back to its original position, it is not a function of time there for the ideal elastic
material would come back to its original position irrespective to the time of the stress it is
being applied within the elastic limit and of course the rate of stress application would
increase the rate of deformation linearly.

At the present if I add more green weights or green bars and I do it quickly then the
elongation of the spring would happen also very quickly, so if I would like to see then stress
versus strain is a linear curve, this is what the relationship we got, so Sigma equal to E
multiplied by strain, so therefore the slope is your E or Young’s modulus and then if I
increaser the stress rate that mean if I increase the loading rate then strain rate would also
increase linearly, so we can write Sigma dot which is actually Sigma by t equals to Young’s
modulus Epsilon by t or you can write it Epsilon dot.

So this is again Hooke’s law Young’s modulus therefore is the ratio if I can come here from
this equation we can get here that it is a ratio of stress versus strain along the same direction
that is important that you cannot measure stress in one direction and measuring stress in other
direction you divide them, you get a ratio and you say this is my Young’s modulus that is
wrong, you have to measure them along the same direction.

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Now you can replace this Young’s modulus by another constant which is called shear
modulus, so if you shear this elastic material instead of extending it, then this is known as mu
and sometimes it is also expressed as G, so you can equate Young’s modulus equal to 2 of
shear modulus or twice of shear modulus and then this equation takes the shape, the Hooke’s
law takes the shape of Tau equal to 2mu gamma where Tau is your shear stress, mu as you
have explained this car shear modulus and gamma is your shear strength.

At this time from these we have already found 2 constants one is Young’s modulus and
another is shear modulus, however from the folks law we can also get 3 other elastic
constants, so one is poisson’s ratio another is a bulk modulus and the 3 rd one is lame’s
constants. In fact in some textbooks this mu and lambda these 2 terms they are together
referred as lame’s constant. Poisson’s ratio is generally referred by Greek letter mu and bulk
modulus is generally referred by Greek letter kappa.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:33)

Let us see what is poisson’s ratio, now we have talked about volume constant deformation
and so on, so if I have increased the length of the spring, in the previous example then if this
volume of the spring I have to keep it constant, then it has to shorten in some other directions
to keep the volume of the spring constant. Now this is the example, this little drawing, so
what we are visualising it on X Z plane and why is perpendicular to the board or parallel to
our view direction, so this was initially the width of this bar say this is the spring and this is
the length of this spring.

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Now upon applying this load this green bars then I can figure out the strain which is along X
direction which is epsilon X and if I consider this is cylindrical and a perfectly isotropic body
then on this direction it has to shorten to keep the volume constant and therefore epsilon Z
and epsilon Y should be equal, so this is only possible if the material that we are considering
the rock we are considering is isotropic. The shortening therefor will be the same in any
direction perpendicular to the elongation direction and if the volume is preserve then the
elongation along X axis should be balanced by the shortening along Y and Z axis and therefor
you maintain your volume.

So we can write therefor this equation that EX that means the elongation you happen along x
direction should be equal to the sum of EY and EZ, now these are happening in different
directions so therefor I have a negative signs. Now EY and EZ because this is an isotropic
material they are equal so I can write them minus 2 EZ or I can also write it as minus 2 EY,
whatever be the case EZ or EY we can now further summarise this equation as EX multiplied
by 0.5 because this 2 can come to this side equal to minus epsilon Z.

This minus sign further signifies that if you extend along X direction have to shorten along
the Z direction and then it is related by a numerical value 0.5 and 0.5 you can consider that it
happens when the volume is remaining constant, so this relationship 0.5 epsilon x equal to
minus epsilon Z. This tells us that elongation in one direction is perfectly balanced by
shortening in the length perpendicular to the elongation direction and when that happens then
we call it perfectly incompressible material, that is the materials that do not change there
volume during deformation.

So therefore if you have your volume constant that 0.5 value is there for maximum, so most
of the rocks we know or we will see later that they are not perfectly incompressible, all sorts
of volume changes or compressibility are involved where the volume shrinks okay, so to
account this changing volume or compressible volume of the rock mass that we are
considering, instead of writing at 0.5, people do replace it with a new constant which is
constant for a particular material and this constant is known as poisson’s ratio and
represented by this Greek letter mu and as you can see poisson’s ratio must be a
dimensionless quantity because it is a ratio of 2 strain parameters, so poisson’s ratio
essentially characterises the compressibility of a rock perpendicular to the applied stress.

Now I give you a very simple example of poisson’s ratio that you may have some glass
bottles where instead of the caps we use to seal the glass bottles using some cork. Now the

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cork are very interesting material in the sense that because if you have the bottle and then you
have to press cork inside because you are pressing and if the cork hash to maintain its volume
constant say you are compressing it this side, so length is shortening on your compression
direction, so it has to expand on the other direction that means the cork is now expanding and
it cannot go inside the bottle’s mouth but cork is such a material that this expansion is very
less and therefore we use sometimes to seal the mouth of a bottle using a cock.

There are some other materials that do have some sort of negative poisson’s ratio and that
means if I compress in the side instead of expanding in this side they can also shrink or if I
extend something in this site instead of compressing in this side they actually extend, these
are some complex composite materials, honeycomb is one of the examples that you can think
of that to happen negative poisson’s ratio.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:50)

So most of the rocks that we generally consider in the wide range of conditions they do have
poisson’s ratio between 0.2 to 0.33 it is not a very wide range but in terms of poisson’s ratio
is pretty wide. Now 0 or negative poisson’s ratio as I talked about is also possible for special
materials like form and honeycomb but extremely rare for rocks and minerals with negative
poisson’s ratio for a common isotropic rocks or minerals, so you do not see but people have
reported some sort of negative very little negative poisson’s ratio in some particular direction
of some isotropic minerals.

Now you can also express the poisson’s ratio in terms of the velocity is of P waves and S
waves. Now this is something little difficult to understand right at this point, but if I say you

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that this seismic velocity is that we consider this P waves and S waves these are elastic waves
and we are dealing with elastic rheology, so there must be some sort of relationships. So what
is P wave? P wave is when the particles to oscillate in the direction of wave propagation and
S wave is some sort of a body waves where the particles oscillates perpendicular to the
propagation direction.

You can see that these 2 terms are very important that one is propagating along the
propagation direction or oscillating, not propagating, one is oscillating along the propagation
direction and another is oscillating perpendicular to the propagation direction, so is not it very
similar the way we can think that if we compress the side and the things should be extend, so
one is perpendicular and one is parallel.

So their relationship if we write then poisson’s ratio in a different way can come in this form
and this is very useful because in deep earth we only receive, the signatures we get from the
deep except some rare cases, most with the seismic waves and with the analysis of the
seismic waves it is possible to determine the poisson’s ratio of their deep Earth rocks and also
this is important for the hydrocarbon industries because this gives us an estimation of fluid
properties in the hydrocarbon reservoir. So, for example, you can think that if the VS is 0 that
means there is a fluid and then poisson’s ratio must be close to 0.5 and so on.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:48)

Now we have learned 3 elastic constants one is Young’s modulus, one is shear modulus we
just learned poisson’s ratio, now let us talk about the bulk modulus, the bulk modulus are
kappa is the inverse of the compressibility of the medium, so in general it measures the

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relative volume change of fluid or solid as a response to a pressure of mean stress change.
Now we have learned what is mean stress in our stress lecture, so volume change is defined
by this del V versus V0, del V 1 minus sorry V1 minus V0 where V1 is your changed
volume. I will just write it because I think I confuse by my statements, so V1 minus V0 by
V0, so this we can write del V by V0 that is your relative volume change of the material that
you are considering with the change of the pressure.

So if I am increasing the pressure or a decreasing the pressure how much volume change I am
experiencing or the rock is experiencing within the elastic domain, so that is your kappa or
bulk modulus, so this you can write it this way, so this is your pressure change and this is
your volume change and then with some calculations and relationship you can figure out that
you can express your kappa in terms of shear modulus poisson’s ratio and Young’s modulus
and poisson’s ratio. And these equations says that you need more pressure to compress a rock
when the value of the bulk modulus goes high.

Now we have now learned Young’s modulus, we have learned shear modulus, we have
learned poisson’s ratio and we have learned bulk modulus. Now there is also one left lam is
constant, we will learn it later but not right now but I would like to give you at this point few
considerations, so all elastic constants are related to each other because you are measuring it
from same material, so they have to be related to each other. So you need out of these 5 you
need only 2, so if you have only 2 then you can calculate all 3 other elastic constants and this
is most important all elastic constants are direction dependent.

So when you say Young’s modulus you measure it in a particular direction, poisson’s ratio
you measure elongation in a particular direction and then shortening in a particular direction
and so on. So if these are direction dependent, therefore a single anisotropic rock or mineral
should have more than one Young’s modulus, more than one poisson’s ratio and so on or
what I mean by that if I have a rock in 2 dimensions if I draw it like this, so the dotted areas
are 2 different materials.

Now, if I deform it extend it in this direction then the Young’s modulus I would get along
this direction okay but if I extend it along this direction, the Young’s modulus I would get is
along this direction. Now because this is an isotropic we have 2 different materials, so if I
consider this one as E1 and this one as E2, this is also a measure of anisotropy, elastic
anisotropy in terms of Young’s modulus of this rock.

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(Refer Slide Time: 25:59)

Now the generalised Hooke’s law is something… is little expanded from what we have
learned. This equal to Young’s modulus multiplied by strain but this equation is typical and
you can see that it does not include any direction that we talked about, it does not include the
anisotropic components, so therefore the generalised Hooke’s law is written in this form, in
this tensorial form, we know more or less water is tensors so Sigma IJ is equal to CIJ KL
Epsilon KL, now Sigma IJ for 3 dimensions I equal to 3, J equal to 3, so you can have 9
components here and so on and for 2 dimensions you can have them I equal to 2 and J equal
to 2 then you will have 4 components there, so Sigma IJ here is the total stress tensor, Epsilon
KL is the strain tensor.

Now this term C IJKL this term describes all elastic constant in one house, this is a matrix so
this is stored in one matrix and this is known as stiffness matrix. Now this stiffness matrix
you can represented by 81 coefficients simply because you have 9 components here, you
have 9 components here so this matrix has to has 81 components but we know that Sigma IJ
and Epsilon IJ are symmetric tensors and each of them can then only have 6 components, so
therefore this 81 coefficients of C IGKL or the stiffness matrix reduces to number 36. Now
you can further reduce it by using some strain energy relations then it comes to only 21
Independent coefficients.

Now if this equation is written this form that Sigma IJ equal to C IJKL strain KL you can also
express in terms of strain, so instead of that you can write strain IJ equal to… Then it will not
be a different matrix S IJKL stress KL. Now C is known as stiffness matrix and here S is
known as compliance matrix, so this is something that you may note, now this expression is

236
that how there were 81 coefficients and then out of that we get 36 and then using strain
energy we can get 21 Independent coefficients you may not have to go to the detail
derivations of this but at this stage it is important that you know that from number 81 you can
come down or you can reduce the independent coefficients to number 21.

Now let us straight this equation in a different way, if I have to consider this as isotropic
material then this generalised Hooke’s law you can express it in this form okay where Sigma
IJ equal to lambda which is one of our lame’s constants then Sigma KK chronic Delta Delta
IJ plus 2 mu Epsilon IJ. Now Kronecker delta is a very interesting term if I equal to J then it
becomes 1 if I naught equal to J then it becomes 0. So for shear components there for if I am
applying a shear modulus that means I naught equal to J therefore if I consider I equal to 1
and J equal to 2 where they are not equal then we can write Sigma 12 equal to 2 mu Sigma 12
because then Kronecker delta I naught equal to J becomes 0.

So this term vanishes and here we get mu as the shear Modulus, so you can see how from
generalised Hooke’s law we can derive the shear modulus just implying or just taking into
account the shear components of the matrix and if it is for normal components that means I
equal to J, so therefore Kronecker delta value should be one and this can be expressed with
some algebraic calculations you can represent it further by this and therefore you get the bulk
modulus from this equation.

Now this is how it is done, this slide what I recommend you that you do not have 2 go into all
details of this equation and how it is derived but it is important that from a stress tensor when
you applied this to elastic field we know that it has some normal components and it has some
shear components. So when you apply the normal components we get the bulk modulus
related to volume change and things like that you remember that mean stress and all other
issues and when we are not dealing with normal components that means off diagonal
components where your shear stress are acting then you can get simply by considering I
naught equal to J you can get shear modulus of the elastic material.

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(Refer Slide Time: 31:58)

Now with this I would stop and then they will move the next topic viscous rheology.

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 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Science
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture No 10.3
Rheology – 1 (Basics of Rheology)

Hello Everyone! We already learned elastic rheology and now we will switch to viscous
rheology. For elastic rheology we have seen that the strain is recoverable if you remove the
stress and interestingly there are many materials, many natural materials that we see every
day. These process do not happen that if you deform something the formation remains.

At the same time you have seen the flow of water or flow of water with some sediments and
then magma flows and things like that. These things are not likely to be elastic, so you need a
different kind of rheology or another rheology which is not similar to elastic rheology and
therefore we will now introduce this viscous rheology in detail.

(Refer Slide Time: 1:18)

Already I was talking about the way the rocks behave under stress on the surface may not
behave in a similar way at greater depth where you have much higher pressure and
temperature and rocks are not really a solid material there, so you can think of the example of
a glass that we have cited in the very beginning that at surface temperature it is extremely
brittle, it produces fracture but when we heat it up it flows like honey, so in a very similar
behaviour we can observe in rocks at greater depth.

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Thus we need different kind of rheology which we actually can apply for hot rocks and in
these case when you apply a deviatoric stress to this hot rocks or we can consider this now as
a fluid or a fluid like material, the first instance it reacts the way that it has a resistance to
respond to the stress you have applied but it tends to flow in response to the stress.

When the stress is removed the flow stops certainly but this material or the deform fluid does
not come back to its original position, so their shape and their geometry et cetera remains
permanently to their deform state, so therefore the deformation under this kind of rheology is
permanent and non-recoverable and we will also see that the flow rate or the way we explain
flow rate is how fast or how slow it flows or it deforms.

Say for example if you just put water along a slope it flows very fast but if you put honey
under the same slope under the same gravity load it does not flow as fast as water flows, so
water has a higher flow rate and honey has a lower flow rate, so this flow rate in general of
this fluid is also a function of applied stress and we will see that as well. Now how to
visualise this viscous rheology, the best way to visualise it like we saw for elastic rheology it
was a spring and this time it is a dash pot filled with fluid, what is dash pot?

Dash pot is something that we use in our door stopper like you open the door and then you do
not want the door to close very-very quickly, so you want the door to close very-very slowly
and then there you have a device at the top of the door with a little barrel and this barrel
actually is a dash pot. So what is inside the dash pot?

(Refer Slide Time: 4:14)

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Let us have a look at the 1 st diagram what we see here, it is a barrel or a cylinder where it is
filled by a fluid and then you have a piston inside, so this is the cylinder... Now you look at a
cross-section, this is the cylinder and then we have a piston, piston is like a T-shaped material
and the top part of the T or the piston is porous so that means this fluid filled cylinder, in this
case the fluid is the blue color you see here, they can flow through this piston and the flow
must happen if there is any differential stress or pressure.

This is a simple piston dash pot or some sort of piston cylinder. Now the way the viscous
rheology is explained using this dash pot is that at T1 time here is T1 it stays in its stationary
mode and then you can apply and instantaneous load to this piston, so which are represented
by this 3 green bars or 3 green loads, when you apply this loader to this piston unlike the
elastic materials it does not deform the fluid or the piston does not come down immediately,
so I keep this load constant and then I see this piston and is slowly going down this is how it
comes and you can see that the load is constant in all stages.

So the response is not instantaneous but it happens very slowly and interestingly for this
material we see that the response or what is given in this diagram that this increase of the
deformation or the elongation is linear. Now at T6 after T6 we remove the load and
interestingly unlike the elastic materials this piston does not go back to its original position, it
remains there and this entire behaviour of the deformation is known as viscous deformation
where in nut shell that the material does not respond immediately after application of the
stress but it responds slowly and the response at least in this case is linear and when you
remove the stress or remove the load then it does not come back to its original position and
this is known as viscous rheology.

Now you can clearly understand that instead of 3 green bars if I would have applied 4 or 5
then probably the movement would be faster therefore the greater the load applied, the faster
the fluid percolates through this porous spaces of this piston. Now we can visualise this in
terms of plots, so what I have here like we have seen in elastic materials in this area, in this
plot I have Sigma XX that means the movement along the X direction.

So this is X and then this side I have time so this is the time and here instead of Sigma I have
strain, so how strain is responding with time is shown here and how stress is responding with
time is shown here where the time is corresponding to each other, so what is happening at t
on time it was… there was no load so stress is 0 strain is 0 which is normal, which is

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expected and now an instantaneous load has been applied this 4 bars and we see that strain
here is not instantaneous but it is increasing slowly.

Accordingly you apply the load and kept it for a while, so here during the application of the
load and then we kept the load at constant value the strain increase and when you reduce the
load it did not come back but it stayed at a constant position that for this is the permanent
deformation of this fluid. Now we can also understand that instead of say whatever fluid you
have used say cooking oil, if we use some other fluid like honey then under the application of
the same load the flow would be slower and if we heat the cooking oil and put it inside the
cylinder then the flow would be faster.

So of course in all cases the load is unchanged, so therefore it has some response or some
relations with some sort of ambience like what is the material and at the same time some
external parameters influence of temperature and so on as we have seen with the glasses. We
will learn about it later that what are the influences of the external parameters to all sorts of
rheology but this is in nutshell what is viscous rheology that we can understand very easily
and very quickly with the example of a dash pot.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:06)

We have already learned that fluids in general has a resistance to flow under stress and this
typical term that resistance to flow when you try to quantify this resistance of flow of fluid
under the application of stress is known as viscosity and viscosity is generally denoted by the
Greek letter Eta or sometimes we call it coefficient of viscosity. Now greater the viscosity

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value higher is the resistance to flow, so honey is high viscos material compared to water, so
you can explain this way.

As a result when you say viscosity is high that means it as higher resistance to flow and if the
viscosity or the viscous material that we are considering is a perfect or ideal viscosity
material that we hardly see in nature then it flows like a fluid when influence by an external
force this we have learned and that means that there was no elastic deformation involved, so
if we then plot the stress versus strain of the deformation of this ideal viscous fluid then we
do not have any elastic deformation, so in this side in this plot I have a long vertical axis
stress and horizontal axis strain and we see that there is no elastic deformation.

In this context you apply the stress and there is no elastic deformation and then you have a
permanent strain for a constant strain rate, however because this is rate dependent, the
deformation that means it takes some time to respond and it flows with time under the
constant loads, so strain rates here with the viscous rheology is very important and then if I
plot stress versus strain rate then the plot actually looks like stress versus strain plot of elastic
deformation. In elastic deformation stress versus strain was linear and in this case stress
versus strain rate is linear, so if I plot stress in the side and strain rate along the horizontal
direction then I get a curve like this for an ideal viscous material.

When this deformation of ideal viscous material happens in constant volume then we call it a
linear viscous material or sometimes or most of the time we actually are refer it as a
Newtonian fluid or Newtonian flow and the constitutive equation in one-dimension actually
there for relates because we have to relate the strain rate, so for normal deviatoric stress
components if we use the normal stress then it is related to the normal deviatoric stress
components which will refer as Sigma DN to the instantaneous extension rate which is
Epsilon dot n.

Now Epsilon dot n again this brought always indicate… Epsilon dot means Epsilon by T
right where T is the time or you can also relate it with the shear stress there for you can assign
shear stress as tau as we have been doing since beginning and the instantaneous shear
strength rate, so the equation then takes the form, so you can clearly understand from this
equation that stress or Sigma is proportional to the strain rate right, so you need a constant to
make this equation, so we simply write a constant which is in this case the viscosity, the
coefficient of viscosity and strain rate and this is exactly the same equation in the same form

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we are looking at… I am sorry it is this one and this one, so we can actually extract viscosity
from this equation, so it takes the shape like this and here it takes the shape like this.

Therefore viscosity is a term that we have learned is a constant, coefficient and this is
constant for each material when other parameters are constant, pressure temperature and so
on. The SI unit as you can see that viscosity is actually… So if I look at here so I have stress,
the unit is pascal and then I have strain rate, strain does not have any unit, so strain is unit less
or dimensions less but time has unit, second and time comes at the denominator of the
denominator, so it would be pascal multiplied by second, so the unit is pascal dot second or
you can write it KG per metre second or minus 1 and there is also one unit of viscosity that
people use frequently it is poise, so pascal second is the commonly used SI unit but poise is
another unit and 1 poise 0.1 pascal second, so that is the conversion of poise to pascal second.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:37)

Now you can ask this question that we learned viscosity, dash pot, linear viscosity,
Newtonian fluid and the dimensions of viscosity which is pascal second, so what is the
implication of viscosity in (())(15:58) sciences or structural geology, the course we are
learning.

Now you can clearly visualise the fact, as the Answer of your question that in a very simple
we say a rock is layered in the scale you are considering. You can imagine as an example that
in very micro scale a layer of quartz and a layer of Mica they are alternated in our Mica schist
or in a type of schist where you have mica and quartz as dominant minerals or you can think
of in a little larger scale outcrop scale or handspesiment scale that silicate and carbonate rich

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layers like we see in cal silicate then it is important to visualise the fact that at high pressure
temperature when these minerals or these rocks are like fluid then quartz layer because it is
quartz it has different viscosity to that of the Mica and similarly a silica rich layer would have
different viscosity to that of the carbonate.

Now under that condition if I deform this rock by compression or by extension, what are the
different kind of structures we can produce and this is a subject of research since years and
people still are continuing researching on this. Say, for example, whether you would have a
boudinage with sharp fractures or we would have a pinch and soil structure under the same
dynamic conditions is governed by what is a viscosity of the boudinaging layers and the
surrounding materials.

I have some examples here we can also think of the fact that the thickness of the fold if you
go to the field we will learn it later that in few folds the thickness of the hinge zone the top
part of this fold is thicker related to its lean and vice a versa that hinge is very thin compared
to its lean and sometimes we see that throughout the fold the thicknesses constant these are
known as parallel folds, so why these kind of differences we see when we know that buckle
folding is just you need a layer parallel compression but these are all functions of viscosity
between the layer we are considering which is being folded and its surrounding rock which
must have a different viscosity to produce fold, so here is one example.

For example this orange layer is embedded in another layer in the matrix and if this matrix
has viscosity Eta 1 and the orange layer has viscosity Eta 2 then to produce a buckle fold the
Eta 1 that means the viscosity of the matrix must be pretty less than the viscosity of the
buckling layer and if that reverses, that is the viscosity of the buckling layer is lower than the
viscosity of the surrounding rocks then which produces structure something like that and you
can clearly understand that a switch from here to here is only possible not buy any dynamic…
change of any dynamic parameters that means you are deforming it slowly or you are
deforming it very fast does not matter you can switch to this only and only if you have
viscosity difference between these 2 in a different way.

Very similar way if the same layer stays in an extension regime then we can see that we can
form sharp fracture boudinage when the viscosity of this boudinaging layer is very-very high
compared to the viscosity of the surrounding matrix if it is almost similar or slightly higher
then we can produce some sort of structures that we know as pinch and swell structures, so
what you are dealing here is some sort of the relative viscosity that we are comparing

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viscosity from one layer to another layer and this relative viscosity sometimes is referred as
competency in structural geology and we will refer it later as competence contrast and this is
also referred not only for viscous rheology.

It is also used for elastic rheology that elastically competent layer, elastically incompetent
layer, viscously competent layer and viscously incompetent layers and so on. So we will see
later many more applications of viscous rheology along with some other rheology but to give
you a very brief idea that why we need to study rheology to better understand the structures
that we see in the field. In structural geology it is very important that we have a solid
background of rheology.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:33)

Now we have talked about linear viscosity and this is evident from this equation where shear
stress is equal or proportional to the shear strain rate with a constant, so this suggests that
viscosity changes linearly with strain rate and it is only applicable for linear viscous fluids or
Newtonian fluids. As an example you can consider water, magma under certain condition
flow of salt, in salt domes etcetera, are fantastic examples of Newtonian fluids but there are
any other flows where the flow do not happen linearly, what I mean by linearly is explained
here.

So we have seen this plot stress versus strain rate where the relationship is a straight line that
means at any point of time of the deformation if I look I go back to this plot I always can get
viscosity and in this case when it is linear viscos fluid or Newtonian fluid the viscosity is
constant and if that does not happen then this line is not straight anymore it can be curved and

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if the line is curved then the relationship is not linear and this is known as non-Newtonian
viscosity or non-Newtonian flow or non-Newtonian fluid, so what does it imply?

That with deformation if I take any point draw a tangent and then try to figure out what is the
viscosity, you can see the viscosity is constantly changing, so this changing viscosity or the
transient viscosity during the formation while all parameter pressure temperature and others
remain constant.

This is known as non-linear viscos fluid or non-Newtonian fluid, so to figure out a

constitutive equation for non-Newtonian fluids you can clearly understand that this linear
equation is of no use, so we introduce a new kind of equation where strain rate is related to
stress with some sort of exponent and in this case this exponent is N and it is known as stress
exponent.

In structural geology, in tectonics and also in geodynamics this stress exponent is very
important term we will learn about it later and then this is related by a constant which is some
material constant and we generally denoted by A, so eventually the equation takes the form
strain rate equal to a constant multiplied by Sigma to powered by an exponent, so this
exponent is known as stress exponent and A is a material constant and because it has a power
sometimes we refer it as power law flow or the material which do not have a linear viscosity
property we call it also power law materials.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:02)

Now we move to plastic rheology, we learnt elastic rheology, we learnt viscous rheology and
there are many materials, the behaviour of which under stress it cannot explain neither why a

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elastic rheology nor by viscous rheology, so we need a 3rd and final end member of the
rheology group and this is plastic rheology, so under some natural conditions as I was talking
about the strain response of rocks cannot be explained neither by elastic nor by viscous
rheology and this materials are extremely typical.

So deposition they initially display an elastic behaviour however after a certain point they
flow readily act or little about the yield stress, now this is something a new term we are
learning yield stress, so we will talk about it later and we will learn more about it but for the
time being you just know yield stress as a kind of a typical value of stress in deforming a
material or you can consider it as a threshold stress, so for the time being you just remember
that, so in nut shell you need to deform it elastically initially and then once you reach a
typical value of this elastic stress which we have referred as yield stress then the materials to
flow either at the yield stress or a little above of the yield stress and this typical behaviour of
the material under stress is best described by rheology called plastic rheology.

Now plastic rheology is essentially a description of a material behaviour under stress to

undergo irreversible or permanent deformation after the yield strength, so yield strength is
something that is the limit of your elasticity, so that defines now what is yield stress or yield
strength that after you reach the yield stress then you cross your elastic limit and elastic
property of the material is gone, it cannot bring it back to its original position, whatever
happens after that is elastic deformation.

Accordingly during the postal deformation it is very interesting for elastic material, the rocks
to maintain its continuity that means I am stretching a rubber band and I cross the threshold
value of the elasticity which is yield stress and immediately after that the rubber band breaks
then this is not a typical plastic rheology that we consider the rubber band has to getting
stretched and if I release it it should not come back to its original position if it is a plastic
material, perfect plastic material but rubber band is not.

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(Refer Slide Time: 28:21)

So plastic rheology is best explained by a mechanical analog we generally call a fictional

block, so it is something like a fictional resistance on the sliding of block on a surface which
has some sort of frictional resistance. The explanation is given here with this series of
illustration, it happens this grey shaded that form is you can consider a table which has rough
surface, which has a fraction and then on the top of that we have a block with some hook
there. Now once I rest this block on this surface that has… Then this interface of this block
and the surface has a friction between these to… immediately the friction develops
immediately when I try to pull this, so it has a friction and I can actually consider this friction
as the yield stress which is Sigma y.

We have given an example in the beginning that you cannot move anything instantaneously,
so at t0 everything is in rest and this fictional interface has the frictional resistance value
Sigma y or coefficient of friction which is in this case we are considering it or some sort of
making it analogues to the yield strength. Now at t1 time I started pulling this block with a
force F and I am not changing the… And I am slowly increasing this force.

At time T2 between T1 and T2 what is happening this F has closely reach or slightly above
this Sigma y value and once I cross this Sigma y value this block has to move and as you can
see in this image this block has moved and if I continue applying this force, the block would
continue to move but at time t4 if I remove the force, the block stays in its original position, it
does not come back to where it is, and it is not essentially not at all an elastic deformation.

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So if I try to look in a very similar diagram that you have been looking at where you have
stress versus time and strain versus time the 1st one is your cause, 2nd one is your effect, what
is happening here when you have no stress there is no strength and now you started applying
f slowly but you have the frictional resistance, so the material is not moving, so you can see
there is no strain even if you have applied a significant amount of stress. Now when
immediately you reach the stress value equal to your yield stress or in this case the fictional
resistance then the material starts moving.

Now here I have 3 different curves and there can be end number of curves we will talk about
it later but let us consider only one, so it can then move or it can get deform because it is
changing its position and then if you release the stress it does not come back to its original
position, so this is a nutshell what is plastic deformation or plastic rheology using the
analogic of friction block. Now why we can have some end number of possibilities of
different curves?

It is simply because when the block starts moving then you do not have any control to the
displacement right so this is some sort of material property which is independent of the force
or stress you are applying, so what is written here the velocity of the block is 0 till the force
equals to the Sigma y or yield stress, after that this is very important, the block can move with
possible velocity and not a function of the applied force and this is why as the force never
exceed the frictional resistance except during acceleration.

So if you have 2 accelerate this block then you can increase the force and then you can have a
certain curve but otherwise it can move to any possible values, so now if you would like to
express plastic rheology mathematically then we have to consider an ideal plastic material or
ideal plastic rheology, so which is also known as rigid plastic material or saint venant
material.

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(Refer Slide Time: 33:57)

Thus generally the behaviour the constitutive equation of ideal plastic rheology expressed
with the consideration that there is no strain at all below the yield stress, so that it is a very
primary and basic consideration that material does not deform even elastically till the yield
stress is reached and at the same time during the formation of the stress cannot be above the
yield stress except you have acceleration.

Now this is little complex in terms of statements but in general you are not accelerating your
material while you are deforming it that is the 1st and 2nd at the very beginning before you
reach yield stress there is no elastic deformation and these relationships explained by this pic
and then Sigma either that is your overall stress is less than or equal to the yield stress and
this is known as von mises yield criteria or von mises failure criterion.

And you can expand these parts in this form Sigma involving all sorts of principal axis of
stresses and if you can recalculate it to your stress slides that we have seen it is the stress
invariant number 2, so you can figure it out and we can also figure out the stress does not
determine the strain rate and the equation also does not say anything about the possible
values of stress after the yield, so therefore you not know what would be your stress value
after the yield and that gives a very interesting phenomena of rock deformation in structural
geology of plastic deformation and which we are going to see now.

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(Refer Slide Time: 36:07)

And we know that the rocks are I mean whatever we have considered so far elastic, viscous
and plastic we always use the prefix before them is that ideal, an ideal means it is very
difficult to figure out, so like in all other materials rocks also are not ideal plastic materials
during plastic deformation, so strain rate and others would like to have an effect and the
stress level is likely to change during the deformation history and all so you may not have no
elastic deformation before the yield stress, so you may have elastic deformation before the
yield stress while you are deforming the rock (())(36:50).

So this is mostly visualised by different rock deformation experiment with variable materials
at variable conditions and these experiments reveals the fact that at different experimental
conditions there are number of possibilities of plastic behaviour after the yield stress. Now
this plot shows that behaviour of an ideal plastic material where you do not have any elastic
deformation, you straightaway reach to the yield stress, when you reach yield stress your
strain remains 0, so there is no deformation you straightaway go to your yield stress.

Once you reach yield stress then you increase the strain keeping your stress at more or less on
your yield stress value and if you stay really on yield stress value then you are dealing with
one ideal plastic rheology but as I said rocks are not ideal plastic material, so you generally
would expect some sort of linear behaviour at the beginning between stress and strain and
therefore this is your elastic domain and then you reach your yield stress.

Now post yield deformation there are several possibilities and we can categorise it in 4
different ways, now if after the yield is the material deforms at a constant stress, what we see

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here with the green curve is known as steady straight flow, if you need some more stress to
flow the rock or to deform the rock then this is called strain hardening. If we do not need
stress even that much of the yield stress, much lower stress to flow the rock, this is known as
softening. We observe all sort of curves in rock deformation experiments and together with
this we saw curves that involve both hardening, steady-straight and softening which is an
orange curves here that goes like this.

So you see after the yield you have hardening, and then you have softening and then steady
straight, so this is known as complex flow or complex plastic rheology. Now all such
processes can be explained by the deformation in atomic scales that why I should have
hardening? Why I should have steady straight flow? Why I should have softening type of
flow, strength softening type of flow? Now these are essentially very micro scale processes
and we will learn it in one of our next lectures where we will be dealing with deformation
mechanisms of rocks. So with this we finished the 3 basic end members of rheology which is
linear, elastic, ideal linear elastic, ideal linear viscous and ideal plastic.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:32)

And here is the summary slide in ideal linear elastic materials we use spring as our analog
model, for linear viscous material we use that spot, for ideal plastic rheology we use friction
Block. The stress strain curve for ideal linear plastic is stress versus strain is linearly related.
For viscous this curve is little difficult not linear it goes like this. For ideal plastic the curve
looks very similar to the linear viscous material but here this point has to be your yield stress.

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Now stress rate versus strain rate plot for ideal linear elastic material is exactly same the way
we have stress versus strain but in linear viscous and linear plastic materials we do not plot
stress rate but we plot stress versus strain rate, in this case this is linear and in this case this is
not linear but it looks exactly similar of the stress versus strain because it is strain rate
independent if your material is ideally plastic.

(Refer Slide Time: 41:59)

We also have learned a lot of terminologies right viscosity, Newtonian fluid, compressibility,
Young’s modulus, von mises criteria then elasticity, strain hardening and so on. Now you can
see that all these words or phrases that we have learned in this basics of rheology lecture, I
have sort of jumbled up, so what you can do that you can pick any of these terminology and
can think of what is this, so if you just talk about Poisson’s ratio okay what is poisson’s ratio?

Let us think about it, if you do not get it go back and look at what is poisson’s ratio, this is
how you will be very familiar with these sort of terminologies which are extremely important
to understand the deformation of rocks at different conditions, so with this we finish this
lecture.

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(Refer Slide Time: 42:57)

In the next lecture we will learn the combined or complex rheology where we will add one
basic rheology to another basic rheology and we will see what kind of responses we get out
of it, till then good bye.

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 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Lecture - 11
Rheology – II (Complex Rheology)

Hello everyone! Welcome back again to this online Structural Geology course under NPTEL and
today we are around lecture number 11 and we are studying Rheology. Today we are at our part
2 of the rheology lecture. In the last lecture i. e. in lecture no.10 of rheology we learned the three
basic the 3 n members of rheology: elastic rheology, viscous rheology and plastic rheology and
today we learn combined or complex rheology.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:51)

Now in this present lecture, we will cover rheology of rocks as combined viscous and elastic
materials. So we will call it visco-elastic rheology. Similarly we will combine elastic and plastic
that would be elasto-plastic rheology. We will also combine viscous and plastic. That would be
your visco-plastic material, and then in the next lecture we will cover some examples of the
applications of rheology in structural geology, tectonics and geodynamics. Now we start with a
first the visco-elastic rheology but before that let us have a look that what are the different
applications of this combined rheology.

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(Refer Slide Time: 01:42)

So in aquifers and reservoirs so flow of groundwater and hydrocarbons to understand their flow
behavior, flow mechanisms. It is important that we use a complex rheology or combined
rheology there, magma flow in volcanic conduits that also requires complex rheology to explain
the flow mechanisms. In geodynamics there is mantle convection, plate motions, the deglaciation
phenomena. All these are explained by complex rheology and if we come to the crustal
deformation, the structure we generally see in the field, the ductile structures, folding, share
localizations and also earthquakes which are not ductile but these are all explained by complex
rheology.

Accordingly you can consider that almost all ductile deformations and their flow processes in
earth can be explained by using the complex rheology. So, the complex rheology or combined
rheology basics is very simple that we will see that elastic, plastic and viscous be it linear or non-
linear these are often found to be too simple to model and explain the deformation behavior of
rocks under certain conditions.

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(Refer Slide Time: 3:02)

In this context it is important that we combine these 3 types of basic rheology in order to
describe the natural rock deformation and the combinations. The possibility of these
combinations are many so as you can see here, I have added a spring and a dashpot, then I have
springs of 2 different properties and then a dashpot, 2 different springs, 2 different dashpots. So
you can array them in parallel and series and then again parallel and series and so on.

We are going to learn today is the very simple combinations in parallel and also in series
particularly for visco-elastic rheologies and then we will see how to explain what would be their
stress strain curve, what will their stress versus time strain versus time curves and why these are
important for understanding better the deformation of rocks.

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(Refer Slide Time: 04:03)

Accordingly we start first with visco-elastic rheology. In the previous lecture we learned that
elastic behavior is not time dependent. That means it does not depend on time and we also
learned if we consider viscous rheology then it is time dependent. It is strain rate dependent.
Now, if we have to combine these 2 observations that one rheology elastic is time independent
and another rheology viscous which is time dependent. How can we explain this in terms of or
how can we apply this in our earth systems?

Now the general observations that we have seen from different type of long-term, short-term
measurements that crystalline solids when it deforms it behave as a viscous fluid in geological
time scales like 10 to the power 12 seconds or so on but the mantle behaves as an elastic solid on
time scales very when it is very small so 1 to 10 to the power 4 seconds but it shows a viscous
behavior on time scales when it is very high 10 to the power 11 or 10 to the power 17 seconds.

So, in general if we try to understand that if the deformation is short time, then the rocks respond
as elastic manner, but if it is very long time, then it responds as viscous manner. So this is a spot
or this is a range where we can apply the visco-elastic rheology the combinations of elasticity
and viscosity. We have combined them together in different ways and then we can apply this
visco elasticity to explain the behavior of the deformation and the materials that do have the

259
property that in short time scales they behave elastically and long timescales they behave in
disgust manner are known as visco-elastic material.

(Refer Slide Time: 6:17)

Now let us have a quick review of what we have learned for viscous and elastic rheology. We
know that elastic rheology is explained by a spring and the stress strain curve is like linear
something like that. This is your stress, this is your strain and this is the stress versus time and
strain versus time response, this one and this one for the viscosity is explained by dashpot and
then here we generally explain it stress versus strain rate curve.

And it is like this for a linear viscous material and this is your stress versus time and strain versus
time curve with time is corresponding to stress and strain. Now you can combine these 2
rheology either in parallel or in series. When you combine them in parallel, we see a different
behavior when you combine in series we get a different behavior and both of them have
applications in structural geology or geodynamics in general.

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(Refer Slide Time: 07:31)

So, let us first have a look, the first visco-elastic component that we will be talking about is
known as Kelvin rheology. Since Kelvin visco-elastic behavior or Kelvin visco-elastic materials
the deformation process is reversible, right? That is the first thing to get but the strain
accumulation recovery are extremely slow. It is not like plastic materials and this typical real
rheology, this Kelvin rheology is also known as firmo-viscous or Voigt rheology. Now, generally
this Kelvin rheology is explained or we model it when we add spring and the dashpot that means
elastic and the viscous in parallel arrangement, what we see here that I have spring and in
parallel I have a dashpot.

Now the first statement that we made in this slide the deformation process is reversible, you can
clearly figure out if we stay within the elastic domain of this spring does not matter how far I
stretch this it has to come back to its original position because there is the spring. So this
response of viscous part is important in determining that how much time it would take to come
back to its position because when it comes back to its position or when it responds this way, it is
not a function of the spring anymore. It is a function of how much this fluid is allowing this
entire system to come back to its original position.

So both the systems, in this case, the spring and this viscous dashpot, they move simultaneously
under stress, but the dashpot retards the extension of the spring. So when the stress is released,

261
the spring will return to its original position. It will try to return to its original position very
quickly but again the dashpot will return this movement. Okay? So therefore the deformation is
time dependent though the entire deformation is recoverable. So you can again see this with the
stress versus time and strain. I am sorry. This is stress and strain versus time plot. The
application of stress is very similar that we have applied to our elastic elements.

Therefore we apply instantaneous stress which is here to here and then leave it for a while and
then release the stress instantaneously and then it stays at 0. The strain response is very
interesting. So when the stress is 0, the strain is 0 at the beginning but when we instantaneously
apply the stress, now because it has both spring and dashpot in parallel, the strain increase is
somehow nonlinear. Even if the spring is linear and the fluid here is a linear viscous fluid
because we are combining them and once we release the stress again, the recovery is nonlinear
and time dependent. So it comes back to its original position in an asymptotic manner and this
part, this release of strain very slowly is known as viscous relaxation.

Viscous relaxation has many applications in structural geology and geodynamics. We will not go
into that part but you just remember that when you, when you are dealing with this kind of
rheology, Kelvin rheology in the release of strain after the load is gone is nonlinear and it is
extremely slow and it is known as viscous relaxation. So clearly I have the equation for this. A
spring known is Hooke's Law and viscous is also known is the flow of the Newtonian but As
they are parallel so the total deformation would be following the equation of parallel
combinations of elements.

In this context if I have to go with the strain rate, then I know that 1 by strain rate should be
equal to 1 by strain rate of the elastic element which would be added with the inverse of the
strain rate of the viscous element and if we expand this equation or resolve this equation, then we
simply get this equation where your total stress is equal to strain multiplied by the elastic element
and then viscosity is multiplied by strain rate of this viscous element and this is how, so this is
Young’s modulus and this is viscosity.

So this is how we explain the Kelvin rheology where the strain is recoverable or the entire
deformation is reversible but entire process is extremely slow. What would happen if we add this

262
elastic and viscous elements instead of parallel if we add them in series? Then what we get is
known as Maxwell rheology.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:14)

So here we have the viscous element here, we have the elastic element and they are added in the
series. Accordingly a Maxwell visco-elastic material accumulates strain from the moment a
stress is applied because it is independently deforming, it can deform independently this spring,
the deformation of the spring does not depend initially on the deformation of this viscous
element, right? So it deforms immediately the moment a stress is applied. First elastically and
then it goes to gradually in viscous manner.

So therefore, for short duration of deformation this system works as an elastic body, but later this
goes to a viscous manner. During this short duration of deformation in most of the cases is
recoverable because then it is independent of the dashpot but the spring then only plays the role.
However, for long-term deformation the viscosity component takes the lead right because then
we discuss viscous material starts flowing through the porous spaces of this piston and then it
remains permanent and if it becomes permanent, then your deformation is permanent and you
cannot recover it.

Or in other way, you can recover the deformation of the spring but you cannot recover the
deformation of this dashpot. So the total deformation therefore is not coming back to its original

263
position once you release the stress. So the deformation is not totally recoverable and this is the
physical model of Maxwell rheology where you can arrange it a spring and a dashpot in series.

Now, once we do it in series, the equation is very straightforward. So total strain rate is the sum
of the total strain rate of elastic and thus total strain rate of viscous components and if we expand
this equation or resolve this equation, then it takes this little complex shape and here again, we
have sigma and time and here we have again strain and time curve and what we see here? Let me
explain it. I should do it before that we have 0 stress, no strain then instantaneously, I apply the
stress, the strain increases instantaneously because of this elastic element.

So, this deformation is essentially because of the spring this one, and then I add the viscous part
when I keep it for quite a long time. So, then viscous strain increases slowly. Now, when I
release the stress instantaneously the elastic part released but viscous stream stays, it does not
come back to its original position. But again, this happens very-very slowly however in linear
manner. So this is visco-elastic rheology and we learned that we have Maxwell rheology and we
have Kelvin rheology. Maxwell rheology when we add viscosity and elasticity in series and
Kelvin rheology when you add specificity and elasticity in parallel.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:11)

Let us talk about another one which is elasto-plastic rheology. The elasto-plastic materials as you
can guess from this name that it combines elastic material, elastic element and plastic element,

264
right? So it considers recoverable elastic strain from the elastic element, but non-recoverable
strain from the plastic element. So, therefore, the total deformation is not recoverable. The
permanent deformation as I talk is plastic, but it does not begin until the yield stress is reached.
Release of stress recovers the elastic component of the total deformation and the physical model
we can in a simple way we can see it when you add them in series.

Here I have this spring block. I am sorry here I have the spring block and then I have the friction
block here and if I pull it, the spring, the spring slowly expands because of the force I am
applying and when this spring also gives the load to this, cooling load to this friction block and
when this friction is overcome by this force, pull force, pulling force the list friction block starts
moving and when the stress is released then this spring comes back to its original position but
not the friction block. So, we can have an idea from this behavior from stress versus time and
strain versus time curve. So, here when the stress we apply there is no stress, there is no strain.

Then I slowly pull this spring. So, I increase the stress, strain is also increased linearly the way I
increase the stress but then when I start moving this spring, so this is your elastic sigma Y is your
yield stress, then this friction block starts moving and if I release the stress in the elastic strain, I
recovered, I can recover the elastic strain and then the plastic strain continues. So this strain is
equivalent to this strain. This is your plastic strain, which you cannot recover. This model has
significant applications or it is in a simpler form we apply it mostly to predict the or understand
the behavior of the earthquakes and we will see it later.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:04)

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So now we will see what is visco-plastic rheology. As you can understand it has viscous element
and plastic element and in this case the visco-plastic materials display the linear viscous behavior
only above yield stress of a plastic material. Now, visco plastic materials are also known as
Bingham materials or Bingham plastics and a typical visco-plastic rheology is generally shown
by the parallel arrangements of friction block and dashpot, which is shown here. So what is
happening in this case?

If I add the, if I try to understand these 2 elasto plots, this is sigma versus time and strain versus
time. So in the stress is 0, strain is 0 and then I start slowly applying the load. Once I am
applying this load, interestingly I cannot move the dashpot till I reach the yield of this friction
block. Right? So there would be no deformation. There will be no strain, even if there is some
sort of stress and when I reach the yield stress then I instantaneously move this spring block and
then stress goes this way and then I leave the stress.

So in the entire time the strain continue continues increasing but it does not matter if I release the
stress the Strain remains permanent because of the friction block and also viscous element. So, I
repeat, the visco plastic materials display linear viscous behavior after the yield stress or only
above the yield stress of when you are dealing with a visco-plastic material. So, therefore, if I do
not look at this part this behavior is essentially behavior of linear viscous-rheology.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:37)

266
Now we will see 3 examples of where and how in large-scale processes we apply this complex or
combined rheology. The first one we take over is earthquake mechanics. Now we know how
earthquakes do happen right? That most of the earthquakes do happen along plate boundaries or
to be very specific in the convergent plate boundaries where oceanic plate goes down below the
continental plate and here is an illustration where this oceanic block is continues to subduct
under this continental crust and we know earthquake happens somewhere here what we call
Benioff Zone at some depth.

So at this place there is a significant amount of friction. So there is some sort of resistance. Now
when this block is continuously pushing to go down because of this resistance it cannot move
immediately if there is no creep happening. Now, in such a setting at this region, this plate is
accumulating significant amount of elastic strain. At one point of time when you accumulate this
elastic strain, it releases very suddenly, in a very similar way we have seen in our friction block.
We overcome the yield stress and then it starts moving instantaneously.

When this strain here, the elastic strain here is released in forms of catastrophic or seismic event
and therefore we have an earthquake. Now, this we can very simply model using this elasto-
plastic rheology. I just remind you that actual process of earthquake or microphysics of that is
extremely complex and it is not always advised to explain it using this model, but this is the
simplest way you can explain the earthquake mechanics in rheological context.

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(Refer Slide Time: 25:08)

So what we see here, I am trying to provide here an illustration. Here we are considering that this
spring and the friction block together form the elastic plate. The pull I applying to this spring is
the plate velocity and this frictional interface is your contact between continental plate and
oceanic plate. So, at t1 things are very stable. Now the plate velocity has been applied to this
spring so spring is slowly expanding as you can see and when we overcome this frictional
resistance here, this block suddenly moves to its forward it moves forward suddenly and that
happens at t5 and when this sudden move happens you have a release of energy and this is an
earthquake.

Interestingly when that happens it actually shrinks the spring back to its original position. So, I
have this spring here and I have the spring here. So, I have accumulated the strain but my elastic
element comes back to its original position, not the plastic element, but plate velocity continues.
So the same thing do happen here, I am again stretching the spring, again stretching the spring,
again stretching the spring and again when I reach the elastic, this friction of this block, then this
block suddenly moves forward and produce another earthquake and so on.

So, I have one earthquake , second earthquake here and in a similar way I have third earthquake
here with accumulation of more strength and it is happening in a zigzag manner, like it takes
time to accumulate the strain, then suddenly it releases, then again it takes time to accumulate the

268
strain suddenly it releases and so on. This is very similar of what we call earthquake recurrence
that in a place if you have an earthquake, then it comes back in time. That could be in 100 years,
200 years or several million years it depends on the frictional resistance. It depends on many
other parameter, the composition, the fluid content and so on.

We are not going to that part but this behavior of an elasto-plastic body is excellent to
understand, up to primarily first order understanding of an earthquake phenomena. So, you can
see that you have doing elastic loading in the stress and then at t5 you have a stress drop because
it brings comes back. Then you have again elastic loading, you have stress drop each stress drop
is characterized by an earthquake. So, this is a very simple model but one can understand the
earthquake mechanics using a very simple combined elasto-plastic rheology.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:21)

Let us have a second example and this example is from 2002 Denali earthquake the magnitude
was 7.9, it was a huge earthquake, but it happened, you know Denali is in US, the northern part
of US in Alaska. No one died, but it was a devastating earthquake close to 50 - 60 million was
the damage that happened in this earthquake because of many many landslides. So this diagram
here on the left side shows the displacement of this earthquake, maximum displacement.

This is where this line of the slip so you had this magnitude of; I am sorry this is your magnitude
of maximum slip that happened in this earthquake, which is pretty high in terms of this

269
earthquake that happened on the surface because this was a very shallow earthquake it was, if I
remember correctly, 12 13 kilometers depth it happened on the surface. Now what is interesting
of this earthquake? Now if I have an earthquake, the earthquake is not an isolated process
because the top part of the plate is also attached to the mantle below which you have learned is
somehow viscous.

So when you have this huge displacement of several kilometers of these plates then mantle also
gets affected by these deformation. So instantaneous deformation of this crust that produced an
earthquake also provide an instantaneous deformation in the mantle and this is what is shown in
this diagram. So this is co-seismic stress change. What do you see here that this is this yellow
then, sorry orange, then yellow, then green. These are your stress accumulation immediately
after the earthquake and then the second illustration shows same place after two years and we
can clearly see that at least visualize, I am not going into the detail but if you are interested, you
can read this paper Free Little, 2006. I think 2006 A, they have 2 papers on this.

Accordingly what you can see here that the justified considered this affected area or affected
depth has reduced from the co-seismic time to next 2 years and this third is showing the change
of stress. That means if you subtract from this to this and this clearly indicates that we are
recovering the stress and this is an excellent example of Maxwell rheology that when you have
instant deformation, like then the spring takes the lead but in long-term the dashpot comes into
the picture to recover or not recover the strain and so on. So, this is an excellent application of
visco-elastic rheology in explaining earthquake processes in earth particularly the mantle
deformation during the earthquake.

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(Refer Slide Time: 32:15)

The last example that I would like to give is related to be deglaciation and rebound due to
deglaciation. Now, we know, that most of this lands that, the continents are under the threat of
the sea level rise but there is one place in the world where sea level is going down. Now this is
very interesting and this is a very important geodynamic problem that people had to solve and
helping solve again by the study of complex geology combined rheology. So that land is rising,
sea level is lowering down.

It is the only phenomenon that is being seen in Scandinavian parts so it is Norway and other
places, Finland, Norway and these places but however the observations suggest that the sea level
rise phenomena is also there, so with respect to the center of the earth, if we measure the sea
level at different times, then sea level is certainly rising in this region but interestingly the rise of
the land is faster.

So therefore, the relative rise of land you can see there. Now, what we see? Let us have a first
look in this image. At the core of this area, so this is the Scandinavian countries and these
contours that we see here, these are your land uplifts. So at the core the land uplifts with a rate of
9 millimeter per year and then it slowly reduces to 0 almost when you reach the sea. Now, this is
explained by a combined rheology, this behavior that is why land is rising up in this region and
why also the maximum rise is at the core of this area.

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So these 4 diagrams actually very-very simply describe how this can happen. So when we have a
very standard setting we have sea, we have crust and below that mantle so these parties, you can
consider, this is your thick continental crust. You have thin oceanic crust above which you have
the sea and then below you have mantle everything is rest and everything is in peace, but earth is
a dynamic system so probably during some sort of pulling age, pulling time. The sea level
dropped because it contributed to the formation of glacier in this region.

Now this glacier which is this blue area is heavy ice so ice is loading the continental crust and
therefore it is deforming elastic way the continental crust so it is going down. Now it continues
the glaciation and then the size or volume of the glacier increased. Therefore weight also
increased and the continental crust deformed further. Now, when you deform further elastically,
of course, it has to displace the mantle below.

So, the mantle below, very slowly move away from this place because it has to accommodate the
sinking, elastically sinking, continental crust. Now, till this part it is fine. We have glaciers in
Finland and Norway very good, but later when the deglaciation started the sea level rise
happened because the water from the glacier goes down, comes back to the sea. Acordingly the
elastic deformation that we had in the continental crust is now recovering the strain so it is
coming back to its original position and the mantle is also coming back to recover the fill up the
gap.

So this is exactly what is happening during due to deglaciation this continental crust is coming
back all pushing up and this is happening mostly because the deglaciation also the push from the
mantle below and this is also an excellent example of using combined rheology in explaining the
rebound due to the glaciation in Scandinavian places.

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(Refer Slide Time: 37: 19)

We are almost at the end of the lecture and of this rheology and I would like to show you the,
one of the first slides where we have cited some of the everyday use of rheology examples like
the ballpoint pens, then why do you have to shake the bottles of tomato ketchup or running on a
beach is harder than running on roads and so on. Now I request you to review all these questions
or all these facts and I am sure you can now answer them or you can now understand the
processes of all these mechanisms in terms of rheology.

So, I repeat whatever we do most of the things where we have some sort of forces required to
move something best way to explain is using the 3 basic rheologies or combinations of them. So
with this I finish this lecture but we are not done with rheology.

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(Refer Slide Time: 38:53)

We will have a short lecture to understand that what are the influences of the different external
parameters in governing the flow or strength of the rock. So, we are going to learn it in the next
lecture. Thank you very much.

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 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Science
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture No 12
Rheology – 3 (Role of External Parameters)

Hello everyone! Welcome back again to this online Structural Geology NPTEL course and
we are learning rheology and we are in the lecture number 12.

(Refer Slide Time: 0:26)

The last lecture of rheology we have learned elastic, viscous and plastic rheology. Then we
have learned elastoviscous, elastoplastic and viscoplastic rheology. We also discussed some
of their applications in terms of structural geology and geodynamics will continue with the
rheology throughout the lecture whenever we learn fold, fault, lineation foliation all these
things, we mostly learn in the context of light of rheology along with some other parameters
but this lecture particularly focus on the role of external parameters in response to the
strength and deformation of rock materials.

This particular topic that what is a role of external parameters in governing the flow or
strength of the materials you may not consider is a typical part of rheology or integration of
rheological studies but for rock deformation studies, for structural geology these are very
very important and therefore I decided to include it in the course of rheology.

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(Refer Slide Time: 1:51)

Now we will cover mostly 4 different important parameters one is pressure and then 2 nd one
is temperature, after that we will look at the pore-pressure and strain rate, so these 4
parameters and their influence in governing the strength and flow of rocks. Now we know
that pressure and temperature as I go deeper of this earth they do increase. Pore-pressure is
something which is mostly applicable for reservoir rocks where the porous spaces of the
rocks are filled by either fluid it could be water, it could be gas, it could be hydrocarbons and
so on at more or less shallow depth and in deeper earth it could be the melt, in partially
molten rock and so on.

The pore pressure has a very important role in determining the strength and flow of the rocks
in general because if I have rock at say 20 megapascal confining pressure then if I add pore
pressure to the rock, the effective confining pressure reduces, we will learn about it later
when we learn deformation mechanism because pore-pressure exerts an opposite force to the
wall of the rock and therefore the total confining pressure reduces, so we will see that how
the pore pressure place the role in governing the strength of the rocks.

And then strain rate is also very important because the earth though the process is extremely
slow but even within in the range of slowness, there are many varieties, many ways or many
possible strain rocks to deform, so pressure temperature these are extremely important on
finding the behaviour of the rock under stress at the same time pore pressure and strain rate.

So we will look at these 4 and the expression of these 4 terminologies or 4 terms or 4 external
parameters in governing the strength and the flow of the rock are mostly derived from

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experimental observation, so there are many different ways of running experiments which is
not the part of this course but something is very important to consider right now before we
start the actual slides where we will see the role of pressure temperature, pore fluid pressure
and strain rate.

(Refer Slide Time: 4:35)

It is important to understand very very clearly that there is no single equation or constitutive
law to describe the flow or failure criteria of rocks in wide range of physical conditions and
therefore we had to have these different kinds of rheology and whichever fits with my
observation I will use it without breaking the laws of physics and science in general and it is
also important to understand the expressions of behaviour of the rock and the failure pattern,
failure mechanism are essentially different on the regime of the stress you are applying that
means if you are in compressive domain, the behaviour is different to that of tensile and
shearing domain and there is also one very important thing to remember that if you are
applying compressive stress then the strength of the rock is much higher than the tensile
conditions.

So all these parameters constitute or all these statements are some sort of prerequisites in
understanding the flow of rocks at different pressure and temperature. I am talking about
pressure and temperature, we know that at surface or subsurface conditions the temperature is
not very significant, we can go up 200 maximum degree centigrade temperature but at depth
we have much larger, much higher, much greater temperature and the general observations
from experiments or from the behaviour of the rocks that we see frozen in the field that effect

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of pressure is much more prominent at low temperature, so that is below 200 or 300 degree
centigrade.

Temperature does not play much role in governing the deformation of the rocks at low
temperatures but pressure yes but at higher temperature in terms of rock deformation or rock
rheology or deformation structures temperatures are the key parameters, so above 300 or 350
degrees the effect of pressure is not that much when we talk about or when we say this in the
context of deformation structures and rheology.

The pressure has some other effects but deformation behaviour is essentially govern by
temperature at depth and therefor at higher temperature regimes, so based on these 4 ideas we
will not move to our findings on experimental findings we learned that how the pressure
temperature, pore pressure and strain rate influence the deformation of rocks.

(Refer Slide Time: 7:32)

The first one we take is confining pressure and in all slides we will see this kind of curves
where the vertical axis is stress or differential stress or the dynamic term which is plotted
against kinematic term strain. Now what we see in this plot that different curve, so the sample
was a crown point limestone that was deformed at room temperature at variable confine
pressure that means the sample was taken to different pressure, different isotactic conditions
and then it was deformed, so the isostatic pressure or confining pressure at variable…it range
as low as 20 megapascal 2, 1, 40 megapascal.

You know what is the pressure conversion with the depth and you can consider or you can
think that what corresponds to 20 megapascal, what depth it corresponds and what depth it

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corresponds to 140 megapascal. If we look at all these curves stress versus strain curves at
different confining pressures where the temperature kept constant and the deformation rate as
well, the strain rate we see that it has an extreme variable behaviour under stress.

At low confining pressure it goes to its elastic limit and then it weakens what we call strain
weakening, we learned in the last lecture, then it does little bit of strain hardening and flow
steadily whether as 140 megapascal, it reaches it yield strength somewhere here and then it
flows steadily, so deformation mechanism or flow behaviour is different at different pressures
but this is not what you are going to look right now.

What we see that strength of this rock, the peak value of the differential stress at different
confining pressures, this crown point limestone has achieved… has a relationship that with
increasing confining pressure the strength of the rock has increase and this is more or less
constant for any of the rocks we think of. So in general we can say that confining pressure
increases the strength of the rock.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:03)

Now we can see it in a different way, so this is another experiment on granite performed by
(())(10:04), so in this side again we have different shear stress and this side we have
confining pressure and we see that the strength of the rock increased gradually and in this
case, these are performed at different experimental conditions maximum up to 1000 close to
1000 megapascal and lower up to this may be 40 or 60 megapascal, so in this wide range of
experiment we see the strength of the granite that (())(10:36) has used increased and it got

279
more or less increased non-linearly, so the strength increase is not a linear with confining
pressure.

Now, I must stay here that most of the examples that I am going to cite are very old
experiments just to show some sort of my respect to all these great experimentalist and
structural geologist who thought of running experiment and contributed to our understanding
so most of these experiments that we will see these are very old publications but they are very
relevant today and we will also use it. There are many new experiments on similar lining but
to deal with a different problem I did not pick them up I pick the old ones, some way to show
my respect to all these great scientist.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:42)

Now if you look at the temperature and then again it is performed by Griggs in 1960 and this
sample he used was basalt, so in this case the confining pressure was 5000 megapascal or 5
kilo bar. The strain rate was constant and temperature was variable, so he wanted to check the
effect of temperature on the strength of this basalt, so it clearly see that at 25 degrees
centigrade the curve looks like this, this blue curve and at 800 degrees centigrade the curve
look like this, so here the peak strength is close to 1600 megapascal and here it is probably
150 megapascal.

So 1500 megapascal strength is reduced by raising the temperature from 25 degrees

centigrade to 800 degrees centigrade and this is remarkable, you can see it and in between we
see that temperature gradually decreases the strength, so 25 to 300, 300 to 500, 500 to 700,
700 to 800 the strength or the flow stress of this basalt slowly decrease with the temperature,

280
therefore you can conclude from this plot that rocks have lower failure strength when you
increase the temperature or it flows at low pressure, low differential stress when the
temperature is much higher.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:20)

We can also see in a different plot again these are pretty old work one is this blue and orange,
so these are granodiorite rock and rest are granite, westerly granite. This granodiorite were
deformed with the strain rate of 10 to the power minus 4 per second and the granites were
deformed with the strain rate of 10 to the power minus 5 per second and what we are plotting
here differential stress versus temperature and the authors plotted the peak stress, the peak
value.

And you can see that the temperature from 0 to 700 degree centigrade here if the temperature
got increased then at room pressure the temperature decrease, the strength decreases like that
at 50 megapascal the strength decrease like that whereas in westerly granite when dealt with
400 megapascal confining pressure, the strength decrease again little nonlinearly but at 80
megapascal it was more or less linear.

So this kind of behaviour, relationship one can obtain that okay I change the temperature but
I observed it at different confinement that means at different depths if I increase the
temperature what is going to be the behaviour of whether the strength change or flow stress
changes is linear or nonlinear and so on, so this is another way of looking at the role of
temperature together with pressure in governing the strength of the rock but the conclusion or

281
take-home message from this plot is yes the same temperature lowers the failure and flow
stress of flow strength of rock.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:10)

Now let us look at the pore pressure, so these experiments were done with Berea sandstone
and performed by again another great geologist (())(15:19) the paper got published in 1963,
so Berea sandstone is a sandstone that has porosity is a very consistent porosity from 15 to 25
percent, so these sandstone typically have 22 percent ferocity. The confinement was 200
megapascal, the experiment was performed at room temperature and what he did, he varied
the pore pressure, so these values here at the bottom of the curve these are your pore pressure
values at 200 megapascal, so when the pore pressure is equal to the confining pressure so that
means the rock is almost at room pressure because 200 minus 200 comes to 0, close to 0.

So here we see that the strength is very-very low right this orange curve but when the rent got
increased from… When the pore pressure decreased from 200 to 150 megapascal, 50
megapascal decrease of pore pressure increase the strength of the rock from 150 to further
decrease t0 100 megapascal further decrease to 50 megapascal and further to 0 megapascal
we see that strength and flow of the rock has increased, so pore pressure effectively lowers or
decreases the strength of the rock. This was one of the first experiment where (())(16:54)
showed this typical phenomena of deformation behaviour.

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(Refer Slide Time: 17:02)

Now this is another way of looking at how pore pressure plays the role in governing the
strength or flow of the rocks. So these are again done by a porous sandstone and this time the
experiment was done by Murrell in 1965 and here the porosity was 21 percent, so different
circles here of different confining pressure that applied and in this X axis we have different
pore pressure, so what we see for example if I take this green circle where the confining
pressure was 110 megapascal.

So at 0 pore pressure the strength was extremely high close to 400 megapascal but close to 50
megapascal pore pressure the strength reduces to 300 megapascal, so increasing more
pressure is reducing the strength of the rock and then probably at 75 or 80 megapascal pore
pressure it further reduced and again it further reduced when the pore pressure got increased
and this is obvious for all other values but at different confinement. The take-home message
again from this plot is that pore pressure reduces the flow and failure strength of rocks.

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(Refer Slide Time: 18.28)

Now let us have a look of this very important series of curves that we are going to see that
what is the effect of strain rate, deformation rate that means how fast the rocks are being
deformed and these experiments again performed by another one of the great experimentalist
Heard it is a paper in 1963 and he worked with Yule Marble, the confining pressure was 500
megapascal and temperature was 500 degrees centigrade, so these 2 were kept constant and
he varied the strain rate from 4.02 10 to the power minus 1 to 3.3 into 10 to the power minus
8 per second was the strain rate, so clearly we can see that from here to here strain rate is
increasing, so with the magnitude here is 8 then 7, then 6, then 5 and so on.

So with the order of magnitudes which once can change in an experiment and this is how the
strain rate has increased and clearly from all these curves we can see that with increase in
strain rate each and every step the flow strength or flow stress of this rock this yield marble
has increased, so you can conclude that strain rate increases the failure strength. Now one
term is written here at high-temperature, so this is watchable only at higher temperature, if
you increase the strain rate, the strength increases and this is probably due to the viscous
behaviour of the rock so you achieve viscosity and therefor you increase the strength.

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(Refer Slide Time: 20:33)

But at room temperature or at low temperature people run experiments again these are pretty
old experiments but here we see that increasing strain rate, with increasing strain rate, the
strength of the rocks are not increasing the way we saw with the yield model, for example we
can consider another marble which is very famous marble that people use for experiments is
Carrara marble. Here the strain rate got increased from the order of 10 to the power minus 7 2
almost 10 to the power minus 2 and the flow strength was more or less constant, so strength
at low temperature is not a function of strain rate.

So strain rate and high temperature it increases the strength but at low temperature it hardly
has any influence in the deformation of the rock and this is most likely because at low
temperature rocks to behave in elastic manner and elasticity we know does not depend on
strain rate but we still see with some granites For example this is Indian granite and this is a
kind of shale where it is increasing slowly even with Carrara marble and this is because these
rocks are not ideal elastic material, so it has some sort of other components of the rheology
maybe viscous, maybe plastic a little bit and therefore the strength do increase but it does not
increase the way we saw with the yield marble in the previous slide.

As a result this role of pressure temperature, pore pressure and strain rate in determining the
rheology of the rocks are extremely important and when we observe the real examples of
structural geology when you put the field and you learn about fold, fault, application and so
on these things are extremely important, so keep this in mind. We will recapitulate of this
session, and we will cover a different topic in the next lecture.

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So we learned that the effect of rheology on the deformation of the rocks which we have to
learn, we learned strain, stress, their relationships that what are the different possible ways a
rock can deform but what is the response of a rock when it is deforming in a fix viscous
manner, when it is deforming in plastic manner, when it is deforming in elastoviscous
manner, when it is deforming in elastoplastic manner that what are the expressions of the
rock and I tell you like we say that drops of water makes an ocean, very similarly most of the
deformations initiate at the crystal scale at the very very minor minute scale, so either it
nucleates at a single point and then it propagates to make it a very large event or many little
events do nucleates at different places, they (())(23:54) and they form again a very large
event.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:10)

So how does it happen like what other typical structures they produce under different
rheological domains, how they are produced and most importantly if they are produced they
stay as they are or they change with time and we will answer all these questions in the next
lecture with the deformation mechanism of rocks. Thank you very much.

286
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture - 13
Deformation Mechanism
Part – I: Crystal defects and associated structures
(Refer Slide Time: 00:32)

Hello everyone! Welcome back again to this online structural geology NPTEL course and
today we are in a new week and we are going to start deformation mechanism part one where
we will study crystal defects and associated structures and we will cover the topics which are
mostly an introduction to crystal defects and then we will classify the crystal defects and
describe some of their associated features which are important for studying structural geology
and in particular microstructures.

We talked about the deformation mechanism very briefly at the very end of this last lecture. It
is very important to realize the fact that the deformation that will see, the strain the rocks do
accumulate, sometimes these Trends are extremely large. So the question always being asked
that what is the mechanism, what is the process by which these strains are being accumulated
within the rock mass and most of the time we see that the entire rock is not getting strained
but it is localized or channelized along a very narrow area or narrow zone what we call
deformation localization.

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(Refer Slide Time: 01:41)

Now to comprehend this process it is the study of deformation mechanism that deals with the
various processes of grain and crystal scale deformations, which are responsible for
deformation and at the same time accumulating the large strain in the rocks. Now why grain
and crystal scale? Why not in outcrop scale or in large scale or tectonic scale? Now at this
time, we have to understand the fact that particularly in the ductile domain any deformation
that we see that do initiate at a very very small scale. Very micro scale to be very specific and
when we talk about the micro scale, we actually refer to the atomic scale.

So the deformation do initiate at a very very micro scale within the crystal. Most of the rocks
as we know are crystalline solids poly crystalline solids. So it is therefore important to
understand what is happening inside the crystal when we apply some sort of stress. How the
crystal is accommodating this strain? What sort of features we should see within the crystals
which are probably going to trigger a large scale deformation.

Accordingly in this lecture to understand this behaviour within the crystal, the deformation
behaviour within the crystal, we need to understand first, what is inside a crystal? Now, we
know that the crystal is generally that you need we call it a lattice and within the lattice we
have the elements which we call motif. Now, when we define a crystal or what you have
learned so far from our chemistry or physics lectures that classically a crystal is defined as
what is written here, a homogeneous solid formed by a repeating 3 dimensional pattern which
is the lattice of atoms, ions or molecules, which are your motifs.

288
And they have fixed distances between the constituent parts. Now, this sound like that it is
very homogeneous solid or they have equal or fix distances between their constituent parts,
their compositions or individual motifs are very similar and so on, which this looks like a
very perfect place.

Unfortunately the perfect place inside the crystal hardly exists. What I mean by that the
perfect crystal if we talk about then it does not exist. So the best crystal that you can think of
would have around 1 part per billion defects. Now all these defects or imperfections that mix
a crystal to deviate from its actual original definition are known as crystal defects or what is
written here, the imperfections within the crystal structures are known as crystal defects and
crystal defects are very very important in the deformation of rocks particularly in structural
geology and at the same time in many other subjects also in material science and other
mechanical processes.

(Refer Slide Time: 05:08)

So to classify crystal defects generally people do classify in three different ways. So the first
one we call it point defect or it is also known as zeroth dimension and examples will see all
of them vacancy or interstitial. The second category is line defect because it is line. So it is 1
dimensional and the examples of line defects are dislocations and then we have finally
surface defects. Surface defects are as the name suggests, it is a surface. So it is two
dimensional and examples are either free surfaces or various types of grain boundaries.

So in this lecture actually we are going to explore these three types of defects. So first we will
take over vacancy interstitials and so on, that means point defects. Then we will go to line
defects and finally we will conclude the lecture with the surface defects.

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(Refer Slide Time: 06:22)

Now what is point defect? Point defects are places where an atom is missing or irregularly
placed within the lattice structure. So atoms around the point defects are displaced from their
equilibrium positions, of course if the crystal is not in equilibrium that means there must be
something wrong and this wrong thing is either one atom or one element is missing or it is
placed somewhere where it should not be.

So therefore, if an element within the lattice is staying somewhere else or is missing then the
crystal always tries to make things in equilibrium but it cannot do it. So therefore there is a
local differential stress field that is generated in the neighbourhood of the vacancy and this
local stress field is very very important in determining many processes that primarily include
the diffusion of substitutional atoms and in which we can think of many other processes that
these vacancies are responsible for. These are flying of edge dislocation, some forms of
creeps and increased resistivity.

We learn particularly diffusion and substitutional atoms very briefly in this lecture but we
learn more later on diffusion creeps when we learn the particular mechanism. I bet today we
will look at how the flying of edge dislocations do happen with the assistance of point
defects.

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(Refer Slide Time: 08:03)

So point defects are classified in this manner what is given in the slide so first they classified
whether your crystals are ionic or non-ionic and if your crystals are non-ionic then you have
vacancy and impurity and within the impurity, we have interstitials and substitutional
vacancies. Within the ionic crystals there are mostly two categories one is Frenkel defect,
another is Schottky defect and there are few more but we will mostly look at Frenkel and
Schottky defect very briefly but before that let us go to the non-ionic crystals and first take
over the vacancy.

(Refer Slide Time: 08:39)

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So vacancy that we talked about as we see in this illustration that if I look at this area in
particular, the atoms within this particular segment of this lattice are distributed very
homogeneously, their inter atomic distances are constant and so on. However, if we see this
place in particular or this place in particular one atom or one element is missing. So vacancies
are therefore the places where an atom is missing or irregularly placed within the lattice
structure. What is important to you see that this straight connections that we see where there
is no vacancies as such are now somehow distorted and they are distorting towards the
vacancy side.

Now this is where these bonds or these lines as you can think of stretched, deformed or
distorted and these are the places where you generate some sort of differential stresses.

(Refer Slide Time: 09:52)

So these are vacancies and let us talk about the impurities. There are two kinds of
communities as we have learnt one is substitutional impurity. That means you have a vacancy
but vacancy is not vacant, it is occupied by some foreign atom. So a foreign atom came, it
replaced the parent atom within the crystal, so this is known as substitutional impurity. And
interstitial impurity is when a foreign atom sitting in the void of a crystal. So somewhere
within the crystal it disturbs the lattice structure but it does not omit or remove any atom from
the lattice. So here this one is an example of substitutional impurity and this one is an
example of interstitial impurity.

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Now most of the gemstones that you see or that we are aware are actually results of
substitutional impurities. I give you an example of ruby. We know ruby is a fantastic
gemstone is red colour, but the host mineral of ruby the actual mineral of ruby is nothing but
corundum. It is aluminium oxide. Now the chromium atom it replaces, if it replaces 1 percent
of the aluminium’s inside this corundum crystal, then it becomes red and that is why it
becomes very important to us or very precious to us because of this red colour.

So it is not a pure crystal that will see as ruby. It is actually a corundum aluminium oxide and
in one side, the metal side we have aluminium replaced by chromium and therefore we see
the red colour and that is why it is expensive. Now for the interstitial impurity you can think
of the carbon steels that most of our soft steels that we use nowadays including our cars and
so on. The carbons are doped inside the ferrite crystals, which is a BCC crystal and these you
can think of a carbon atom inside the ferrite crystal. So carbon steel is a perfect example of
interstitial impurity.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:24)

When we learned about substitutional and interstitial impurities let us move on to point
defects will read to ionic crystals and as we have classified there are two types of ionic
crystals defect. One is Frenkel defect and another is Schottky effect. Now ionic defects they
do occur when one of the atoms in an ionic lattice is simply in the wrong position or missing.
In this context of Frenkel defect in an ionic lattice that occurs when one of the ions is in the
wrong position. So what we see here, this is a lattice structure without any defects. So this is
a perfect crystal as you can think of and then you have some ions with positive charges and
some ion with negative charges.

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Now what we see here positive charged ions are missing from this side and they are sitting
somewhere here and the same example you can see the ion is missing and it is sitting
somewhere here. Now the basic idea or one of the properties of crystals with Frenkel defect
which we are discussing now is that that nothing is missing in this frame. So number of atoms
or number of ions if we count, these remain constant. Therefore even if there is vacancies
different type of vacancies the density of the crystal does not change. On the other hand,
Schottky defect is when you have a pair of anion and cation are missing.

For example, as you can see here this one and this one. An anion and cation are missing from
this crystal or this lattice and again here. A pair always they have to disappear from the
system as a pair and if that happens then it is known as Schottky defect and you can imagine
that if this happens then the density of the crystal varies. So the example of Frenkel defect is
you can think of as the example is given here silver iodide which is a kind of material or
complex where in this case the Ag plus ion, the silver ion is missing from the actual site and
it is sitting somewhere else and Schottky defects we mostly see in different kinds of salts
where for example here the KCl ion, the KCl salt where both K and Cl K plus and Cl minus
they are missing from the crystal.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:15)

Now how point defects are important to us. We will learn more about it but points defect are
if there are some sort of differential stress externally or some sort of disequilibrium been they
try to move from one side to another side. So if an atom jumps from its lattice side into the
adjacent vacant side at its neighbourhood, it fills the vacancy but because there is no extra
atom so it leaves behind another vacancy.

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So in effect that it causes the shift of the vacancy to in the opposite direction to that of the
atom. What I mean by this or reading this text is explained in this illustration. So what is see
we have a vacancy here and we have a neighbouring atom. Now if this atom has to move then
the best place to move is to come to this vacancy side. So what it decides, it moves to this
place and the vacancy then comes back the position of the atom.

So therefore in the next lap, again the next atom moves to this vacancy side and the vacancy
comes back or vacancy moves to the position of the atom and here is the same case. So what
we see here that in this illustration back that vacancies are moving in this direction and atoms
are moving in this direction. So therefore their movements are opposite. It is very similar to
the way electricity moves or the electricity goes. So electrons move the direction opposite to
the electricity. So this is a very interesting idea that we will explore more and it involves also
the volume changes or shape changes of the crystal during or due to the movement of
vacancies and atom in the system but for the timing will stop here. We will learn more about
it when you learn more about diffusion creep and diffusion mechanism.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:39)

Let us move to the next part of this lecture is line defect or dislocation that we have learnt.
Now vacancies as you have learnt are zeroth dimension that means they are point defects but
line defects are linear defects and linear defects are commonly referred as learnt dislocations
and dislocations are nothing but the lines through the crystals along which a crystallographic
ordering is lost. We will learn more about it soon. So these dislocations are very very
important in terms of structural geology. So their movements and networking control many

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many things which are responsible for the formation of the structures that we see inside the
thin sections or even large scale structures.

One of them is the control the hill strength of the deforming rock. So strength of the rock is
controlled by dislocations and their movements. They also can produce various types of
micro structures and subsequent plastic deformation of crystalline rocks. The dislocations
also do participate in determining the grain size of the plastically deformed rock. So a
plastically deformed rock has larger grain size or smaller grain size is actually controlled by
dislocations and this happens to a process called dynamic recrystallization. This will also
learn in the next lecture and it also defines the nature and orientations of the grain boundaries.

So, dislocations are one of the most important crystal defects that we deal regularly in
looking at micro structures and so on. The dislocations are classified in two segments one is
edge dislocation and another is screw dislocation. Now we will first look at edge dislocation
and then we will understand the screw dislocation. Edge dislocation is much easier to
understand and comprehend but before we go to actual scenario, let us get a concept that
what is dislocation.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:58)

Now what we have here in this illustration? We have a block say a crystalline solid and then
by some means we made a cut. Halfway cut to the middle of this block. Now because this
would be deforming plastically let us assume that to understand, to visualize better let us
assume that this is a piece of rubber and then if you push it this side top part only, leaving not
at the base so it could try to squeeze in this direction but because this part is fixed so at this
segment this material would be much denser.

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 So eventually it would look like something like this where this edge of this cut is fixed.
There is no displacement and then along this line everything but slipped along the plane that
you made cut or you can call it a glide plane. Now, this has to move following a vector and if
we consider that this is a vector because we are applying the force in same direction so we
can term it as b. We learn what is it later but this is the basic concept of dislocation that one
side of this cut or one side of this line has got a slip and another side is not slipped.

So this part experienced slip and this part not. Now as the volume or other things has to be
constant. In this segment, you might have some rearrangements of the atoms within the
lattice so that it can accommodate this unit vector displacement within itself. As a result the
lattice, the atoms they are arranged accordingly to accommodate the deformation when the
other parts are not deformed or not disturbed as well. Now this line is known as dislocation
line that separates the slip and non-slipped part.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:27)

So now if we all try to look at in our actual diagrams or actual illustrations so what happens
when a dislocation moves? Now in this first illustration what we see it is a perfect lattice
structure there is nothing and then we apply some sort of force in this lattice above this line,
which we will refer as glide plane. So initially when we apply the force will certainly push
the crystals or atoms, I am sorry, the crystals on this side. So these crystals will move a little
bit. Now here comes the very interesting part.

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Now it can happen that all atoms in this area, it can receive the stress. They can move at the
same time and they end up by slipping each and every plane to give you shape like this which
you will see is going to happen at the very end but if you have to do it at one time the stress
you require is significant and experimental studies showed that the actual stress that requires
to deform this few orders of magnitude less.

So there must be something happening or the lattices are accommodating the strength or
moving the stress such a way within themselves that reduces the strength of the rock yield
strength of this system or the crystal. Now this is how it happens. So what happens that this
line of atoms, they move but then they displace a single set of atoms as well. So therefore it
does not have any connection at the bottom and this is where we produce our first dislocation
or the cut that we talked about in the previous slide that before this the material got slip and
after that it is unslipped and then this dislocation moves one after another and finally it
achieved to this shape where we actually see that an unit length has got displaced.

Now this is how this slip and unslipped lengths got changed continuously and finally, we get
in that top part slip, but it did not slip in a single process, but step by step. The movement of
dislocations is very similar the way silkworms move or the earthworms move on the surface.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:47)

So if we try to look at in a different way this dislocations so imagine that this is our
dislocation line with blue line here and then this is our glide plane and this unit vector that the
dislocation move on the slipped side along the slip plane is an unit vector and it is known as
Burgers vector. So Burgers vector is the magnitude and direction of the unit slip. Now this
Burgers vector, though the spelling is very similar, b u r g e r that we eat as snack, is

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absolutely different to what we call Burgers vector. Burgers vector is named after the Dutch
scientist physicist. So do not confuse this Burgers to what we eat burger.

At present, this is the plane along which we have that separates the slipped and non-slipped
part. So if we can project this plane in our flat area, then we see that this is the dislocation
line. So you are projecting on this area on this surface. So the yellow side is the slip plane and
this light pink is our non-slip plane. So these parts are slip and these parts are non-slip and
what is separating slip and non-slip is dislocation line.

Now dislocation moving along this direction with that unit vector, unit Burgers vector. We
can introduce another vector here, which is T that tells about the unit vector tangent to the
dislocation line. Now in this case, this Burgers vector and this tangent vector are
perpendicular to each other. When they are perpendicular to each other this is known as Edge
dislocation or the propagation direction of the Burgers vector or direction of the Burgers
vector is perpendicular to the dislocation line.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:04)

This slide gives an examplw, what we see that therefore this B&T their directions their vector
directions could have any angle. So between the Burgers vector which is the magnitude and
the direction of the slip and the line vector T, which is the unit vector tangent to the
dislocation line. So as we learnt that if B is perpendicular to T, then we call it edge
dislocation.

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If B is parallel to T then we call it screw dislocation and if B is neither perpendicular not
parallel to T, then it is mixed dislocation. So what we see in this illustration and this is what
we have learnt, this vector where B is directed this way and T is directed this way their
mutual relationship in perpendicular. So this is my edge dislocation, but here as we see that V
and T these 2 are parallel to each other. So this is screw dislocation. Now if there is other
relationships like for mixed dislocation, then they form something called dislocation loops.
We just learned the term we will not go much detail of this.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:36)

This slide shows how they look like if we try to draw them. So edge dislocation is something
like this and now we know that it is defined with this T either flipped or straight where screw
dislocation looks like something like that where the dislocation is moving in this direction
and here dislocation is moving in this direction for edge dislocation. Here are two models that
you can see. This one is age location, I am sorry, this one is a screw dislocation and this one
is the edge dislocation where this is the rotation axis and here this is the dislocation line.

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(Refer Slide Time: 30:30)

Now the event does not matter whether we are dealing with age or screw dislocation the end
products or the slip more or less they appear very similar. At least we understand for our
lectures this way they could be very complex, but we understand it this way that when we
have edge dislocation this is the propagation direction and this is the dislocation line so they
are perpendicular to each other but because it continues to move so eventually get a slip of
unit vector, burger Burgers vector but here it slips this way so propagation direction of the
dislocation is this and it also move in this direction so, they are parallel to each other but
eventually we end up with this Burgers vector.

Now does not matter at least from a very basic idea we can have these diagrams in your mind
that does not matter whether this is edge dislocation or screw dislocation, we end up with the
same type of deformed structure for our basic understanding but actual thing is much more
complex or it could be even complex.

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(Refer Slide Time: 31:48)

Let us talk about that how do this dislocations move from one side to another side of the
crystal. We had a very basic idea when we saw that one term is moving relative to the next
we saw the also the movement of the vacancies. So one vacancy moves and then one atom
moves to support the opposite direction, but for dislocations as we have understood so far that
it has to move along a particular crystallographic plane or what you have learned as a glide
plane. Now not necessarily dislocations could move along the glide plane always life is not
always happy.

So sometimes on the glide plane, we have some obstacles in the form of interstitials and the
interstitials are sometimes so big that dislocations individual dislocation do not have the
energy to move or to sort of ignore this obstacles and move further on the slim same glide
plane. If that does not happen then it has to find one way to move to another glide planes and
move accordingly.

So when it moves along a single glide plane is known as dislocations glide. Motion of
dislocations along a crystallographic direction what we see here that it is gliding. So these are
your individual glide planes stacked in a crystal. Now a climb happens when you have an
obstacle, which is impeding their glide motion it stops the glide motion and allows the
dislocations to jump to another crystallographic plane and then continue glide. So this is
glide, then climb, glide, another obstacle, then again climb and then it glides again.

This is how it occurs continuously? Now you clearly understand at this point that glides
requires less energy than climb just has to climb so it requires some more energy and energy
can come from various sources. We will learn about it later.

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(Refer Slide Time: 34: 16)

So eventually if I look at in a different form, it looks like this. So this is the glide entire place,
so you see a fix crystallographic plane and the dislocation is moving from one array of atoms
to another array of atoms without changing the crystallographic plane but here in this case
you just see in a different way probably here there was an obstacle so the dislocations move
to the next level and it changed this glide plane and continued moving as we see here. So this
is how the dislocation glide and dislocation climb are conceived.

(Refer Slide Time: 35: 05)

Now let us talk about the surface defects. Surface defects are classified in two segments, one
is external surface defect and another is internal surface defect. We will not talk about much
or we will not consider the external surface defects but just to know that if atomic bonds are

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broken over an area then you create two free surfaces and the area is double of the area you
had. It has some other implications but we are not going to deal with this but we are mostly
concerned about internal surface defects and within the internal surface defects, we have we
can have surface defects between the same phases and between the different phases.

Between the same phases we have grain boundaries, staking faults, twin boundaries and so on
and we call so can have grain boundaries within different phases and also a different kind of
interface boundaries. So from now on we will mostly look at grain boundary and twin
boundaries, also kind of grain boundary. We look at mostly these two. We will ignore
stacking fault for the time being.

(Refer Slide Time: 36:15)

So what is grain boundary? You all talk about that the grain boundary is straight, grain
boundary is curvy. And grain boundary is serrated and so on. From the crystal point of view
or crystallographic point of view a grain boundary is a boundary between two regions of
identical crystal structures, if we are dealing with same phases but different orientations.

Here we have two examples. This is iron oxide and this is calcite. You see that their
composition are very same but because they are differently oriented maybe this grain here is
oriented differently compared to this plane here and this is why probably we see some lines
in between them. We see different colours here. This is cross-polar, this is calcite. Through
cross-polarized light this is a thin section and we see different colours because the grains are
oriented differently, we see different colours. This we have learned from our optical
mineralogy classes or mineralogy classes.

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When we talk about different orientations, there are possibilities of various orientations from
0 to 90 degrees or more. So we classify them mostly in two categories, low angle grain
boundaries or LAGB or high angle grain boundaries or HAGB. There are also classification
tilted and twisted twin boundaries. We are not going in that right now. Now low angle grain
boundaries as it suggests that one grain orientation can be obtained by rotation of another
grain across the grain boundary about an axis so an angle. So that means I have for example
two grains.

Now if my finger traces are the lattice orientations, then they can have differently oriented by
this angle and this is the rotation axis. Okay? So if this angle is low, then this is low angle
grain boundary. If this angle is high, then this is high angle grain boundary. So how do they
look like.

(Refer Slide Time: 38:45)

So these are low angle grain boundaries. I have given two examples. As you can see that this
probably is defining one very low angle grain boundary where this and this 2 different areas
or 2 different lattice structures are not are not staying in the grain stem yet but their angle is
only 4 degrees, very less. So these are known as some sort of sub-grain boundary with higher
grain boundary angles and what is important that this could be probably your grain boundary.
What is important is that these grain boundaries are marked by dislocations and if we have
dislocations at the grain boundaries that means grain boundaries are also a storage or a places
where you can find more or more dislocations.

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(Refer Slide Time: 39:59)

Then high angle grain boundary. As we can see here this is your grain boundary and in this
case the grain boundary angle or high angle is 40 degrees. Therefore this is high angle grain
boundary. Now how high you need to make a high angle grain boundary or how low you
need to make a low angle grain boundary that varies from studies to studies but generally 15
degrees or low is low angle grain boundaries and 15 degrees or above is high angle grain
boundary. That more or less the convention but sometimes this 15 degree shifts to 10 degrees
and so on.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:35)

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Now there is another type of grain boundary where which is known as twin boundary when
two differently oriented crystals so it has a grain boundary but they are attached together such
a way that they share some of the crystal lattice points in a symmetrical manner. What we
have seen in other images, for example, if we come here the previous slide, the lattice of this
grain and the lattice of this grain they are not sharing any of the atoms of the neighbouring
brain but if it is a twin boundary then they share. So this is the twin grain boundary. So they
share, so this line of atoms is shared in both grains and if that happens then this is a twin
boundary.

Twin is very common in most of the geological minerals. For example, this is a sketch of an
albite mineral. So this is crystal without twinning and these two blue planes are your twin
planes and these are your twin boundaries.

(Refer Slide Time: 41:55)

Now twin boundaries we can also classify in two different ways. One is contact twin
boundaries or contact twin planes and penetrative twin boundaries or penetrative twin flames.
So contact twin boundaries they share of a sort of single composition surface often appearing
as mirror image to each other. For example, we see here a quartz or this is a lazulite but in
penetration twins the individual crystals have the appearance of passing through each other
like they sort of penetrate one crystal and of course it has to be done in a symmetric manner.
So here are 2 examples. What we see here this one is for pyrite and this one is for staurolite.
As you can see from this it seems that it almost went inside the crystal but that happened in a
symmetrical manner.

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(Refer Slide Time: 42:46)

So this is how we conceive so far a grain boundary. We have seen probably under
microscope different crystals their grain boundaries and so on but actually if you can scan it
or if you can x-ray it with some inner eyes, then the individual grain boundaries are like this
the blue lines and they are separated even if their compositions are very similar, they are
separated because their orientations for example, here the orientation is like this and here the
orientation is like this. So they are essentially different. For example, here the orientation is
like this and here the orientation is somehow like this. So they are somehow different and that
is why we see them in a different way.

Now this grain as it appears here, for example, if I consider these grains is extremely
homogeneous. There is no dislocation inside in this area. There is no vacancy inside, there is
nothing so it is perfect but that is not the case always so this individual place can also be
deformed. It may have also some sort of sub-grains and so on and therefore we see different
kinds of features. For example, blows extinctions in quartz. We learn more about it soon.

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(Refer Slide Time: 44:18)

Now we have reached the end of this lecture so I believe as per the today’ you are now more
or less convinced that whatever deformation we see in rocks particular in ductile domain of
information, they all initiate at a very very micro-scale atomic scale. Now how to feel them
how to understand that yes these are there because they are in atomic scale and unless you
have some sort of very very high resolution microscope like TEM or so on you do not see
them.

So in the next lecture actually we will see and learn what the different expressions of such
atomic scale deformations are and their typical arrangements and what are the different kinds
of microstructures which are responsible for all these arrangements and deformation. So this
is the topic in the next lecture. We will divide it in three segments. First we learn cataclastic
processes that are not really some sort of study that involves all these things to learn but this
is very important in structural geology but then we will go to intra crystalline deformation
and diffusion creeps where these things that we learned today will be very important. So till
then goodbye. Thank you.

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 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture 14
Deformation Mechanism
Part 2 Cataclastic Deformation

Hello everyone! welcome back again to this online structural geology NPTEL. Today, we are
in our lecture number 14 and you are learning deformation mechanism of rocks. Since, in the
previous lecture we learned about different types of crystal defects. And, today we will
mostly focus on cataclastic deformation which generally happens at the surface, or shallow
part of the earth.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:46)

And we will follow intra crystalline plasticity and then mechanism of recrystallization with
examples from deformed quartz in the next lectures. Now, in this lecture I will classify the
deformation mechanism. And, then we will mostly spend the entire time on discussing the
different processes of cataclastic deformation, or brittle deformation. Mostly, we will focus in
the microscale processes or grain scale processes.

Before discussing on the actual process and classifications let us have we have learned about
some basics. So, the deformation of rocks as I told in the last lecture is achieved by various
processes. And it is now a quite obvious and well established, that does not matter how large
is the scale of the deformation. Deformation do initiate at a very very small scale in the
crystal scale. So, large fault if you consider it initiates with a very tiny fracture or number of
tiny fractures.

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Accordingly, either the tiny fracture propagates in response to stress, or lot of tiny fractures
the cordless; and then propagate together to give rise scale faults. So, now all this process at
least today, we will learn cataclastic processes.

(Refer Slide Time: 2:39)

This is mostly achieved by different process and these processes are functions of measuredly
two parameters. One is the lithological controls, or sometime we call it intrinsic parameters.
So if i write it like intrinsic parameter and then another is external control so, that is known as
extrinsic. Now, within the intrin sick or lithological controls you may think of the parameters,
which are inherent of the rock. So, that is mineralogy you can think of composition of the
fluid that you have in the rock or different grain sizes, crystal orientation, porosity
permeability etc.

On the other hand external controls are the ambiance where the rock is being deformed. So,
there you can think of pressure temperature, pore fluid pressure, the rate of deformation or
strain rate etc. Now, while this process are this parameters are controlling the deformation
process And, while the deformation do happen under the different controls, than they produce
characteristic microstructures and submicroscopic features.

I want to say that a brittle rock or a rock that has undergone brittle deformation, would have a
very typical micro structure to that of a rock has under gone a ductile deformation. And this
you probably have seen in thin sections, if you have at all studied this. We will learn more
about it in the next lecture; will have some photograph of these thin sections, in this lecture as
well particularly relevant for brittle deformations.

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But, the point is that looking at the microstructures you can certainly figure out, that the
mechanism or the process of deformation was different at different regimes, if you consider
this whether brittle or ductile. Now, based on that people do study deformation mechanism of
rocks, primarily to understand or establish the ambiance and at the same time different
internal controls.

So, it could be the grain size or the mineralogy and so on. So, we generally get all this
information through experiments and then we match it with natural deformation, natural
deformation rocks. So, we vary pressure, temperatures and we change the composition of
different fluids. We deform the rocks at various times etc. So, we do all these sort of things
and then we plot them in different ways, may be it stress verses strain or maybe it strain rate
verses stress, pic stress verses strain and with the control or pressure temperatures and so on.

We have seen this one of the last lectures and then out of this curves we infer different
parameters, rheological parameters. And, based on these rheological parameters we find the
constants. So the final aim is to figure out that what could be the flow law, that what sort of
rheological law is applicable to this kind of studies? And therefore we theorize it by
experiments. And then the people who do numerical modeling, or even analytical modeling.

They use these sorts of parameters or some basic equations to fit in their large scale
numerical model and get the bigger picture. So this is how the different disciplines of
structural geology if you can think our different ways of looking at structural geology.
Someone goes to the field collect rocks in sections then someone does the experiments and
someone does numerical modeling. And as a hole we get a comprehensive idea of the entire
process.

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(Refer Slide Time: 06:55)

So, if we try to classify or the deformation mechanism that we are talking about. Then there
are three major categories or three major classes of deformations mechanism. And, this is
mostly derived by observing the naturally and experimentally deforms rocks. The first one is
cataclastic deformation, second one is intracrystalline plasticity and third one is the diffusive
mass transfer. As, the name suggest we can figure out that.

Cataclastic deformation is mostly considers brittle deformation. Where rocks do fracture the
intra crystalline plasticity is something where we consider the deformations of grains and this
deformation of grains do happen at high pressure and particularly are high temperature.
Where all these defects that we have learned in the previous lecture, do influence or do
govern the deformation. So, it is a deformation within the crystal so, please remember this
terms intra crystalline not intar crystalline.

And then of course the diffusion is one of the very important process of deformation and we
learn about it in our lecture number 14.3. So, today we mostly focus on cataclastic
deformation. And as I said in the previous slide that each of this, be it cataclastic be it intra
crystalline be it diffusive mass transfer.

If you look microstructure they are characteristic for each and every process. So, they
produce different types of fabrics, different types of appearance of the rock under thin
sections and so on. And, people do study not only under optical micro scopes but, electron
microscopes particular scanning electron microscopes and transmission electrical micro
scopes are now a days very useful.

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And in recent days, there are some other tools that you can use even though or check the
atomic scale process using atom prop tomography and so on. So, again the primary aim of
studying these three mechanisms is to figure out the different relationships between stress
strain and other parameters. That how they are related and how we can put them together in
different flow laws.

(Refer Slide Time: 09:25)

So, let us start with cataclastic deformation mechanism. And, we will first learn that what are
the characteristic of cataclastic deformation? So, I have given a list here in this slide.
Cataclastic deformation is nothing but, when your grains do fracture or you have sort of
fictional sliding of the grains. So, it is the combination of brittle fracturing and frictional
sliding of grains. And if you have fracture or frictionally slide the grains from one past to
another. Then it is activated only, when you exceed the shear strength of the rock, or shear
strength between two grains, we will learn about it later.

Brittle deformation or Cataclastic deformation as we have learned that, it has to be a low

temperature process. Therefore, we mostly see this either on the shallow crast or on the
surface. As I said that there is no internal distortion of the crystal or lattice structures during
cataclastic deformation. So, crystal defects hardly play any role in cataclastic deformation
grains. Just do fracture they rotate, they break, they just slip us each other. But, the internally
the crystals do not show any special type deformation.

If, that happens then it is intra crystalline plasticity which we will learn about it next lecture.
The deformation is not that temperature sensivity, as I talked about in this point, that it is a
mechanism of low temperature. But, pressure do play all sort of pressures, you can think of

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the confining pressure, you can think of the port fluid pressures. They do play a very
important role in controlling the different process of the deformation mechanism under
cataclastic deformation. If you recall we have learnt that the strength of the rocks do very
greatly.

When we vary the pressure and poor fly pressure. So, as I said that this is presensitive and at
the same time it is low temperature deformations. So, we commonly observe at the upper
crossed, or on the surface or at the shallow surface of the earth. And essentially it is
characterized by fracturing at any scale. But, today we mostly look at the fracturing at grain
scale. Now, we can classify the entire range of cataclastic deformation in three basic ways.

The first one is localized deformation sometimes we call frictional flow, with a special
characteristics, second one is granular flow and the third one is cataclastic flow. So, in the
entire lecture actually, we look at these three basic process of cataclastic deformation. As you
can see it is not typical flow but, rock do deform. They move from one point to another point.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:40)

Therefore I used this word flow here but, within inverted commas. So, let us look at the first
process which localized cataclastic deformation. Generally, the characteristic of this localized
this cataclastic deformation includes, extreme fracturing and grain size reduction along a
narrow zones. So its extremes fracturing and grain size reduction along narrow zones. And
when I talk about narrow its millimeter to centimeter scale. Now, this fracturing or grain size
reduction may happen by compaction, or may happen by shearing.

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So, sometimes the nature of contact between the two surfaces, which we will learn later, is
called asperities. If, that type of flow do happens, that means one is sliding first to another in
grain scale, then sometime we call them as frictional flow. Now, clearly if you increase the
sliding velocity, or if we increase the strain rate, that decreases the frictional resistances. So,
therefore the sliding velocity or the force if you have more than, you quickly deform the rock.

And as an example of localized deformation you can sight many. So, compaction bands are
there shear fractures are there. And, sometimes cataclastic bands are also included in the
localized type of cataclastic deformation we learn all about this in the following sides.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:21)

So, here are some examples of cataclastic deformation in the field. So, in both examples if
this one and this one the host rock or the country rock is sand stone. This I have taken from a
various publications from ballast 2015. And what do we see here we have learned the
conjugate fracture if you remember. So, we see that two sets of fantastic conjugate shear
fractures are there. And these are known as a compaction or cataclastic bands. So, we will see
the micro structure of this soon.

And, this case as well you can see that, dominantly one set is there going like this. And at
same time we have one very quickly developed another set but, it is at an angle with the
previous one. So, these are the look of the deformation bands, or cataclastics bands, or
localized bands, localized cataclastics bands in the field. This is how they look alike and i am
sure you have seen it when you go to the field. Particularly, in sand stone rich torrents which
are deformed a while.

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Now, you also see that this shear bands or cataclastic bands also displaced by the next
generation of a fractures. So, we will see that these are what are the grain scale process of this
in some of the following slides?

(Refer Slide Time: 16:06)

Now, this is how it looks like in we see them under microscope. The first one is an optical
microscope image. So, we can see that this yellow things are your sand size grains and then
the background is blue coloured this are your porosities. And, you clearly see that there is a
zone at the middle running from west to east. Where, there is an animal so this part is little
heterogeneous, compare to this area and this area. What do you see here apparently, if we
measure statistically the grain sizes is here are little reduced from what we see from outside.

And, at the same time the porosity has also reduced and the number of small or finer grains
along this narrow zone is quite significant. And as I said this length is about one millimeter.
So we are looking at this about one millimeter scale. So, this are very narrow or thin zone.
You can also see the second image. This is a scanning electron microscope image that is why
it is in grey scale. What do we see here more or less very similar feature. We have larger
grain outside this are sand sized grains.

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And then we have this so what we see here this dark grey grains are sand size grains. And
then the lighter grey are the cements which field the matrix. Now, again we see in the middle
running from west to east. This zone here it is again little anomalous with respect to the top
and bottom of this image. And the grain size is here got reduced sort of we can think, they got
pulverized and compacted together the cement are almost absent in this area. We also see a
very typical fracture or opening here along this.

So, these are all characteristics of localized cataclastic deformation. That happens at a very
narrow zone here and here. Where the grains do compact or they move fast each other by
producing some fractures within the grains and they just compact together.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:50)

So, if we try to figure out the different processes that how do it happen? Here is an
illustration of the different process that you can think of I have given four elastration here.
And, this is mostly applicable for frictional flow. So, in the first image which is A, what do
we see here that we have an arrangement of grains with some porosities which are white here.
And, then this red areas are some tiny little fractures that developed due to application of
some sort of deformation. So, you can think of may be deformation is going on this way.

And, now these little red lines they can connect to each other, as I was talking about and they
can produce a continuous fracture. Now, this continuous fracture does act as a weak zone. So
if the shear continuous, then this fracture along this fractures these two blocks are separated
now. And, they try slide first each other. Now, what do we see here? Now, because of this red

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area red line here is not very straight. So, you can clearly see that if try to draw it, here this is
a fracture. And I have some grain here and I have some grains here.

Now if this one moves in this side. So clearly you should have an opening like that and then
it tries to qualies here this way. So, you generate an enormous force here so, the grains here
do fracture. And, this exactly what is happing here this area along this narrow zone we are
producing lot of fractures. Particularly on the contact zones so, we have a rough surface
defined by a very tiny fracture which is continuous. And, this rough surface this roughness is
known as asperity as we talked in the other lecture and also in the previous slide.

So, ones this starts further moving then this fractured grains it is much easier to deform it.
And, therefore you eventually end up with a very narrow zone. Where your grains sizes get
significantly reduced the porosities as well. So this how the localized cataclastic deformation
is achieved particular in the context of frictional flow.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:00)

Now, let us have a look of some of some more natural examples. That, what why we should
be concerned, or why should concerned about this kind of narrow localized brittle or
cataclastic deformation. What do we see here, this is a field photograph and this is a thin
section of the same area. Now, we will see that this is about one millimeter later in the later
image. So, what do we see here you can clearly image very nicely the photography is taken
by the professor foison.

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You see this are the little grains here, and then along this narrow zone we have something but
really crushed which is just sort of pulverized here. And, the thin sections also are revealing
the same feature so now here we see the individual grains. Separately the blue areas are you
porosities the open spaces. But, along this zones you can clearly see that within this zones the
grains are crushed they are highly pulverized. Grain size got reduced and porosities also is
also extremely less.

This is the very interesting area where you can see that probably it was like this some it just
got some cut from here because, the shearing deformation. And, again this are very narrow
area Very narrow zone, along which the intra deformation accumulated the rest of the area of
section is virtually un deformed. And, not affected by the deformation at all. But, we still
have to answer the question why we should be concerned about this kind deformation.

So for we have seen that whatever examples we look at, that along this cataclastic
deformation bands the porosity got reduced. Can we have example otherwise that is whether
we can see that know the porosity can also increase along this the deformation of bands and
the answer is yes.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:35)

So, this image is exactly what we have seen in the previous slide where you have seen that
porosity got extremely reduced here along this narrow zone. However, in this exposer here
the rocks are little compacted compare to this. But, this deformation band that we see here.
Here you can large openings. At least from the field photograph you see so, we hardly see
this opening outside therefore, here we can conclude that in this image we got porosity
reduced and in this image along this localized cataclastic band we have porosity increased.

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Now, if porosity increases therefore the permeability also do increase. So, the take home
message from the slide is that. You may have a porous rock which you may consider that this
is a good permeable rock. But, if this rock has cataclastic localized deformation bands which
are compacted like this. Then your flow or permeability would be significantly reduced, even
if the host rock is extremely porous or permeable. On the other hand these narrow channels
this image could be an excellent avenue for following the fluid even if the rock is compact.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:24)

So, based on that, we will see later that, what are the different ways that we can classify this
localized deformation bands? But, before that we focus on the granular flow of the cataclastic
deformation. So, the granular flow unlike the cataclastic localized deformation bands are
characterize by rolling and sliding of rigid particles passed one another. We will see the
examples soon and this is very interesting type of deformation mechanism under the
cataclastic domain.

We mostly say these sort deformations in lithified sedimentary rocks where the confinement
is extremely low. What I mean by extremely low, or low confining pressure low effective
confining pressure will understand we will see the examples. However, it can also happen at
great depth where, the effective pressure is also reduced if, we have good number of or good
volume of partial melt in the system. So, therefore as we have learned in one of the previous
lectures. That if we have pour pressure significant compare to that of the confining pressure.

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Then your effective confining pressure reduces so, therefore you see or you can consider this
as very low effective confining pressure. And, that can happen when you have a rock with
partially molten features. But, these are very rare and let us we will not explore this particular
feature in this lecture. And, this type of granular flow that you are talking about under the
cataclastic deformation are described or example you can think of a debris flow movement of
landslides, alluvial fan, rolling of beach sands etc. We will see these examples.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:32)

But, first have look how does it work? So in a very similar illustration I had shown you, how
it works. So, this is illustration a where the grains are under low confinement they are not
compacted, so they are not lithified. And, they are imbedded with unlithified also unlithified
find grain sediments or water grain sediments which are he little dots, as you can see that
grains are because they are no lithified they ample spaces between the grains.

So, if the deformation is being applied and the overall confinement is very low that happens
this fluids or this fine particles, or fine sediments, fine matrix they try to flow around the
grains. And when that happens individual grains as you can see, here indicated by black
circular arrows the grains tend to rotate. Now when they rotate now when this grain do rotate
of course collide each other along a certain point and when this collision do happen then this
grains produce fractures along their contact points.

So, this is how the fractures are coming along the picture. That the grains are rolling and why
they are rolling they are touching each other and when they touch each other they produce
fractures along their contact zones. And, tough this little tiny grains they also contribute to
the matrix. And, therefore the overall grains size reduces and the flow continues and then the

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grains again do collide further grain size reduces and so on. So, this is the process of granular
flow that you have learn that what is a mechanism.

(Refer Slide Time: 30:28)

Now if you think of the examples, one of the recent devastating examples I can site you
which you can see in this image. Is the multiple cloud burst that happened in June 2013 in
uttrakhand India. What do you see here in the middle standing the kedarnath temple. And you
can figure out this various boulders, tables, and so on sand size grains all over they flew with
the aid of water along this direction. Now, the water is gone and this is how it looks like. So,
this is classic example of granular flow.

So, this all this boulders, tables, or sand size grains when they are flowing with aid of water
they rotated, they collided, each other they reduced their grain size and so on. Now, the same
process does happen in a beach. When the waves do come the sands they just flow in the side,
again they come back flow again towards the beach side, and again they flow towards
seaside. So, a continuous rolling is happing and this is why if, you are interested in
sedimentology you probably know that beach sands are very well sorted and they are also
very rounded.

And, this is why the mechanism of doing so is the granular flow. They continuously role and
become spherical or rounded. There is now sharp edge if, you are sampling the beach sand or
some sand stone with very nice roundness, then you probably can infer this are the beach
sand deposits.

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(Refer Slide Time: 32:23)

Now, another example is also very recent in Kerala. Last year we had significant flood there
and that flood was associated with landslides devastating landslides. So, this is an image
which I have collected from the government of Kerala website. And, this you can figure out
that this is one landslide. So, materials form the top flew towards this direction, they just role
to this direction. So this is the place near Government College in Munnar Kerala and that
happen in September 2018. What do we see here, that these materials actually sort of just
came down like sliding and rolling.

So, this you can part of this flow can be described as debris flow but again there is no
confinement the grains or boulders or tables they were free rotate. Free to move and while
they were moving, they actually did the job of granular flow, they contributed to the entire
flow of this landslide.

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(Refer Slide Time: 33:45)

Now, we will look at the last one that is cataclastic deformation in the brittle field. Now,
cataclastic deformation is very similar what we have learned with localized deformation.
Now localized deformation do happen along a narrow zone. But, cataclastic deformation does
happen in a very large area large scale but, the mechanism is more or less same. However, in
cataclastic deformation if you have to compare granular flow, cataclastic deformation does
happen act or under very very large confining pressure.

So, it is brittle fracturing of grain as it has to be where you have to have some energy required
to fracture the grains which is less than the required energy to roll or slide. We will learn
about it later. And then it is characterized as I talk about by high confining pressure and low
fluid pressure. So, fluid is absent in this kind of deformation or extremely low. And examples
you can site for this type of cataclastic deformations are brecciated rock or some related
structures fault zones, large fault zones, damaged zones and certainly impact craters.

And now before we go to next slide on this elastration or similar elastration. We have seen
with a granular flow or localized flow. So, what happens I just try to give you the difference
or try to sight you the examples or sight you does it work. Since, granular flow we have
grains like this which was filled by soft sediments unlithified sediments and fluids. In
cataclastic deformation we have grains under high confinement and fewer fluids. So,
therefore the grains are touching each other unlike this.

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So, this is granular flow and this is cataclastic flow now, if there is deformation say for
example a shearing is happing in this way in both cases. Now here the grains finds it easier to
accommodate the deformation just by rolling. And, while they roll they probably touch each
other, they fracture as we have seen in this image, so in the previous slide. So, they just
fracture here and there and this how the grain sizes reduces. But, in this case this is exactly
what mention here is, energy required to fracture the grains is less than required energy to roll
or slide.

Because, this is under significant confinement, it the grains define is impossible to roll.
Because, the frictional contact here here and other places are extremely high. So, instead of
rolling or slide just other grains. The grains do prefer to sacrifice themselves by producing,
some sort of fractures along the contact germs. And when this fractures happens they get
again compacted because, there is now scope at porosity to could stay there unless the grains
themselves produce some sort of strong network or strong frame work.

Then again these tiny small grains try to rotate but, they cannot because of huge consignment.
They again produce fracture and this is how we achieve cataclastic flow or the cataclastic
deformation. So you see in the next elastration.

(Refer Slide Time: 37:41)

What do we see here this four elastration in A, we have some compacted matrix this dark
grey and this greenish grains. Now, when the deformation comes in this sort of settings,
which is highly compacted lithified and it has significant confinement than the grains cannot
rotate. So, therefore they produce fractures within themselves. And, then this fractures are

326
easier to either open or slide here in this grain, you can see that you have some sort of sliding
going on, we have some sort of opening going on here and so on.

So, all these process do happen but, what is important you see by this fracturing the grains
size got significantly reduced. And if that continuous what we finally achieve is you see in
the elastration D. So, the overall grains size reduces significantly the grains unlike the
granular flow are extremely angular. They are not circular grains, or their ages are not
rounded there extremely angular. So, this is some of the characteristics of cataclastic
deformation. And, if wee this kind of structures either in field or under microscope this are
known as breccia or brecciated rocks.

(Refer Slide Time: 39:09)

Accordingly we will some examples now; here is one very good micro structural study.
Scanning electron microscopic(SEM) images. So this is the host rock that is sort of
undeforming rock this grey areas are the grains and the black areas are your porosity. As you
can see when the deformation comes, then we produce some damages along the grains. So,
you can see that this grains are getting fractured here here heavily, like they are getting crush
like someone hammered it. And, then this grains do rotate by themselves. But, they cannot so
they produce further fractures and they got some sort of sorting.

So, you have large grains here and here which is field by finding matrix it further
deformation what you see that it is like a crushed mass. Where there is virtually no porosity
now you compare this was your initial and this was your final. So, grains size reduction is
something very important for cataclastic deformation. We learn later that, why the rocks do
have to reduce their grains size to accommodate energy or to accommodate deformation.

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Now, the mechanism here at least in cataclastic deformation is extensive fracturing of the
grains. So, rocks are the grains or the crystal, they produce fractures within themselves. And,
therefore the porosities and another things got reduce significantly. But, it can happen in
otherwise as well we will see it later.

(Refer slide Time: 41:00)

Now, here I try to give you some examples, that when you look at the thin sections under
microscope optical microscopes. You can have some sort of ideas that you are looking at
cataclastic deformations. So, this is a single fails per grain as you can see here. And you can
see this are the cleavages of the grains you can figure out. And, you can see this grains is
characterized by some sort of fracturing here and so on. So, this are the characteristic of
cataclastic deformation.

In the next image you can see that, it is a micro structure of a small fracture in granite. So,
you see that you have a very short boundary here and here. And, in between you have a lot of
grains which are angular in nature. And, you can also figure out that the grain size here on
this two boundaries and the grain size in the middle are significantly different. You probably,
can see the fracturing process is going on, so this was the large grain. And then you see the
fracturing is happening along this so grain.

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This grain is divided in three equal pieces, now this is again quartz grain and I tell you it was
a probably single crystal like this. And, then it produces fractures here and here. So this is
also cataclastic deformation and we see it in microscale. Now, the color or here and here are
very similar. But here it is little different so, you can asked that how do you say that this is a
single grain. And, this can happen that even a single grain after fracturing may show a
different color at least in this case shades.

And this is because the grains may have rotated therefore, we see within a single grain you
see a different color because, it has rotated and therefore its orientation got changed and we
see a different coloured. This is you must have learned in your optical mineralogy lectures.

(Refer Slide Time: 43:42)

Now here are some other examples, so this is typical breccia outcrop and this is in Canada.
And, you can see this hat is the scale and you see here these angular grains here or this are
not grains actually this are clast. So, and they are hosted within the fine grain matrix. So, this
is an example of cataclastic deformation. Please note this is not localized deformation
because, when have an impact clatter. A huge mass is impacting and then everything is
getting fractured. So, it is not a localized feature, at least the scale we are thinking of.

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(Refer Slide Time: 44:41)

And this is another example again form USA from Death Valley. And you see these black
things which are actually limestone clastses and this are within the calcite cement which are
white. And, you see prolific angular clastses and this is the very typical impact induced
breccia. This is how it looks like and this an example of cataclastic deformation.

(Refer Slide Time: 44:55)

Now talking about this porosity reduction or permeability reduction etc particularly
applicable for localized cataclastic deformation. Here I try to give you a summary diagrams
some sort of classification diagram. Say if I considered this one as an un-deformed setting of
grains and this blue things behind are your pore spaces. Than you can have pure compaction

330
without any shear component the rocks can deform. And, then it can form the localized
cataclastic deformation.

On the other hand you can have pure dilation, where rocks are experiencing uniaxial tension
or something like that. And, instead of uniform or homogenous distribution of deformation.
Somewhere, it just opens up the grains produce fractures and you have an opening. So,
clearly hear this area is of low porosity. And therefore, most likely of low permeability but,
here it is essentially high porosity and low permeability. But, if the shear comes in the picture
which is this one which is simple shear.

See it also produces something like that where you reduce the porosity and permeability.
Now if compaction and simple shear, they do combine together than you have something
called compositional shear. And, if shear simple shear and dilation they combine together,
then what you get is dilatational shear. So, this are the five N members, or I would say these
three are the N member pure compaction, pure dilation and simple shear and any combination
between them can happen.

So, within three N members you can have the localized deformation, localized cataclastic
deformation. And, based on the way the rocks are deforming whether it is compaction
dilation or simple shear porosity and permeability of the rock would vary accordingly. Now
let us have some ideas or some basic concepts on the failure criteria, that what are the
conditions when the rocks would produce fracture? As you have learned that when you are
discussing about this cataclastic deformation fracture is produced when the shear strength is
exceeded.

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(Refer Slide Time: 48:00)

During the brittle fracturing therefore the rocks can deform either by creating new fractures,
or can deform along a preexisting fracture. And in both cases we have said about it quite a lot
of time the friction place a very important role. So, the fracturing process that involve friction
one can give or one can theorized it by Mohr coulomb failure criteria. A Mohr coulomb
failure criterion is expressed by very simple equation. Where, shear stress or critical shear
stress for fracturing is equated to this which is cohesion of the rock you’re talking about.

The mue is the frictional coefficient or coefficient of friction, sigma is in normal stress and Pf
is the pour flawed pressure. So, eventually this sigma S minus P gives you the effective fluid
pressure or effective I am sorry it gives the effective normal stress. So you can write it
actually TC equal to S plus mue sigma effective normal, which is equal to sigma normal
minus pore fluid pressure. Now we will discuss about this two terms cohesion and friction in
the next slide.

And, in the slide after we will see that how does it work with different rocks. But the
cohesion is something if you have some sort of preexisting fracturing in the rock. Then there
is no cohesion. I also tell that this equation is one of the most important equations in brittle
fracturing or brittle deformation and extensively used in rock mechanic studies. And I repeat
this is known as Mohr coulomb failure criteria. I also like to remind you that this is not a flow
law.

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Because, what we have learned in one of the previous lectures. That flow take cares of three
major parameters one is dynamic parameters second which is a related to kinematic
parameter and they equal or they are balance by constant or rheological constant.

Now in this case this is not such an equation so, this is not a constitutive equation but, a law
of failure or a criterion of failure. We can take of this way. Now what is cohesion and what is
friction. Now we talk about this term very frequently. Now cohesion is something i just try
to give the feeling.

(Refer Slide Time: 51:09)

When you have your material in rest that is in static condition there is now external force is
being applied, then this particles can still stay together. And this ability of staying together of
particles under static conditions is cohesion. We can think of that the sands the loose sands.
If, you make them set them somewhere they will lose and fall apart so, the cohesion is low.
But, if you compacted by your hand and try let it be there it may stay for a while but, and
then it will fall. If you add little bit of water and compacted by your hand it will stay for a
while.

And, if you add cement and water then it may stay for a quite long time. Note there is no
external force is being applied. So, in that case the cohesion from loose sand to compacted
sand to wet sand to the sand with cement the cohesion is increasing. So, it is an ability to hold
the particles together under static condition. Friction on the other hand if, you try to
understand physically it is force that is developed between two adjacent particles due to
application of stress.

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What I mean by this that friction always requires, to define friction it is always important to
have an external force or stress. And when you have that then this two grains would like to
stick to each other but, because of this external force they cannot or what is the resistance. So,
that they can stick together is measured by a parameter which is known as friction. Then the
previous equation we have seen that we wrote the equation. In general tau equal to cohesion
plus mue by mue multiply it by sigma N.

This is the equation we have figured out this is Mohr coolant failure criteria. Now the
question is there in relationship between cohesion and friction. So, people performed
experiments and they measured equation strength of different rocks. So, we see a series of
igneous rocks here we see a sedimentary rocks and here is the series of common
metamorphic rocks and this is your cohesive strength. Which is in the unit which is mega
Pascal. Now this is lithic tuff the cohesion is extremely low for granitic rocks this green ones
the cohesions are quite variable.

Then limestones from very low to extremely high and so on. So, for different rocks it does
not matter it is igneous or sedimentary or metamorphic or we see that the values redistributed.
If you look at the coefficient of friction mue which is dimension less quantity this are the
same rocks igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. And, we again see a various a wide
distribution of this. Now what do we see here which is very important message i would like
to give you from this slide.

That the rock is highly cohesive, that does not mean that its friction would be high and vice
versa is also true. For example this lithic tuff it has very low cohesive strength. But, it is
frictional coefficient is quite significant. Similarly shiest its cohesion is pretty wide but its
frictional coefficient is even less than the lithic tuff. So, cohesion and friction they apparently
do not any relationship however this equation we see now in the light of experiments and
mini rocks.

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(Refer Slide Time: 55:30)

What we can figure out form this slide is very famous plot from Byerlee and this is known as
Byerlee’s law. So, Byerlee’s law actually do describe the frictional strength for a wide variety
of rocks under different loads. And, then he try to fit the data with two straight lines. So, how
does it work so, what he has done? He deform the rocks he measured the shear stress at
different confinements so, this are your normal stresses the confinement and then he
calculated or he from the stress and curve the pic stress.

And, there are number of rocks variety of rocks he has used and I am not sure if he can read it
but, form the slides, the pdf files I had given you and you can figure out. So, it has granite
fractured, granite ground surface it has lime stone, gabro, dunite, sand stone then different
types of sand stones. So, faulted socket sand stones gadolinite nice and milonite then quartz

335
monzonite, quartz monzonite with joints then westerly granite and lot of clay minerals and
here as well.

Now we can see that interestingly all this values of shear stress verses normal stress, they
more or less do follow line. The first take home message from this plot is that, the
composition is not a function of determining the frictional strength and the cohesion
particularly. However it is a function of normal stress. If, we zoom this part then we would
see that, here it is going through the center. And, then this line if you connect this line its
coming through the center it is coming somewhere here.

So, up to this around 200 mega Pascals confining pressure byerlee proposed that below 200
mega Pascals rocks hardly have any cohesion. And, this slope gives the coefficient of friction
so he got this equation. That at low confinement rocks has coefficient of friction average
0.85. However, this is about 60 mega Pascal this slop if we continue doing like this. And,
here he found this equation that, where the cohesion is about 60 mega Pascal and coefficient
friction is about 0.6, I am sorry this is written wrong this should be 0.6.

So, this is how we can figure out that the friction or strength of the rock is not function of the
composition of the rock. Now, you can also figure out that there some rocks or some minerals
which do not agree with this plot and this are this rocks. And, if we see this are mostly
sapentinite, elite, kelinite, hallucinate Mont Moro lite vermiculite and so on. Now this do not
agree on this plot of byerlees law. And, there are sort of outliers. And there are mostly clay
minerals it has the significant meaning. That why they are outside and why studying of this
sort of clay minerals are important but, we will not talk about this later but, this are
significant for earth quake studies.

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(Refer Slide Time: 59:32)

So, we complete this lecture and in the next lecture, we will learn about intra crystalline
plasticity so, in this lecture we mostly have learned the cataclastic process. Where the mostly
look at the grain scale process but, without looking at the features that you have learn in the
first lecture of deformation mechanism. These defects or dislocation or grain boundaries
which have no influence in cataclastic deformation. But, they play significant role in intra
crystalline plasticity and dynamic recrystallization. So, we are going to learn this in the next
lecture number 14.2 thank you very much.

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 Structural Geology
Professor. Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences,
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.
Lecture 15
Deformation Mechanism Part 3 Intracrystalline Deformation
Hello everyone! Welcome back again to this online structural geology in NPTEL course and we
are learning the formation mechanism in this week and today we are in our lecture number 15,
Part 3 and we will learn intra crystalline deformation. Before this lecture at the very beginning of
this week we learned Crystal defects. Then we learned a cataclastic deformation and today
particularly in this lecture we will be using the concepts that we have learned from our first
lecture of Crystal defects.

(Refer Slide Time: 1:09)

So in this lecture will mostly cover intra crystalline plasticity as I told a few seconds before what
we are going to do with this subject we will very briefly go into this topic and introduce the
different processes which are involved in this and then will slowly see the different governing
laws for particularly dislocation glide and dislocation climb mechanisms. We learned about these
two terms in the first lecture and finally will conclude this lecture with dynamic re-
crystallization. And in the next lecture we will learn about diffusion creep or diffusive mass
transfer.

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(Refer Slide Time: 1:50)

So here are some basics of intra crystalline plasticity. Unlike cataclastic deformation in the
domain or in the mechanism of intra crystalline plasticity the deformation generally nucleotides
and then accentuates from the crystal or lattice defects. So we learned about what are these
crystal and lattice defects and we will see how they help us to understand better the intra
crystalline plasticity. Now because this is mostly governed by Crystal defects so it occurs at a
higher depth.

That means that the temperature is high because of it is at higher depths of volume remains
constant during deformation and therefore it is pressure insensitive deformation. But essentially
it is highly temperature sensitive mechanism and we will see how temperature greatly influences
this process. We develop a very characteristic micro structure when we see the rocks undergoing
deformation through intra crystalline plasticity. So generally what happens if you generate new
smaller grains from the original grain we will call it parent grain so the new smaller grains the
nucleus and the boundaries of the parent grains through the process of dynamic reconciliation.

And therefore it gives rise a very strong Crystallographic preferred orientation or CPO and
otherwise the micro structures you can think of it these are characterized by twinning and
undulose extinctions sub grains and the different signatures of dynamic re-crystallization. We
will see all these things at the end of this lecture different type or different kinds of micro

339
structures produced by intra crystalline plasticity and will see that this flow is not non-
Newtonian.

So it is a strain rate dependent essentially but strain rate is not linearly dependent on the stress.
We will see the equations somewhere in this lecture. So the very basic idea of intra crystalline
plasticity as we have learned that it is the movement of the dislocations through the crystal.

(Refer Slide Time: 3:56)

At the present the simplest way to do that is the Orowans equation. So Orowans equation is
nothing but the basic of most of the intra crystalline models from which the other complex
equations or formulations are derived. So what do we see in this slide we have this yellow grain
where this inverted t is a dislocation and the length of this crystal is L now when the dislocation
moves from one end to other end of this grain at the initial stage let us say this A at the final
stage at B we see that the grain has deformed so the single dislocation move from here to here
giving rise a strain in the crystal.

Now if this is L and then I consider this one is L1 then certainly L1 minus L is the burger's
vector which is this unit vector of the dislocation movement so if we consider this if we try to
theorize it so deformation of a small region L in a crystal containing a single dislocation with
Burger's vector b and this is what exactly we just talked about. Now when the movement is
complete along this length L then the strain is Burger’s vector divided by the initial length of the
crystal. So therefore here the strain is essentially this B. So this is L1 minus L divided by L. So

340
therefore this is the strain that we have generated by moving the dislocation from one point to the
other end of this crystal.

Now if you consider that the distance is very small for example Del L of the dislocation
movement then the incremental strain we can consider or which we can call Del Epsilon should
be b divided by L Del L by L. Now we can clearly see that if we replace this 1 by L square or
these two else by a term called rho which will define as this location density then the equation
takes the shape of this where Delta Epsilon is equal to rho which is your dislocation density
Burger's vector and Delta L these three are multiplied to each other.

Now if we have achieved this little strain through a time of very small Delta T a very small time
then this Epsilon dot or strain rate is Delta Epsilon by Delta T. That would give you this form rho
B delta L by Delta T. Now delta L by Delta T you can consider this as a velocity. So finally we
arrive to this equation strain rate is equal to products of this location density Burger's vector and
this V is the velocity of the dislocations or dislocation velocity. Now this is a very important
equation and we will see what are the implications of these terms or how this dislocation density
Burger's vector and dislocation velocity could influence the strain wreck.

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(Refer Slide Time: 7:39)

So this equation epsilon dot equal to rho b v is the fundamental equation and it is the rate of
deformation is proportional to the amount of unit displacement caused by the dislocation which
is Burger's vector dislocation density rho and the average velocity of the dislocation motion
which is V.

Now in this equation if we consider these three parameters Burger's vector dislocation density
and dislocation velocity we can see that the length of a Burger's vector is nearly independent
because this is an intrinsic property of the crystal. So it is very much independent. It does not
depend on anything of either any physical or chemical conditions. So deviations are generally
observed experimentally less than 10 percent.

The dislocation density at a steady state is a function of the applied stress and it is independent of
pressure and temperature, so dislocation density is a function of the stress which are being
applied. Dislocation velocity on the other hand is a very complicated function of stress
temperature and several other thermal mechanical parameters will not go into the details of this
but in summary Burger's vector in this equation is sound sort of constant. It is a function of the
material of the crystal we are using dislocation density Rho is a function of the applied stress
dislocation velocity is a function of the Applied stress temperature and several other parameters.

Now if we consider all these three and if we have to achieve a strain in the system then there is a
computation between two processes that how does a crystal or an aggregate of poly crystals

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accommodate strain within themselves. Now this gives rise to two distinct mechanisms. One is
work hardening or softening and another is recovery. We will see these in the next slide.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:00)

So the flow models if we talk about are within the regime of the crystalline plasticity where the
crystals are deforming following Quinto crystalline plasticity. This is a computation as I talked
about between work hardening and recovery. Now what is work hardening? Work hardening
expresses the fact that more a crystal is deformed the more it is difficult to deform and require
more stress. That means the system that I am deforming through the mechanism of into
crystalline plasticity it requires more and more stress to deform it.

Now if I start deforming it then it requires more and more stress to continue the deformation. If I
look at in the form of a stressed strain curve, so it is simply after the yield it does not flow this
way you need more and more stress to deform it and this phenomena we learned is known as
hardening or strain hardening. However recovery is essentially the opposite process of work
hardening which expresses the fact that the stress leading to work hardening can be relieved by
thermally activated processes at high temperature and thus allowing the deformation to go on at
constant stress which is also known as Steady State flow.

So, that means the stress I need here this extra stress after the yield can be compromised if I add
some temperature to the system so if I add temperature then instead of following the red curve
after the yield it can flow along a steady state manner that means you do not need more stress to

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deform the rocks at a constant stress you can continue the deformation. So the intra crystalline
plasticity mechanism from this slide we can summarize that it's a competition between work
hardening and recovery whoever wins the deformation continues or deformation stops or the
crystal or the poly crystals produce fractures.

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(Refer Slide Time: 12:25)

Now the question is how does it work? How what is the control or what are the controls of
different types of energies that how temperature can come and lower the stress level required to
deform the crystal. Here is a cartoon diagram where I tried to explain the process. We know that
inside a Crystal if we have a dislocation or multiple dislocations that means dislocation. Density
is there with some values so the individual dislocations if you remember the nearby bonds are
either stretched or compressed so therefore we have some sort of internal energy within the
crystal.

It is known as Sigma internal so it can give you a certain amount of stress to deform the crystal
however if I have this circle here this blue circle here. If this is an obstacle and the dislocation is
moving this way then it suddenly cannot overcome this obstacle and come here to move further
to continue its movement. We already know that from here to here this jump is known as
dislocation climb but work to get this energy now a part of this energy suddenly comes from the
stress you are applying.

Accordingly clearly you need this amount of stress to climb this obstacle. It is known as Sigma
barrier a part of this stress or energy comes from the deformation or differential stress that is
being applied to the system. So let us assume that it is this much which we call Sigma effective
but we still are left with this much of energy which can come from the temperature or thermal
agitation of the system.

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Then we can see that primarily the crystal has energy within this in the form of dislocations
which we call Sigma internal and then rest of the energy required to climb the obstacles is Sigma
barrier and the Sigma barrier is achieved by combination of the effective stress and some thermal
agitations. So this is what is written here to overcome climb and obstacle additional energy is
required.

Clearly bigger the obstacles, you need larger energy so the sources of energy to achieve the level
of Sigma barrier are stress and thermal agitation and here there are some definitions. Sigma
internal is the measured of the stress associated with the presence of dislocations as I have
explained and Sigma effective is the stress to move the dislocations over obstacles without any
thermal agitation at least in this cartoon diagram.

We see that Sigma effective is not sufficient enough to overcome or to climb the obstacle and
continue the motion of the dislocation now in the next slide we will see some different
possibilities where this Sigma internal Sigma effective and thermal agitations are competing each
other to continue the movement of the dislocation.

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(Refer Slide Time: 16:21)

So the first one number a partial agitation is 0. So therefore this is your internal energy or Sigma
internal and this one is your Sigma barrier so you have to have your effective stress equal to the
Sigma barrier so that individual dislocation can climb this blue obstacle now in B and C thermal
agitation is there, here this is this much and here this is a little higher but in both cases the
thermal agitation is not high enough or large enough to overcome or to climb the obstacle. So in
this case it needs this much of effective stress and in this case it also need this much of effective
stress.

However, in the case of d this thermal agitation is absolutely fine to climb this obstacle so you do
not need any stress, you do not need any extra stress required to climb this obstacle. So what do
you see here clearly that if I have higher temperature then movement of this location is much
easier and that can happen at high temperature. So at higher temperature the strength of the stress
is not required or you do not need much stress to deform the crystals and if you remember in
geology lecture we learned about it that at high temperature the strength of the material decreases
drastically.

And now you know the micro mechanics why if you have temperature then the system gets the
crystals get do you get enough energy to move the dislocations and deform the crystal through
the process of into crystalline plasticity.

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(Refer Slide Time: 18:39)

Now we will see very briefly the fundamental equations for this location glide and dislocation
climb. I am not going to show you the derivations or I also do not ask you to perform the
derivations but if you want then you certainly can do that, there are some books also online
materials. I personally prefer the book of Poirier. So you can check that book and get see how the
equations are derived. But my aim here is to show by showing the equations mostly to explain or
to narrate that. What are the relations between the strain rate and stress in these equations?

So first the dislocation glider dislocation glide happens when dislocations do glide between
discrete obstacles. So that means if I have an obstacle here then a dislocation can move from here
to here. That means that it does not have enough energy in the system to climb and continue the
motion. So it is restricted between two obstacles and in that case the larger form of the equation
is like this. You do not have to pay too much attention here. But if we shrink the equation or
simplify the equation it takes the form like this.

What is important here that we can see if we simplify it strain rate is proportional to Sigma with
an exponential term to stress with an exponential term. So that is known as exponential flow law.
So what are the different parameters here for example, delta, if here is activation energy R is the
Boltzmann constant Sigma effective the required stress to move the dislocations over obstacles
without any thermal agitations and so on.

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But I repeat you do not have to pay too much attention in this form but it is important that you
understand this fact that in this location glide the strain rate is exponentially related to the stress
and therefore this is known as exponential flow law.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:10)

In contrary dislocation climb happens when the dislocations can climb and at the same time of
course glide over obstacles. And these are industry shills and so on. So what I mean by that I
have one obstacle here. I have one obstacle here and other obstacle here. So dislocations can
actually climb and move and move and move and so on and then it again can jump and move on.

So it has enough energy to continue the movement of the dislocations so it requires as we have
understood a good amount of temperature so it is high enough or thermal agitation to allow the
dislocations to climb over small obstacles and of course the large obstacles can disappear by
climb controlled annihilation.

We are not going to explain this term right now but annihilation is nothing but if we have two
differently oriented dislocations two supposedly oriented dislocations they can come together
and the dislocation can vanish. So this is known as annihilation but let us have a look at the
equation. Again you do not have to look at this general form but what we can see here this here
we have all these burgers vector this some constants and so on.

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So therefore one can club all these things to a constant and this recall material constant and the
final equation takes the shape of this strain rate is equal to a material constant multiplied by
sigma with the stress exponent n e to the power minus Q by R T. But again if we try to see the
relationship between strain rate and stress it comes in this form and here strain rate is not related
to the stress linearly but it requires an exponent which we call stress exponent.

Now this stress exponent experimentally people found it at this range of dislocation climates
generally varies from 2 to 5. It can be much higher but then we assign it to it to a different
mechanism. So what we see here strain rate and stress they are not linearly related but it requires
an exponent which is n in this case. So therefore it is non-Newtonian Rheology as we have
learned at the very beginning and because it has a power sigma as a power of n is known as
power or flow or dislocation equation.

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(Refer Slide Time: 23:58)

Now we see that if we try to compare a dislocation glide and dislocation climb then dislocation
glide is an exponential creep where strain it is an exponential function of stress. It happens at
relatively low temperature because if it is high temperature then it would change to the
dislocation climb work hardening with progressive deformation. The material becomes harder to
deform at constant temperature is the characteristics because again you do not have enough
temperature so to do the climb. It requires more stress therefore work hardening is a
characteristics of dislocation glide and it is micro structurally it is characterized by twinning
thinking and if you force it because you are applying work hardening so you can even produce a
fracture.

On the other hand, if we look at dislocation climb it is a power law creep. So strain rate is related
to strain to a power of n. It happens relatively at high temperature and therefore recovery is one
of the fundamental processes in dislocation climb where the deformation continues at steady
state without fracturing if the temperature is high enough.

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(Refer Slide Time: 25:15)

Now you're going to learn what are the manifestations of this dislocation glide and climb. What
happens to the actual crystal? We learned that at the very beginning when we were talking about
the basics of internal crystalline plasticity that new grains appear and the grain boundaries of the
older grains. So these are the studies or and so on the crystals itself modifies and takes a new
shape unlike the cataclastic deformation. They are not allowed to produce so-called fractures
within the domain of intra crystalline plasticity. So we will learn how does it happen and the
process that takes care of the entire grain rearrangement within the domain of intra crystalline
plasticity is known as re-crystallization.

So recrystallization is the process in response to the added energy. And these are high
temperature and are deformation to the mono or poly crystalline aggregates so again it has to
happen at high temperature and you have to have some sort of deformation or not. If you have a
deformation it is something else. If you do not have deformation it is again something else.

So during re-crystallization the minerals reform their internal arrangements by rearranging the
grain boundaries in various ways. We will see those very soon and why the crystals rearrange
their grain boundaries the essential aim is to stay at the lowest possible energy state. So if you
remember the defects dislocations grain boundaries etc. are the places where the energy stays.

So Now if we have to define re-crystallization. So what I talked about in these three points these
are just some sort of characteristics but if we have to define re-crystallization it is not very

352
straightforward because it includes a combination of many processes and also influenced by
several other will see them. So in a very general way if we have to define we can say that the
crystallization is a thermal mechanical process where the overall micro structure of rocks is fully
or partially rearranged and evolve to a new micro structure. So I had one type of micro structures
and then I generate to another type of micro structure without producing fracture. If that happens
then I certainly have recrystallized my crystalline system.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:05)

So we can classify crystallization in two basic ways. One is static recrystallization and another is
dynamic recrystallization static recrystallization if you have to understand it is very simple It
happens with the only influence of temperature the process is also known Annealing that means
it makes your grains strain free.

Anneal means making something strain free in static recrystallization the grain size generally
increases and it is a relatively slow process the dynamically recrystallization on the other hand
when you have influences of both temperature and differential stress that means deformation in
dynamic the crystallization the grain size generally decreases but there are some evidences where
grain size have increased and it is a faster process there is also another subcategory of
recrystallization other than static and dynamic re crystallization and this is known as meta
dynamic recrystallization so after the dynamic recrystallization if you have static crystallization

353
then and then again if the cycle continues. So the what happens in between is known as Meta
dynamic crystallization we are not going to that part right now.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:31)

These are the characteristics of static crystallization as you can see it is written here. The driving
force is provided by the stored deformation energy. So your Sigma internal that is primarily the
large or long range elastic stresses associated dislocation and subject structures that was formed
during plastics straining and certainly number two is that elevated temperature.

These are your internal energy and elevated temperature. Primary static liquid is in process some
sort of happens by the formation and motion of new high angle grain boundaries. Static re-
crystallization typically consists of equiaxed crystals. That means the crystals are mostly of
similar size. The micro structure is also characterized by triple junctions and the grain size is
relatively larger and this is the green growth is known as competitive grain coarsening that the
match your state of statically crystallization the grains are generally strain free as I talked about it
is annealing.

The process is called annealing that is you do not have any internal energy within the grain so
you know you should not see or very less unduglose extinction twinning and kinking and so on.
Interestingly the mechanical properties the hardness instant etc. decreases slowly at the initial
stages of statically recrystallization but when the crystals grow in a very large way then these
properties the mechanical properties the decrease very rapidly.

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(Refer Slide Time: 31:20)

So here are some examples show you in couple of slides that the statically recrystallized minerals
what we see here in this image is a photo micro graph of the Unite from North Carolina and what
we see here as we talked about you can see that this is a crust polarized image that internally the
grains do not show any unduglose extinction.

The grains are more or less equal and you can see also very nice triple junctions. If you go
wherever you want, you see excellent triple junctions just come so these type of micro structures
are classically known or classical characteristics of static re-crystallization. However, in this
image you may see that the grains are slightly oriented and this could be the initial deformation
that the grains might have at the earlier stage.

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(Refer Slide Time: 32:25)

Then the next slide we have a fine grained marble where the mineralogy is calcite brown mass of
approximately 0.3 mm and it has a patchy re-crystallization. So you see here, that most of the
grains are absolutely strain free. There are few grains like here or here so these three grains
somewhere here these grains are characterized and this one these grains are characterized by
twinning but most of the grains as you can see again if I look at this Domain most of the grains
are again equiaxed more or less of equal size.

You can also see nice triple junctions and the grains are strain free relatively strain free. So these
are the signatures of static crystallization. However, as we are studying structural geology we
will not pay too much attention on something that did not develop without deformation.

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(Refer Slide Time: 33:33)

Now let us focus on something that could happen with deformation and this is we learned
dynamic re crystallization. So here again there are some basics. It is the text is written here
dynamical recrystallization is the formation and motion of new low and high angle grain
boundaries during the formation at elevated temperature. So you can now guess as we have
discussed that it requires deformation temperature and essentially internal energy of the crystals.

So unlike static crystallization you have added deformation to the dynamically crystallization at
the initial stage of dynamic re-crystallization the grain size slightly increases to a certain
deformation threshold but after that the nucleation occurs and the new grains grow to a typical
size which further modifies with continued deformation.

And this is something very interesting for dynamic re-crystallization. We will see this with some
images the mechanical parameters if we talk or if we think of the particular elasticity is higher in
a dynamically re-crystallized poly crystals and the micro structures are characterized by sub
grains bulging small grains at the periphery of the larger grains and of course serrated grain
boundaries. Now we learn about all these things these sub grain bulging small grains at the
periphery of the large grains and serrated grain boundaries in the following slides.

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(Refer Slide Time: 35:10)

We have learned that grain boundaries do move from one place to another place to accommodate
the deformation in dynamic re-crystallization. So what drives or what happens during this grain
boundary mobility. Here are some points atoms along the grain boundary in the crystals with
high dislocation density can be displaced two feet to the lattice of the neighborhood crystal with
low dislocation density. So this results movement of grain boundary and growth of crystals of
less dislocation density.

So if I have an area of less dislocation density than this boundary of this area tries to invade into
the grains where the dislocation density is higher the energy required for this which is internal
free energy increases due to the increase of grain boundary length you can you can imagine the
fact that I have a fixed area or fixed volume with 10 grams and I have the same area with 50
grams. Certainly the grain boundary areas increases and if the grain boundary areas increases
then the grain body energy also do increase.

So you can ask the question am I reducing the energy or I am increasing the energy? But the
point is that yes it does. But this is much less that the energy decreased by the removal of the
dislocations. So essentially you bring your energy to a lower level. Now dynamic
recrystallization happens in three mechanisms so old grains are replaced by new grains.

And as I said it happens by three mechanisms. These are bulging sub grains rotation and grain
boundary migration. I must remind you at this stage these are some basic processes bulging sub

358
grain rotation and grain boundary migration. So these you can consider some sort of the stages of
the evolution three basic stages of the evolution but many things can happen in between one can
influence other greatly.

(Refer Slide Time: 37:39)

So let us start with the bulging re-crystallization. What do we see here in these three
illustrations? This is the initial stage say A. This is the second stage B and this is the third stage
C these three grains G1, G2 and G3 have three different shades of grey. The lower to the shade
has the lower dislocation density. So this one has less than this and this one has less than this
dislocation density. Now as I said that because this has less density of this grain boundary here
would try to move to the places where the dislocation density is higher and this is exactly what is
happening in your figure no B where we see that a little bulge is happening.

So the grain boundary starts to bulge into the grain with higher dislocation density. And if that
continues then at the grain boundary you end up with some small little grains these grains are
generally strain free.

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(Refer Slide Time: 38:57)

So if I tried to see in a different way a cartoon diagram. So here I have just made two grains so
you can see that these grains are showing some sort of unduglose extinction. These two grains
are you can say these are sub grain boundaries have already formed but we clearly see that at the
grain boundary it is in this cartoon diagram. There are few grains few where the bulging has
happened, that means these grain boundaries are not smooth anymore.

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(Refer Slide Time: 39:32)

How does it look like when you see a real thin section let us have a look here? So these things
generally you see in optical microscopes but it is better visible if you see them in TEM. So here
are two fantastic images that we can see here. And I think this is the first time in this lecture
you're also seeing TEM mages with some dislocations. So what do you see if I consider this I
will wipe out this later you see all these thin hair like features within the grains these are
dislocations here as well these are dislocations all these tiny little things and here all these are
also dislocations but this grain which is in the middle it has much less dislocation.

So, now you can see that a grain with less dislocation density is surrounded by three grains with
higher dislocation density and interestingly you see that some sort of bulging has happened here
where this grain with low dislocation density tried to bulge or invade within the grain where
dislocation density much higher the same thing you can see here this whitish area. It has less
dislocation density compared to this area here and you can see these are trying to engulf or bulge
inside the crystals or grains where they have much higher dislocation density.

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(Refer Slide Time: 41:20)

In optical micro structures that look like this. These are some very old but classic optical
photographs on this side you see this is where bulging has just started the grain boundaries you
see. These are not straight anymore. These are some sort of (())(41:36) and the bulging here just
has started.

This is a cutout of marble so calcite and this is naturally deformed Feldspar. What do you see
here? All these things, this is where the bulging has started in this interface of the two crystals so
if you see a thin section or micro structure now you will see them in a different way I believe and
you tried to figure out that what kind of re-crystallization has happened and if you see some sort
of little not a little bulge from one grain mounted to another grain boundary. First you must
conclude that this is a deformed micro structure and then you see then you can also conclude that
which grain higher density higher dislocation density had compared to the other one.

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(Refer Slide Time: 42:36)

The sub grain rotation is the next stage. So rotation of sub grains in response to the movement of
dislocations along low angle sub grain boundary. So in these three illustrations what we tried to
see let me mark again here A B and C what we have seen in A that these are certainly grain
boundaries. These black lines but these red lines that we see here these are the orientation of the
grains. For example, you can consider that these are the C axis oriented this way. So as you can
see that they are oriented more or less in a very similar way.

So therefore the grain boundaries are very low angle grain boundaries here. Therefore, these are
sub grain boundaries. Now if the deformation continues then this sub grain can rotate and when
these grains is rotating then of course the crystallographic orientation of this grain also rotated
compared to the neighboring grains.

So therefore you generate some sort of high angle grain boundary with this grain. We are
concerned with compared to the other grains at this neighborhood. And other if the rotation
continues further then you have this grain boundary at much higher rotation high angle with the
neighboring grains. So this is how you form from sub Grain to new grains through the process of
sub grain rotation so these things do happen at grain boundaries

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(Refer Slide Time: 44:34)

And if we try to look at that this is how it has happened in this TEM image. So for example this
one is small dislocation free sub grain with slightly curved boundaries white arrow here and the
larger grain with the low angle grain boundary with twist geometry. So this one is another we are
not going discuss in the details of this twist Geometry and so on but this is certainly a small grain
compared to this large grain. As you can see here this one this one this one and this one. So this
grain initially formed probably by bulging and then it got rotated and you have a new grain and it
is of much smaller size.

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(Refer Slide Time: 45:25)

So if we tried to again look at these in a cartoon diagram. So you have this large grains which are
now deformed and then you have small grains all over along. This is a sub grains and this got
rotated and started forming new grain. The overall this micro structure when you have a large
grain which is surrounded by very small dynamically recrystallized small sub grains. This is
known as Necklace structural. So this is the name of this type of micro structure and also the
ordinal grain is known as parent grain and the new grains are known as daughter grains.

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(Refer Slide Time: 46:23)

Now this is a fantastic micro structure of sub grain rotation so this is a deformed chord it and you
can see this internal entire quartz grain it is also not very flat in terms of color it has also some
sort of color variation there for some sort of internal energy but interestingly you see that the
outer rim of this large quartz grain is characterized by many small grains and these are sub grains
they will continue rotating and then they will form new grains

366
(Refer Slide Time: 47:03)

And if we look at in a different scale this is a fantastic necklace micro structure. So these are the
large deformed straight quartz grains these are parent grains and all these tiny things decorated at
the boundary of the parent grains here and so on. These are daughter grains so if you see this
kind of micro structures then you clearly can say that this is suddenly a deformed rock and the
deformation mechanism going on here is some sort of sub grain rotation.

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(Refer Slide Time: 47:50)

The final one is grain boundary migration in grain boundary migration the temperature is very
high. So this is one of the essential parameters. So the temperature is so high that the grain
boundaries become very much mobile. So you have a sub grain boundary. It can flow in any
direction and therefore you produce grain boundaries like this Amoebidal shape or the grain
boundary is known as serrated grain boundary and at the same time you have the sub grain
rotation and formation of new grains and so on these things to occur.

I am not explaining all these things in detail but trying to give you an idea that how to identify
this type of micro structures when you look at your rock under microscope and particularly if
you see these kind of features at least you can classify or separate out that yes this is a deformed
grain. The grains are deformed by into crystalline plasticity of the rock as a whole. And these are
the stages of the dynamic re-crystallization.

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(Refer Slide Time: 49:05)

So here there is an example, so you can see this is a feldspar grain. These are again the parent
grain this large grain of this entire Rock is some sort of to. This is again a large but the ground
mass entire ground mass is characterized by number of small dynamically re-crystallized
crystals. And if we can look at their grain boundaries are highly serrated mobile and that must
have happened at high temperature.

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(Refer Slide Time: 49:43)

And here is also an example of large equant re-crystallized quartz. And what you can see that in
few places these grain boundaries are also a little random and so on. So these are the signatures
of grain boundary migration here and other places and you can also see some micro grains which
are defining a very weak foliation.

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(Refer Slide Time: 50:16)

So with respect to this stress strain curve we have seen this illustration before. If we tried to see
this that you have your starting micro structure you start deforming it if you achieve your
illustrates somewhere here. So here you start moving your dislocations inside the crystal. Now
then it requires a significant number of stress hardening right.

So this is where is your inner strength and then the hardening is required during the bulging
process but when you start forming sub grain rotation the new small grains come the strain
softening is the process and after that it achieves a steady strict manner of flow. So this is how in
general you can idealize also that where this is a very general illustration the actual curve may be
a little complicated or different but this curve is very simple and standard where at different
segments of this curve different kind of dynamically crystallization do happen within the domain
of intra crystalline plasticity.

We focused in this lecture on the intra crystalline plasticity and in the next lecture we will learn
about our will we learn in detail or talk about the mechanisms of diffusion creep and diffusive
mass transfer. Thank you.

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372
 Structural Geology
Professor. Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences,
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.
Lecture 16
Deformation Mechanism Part 4 Diffusive Mass transfer
Hello everyone! welcome back again to this online Structural Geology, NPTEL course. We are
learning deformation mechanism this week and we are in part 4 of this lecture series. Today, we
will learn in this class diffusive mass transfer. We learn crystal defects in part 1, ‘cataclastic part
deformation’ in part 2 and in part 3 went on ‘intracrystalline plasticity’ and this 1 is the last 1,
where we learn diffusive mass transfer or diffusion creep.

(Refer Slide Time: 1:23)

So we will mostly cover in this lecture, some sort of processes, different processes of diffusion
assisted deformation. Then we will classify it and see some general overviews on diffusion and
their governing equations. And then we also see the relationships between the strain rates, stress
and if there are other parameters related to the flow laws in the diffusion creep regime. So these
3 are the major areas that we will cover in this lecture.

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(Refer Slide Time: 1:25)

First of all, let us classify, as geologists or any scientists does that classify the processes diffusion
creep mechanisms are generally classified in 3 different classes. The first one is, Diffusion
Precipitation Creep or DPC. This is diffusion of dissolved matters through fluid. When that
happens, it is Diffusion Precipitation Creep then diffusion of atoms or vacancies through grains.

When that happens, we call it Nabarro Herring Creep. And the diffusion of atoms or vacancies
happens along the grain boundaries, and then this is known as Coble Creep. So we will take 1
after another. First, we will look at Diffusion Precipitation Creep, then Nabarro Herring Creep,
then Coble Creep.

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(Refer Slide Time: 2:24)

So Diffusion Precipitation Creep is essentially a creep or diffusive mass transfer by gas strands
of any fluid. So it can happen in a short distance, so from one side of the grain to another side.
Or it can happen to a very long distance like stylolite, and some vein filling processes. There are
two examples in this slide, you can see that these two are two fossils. So one is a petrified wood
as you can see in the first image, and we know that initial composition of any tree trunk is
carbon, but in a petrified wood is either replaced by silica or carbonates.

And mostly silica, it is replaced by silica. And therefore the entire thing gets transferred to the
silicon and that happens atom by atom diffusion with the existence of some sort of fluid. And the
same one is here. We have seen this animal before, this is a trilobite. It is not a carbon anymore.
So each and every cells of this animal, each and every atoms of this animal is replaced by silicate
materials.

And what we see in the middle; this is thin section of a shell, where you see that this shell has
some sort of foliation. And these 2 things are the veins or the fractures that later, so fracture
opened; then later got filled by some calcite rich or carbonate rich fluid. And these fluids sort of
diffused from matrix, then slowly filled in the open space. So these are the processes; some sort
of mass transfer through in assistance of some sort of fluid.

375
(Refer Slide Time: 4:30)

Now diffusion controlled precipitation creep is important in very fine grained rocks and the rock
has to be wet and mostly rocks with where you have the minerals in the composition which are
soluble in water or carbon dioxide.

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(Refer Slide Time: 4:55)

Fundamentals of the dissolution precipitation creep; now there are some ideas that we can think
of. So dissolution can happen at a point and dissolution can happen on a surface. So whatever
happens when the two points touch each other two surfaces touch each other than a pressure is
generated on the surface. And if there are some fluids, then the process is known as pressure
induced dissolution or pressure dissolution.

So pressure dissolution is a process where the minerals dissolve as a result of pressure applied
externally to them. And this may happen because minerals under pressure and thus some sort of
undergoing elastic or temporary strain are more soluble than unstressed minerals.

Thus, it implies if you have a mineral under stress, that has better solubility than a mineral that
is not under stress. And because you have some sort of fluid that is helping the minerals to get
dissolved, it is also known as mineral compaction. There are these 4 images; a, b, c and d. This
is for illustration that tells you; you can imagine that these areas are some sort of sand grains and
then they touch each other.

Slowly then, the force is generated on this side and then they dissolve here at the surface and
finally this becomes like a sutured boundary; sutures, contact between these grains. So when this

377
happens, certainly some materials dissolved here, they get dissolved here and they get deposited
on the sides of this grain.

(Refer Slide Time: 6:48)

What we see, these are some microstructure resulting from the dissolution precipitation creep.
What we see here that this is certainly the grain you can see under microscope that people have
snapped. And then this part, you can see that it had a contact with a grain this side and other side
also. So this part of the grain got dissolved and then dissolved material got deposited in this
region. This is known as overgrown of quartz. Now I just wiped it out so you can see it very
clearly that this is your grain boundary.

And the grain has overgrown due to precipitation of the dissolved material from this side. You
can also see in the second example, here in this image, this is where the dissolution had
happened and this was the original grain boundary and this is the overgrowth of this quartz. So if
you see this kind of microstructures maybe this has happened due to dissolution precipitation
creep.

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(Refer Slide Time: 8:28)

Now if it happens on the surface; so initially we develop some sort of plane which is known as
dissolution seam. So you have 1 grain here or 1 area here. And then you have another area here.
They just compress each other here and then a dissolution seam along which the materials get
dissolved. You form this dissolution seam and sometimes when you do; you go with higher
pressure then this seam tries to slip along this line. and then it develops a structure; we call it
stylolite. And if it can happen in a very dense way, so this we call highly serrated stylolite. And
this stylolite can also get deformed and then we call it deformed stylolite.

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(Refer Slide Time: 9:25)

So in 3 dimensions you can see the stylolites. They look like this. In the previous image, you
may or in the previous slide you may have seen that these parts are little thicker compared to
this part and these parts are thicker because you always have some materials which do not get
dissolved in the fluid. So they stay here as a residue and if we try to look at it in 3 dimension, this
is how it looks like in a 3 dimensional block.

So you see, these are the columns of the stylolite. And here, in this area, you have this soluble
residue. This stays like that and of course if you it from the side, these are your places where you

380
have some sort of relative displacements of the initial dissolution seam. So this is how the
stylolites deform through the process of dissolution precipitation creep.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:31)

Now, there are some examples in this image. So the first 1, you can clearly see that something
has happened along this and if you can match the illustrations of the previous slides, this is
essentially or you can nail it as a dissolution seam or initiation of stylolite. You can also see here,
dissolved seam here, and that happens in a regular manner, regular arrangement then it also
develops some sort of layers in the structure or repetitive layers in the structure.

So therefore, you can also call it a cleavage or folliation. So this is the mechanism or this is the
process how you see dissolution precipitation creep and this is how they look like under
microscope.

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(Refer Slide Time: 11:35)

Now I have 5 images which I collected from different web pages or different papers. And I
present these 5 images to you to interpret which one is dissolution seam, which one is stylolite,
which one is highly serrated stylolite and which one is deformed stylolite. So you can look at
these images in detail. Go back to the previous slides and check them and match them and
identify by yourselves which 1 is what.

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(Refer Slide Time: 12:11)

Now, if we try to theorize this dissolution precipitation creep, then it is important to understand
that the solution or the fluid that you have in your system must have the concentration less than
the, the concentration has to be less so that the materials dissolve within this and if the
concentration is high, then the material would not dissolve into it further; it would precipitate. So
there must be some sort of an equilibrium concentration.

So we can think that all minerals can dissolve in fluids. It can be dissolved in water. It can be
dissolved in carbon dioxide, or so on and therefore, as we talked about, there is a equilibrium
concentration. Let us assign these as Ceq. If the actual concentration is lower than this
equilibrium concentration, Ceq, then the minerals do dissolve and then the concentration of this
fluid increases towards the equilibrium concentration.

This is very simple because if you are adding more materials to the solution, it would slowly try
to saturate and achieve the equilibrium concentration. Otherwise, the actual concentration is
higher than the equilibrium concentration. Then the minerals would precipitate and the
concentration would decrease towards equilibrium concentration. So that means if I have, this
curve, this line as Ceq, then does not matter where I am. It would always approach towards the
equilibrium concentration. If this is, this is high and this is low, so if this is low concentration,
that means here, then it would dissolve more material and try to achieve the equilibrium

383
concentration. If in this side, it is over saturated, then it would precipitate materials and it would
try to reach the equilibrium concentration as well.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:38)

So some equations; these are very simple, do not worry about it. So the chemical potential if we
consider as phi is a function of pressure, so you can write this equation. And then concentration
is also proportional, is a function of this chemical potential or phi and this is proportional so you
can write like this.

And then by replacing these two equations, I can come to this one equation; C equal to sigma p.
Sigma here and here is a constant. So at equilibrium concentration therefore we can come out
with this equation which is a function of Pressure, a constant and initial concentration or
threshold concentration which is C 0. And this is your equilibrium concentration. This equation
is important and we will come back to this soon.

384
(Refer Slide Time: 15:34)

So if we have to derive the flow law, we are not going derive, we will state it but I am trying to
give you some sort of ideas that how these are being derived. So functions that we need to take
care of, or parameters that we need to take care of are equilibrium concentration, pressure,
chemical potential and so on. And we have seen that equilibrium concentration is function of
pressure

385
(Refer Slide Time: 16:03)

And if there is some sort of pressure gradients, then you also generate concentration gradient.
And you also generate diffusion transport of matter and if you diffuse material or if you move
material from one end to another end, you change the shape of the material, the block and
therefore you generate strength. What I mean by that; if I have a shape or a crystal like this and
then I dissolve materials from here and here. These materials get dissolved and if they are being
deposited here and here and if I remove this part, so actually achieve something like this.

So clearly, my initial shape was like that;so I certainly have achieved some sort of strain in the
crystal. And how it happens and to derive the flow law, you need to know what is the pressure
gradient and what is its relation to the differential stress

386
(Refer Slide Time: 17:16)

And it happens in 3 different stages which are in sequence. First you have to have a dissolution
reaction, which means you have to dissolve your materials. Then you have to transport it through
the mechanism of diffusion either or in this case, most are on the grain boundary through an open
space and then it has to precipitate somewhere. So first one is dissolution reaction, then transport
through diffusion grain boundary fluid and precipitation.

The flow law is given in this form: strain rate is equal to a constant Adc, multiplied by diffusion
coefficient delta sigma stress and this part is very important G is grain size or sort of length of
the grain which is Q. Now, this tells you very clearly that first thing we need to observe is what
is the relation between strain rate and stress. If we see this equation - strain rate is proportional to
stress, so this is linear. So the flow is Newtonian, we can clearly see from equation. And what is
important that strain rate inversely proportional to grain size and that even to the power of cube.

So that means it is extremely grain size sensitive. That means lower the grain size, faster the
dissolution precipitation creep will happen or these are the take home messages from these
equation, that is this is a Newtonian flow that is the strain rate is linearly proportional to the
stress and it is extremely grain size sensitive mechanism where lowering the grain size could
make the deformation faster.

387
(Refer Slide Time: 19:33)

Here, we try to see what is the role of the pressure and concentration in activating the dissolution
precipitation creep. Now what I see here, if we consider that this cube is a grain where one arm
of this grain is has a length of G. And if I apply some force here on this surface, this surface, this
stress which is a positive stress, compressive stress. And then therefore on the other side we have
a negative stress, a tensile stress on this side. So this surface is under compression and this
surface is under tension.

Now under differential stress, at least in this condition the grain boundaries have a different
condition. So if I have my initial pressure P which is a confinement of a grain. You can imagine
then on this surface you have initial pressure plus this one. And on this surface, on this tensile
surface you have P, initial pressure minus this one and if we have to find a mean stress in this
illustration, which is this one, then clearly at stress level we have surface somewhere here and on
this surface, on this tensile surface we have stress level somewhere here.

So if we now can imagine the time which would try to dissolve the material here. And which
would be precipitating on this side here. So therefore the compressional side would dissolve and
it would add on the extensional surface. So this drives the transport from compressional grain
boundaries to the extensional grain boundaries.

388
(Refer Slide Time: 21:54)

And if we try to look at in terms of equilibrium concentration, and we can think of in a very
similar way that we have this side applying some stress and this side we have the tensile domain,
so compressive domain, this is tensile domain. So perpendicular to this one, we have very similar
equation we have derived. So we have plus 1, minus, so they will be less.

And then we would have higher equilibrium concentration at the compression surface and lower
equilibrium concentration at the extensional surface. And these would also drive your transport
from compressional grain boundaries to extensional grain boundaries. That means materials
would move from this side to this side.

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(Refer Slide Time: 22:48)

Now if I try to combine both then things would move from this side. So if I look only on the
surface I clearly can see that this was the square this G and then this side is getting dissolved and
is being precipitated here. So I am just showing it in one way. Eventually you are getting
something which is greater than G say G prime so clearly G prime is greater than G. And
therefore you achieve some sort of strain and slowly you also approach the equilibrium
concentration from this part to this part.

So diffusion then tries to equalize the concentration. If that happens then you are doing the
transport. Compressional faces are under saturated most of the cases so therefore you would have
dissolution. So material will dissolve on compressional surfaces and extensional faces are over
saturated therefore you would have precipitation on the surfaces. So these are the 3 basic
mechanisms. First you have dissolution, then you have transport and then finally you have
precipitation.

390
(Refer Slide Time: 24:09)

Now let us have a look on the other two processes that is Nabarro Herring Creep and Coble
Creep. But before going into the details of this, we will have a look at the basics of the Diffusion
Precipitation Creep. So, during these types of Creeps, the atoms move from one side to another
side of these grains. The atoms migrate or they can migrate have option to migrate either through
the crystals or along the grain boundaries from again the areas of high compressive to areas of
low compressive stress.

And therefore, when the atoms move from one end to other end, the vacancies also move from
one end to the other end on the other side you have understand it when you have learned the
crystal defects. So the mechanisms by which the vacancies and the atoms migrate are known as
diffusion. Now the directed diffusion of atoms under stress, that means all the atoms if they are
moving to a particular direction and the vacancies to the opposite directions, then this can lead to
the change of the shape of the crystal where the volume remains constant.

Characteristically, these diffusion creeps, Nabarro Herring Creeps and the Coble creeps; they do
operate where the stress levels are very low and also grain size is extremely smaller. And this we
generally get at lower mantle or below of the earth and we will see why the grain size should be
smaller. And even between these 2 processes, we need the grain size sensitivity is also different
in Nabarro Herring Creep and Coble creep.

391
(Refer Slide Time: 26:09)

Now transport of the vacancies, we know that it happens. The vacancies changes places with a
neighboring atom. We learnt about it. And we know 1 vacancy jumps to a neighboring site, the
volume does not change. The density remains constant. So one atom replaces the vacancy
resulting to the change of the shape and therefore we achieve the deformation. We talked about it
a many times.

The direction of the vacancy transport is opposite to the direction of material transport. This we
also have learnt. And here, Fick’s law is somehow important, where Flux is directly proportion
to the direction and indirectly proportion to the chemical concentration of the fluid or the
material we are talking about.

392
(Refer Slide Time: 27:05)

Now we will have a look to the two different processes that we have learnt; one is Nabarro
Herring Creep and the other is Coble Creep as we have classified in Nabarro Herring Creep flux
is to happen through grains and that leads to the deformation. So you can see here, this is a grain
with this yellow atoms inside and outside there are some white vacancies. Now in Nabarro
Herring Creep the flux happens through the grains.

So inside the grains, so the vacancies could move through the grain to here and they will appear
somewhere here and they displace these 5 atoms and they come here and therefore, the shape
actually change from this to this and therefore you achieve a deformation, you strain the

393
material, you change the shape of it. Here, you have somehow the same example we have shown
here with 3 grains. So this is how atoms are moving from here to here vacancies on the opposite
side. Therefore, you continuously strain the grain and you can see here.

If I consider, this is the initial distance, then here, this is the final distance or final height. It
essentially got shortened and on the and on the other side, it also got extended. So elongation on
this side and shortening on the other side happened through the process of Nabarro Herring
Creep where the fluxes happened through the crystal. Now in Coble creep, instead of moving
this atoms or vacancies through the crystals, they move along the boundary of the grain.

And does not matter how they are moving, we more or less achieve the similar shape but the
mechanisms are different. Again this is the size of the grain, you can think of with the yellow
atoms inside and the vacancies outside and these grains, these grains particularly take the shape
in a very similar way. And here, instead of moving through inside the grain, the movements do
happen along the grain boundaries but the result is very similar.

394
(Refer Slide Time: 29:50)

Now it is interesting to note that the flow laws of the Nabarro Herring Creep and they Coble
creep, they look very similar. So for Nabarro Herring Creep it is exactly like this. And for Coble
creep, it is like this. What we see here is that both of them are Newtonian flow laws. The strain
rate is proportion to grain size. Both of them are grain size sensitive. In Nabarro Herring Creep is
squared, and Coble creep it is cubed.

Here the, in this equations, here the d is the grain size. So in previous slide, g has defined, g was
the sign of grain size but in these slides, I have defined as d. I should correct it but now you
know that d means grain size here. Now, why it is so? That one is, clearly this is less grain size
sensitive than this one so you know in coble creep it has to move along the creep, along the
boundaries. So shorter the grain size, faster is the process.

But if it is happening within the grains then it has to pass through the grains, so it is not that grain
size sensitive compared to the Coble Creep. Therefore, it the equation, it is cubed and it is
squared and as we have learned that both of them are temperature sensitive and generally it
happens at very high temperature.

395
(Refer Slide Time: 31:34)

So the microstructures of diffusion creep, it is not easy to identify under optical microscopes. But
when the diffusion creep is active, stresses are too low to move the dislocation which is why it
happens. There is no major driving force for dynamic crystallization so therefore you do not
achieve some sort grain migration and so on. Therefore, you have to have the diffusion creep.
Now only force for recrystallization you have is surface force and therefore it develops a very
strong shape preferred orientation.

So you do not have any dynamic recrystallization, that means that there is no deformation or
there is no thermal overprint and also very interestingly diffusion creep is essentially movement
of the atoms, so it is used heavily by petrologists and metamorphic petrologists for mapping the
movement of major and trace elements and this also gives you an idea of the pressure and
temperature of the deformation and metamorphism as well.

396
(Refer Slide Time: 32:51)

Now if you think of application of diffusion creep, there are many but I will give you one. As I
talked about it that it can, you can use it for mapping the movement of major or trace elements.
So the zoned minerals, particularly we see in nature very frequently with different patterns of
chemical profile for different elements sometimes are used to infer the orogenic pressure
temperature conditions and yeah most of the times fluid histories.

And Garnets in particular is one of the candidates for such studies. So what happens here, the
diffusion of particularly divalent cations, for example, Magnesium, Manganese, Calcium and so
on in metamorphic Garnet is negligible at low, medium grade. So if I have some distribution of
these elements inside the Garnet at low or medium grade metamorphism, then they stay there. So
therefore, if I have a large Garnet crystal, core of this Garnet is undisturbed.

It is some sort of isolated for the surrounding, but if the temperature is high, diffusion starts
operating and then the elements, particularly the divalent cations they move within the Garnet
following a typical pattern. What has been shown by several studies that Garnets with prograde
growth zoning tend to have manganese or calcium rich cores with manganese number increasing
steadily towards the rim.

So volume diffusion becomes very fast process enough at high grade for originally zoned garnets
to become compositionally some sort of homogenous. So you have initially a very heterogeneous

397
rimmed or zoned garnet in terms of a particular element but when you have high temperature,
then the volume diffusion starts of this element and then the entire garnet becomes homogeneous
in terms of the distribution of these elements.

(Refer Slide Time: 35:20)

So here is an example, as you can see here, the 3 different garnet grains mapped with microprobe
or epma. The different elements I have here are manganese. The warmer colours, the red colour
means you have higher concentration and colder colours, blue, that indicates you have lower
concentration. So in this, in cordierite, the temperature was estimated 425 degree centigrade and
pressure, 3.5 kilo bars.

Here you see that manganese has higher concentration at the core and slowly it is decreasing
towards the rim. When temperature is elevated to temperature 535 centigrade and pressure to 6
kilo bars in the garnet zone, you see that these manganese elements are diffusing towards the
rim. And even at higher temperature and pressure at staurolite kyanite zone, you see that this
manganese are more or less homogeneously distributed and even there concentration has
somehow increased at the rim and also, this is the rim and also at the inclusion boundaries. So
this is how the diffusion do happen. Process is extremely slow so geologists, or particularly,
metamorphic petrologists do use it for calculating different types of geobarometry and
geothermometry.

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(Refer Slide Time: 36:49)

So we are done with this lecture of deformation mechanism. The entire week might be little long
for you with this lecture time in particular. But it is important that we now interestingly have
developed a solid background on the theoretical aspect on the structural geology.

We have learnt strain in detail, you have learnt stress in detail, you have learnt rheology and now
you have learnt deformation mechanism in detail. So from now on, we will use all this
knowledge of strain, stress, rheology, deformation mechanism and so on to understand and
interpret the different geological structures that we commonly see in the field and we will start in
the next week with planer and linear structures. So thank you very much. I will see you in the
next week.

399
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture – 17
Planar Fabrics (Foliation/ Cleavage/ Schistosity) - I

Hello everyone! Welcome back again to this online Structural Geology NPTEL course.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:26)

We are going to start a new week and in this week we learn Foliation and Lineation or in
other words planar fabrics and linear fabrics in deformed rocks. So, we will have three
lectures in this week. The first two lectures would cover foliations or planar fabrics, and the
last lecture would be dedicated for linear fabrics.

400
(Refer Slide Time: 00:44)

Today’s 17 no. at the levcture, we will learn mostly the definitions and characteristics of
planar fabrics or foliations, and then we will classify foliations based on their origin or
genesis. So, generic classifications of planar fabrics and then will very briefly sort of describe
the different kinds of planar fabrics mostly focusing on primary and secondary planar fabrics.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:22)

Now, before going to the details of this topic planar fabric let us first discuss what is a fabric?
Now, technically fabric is defined as it is written here, the geometric relationship between
regularly repetitive constituent parts at any scale. So, in any volume it is constituted by some
elements. Now, these elements are distributed within the volume, and the fabric is their

401
arrangements, their geometries and their relationship with the neighbouring grains and so on
which constitute the entire volume is known as fabric.

Here, I repeat the geometric relationship that is very important and it is geometrical
parameters. So, geometric relationship between regularly repetitive constituents parts at any
scale that means it has to be all over the volume of the body we are concerned with, and if we
think about this fabric, which is geometrically distributed all over the volume then we can
consider it in three ways.

The first one is if there is no fabric at all so the elements are distributed very
homogeneously, they are not defining any fabric, then we call it 0th dimension of the fabric
so there is no fabric or it is very random, and we can assign it as isotropic fabric. And these
two are important if they are in 1 dimension then we call it linear fabric or lineations.

So, (fabrics is) fabrics are only visible in one direction and, of course, there are 2 dimensional
fabrics which we will be discussing in this lecture and in the next lecture known as planar
fabrics and that includes, that include bedding, foliation, cleavage and schistosity. So, we will
learn about all these terms very soon but let us focus a little bit more on what is planar fabric.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:25)

Now, as it is as the name suggests that it is planar fabric so that means any parallel planar
feature in the rock that occurs homogeneously and penetratively throughout the
representative volume. So, it is a two dimensional feature that is why it is planar feature. The
features have to be parallel to each other or to some extent sub parallel to each other
throughout the volume of the rock and they have to be distributed homogeneously.

402
Accordingly, to specify these two terms in particular, homogeneously means the feature
which is distributed in a body has the same characteristics in any arbitrary volume of the
body and penetrative means the foliation occurs throughout the volume of the rock. So, that
means if I have a planar fabric in the rock except the plane it is occurring, if I cut at any
direction of this volume of the rock I should see the presence of the fabric.

So, the trace of the fabrics should be present at any orientation except the plane it is
occurring.This planar fabrics as we have already understood is known as foliation. Now,
foliation word comes from this Latin word is folia which means leaf. Now, how frequent
should be the planar fabrics that might be a question, that if I see a feature 1 kilometre apart
of a planes are occurring within the rock 1 kilometre frequency is this a foliation or they are
occurring in micron scales? So 2 microns intervals I see a planar fabric within the rock is this
a foliation?

If you ask this question then here it is written within this yellow highlighted box – foliation
must be on the order of tens of centimetres. So, the repetition or the spacing between the two
planar fabrics must be within 10 centimetres or less. Now, if the spacing is much higher, then
we do not consider is them as a foliation because it is not worth of studying their features and
they may not be represented it.

For example, you can consider fractures or joints they occur in very large spacing’s and you
may not consider them as a foliation, however, if they are very concentrated sometimes we
consider them as a foliation from case by case basis.

(Refer Slide Time: 06:16)

403
You also have heard a series of terminologies related to foliation or planar fabrics in general,
so three commonly used terms are foliation, cleavage and schistosity. Now, it is always
confusing if you read the literature or text that which one is what? We commonly referred
these three terms almost on every aspects. Let us accept the fact at the very beginning that
these three terms foliation, cleavage and schistosity are not used very systematically in
geological literature and texts, they are often mixed and sometimes they are use is very much
confusing.

However, in this slide we will try to more or less describe that which one is what to have a
better understanding, having said that it is still not very wisely and systematically used these
three terms because it is just a legacy and that we are following as a structural geologist.
Now, schistosity, let us first focus on this term is associated with schistose rocks, so
therefore, it is something which is related to metamorphic rocks and it is also attributed to
coarse-grained rocks.

So, if I call schistosity of some or assign the term schistosity to some planar fabrics that
means that this must be a very coarse-grained rock and it must be a metamorphic rock or it is
in a metamorphic rock and then the confusion comes between the foliation and cleavage and
as I said they are often mixed but cleavage is mostly referred for small scale planar fabrics,
whether foliation is generally for large scale features.

However, that is not always maintained and cleavage is also referred to the fact as the name
suggests that along the planes, along which the rock tends to cleave or sort of break apart. So,
this is how you can think of the difference between foliation or cleavage or you can consider
or if I summarize it that foliation is sort of a general term, that is umbrella under which it
contains itself, foliation term cleavage and schistosity so it includes everything.

If you say planar fabric is equal to foliation then it is fine but we use sometimes these terms
cleavage and schistosity for specific purposes, but I repeat not very systematically. So, let us
go with that and we will see that in different places somewhere we are using foliation,
somewhere cleavage and somewhere schistosity.

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(Refer Slide Time: 09:11)

So, what defines the planar fabric? Here is a list for you. The first one is sedimentary or
diagenetic planes. So, sedimentary beds or sedimentary layers or bedding planes or diagenetic
planes generally define planar fabrics in sedimentary rocks. Then compositional layering in
metamorphic rocks that means during metamorphism if compositions are segregated along
different layers then we can refer it as foliation and that defines foliation as well.

If we have oriented mineral grains or clasts maybe platy or flaky grains along successive
planes in the rock that defines the planar fabric. Similarly, oriented deformed mineral grains
or clasts along successive planes in the rock that also defines the planar fabric. Now, if we
have alternative and sequential grain size variation along successive planes that means I have
coarse grain deposition then fine grain deposition, coarse grain position, fine grain deposition
composition is same you can consider sandstone.

So, a coarse grain vary than fine grain, so you can consider this also their boundaries between
coarse spread and fine grain as foliation claims. As I talked about that if the fractures are
closely spaced that means micro fractures and if it is occurring penetratively within the rock
we can call it planar discontinuities and we can assign it as also one type of planar fabrics.

And, of course, the concentration of certain minerals along some specific planes of rhythmic
micro folds, so what I mean by this that if you have series of folded layers like this, then
along these planes we sometimes have some sort of, along these planes we have deposition or
concentration of some specific minerals mostly phyllosilicates and they also define a plane

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penetratively in three dimensions and these also are included in the domain or they also
define in the planar fabrics in the rocks.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:39)

So, and the final question that we should ask that why should we study planar fabric, what is
the importance of planar fabric or studying planar fabric in the context of Structural Geology.
Well, it is one of the primary and key features in deformed rocks that one should understand
for particularly many reasons and here I have listed a few. The first one is deformation
history and evolution, we will learn more about it particularly when you go with more
structural details of different kinds of structures, but foliations reveal deformation history,
particularly their relationships with the host rocks and other pre-existing foliation and so on.

In a similar way, you know when metamorphism do happen then new metamorphic minerals
do grow and at the same time foliation also do develop, we will learn about it later. But these
new minerals, new metamorphic minerals they also be very helpful to understand the
deformation history and evolution along with their relationship with the host rocks foliation
or the new foliations that may generate after the metamorphism or after the growth of this
new minerals.

So, if we have to get these things to very clear that leads to figure out that what would be or
what was the sequence of superposed deformation most of the geological terrains deform
geological terrains are deformed in series of deformational phases. So, if we have understand
the fact of foliations and their mutual relationships along with the porphyroblasts then we can
reveal the sequence of superposed deformation.

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Now, foliations are mostly associated with buccal folds we will learn about it soon. The
relationship between the buccal fold and the associated foliation tells you that what is the fold
morphology, you may not see the entire fold in the field you may see a part of it maybe the
limb, may be the hinge and so on. So, the angular relationships between foliation and the fold
defining surfaces would give you the geometry of the fold and morphology of the fold.

Foliations are also very important in figuring out the orientation of the strain ellipse and
strain ellipsoid, we will learn about it later. And finally to reveal the kinematics of the shear
zone that whether the shear zone is moving dextrally or sinistrally, foliation are one of the
key parameters that we use to unravel this kinematics of shear zones. So, all these are very
important and based on the problems you encounter in the field you may use foliation in
different ways but these are the general use of foliation as a Structural Geologist you can
think of.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:54)

So, let us do the classification of foliation and we will as I said we will do generic
classification. So, on this side we have a planar fabric and or foliation and we can classify it
in two major classes one is primary foliation and another is secondary foliation, we will
define them very soon. Within the primary foliation we have igneous related foliation or
igneous activity related foliation, diagenetic foliation and sedimentary foliation.

Secondary foliations are classified in many different ways and this will learn in the next
lecture. So, let us have a look what is primary foliation. As the name suggests primary
foliation is essentially associated or they essentially develop during the genesis of the rock or

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when the rock is taking it is birth. If it is associated with igneous rock during the formation of
igneous rock then we call it primary foliation in igneous rocks.

If it is associated with diagenesis of the sedimentary rocks, then we call it diagenetic foliation
and if it is associated with sedimentary rocks we call it primary sedimentary foliation. Now,
in the context of structural geology or studying structural geology, this igneous and
diagenetic foliations are not that important.

However, I have couple of slides to give you an a sense that how do they look like, what is
their appearance but sedimentary foliations or sedimentary primary foliations are essentially
important in studying Structural Geology particularly in low grade rocks and we will, of
course, learn the secondary features or secondary foliations in the next lecture and their
classifications. So, let us have a look to this igneous, diagenetic and sedimentary foliations,
ok.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:57)

Here you see two images, so this is primary foliation igneous and they are field scale. The
first image that you see here this is an image of a leucogabbro, what you see here that this
field photograph reveals alternating layers of anorthosite and gabbro. So, these white lines
that you see here which are repetitive they occur in the field penetratively, these white things
are anorthosite and all these dark things that you see as the host rock these are gabbro.

The second image is also very interesting that this is a thick anorthosite layer with
intervening dark pyroxenes. So, the host rock the whitish rock is anorthosite and within this
anorthosite you have thin alternating layers of pyroxenes. Now, how do they form? Let us

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have a look at their microstructures. So, this we have seen as the field photograph and let us
have a look at their microstructures.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:19)

So, the first one is a thin section of gabbro and the texture we see here is fluxion texture or
that means flow aligned texture with the compositions here we have mostly as a primary
minerals pyroxene, plagioclase and biotite let us not investigate that which mineral is what in
this image but what we can figure out at least looking at this photograph of this thin section
we see that this plagioclase feldspar are giving some sort of fabric in this rock, right.

It is not a very strong fabric but it is define a fabric and this has formed during the genesis of
this gabbro so therefore this is a primary foliation. The second image, this one is even more
spectacular, this is a thin section of anorthosite and it shows the oriented plagioclase crystal
as you can see it is defining an excellent fabric or trace of the planar fabric on the sections the
image was taken.

Now, how did the forum, the authors of this paper in particularly the Higgins 1991 he
suggested that during the formation of this rock anorthosite the batch Magma's got in placed
in the system and while they were being in placed the boundary layers got highly sheared and
while they (got there) they are getting sheared these things or these minerals or the these
crystals they either grew (along these) along the shearing direction or the old crystals old long
plagioclase laths they oriented themselves along the shearing direction.

Now, at this point you can certainly ask this question which is a very valid question that so
this is associated with the deformation, so why these are not secondary foliation? Why we are

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assigning this as primary foliation? And as i said this is a valid question and you are right, yes
these foliations did form due to deformation to some extent however they formed when the
rock was forming.

So, there are still magma from the magma, the crystals are being nucleated they formed, they
grew. So, everything was associated during the genesis of the rock and as a student of
Geology you may consider the fact that entire art is a very dynamic system. So, it is very rare
that you do not have differential cells stress in some places of this art. Therefore, though
these arts some sort of signatures of deformation but these are primary fabrics.

We will learn secondary fabrics soon must have formed in a pre-existing rock system. So, we
have a rock, now if this rock, for example, this anorthosite got deformed further then this
plagioclase crystals may further recrystallize, and then they can orient in a different way
defining the planar fabrics and these planar fabrics would then be your secondary planar
fabric but in this case because these are associated to the genesis of the rock so these are
primary fabric.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:56)

Now, for sedimentary foliations we define it in two different ways, one is bedding foliation
and another is diagenetic foliation. The bedding foliations are essentially compositional
layers. So, as you see in this cartoon diagram that initial depositions do happen and the
depositions within the basin can happen with different compositions due to the flux of the
sediments or from where the rivers or whatever is flowing and bringing the sediments to the
basin and they are being deposited.

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The compositions may vary from one layer to another layer and because they are deposited
along a plane so they define planar fabrics and we call it bedding foliations. When this rocks
got lithified due to dewatering then some minerals do form at the time of dewatering, at the
same time the flaky minerals also reorient themselves along the compaction direction and the
foliations that develop at that time we call it diagenetic foliation. So, these red lines, here red
dotted lines you can think these are diagenetic materials, let us have a look of the photograph.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:17)

This photograph I took from the book of Passchier and Trouw 2005 micro tectonics and what
is written here it is defining the bedding foliation and the diagenetic foliation. So, the
diagenetic minerals that commonly form during the diagenesis include calcite, dolomite,
siderite some iron oxides and essentially some clay minerals. So, this is where we have learnt
that what is bedding foliation and what is diagenetic foliation.

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(Refer Slide Time: 23:57)

Let us have a look on series of photographs where we will see that how do they look like, we
all have seen this kind of features when you have gone to the field or maybe in the
photographs. So, the primary sedimentary foliation as I said is the fabric configuration has to
develop during the genesis of the rock. So, what do you see here? This is a carbonate terrain,
the alternate these are carbonates and these are some Shelley rocks, the dark grey ones and
you see that these layers are these are sedimentary layers and they have deposited at one point
of time and now they are lithified so this is a primary foliation.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:39)

And not necessarily they have to be horizontal they can be rotated due to some deformation
but their initial primary characteristics would certainly remain there. For example, what you

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see here, these sedimentary foliations are almost vertical so a plane is exposed here and the
traces on this eroded surface of this bedding plane is going something like that. So, this is
your sedimentary primary foliation.

Now, at this stage I would like to very briefly a guide you that how to identify this primary
foliation in the field. First of all, you see that across the foliation you have different colours,
the foliations are defined by different colours and, therefore, different compositions. Across
the foliation as well the layer thickness are also vary even within the same composition. So,
here you see some laminations and then a thick layer and so on. So, this is very much
characteristics of sedimentary foliation or primary foliation.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:56)

Here in this image what you see here? These are some these layers I am marking these things
are defined or these layers are defined by coarse grains whether these areas are defined by
fine grains, their compositions are also different that is why the colours are different but this
alternative coarse and fine grained features are also very much characteristics of sedimentary
rocks and therefore, these things do define primary foliation in your sedimentary rock.

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(Refer Slide Time: 26:41)

You can also see sedimentary foliation under thin sections as I have shown here in this slide;
I took these two images from a very good paper of Kong et al published in 2017. What we
see here in this first image that you can see there is alternate dark and white layers, the top
part as the authors have defined this is sparry calcite, and then here this is some sort of calcite
laminae here and then again this dark layer is the authors have divided in two different layers
the top layer is clay-rich laminae and second layer is fine calcitic sub laminae and this layer is
coarse calcite sub lamina.

So, the grain size is also varying and at the same time the compositions also do vary in
defining the primary foliation in this sedimentary rock. The second image, we can also see
that very nicely rhythmic almost constant thickness deposition of this sedimentary rock which
are defining the foliations here. So, the alternate layers are defined as calcite lamina this one
the darker one and the whiter one is a clay-rich laminae and also this blue line here is a
fracture plane. So, you see that does not matter which scale we look at, even in thin scale we
can see the sedimentary layers or sedimentary foliation and we can also see in micro scale,
ok.

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(Refer Slide Time: 28:20)

Let us have a look on this cartoon diagram that how do we form secondary foliations out of a
rock that may or may not have primary foliation. So, these two we have understood that we
have a sedimentary rock or sedimentary depositions, then diagenetic foliation formed, and
after that if there is a directed force or directed stress that can deform the country rock, then
these white lines, white dashed lines that we see here, these features do appear in the rock and
defining secondary foliations.

And as you can see that these primary foliation layers which is carved here on this surface
and straight here on this surface, on this section. This secondary foliation cuts across these
layers and they also maintain some sort of angular relationship with this primary layering and
these angular relationships are very-very important in revealing several structural features
and deformation histories, not necessarily they have to be always at an angle, they can be
parallel to as well, but we will see this later that what happens if the secondary foliation and
primary foliations are parallel to each other.

But the concept I tried to give you here that how the secondary foliations do form, we will
also learn later that this is a special type of foliation so you call it axial planar foliation or
axial planar cleavage but we learn about it later.

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(Refer Slide Time: 30:18)

Now, let us have a look how these secondary foliations do look like in the field. The
secondary foliations are the fabrics as we have defined that must develop during the
deformation and metamorphism of the rocks. So, we have the primary rock with or without
primary foliations and when you deform it you develop some foliation, alignment of some
minerals or fractures or whatever that defines the planes in the system, and new planes in the
system and these are your secondary foliations and as we said these are often associated with
primary foliations either parallel or at an angle.

(Refer Slide Time: 30:56)

So, what we see here in this image, this is from Chaibasa formation in India. First of all, as
we have understood how to identify the bedding planes or primary foliations and as I said that

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compositional layering or colour banding is very important, particularly if you are dealing
with a low grade rock and in this case this Chaibasa formation is yes, because this is
deformed under green cyst fascist I am sorry metamorphosed under green cyst fascist.

What we see here this alternating lighter and darker bands, this is quite thick dark, band and
then we have again one lighter band and so on so this is darker band and this is alternating
lighter and darker bands. Now, this define your sedimentary or primary foliation however in
this volume of rock or in this outcrop we can see that there is another claim which is being
defined in a different way or a series of planes that appeared here in a different way relative
to the primary layering which is oriented in this manner.

And this other orientation as you can imagine is like this, let me have a different colour. As
you can see that there these planes are appearing like some sort of fractures or so on, on the
surface but they are very much aligned and I tell you these are very much penetrative or in a
way they are appearing like some sort of mechanical damage in the rock and these are your
secondary foliations. So, you have primary foliations the red ones and the blue ones are your
secondary foliations, we will have a few more photographs.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:21)

This is a classic one from, I took this photograph from AGU blog and without understanding
first that which one is what, let us first identify the planes here that is also another way of
looking at it. So, clearly we see the trace of plane one goes like this and another trace of plane
we can figure out from this image it is going like this, ok. Now, what is the difference

417
between this red and blue traces, that we have just identified on this broken surface or eroded
surface?

The first one is the red ones as we see that these are consistent and present throughout the
rock volume so this is a primary foliation however these are being defined by some sort of
thickness variations in the rock and also composition variations these are horizontal red
traces. The other one the blue one is cutting across all these red layers and as you can see that
like we have seen in the previous image they appear like some sort of mechanical
disintegration of this rock.

At the same time the rock is also tend to cleave or break or fracture along this so I just wipe
this one out. So, you can see here you see that it got some sort of fracture here, here, here so
most of the fractures are along these blue lines. Now, these are your secondary fabric or
secondary foliation, whether the red ones are your primary fabric or primary foliations. Now,
why so? Again I see that alternative layers this red ones and they are varying their thickness.

So, this is quite thick, this is quite thin, thin and again alternative bedding planes and laminae
and so on going on there. But on the other hand the blue ones we do not see some sort of we
do not see any thickness defining features. So, because these are big so maybe we see this but
if you look closely you also have a series of fine planes which are present all over the rock
volume and these are your secondary foliations.

(Refer Slide Time: 36:20)

Now, not necessarily throughout the volume of the rock you will form the foliation and this is
a classic example to form foliations you need some characteristic minerals at least at the low

418
grade deformed rocks. What we see here in this image this is again from the Chaibasa
formation of India. So, as you can see here again I am not going to define it repeatedly so
these are your primary foliations, right this alternative laminae and so on.

Now, do we have a secondary foliation here? The answer is yes. The secondary foliation are
present or confined in this band or in this layer which are in this case something like that as
you can see here from the previous experience that these are defining your secondary
foliation cutting across the entire layer here, interestingly the foliations are not present in this
layer but it is faintly present in this layer and so on.

So, why these foliations or secondary fabrics are not present in these particular layers, it is
because as you can see from this composition that this is mostly sand rich grains and this one
is appearing like consisting of mica and so on I have seen this rocks so I tell you that in this
area we have concentration of phyllosilicates or mica-rich minerals more compared to this
region.

So, though this rock is deformed it could not form foliation because it does not have or it did
not have the foliation defining minerals within it. So, a foliation not necessarily has to be
present in all the sedimentary layers are all along all the primary layers you may have it
restricted only within a layer where you have concentration of foliation defining minerals.
Now, in high grade rocks the foliations nature of foliations become little different.

High grade rock means the rocks underwent the primary rocks underwent very high pressure
and temperature therefore you do not expect or it is better not to expect any primary foliation
in high grade rocks. So, the foliations we mostly see in high grade rocks are primarily
secondary foliations they may be of different generations we learn about it later but mostly
these are secondary foliations and the traces of primary foliation are almost absent.

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(Refer Slide Time: 39:29)

Then how do you understand that what is primary and what is secondary? The primary idea
of identifying that these are not primary foliations in the high grade rocks is essentially the
minerals that some high grade minerals you see in a high grade deformed rocks, high grade
metamorphic minerals you see in high pressure temperature deformed rocks. At the same
time, for example, you can say hey these are alternative colour bands, the compositions the
compositional bands and so on if I consider this first image so why this is not at the primary
foliation?

Now, to answer your question you have to be very careful in secondary foliations you must
see particularly in high grade rocks features like this flattened clasts something like that. Here
these are generally parallel to the fabric you look at here and these colours are generally dark
and white or black and white, they define alternative black and white layers or dark and
lighter layers unlike sedimentary rocks where you see variation of colours.

So, here the thickness may or may not vary in this case it varied, but these are secondary
layers and use secondary foliations and you can get it from the experience and if you can look
for some sort of features like elongated clasts and so on. You can also figure out from the
second image that these features are also associated with secondary foliations and so on that
these are essentially not your primary bedding planes.

So, these are some dark minerals and here again you also see the features we saw here you
also see this kind of features and this clearly defines that these are your secondary foliations
and so on.

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(Refer Slide Time: 41:55)

You can also see in the next slide where you can figure out that this actually is a fantastic
secondary fabric and here as well you see this kind of elongated clasts here, here we learn
later that these are parts of the pinch and soil structures or flattened clasts. So, these happen
due to extreme stretching of this secondary foliations and here you can also see what we learn
later that this is known as foliation boudinage or composite boudinage.

We also see here these individual layers got broken, this also can happen with sedimentary
layers no problem but the appearance, the look of the rock is essentially different when you
deal with high grade rocks.

(Refer Slide Time: 42:44)

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 Here is a summary that how to differentiate or how to identify secondary and primary
foliation in the field. First of all it is something that one should always think when they go to
the field that what is the primary foliation and what is the secondary foliation, how they are
oriented and so on this is an important aspect or important part of studying structural geology
in the field.

So, you have to go to the field more and more, you can recognize more rocks and become
more experienced in identifying or differentiating primary versus secondary foliations but
here I try to give you some clues or some hints on how to figure this out in the field. If we
have to find sedimentary foliations or primary foliations then look for sedimentary features
that are generally present at the interface of the layers.

Say for example, you can figure out load clasts, you can figure out some sort of convoluted
laminations, you can figure out the cross laminations or cross beddings and so on. So, all
these things define that you have the primary foliation present there. Now, if the layer
thickness vary across the foliation plane that you have identified but you could not identify
whether it is primary or secondary, sometimes in sedimentary layers the layer thickness do
vary consistently, but in secondary foliations if it is in a low grade rock the layer thicknesses
do not vary or the foliation spacing’s do not vary largely.

Now, also check if the layers are straight or curvy, so if that happens if the straight or very
gently curving then it is primary foliation, but if the foliations you see these are some sort of
repetitive anastomosing and length side, these are your secondary fabric or secondary
foliation. It is also important to figure out or look very carefully what is defining the
boundaries or what is defining the foliation planes, is this colour, is this grain size, is this
composition or a particular layer you are looking at has a particular fossil but other layers do
not have.

So, all these things give you an idea based on your theoretical background that whether you
are looking at primary foliation sedimentary foliation or a secondary foliation. Now, primary
foliation also they do not represent a symmetry plane. Now we will talk about this later but
very briefly if I have primary foliation they just developed like this but if this layer got folded
then the foliations the secondary foliation I just interchange the colour it develops like this so
this is your secondary foliation we have learnt it.

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So, if I consider this plane it represents a symmetry plane of these deform structure. So,
secondary foliations are always symmetric or they represent a symmetry plane and primary
foliation they do not do that. And as I have said in the beginning of this slide that look at
more rocks and gather experience in identifying the sedimentary beds and secondary
foliations so this is very important.

(Refer Slide Time: 46:26)

So, to give you some clues I have added three photographs. The first one is from Passchier
and Trouw I just tell you that there are two layers I come back to my original conventions.
So, as you can see that this image is defining two different planes at or on this image we have
traces of two different planes one is of course going north to south this alternate white and
dark boundaries and another is something like that running east to west. Now, you think of
yourself and look at the photograph and figure out that which one is primary foliation and
which one is secondary foliation.

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(Refer Slide Time: 47:14)

I have two more for you, this is another one again I define the two planes for you. So, one as
you can see here this is a curve plane this foliation plane is curvy and then you have another
fabric another foliation which goes like this in the system. So, you try to identify that which
is what? Whether this curved line is primary or secondary or whether these straight lines are
primary or secondary.

(Refer Slide Time: 47:58)

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And the final one here I also define it and again this is running one set of planes running east
west and another set of plane running north south, which in this case is again little curvy. So,
these three images this is the first one, this is the second one and this is the third one you try
to identify which one is primary foliation and which one is secondary foliation.

And you do not restrict yourself only to these images you search Google or any search engine
you prefer, try to download images and figure out based on your experience or whatever we
learned so far that which one in this image could be primary foliation and which one in this
image could be your secondary foliation. So, with this I conclude this lecture.

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(Refer Slide Time: 49:07)

In the next lecture, we shall continue with this topic foliation and will mostly discuss in the
next lecture the secondary foliations, we will learn some sort of nomenclatures and also we
learn some special type of secondary foliations and their applications, thank you very much I
will see you in the next lecture.

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 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Lecture 18: Planar Fabrics (Foliation/Cleavage/Schistosity) - II

(Refer Slide Time: 0:26)

Hello everyone, welcome back again to this online structural geology NPTEL course, we are
at our lecture number 18 and this week we are learning planner fabrics and linear fabrics, so
we are at lecture number two in this week, in the previous lecture which is a lecture number
17 we learnt the very basic and generic classifications of planner fabrics, we also learnt how
to differentiate primary and secondary fabrics, in primary fabrics we mostly consider the
sedimentary layers and secondary fabrics we considered the deformation induced fabrics. So
in this lecture we will mostly covered this following topics.

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(Refer Slide Time: 00:59)

So first we will do morphological classification of planner fabrics that means the way they
appeared it is not their generic nature and then we will actually look for some very special
attributes of planner fabrics which are associated with the different structural styles,
particularly folds and they have some special names as well so we learned what after another
we will also try to figure out what is their mechanism of formation and at the very end of this
lecture we will particularly focus on the origin and micro mechanics of the planner fabrics.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:52)

So when we talk about the morphological classification of foliations or secondary foliations

in particular a series of morphological feature are considered and what are these specially
listed here mostly five characters we consider, so first one is the spacing between the planes

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or the planner domains that how closely they are spaced and what ease within the space we
will look at it soon then shape of the planes where there it is rough, smooth, wriggly, etc etc.
then we will also consider special relationship between the planes that means whether this
planes are parallel to each other, anastomosing to each other, whether this are conjugate,
cross cutting and so on.

We will also look what is the characteristics of the boundaries of the planner domain, whether
these boundaries of this foliations are gradational, sharp, discrete, etc and essentially finally
look at the fabric of the rock between the foliation planes that means whether this is planner
or folded and so on. Now one thing is very important to understand at this point all these
morphologies that we talked about whether be its spacing, shape the special relationship,
characteristic, characteristic of the boundaries, fabric of the rock, etc. all these are functions
of the metamorphic grade of the deformation or metamorphic grade of the rock what was the
PT conditions, what was the heating and the cooling history, what was the fluid activity etc.
we will look at it latter but the spacing, shape, special relationship, characteristics of the
boundaries, fabric of the rock, etc all these do very greatly with the metamorphic grade of the
rock.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:40)

So here is the table which classifies the secondary foliations. So if we consider secondary
foliations at one end then we can classify it in two broad domains, one is spaced foliations
and another is continuous foliation, the spaced foliation is further subdivided in three
different categories, the first one is compositional foliation or compositional spaced foliations
then disjunctive foliation and crenulation foliation or crenulation cleavage. Within in the

429
continuous domain we have fine grained continuous foliation and course grained continuous
foliation or the fine foliation or course foliation based on their spacings and so on.

Now within the compositional cleavage or compositional foliation we have two subclasses,
defused or banded so that means whether the boundaries are defused or sharply banded then
within the disjunctive we have the stylolite, anastomosing, rough and smooth, within the
crenulation we have zonal and discrete and then in the domain of the continuous cleavage we
have two classes we discussed fine and course, within the fine we have micro crenulation,
micro disjunctive and micro discontinuous these three and within the course foliation we
have mineral grains and discrete. So we will not really look at the last column here but we
certainly talk about spaced foliation, continuous foliation and within the space we talked
about compositional, disjunctive, crenulation and then within the continuous we very very
briefly discuss the fine and course grained foliations.

(Refer Slide Time: 05:36)

So let us have a look what do we mean by the spacing in the foliations and how do we
characterized them, as you can see in the illustrations that from this end from your left side to
the right side of the screen you see a series of lines are drawn and on the right side the
spacing between the lines from the left side has continuously decreased. Now if you try to put
them in a scaled form, so if I consider here the spacing is about 0.1 millimeter, here is 1
millimeter here is 10 millimeters, here is 100 millimeters that means closed to 10 centimeters
and here is 1000 millimeters that means 1 meter so this is in log scale. So if the spacings
between the 2 cleavages or 2 deformed domains in the foliated rock is extremely closed or is

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closed to 0.1 millimeter or less, then we define it as slaty cleavage, that means you cannot
distinguish between the space between the two foliations or two layers of foliations.

However, if the spaces increase or how however if the spaces increase then we arrive to
strong foliation where the spacing is about the 1 millimeter then we arrive to moderate where
the spacing is 10 millimeters then weak then here we arrive to isolated stylolite which we
actually do not consider as foliation because if you remember in the first lecture we decided
that whatever is more than 10 centimeters the spacings between the two foliations if it is more
than 10 centimeters particularly for secondary foliations we do not consider it as a foliation.

Now there is also one important aspect in considering this slaty, strong, moderate and weakly
range because in the field not necessarily you are carrying the scale or you would be measure
so you generally you look at by your eyes but when you take this rock in the laboratory the
foliation you consider in the field as slaty cleavage or strong cleavage when you look at under
microscope you might find that this is actually a space cleavage, so this is also very scaled
dependent, though I have tried to give you some sort of scaling ideas of what is the foliation,
so in summary if you do not have much space between the two foliations then we assign the
name as continuous cleavage and if we have spaces between them that we can recognized be
infield or be under microscope we called it space cleavage.

(Refer Slide Time: 08:44)

Now based on whether this is continuous or spaced we classify it in a different way, so the
two nomenclature come in the picture one is the cleavage domain and another is
Microlithons, what are these two? these two are very important in the contest of the spaced
and continuous foliations or cleavage. Now cleavage domains are generally assigned to the

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fact that it describes the concentrated zones of fabrics which actually defines the cleavage or
the foliation, so if I see that a rock is foliated so what is defining the foliation or the zone
which is defining the foliation is the cleavage domain and what is in between the two
adjacent cleavage domains is microlithoms.

So in other way we can define now the continuous cleavage which is this one I have made an
illustration for you so if you do not find a space between the cleavage domains so in this case
all this striation like think this line is here you see this is the traces of the foliation on this
screen there is no spacing in between or at least this spaces are not very well defined or
visible so therefore we assigned it for continuous cleavage that means a cleavage which has
only cleavage domains but not microlithons at the scale we are looking at we call it
continuous cleavage.

Disjunctive cleavage on the other hand is where you have microlithons in between the two
adjacent cleavage domains, for example in this image the second one what we see here again
this is the trace of the foliations on the screen we are looking at, what we see here this this
grayish lines are your cleavage domains and in between the cleavage domains so if I consider
this area so what I am drawing with the red line is the cleavage domain and in this case this
are anastomosing and what is in between within the two cleavage domains here and here this
two are the microlithons, so in this entire illustration you have alternating microlithons and
cleavage domains in anatomizing manner.

In the third image what we see here that cleavage or foliations are defined by this lines which
are the traces of this very closely placed micro folds or micro curvatures, now we will see
later that this particular domains which are actually defining this domain this domain and this
domain which are actually defining the foliated nature of the rock, we will see latter that this
are mostly defined by the concentration of phyllosilicate mica and so on. And what we
having between this and this is the exposition or the disposition of this micro folds. Now
what is the difference between then this image and this image, the second one and the third
one, in the second one we see that this microlithons are actually isotropic, they do not have
any fabric within them.

However, here this is the microlithon domain between the 2 cleavage domain and we have
very consistence fabric within them so the disjunctive cleavage is if we do not have fabric
within the microlithons then we call it disjunctive cleavage, I repeat if the microlithons are
divide of any fabrics then this is disjunctive cleavage, on the other hand if the microlithons

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have some fabrics then this are crenulation cleavage, we will see some actual images soon.
So I believe now it is clear what is continuous cleavage, what is disjunctive cleavage and
what is crenulation cleavage.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:27)

Now we will see a series of photographs, so first we start with continuous cleavage in the
fields scale, the first image you see on the left side this is shell and as the title suggest that
this is slaty cleavage so you can actually figure out immediately that this is your secondary
foliation based on the appearance of this and they are continuous because you do not see any
space between this foliation they are very very much continuous foliation, in the second
image as well you may figure out that this may be there are some spaces between these two
but if you look closely then you will figure out that even within this mica schist which is the
photograph from again the chaibasa formation, actually this are like books the sheet of the
books or the pages of the books, it is very closely very densely spaced you don’t find the
thickness of the pages or you do not figure out the thickness of the pages by your naked eyes.

So these are the examples of continuous cleavage as you can see here I also give you a tip
continuous cleavages are generally the first cleavage that you form after the deformation, so
if i have sedimentary rock and I deform it or even an igneous rock the first foliation that
forms out of the formation is generally continuous in nature, the next generation foliations are
mostly space cleavage where the form surface is the continuously foliations itself.

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(Refer Slide Time: 15:21)

Now this is an optical photo micro graph, what you can see here that entire width of this
image is 1.8 millimeter, what you see here again this is also slaty cleavage and this is also in
a slate that is why the name came from slaty cleavage and you also can see you hardly can
figure out the space between the two foliation planes or the traces of this lines where you do
not find any space between them, it is very much continuous in this side and they are very
very closely spaced, so the sense of the foliation is certainly there but you can not figure out
the spaces between them so this is a continuous cleavage in microscale so we have seen
continuous cleavage in field scale in the previous slide and they more or less appear in a very
similar way in the micro scale only the scales are different but characteristics are very much
similar.

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(Refer Slide Time: 16:23)

Let us have a look to the disjunctive cleavage in the field scale, what we see here this are
some sort of solutions seams, so clearly these are your cleavage domains, they are
anastomosing in nature as you have seen in illustration in few slides back, few are strong few
are weak but what is important as you have defined disjunctive cleavages that within these
two cleavage domains if I consider this one and this one the material here is very much
isotropic in terms of their fabric the fabric is of zeroth dimension, so there is no fabric in
between just this anastomosing cleavage domains we see.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:23)

So this is disjunctive cleavage in the field scale, do we see it in the micro scale, the answer is
yes. So here is one of this microscopic image under cross polarized light and you see here

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that the cleavage domain here is quite broad where we see the concentration of biotite this
greenish mineral and in between and this is cleavage domain and this is as well and in
between what we have is the microlithon, now the microlithon we see there is virtually no
fabric and this microlithon at least in this optical image we see it is mostly composed of
quartz whether this is with biotite rich mineral phyllosilicates sometimes this kind of
structure where you have bands in micro scale or in field scales alternating bands of
phyllosilicate layers and quartz of (()) (18:45) layer again phyllosilicate layers and quartz of
(()) (18:49) layers and so on, this is also sometimes known as PQ foliation or PQ structure.

So this is known as P whether P stands or pelitic and these are known as Q whether Q stands
for quartz and together we call them sometimes PQ foliation or PQ structure, so this is
something new for you but again I repeat what we are learning here that we have cleavage
domains series of cleavage domains and in between we have microlithons and microlithons
here in this image have no fabric, so we saw this in the field scale and now we have seen in
the micro scale, again the mechanism are very similar only the scales are different.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:50)

Now we will see the crenulations cleavage in the field scale, this image is again from the
chaibasa formation and you may figure out little bit difficult to comprehend that where is the
crenulations cleavage, I hope I can convince you that. Now first let us figure out where is the
foliation here, as I said that continuous cleavage is generally the first order foliation, the first
foliation it generates and then comes the space cleavages and so on. So crenulations cleavage
in most of the cases are the second generation cleavage so this is they developed in response
to the second stage of the deformation.

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So if you see here we clearly can figure out that we have a foliation going on like this and this
is your right this is your continuous foliation. Now the question is where is the crenulation
cleavage then, now if you look carefully you may see that a fabric is being developed like this
and this is how you identify the fabric in the field you come closer you go little farther you
look at it and then you use the shadow and then you try to sense what sort of fabric I can
figure out from this rock. I believe now you are convinced that this red one is your
continuous foliation no issues that there is some sort of spaced fabric which is there defined
by this blue lines now if I write this one and I try to figure out what is there in between the
spaced fabric again this image is little blurred but I try to convince you but you will be
convinced when you look at in next image.

So what we see here if I try to look at that if I consider for example this layer and this layer
and this layer and this layer and so on we clearly see here that this continuous foliations they
are getting some sort of folded and then coming here like this we also can see it here and
these particular orientation is defining the cleavage so therefore this we can consider as
crenulations cleavage because I have cleavage domain and at the same time what I see here
that within the microlithons I have some sort of fabrics, the image you see at the background
of this lecture is actually a thin section of this rock and I believe you are now convinced that
this is the crenulations cleavage.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:21)

So here is an example of crenulations cleavage again from the micro scale this is 7 millimeter
is the width of this image and you clearly see that these are your cleavage domains and within
the cleavages if I consider here and here we certainly have some sort of fabrics going on

437
which are defining your cleavage and because we have in between the two cleavage domains
microlithons and microlithons have some fabrics so therefore this is crenulations cleavage.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:04)

Let us have a look to another example, so what we see here these are your again muscovite-
biotite rich zone and these are your cleavage domains, so these are your cleavage domain this
is also cleavage domain and this is also cleavage domain and in between you have
microlithon and so on. Now how are these microlithons yes we have a fabric here within this
microlithons and therefore this is the crenulations cleavage.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:52)

So if we try to figure out now that what is the relationship between the metamorphism and
the fabric development, I have summarize the table here which is very much comprehensive

438
for you so on the left side I have we have the rock names and we started with slate which is a
very low grade metamorphic rock then we slowly approach to phyllite, schist, gneiss and
migmatite so from top to bottom the grade of metamorphism has increased then how do they
look like under thin section is defined in the second column, you can see here slate is define
by very very fine grains so the grain size is here, relative grain size and it is generally
produce and this generally produces excellent cleavage so the comments are here, excellent
rock cleavage and we have learnt this must be the continuous cleavage.

Then in phyllite the grain size is fine and we have foliations that develop like this in schist,
this is medium to coarse grained rock, mostly micaceous minerals are present and we see
some sort of scaly foliations as we see here this way. The gneiss is again medium to coarse
grained rock or sometimes pretty coarse grained rock and here we mostly see compositional
bandings due to segregation of the minerals and if the segregation of the minerals happen in a
very very extensive way then what we form is migmatite due to the portial melting of the
gneiss or granitic rocks.

So here we see alternate dark and lighter colour band so this is essentially a banded rock but
here you do not see the primary foliation at all so it is mostly secondary foliations and this
banded rocks are characterized by zones of light and dark colour minerals, so they are
concentrated and segregated, the light coloured area are known as leucosomes, you know it
from your metamorphism classes and the dark colour zones are called layers are known as
melanosomes. So this is a very comprehensive table to guide you that what sort of foliations
or what sort of secondary cleavages you would expect with the degree of the metamorphism,
what would be the grain size, what is your parent rock and so on.

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(Refer Slide time: 27:44)

Now there are some other type of foliations where we will look at it after the basic
classification, these are very typical but they are very important to identify and go with. The
first one we take over is transposed foliation, the transposed layering is something which is
defined by the parts of the pre deformation surface so it could be bedding or older foliation
which are rotated independently into a new orientation after intense deformation of all this
part becomes some sort of sub parallel. What we see here in this illustration I took it from the
lecture of John Pierre Burg, so this was the initial orientation of the bedding plane and this is
the orientation of the foliation plane or cleavage plane they are perpendicular to each other.

Now if the beddings were parallel to this then this beddings actually, so I had initial bedding
like this and because of compression so this was my primary foliation layer, because of
compression it can fold very very tightly and then you develop your secondary foliation in
this manner, we will learn soon that this are actual (()) (29:24) cleavages. So this is exactly
what we see here, these are tightly folded and on this side if we cut it along the bedding
planes we see that the traces of this are something like this.

So they become so tight sometimes they are isolated and they actually also are parallel to the
foliation, so they transpose themselves to the foliation plane to the secondary foliation planes
and these are known as transposed foliations.

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(Refer Slide Time: 30:09)

So here are some examples as you can see here, so it mostly happens when the fold is very
tight and there are many ways you can recognize this transposition or transpose foliation, so
one is this foliation parallel to the bedding or secondary layers, second one is isolated intra
folial fold hinges we learnt about this term during our fold lectures then isolated boudins of
competent layers and of course extreme flattening of strain markers, so if you have a circular
strain marker and that got extremely flatten then it becomes like a line like a plane and
therefore like a line in a section and plane on the surface.

So what we see in this image, the first one you clearly can identify that this is your foliation
plane and if you carefully look at you will see that some tight folding is going on this way
and I do not know where did it go but yes here there might be some extremely tight folding.
So these are almost sub parallel to the foliation plane. In the second image if you try to look
at again we have the foliation plane as you can figure out is vertical in this case and you can
clearly figure out this white layer which gave you the fold like this and so on here as well this
is very interesting and so on this probably went up and then probably it has a rotation and
came back somewhere like this.

So this is extremely complex but you can see that this is almost align sub parallel to the
foliation and here as well we can see this is little difficult to figure out but we see here the
foliation is like this and this is the continuous cleavage or a continuous foliation and we see
some rootless sedimentary layers here then something here and here you actually can see
these are very very fine, so these are again also align with the secondary continuous
foliations. So sometimes these things did happen due to pressure solutions and the

441
transposition and these what you see here or what I have drawn here these are some folded
lenses or sand stone lenses which got folden and now they are aligned with the foliation
planes.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:23)

Now we will look at after the transpose foliations the most important part of starting foliation
is the foliation associated with folds. Now I have drawn a few sketches and you have also
seen that folds are associated with mostly foliations or vice versa. Now experiments and
detail case studies is of natural folds so that after about 30 percent of the bulk shortening
accommodated at the layer scale that mean you are shortening the layer by 30 percent then it
changes the grain orientation and then it triggers the appearance of foliations, you need at
least close to 35 percent or more bulk shortening to develop the fold induced foliation.

Now this foliations which are associated with the fold are known as axial planar foliation or
axial planar cleavage that develops parallel to the axial plane or in other words this is first
time you are stating it xy plane of the strain ellipsoid of the folds and both are usually
perpendicular to maximum compressional stress at the time of deformation. So what we mean
by this that if I have a layer like this and we deform it this way then if the layer get folded
like this then clearly if I had a sphere here then sphere would turn to an ellipsoid at least in
this case I can consider that this is my x direction, this is my y direction and because this is
the shortening direction so this is the z direction.

So actual planar cleavage would form in this manner or there will be series of lines, so you
clearly see this plane this actual planar cleavage plane which i am now sort of making some
hatches, this plane is actually parallel to the xy plane of the strain ellipsoid. Now whether this

442
is x direction or this one is x direction we will figure it out latter but in this case yes as I have
drawn this is the x direction but essentially this is your z direction and this is your xy plane,
so actual planar foliation most of the cases are parallel to the xy plane of the local strain
ellipsoid and both actual planar cleavage and the xy plane are generally perpendicular to
maximum compressive stress at the time of deformation.

Now when you talk about this actual planar foliations it has many many applications but
today we will look at on many any structural features but today we will look at mostly three
aspects of this, one is cleavage or foliation refraction, another Is cleavage or foliation fan and
another is transaction of cleavage and foliation. Now refraction and fans are more or less a
very similar process but we see them in a different scale and transaction is a different process.
Now we will look at all these three in detail in this lecture but before that let us talk more
about actual planar foliation for a while.

(Refer Slide Time: 37:33)

The main structural reason of actual plane foliation is the parallel or sub parallel alignment of
platy minerals, so this we probably have understood right now, now foliations are
systematically associated with tectonic deformation and are mostly common in all grades of
Metamorphic rocks and the mechanism which is believed to be behind the development of
the foliation is the ductile flattening. Now what we see here in this illustration that this pink
layer is the stiff layer and this yellow layer is the soft layer and if we deform it this way this
has a series of micaceous minerals like we have seen like here this black lines here and if we
shorten it then we see the horizontal trace foliations where all this little black minerals they
try to align along the extension direction of this deformation, so if shortening in this way then

443
try to they try to align in this way and then we developed a foliation which is known as actual
planar foliation.

(Refer Slide Time: 38:47)

We will have a look on some photographs, before stone as we can see these are your primary
foliation and the primary foliations are curved so they get folded and we certainly see the
series of continuous cleavage developed here. So these are your actual planar foliations.

(Refer Slide Time: 39:22)

The next one is one of my favorite photographs, I took it from British geological survey web
page, so you see these are your traces of the bedding planes or primary foliations you can
think of, it has some (()) (39:50) and so on. But so nicely you see the actual planar foliations
have formed in this image and it is a very similar mechanism the rocks are different but

444
whenever we buckle a rock or buckle some layers competent in competent layers we
generally form a foliation and these are known as actual planar foliations.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:19)

Now let us talk about these three terms that we have just talked about cleavage refraction,
cleavage fanning and transaction of the cleavage. We will first take over cleavage refraction.
Now cleavage refraction is something very interesting that do happen particularly when you
have folding in multilayers where the two layers or the 2 - 3 different layers have different
grain sizes or different compositions, so that means there rheology is different, now if that
happens then this changes the angular relationship between the foliation and bedding across
the lithological boundaries and therefore we have we do not see the foliations are very
straight, so they go in a zigzag manner and this is known as foliation or cleavage refraction
and this refraction mostly occurs because of the viscosity contrast along alternating layers
which produces the differential strain at different places in different ways.

So if I try to summarize it, say for example I have homogeneous body, I have a circle we
have learnt all about it and I deform it by both compression and shear then I know that this
would take a shape like this, I am sorry this should got little shorten as well and this ellipse
would this circle would take a shape of this ellipse but if I have two different layers, say this
one is competent and the top one is incompetent, say this is sand stone and say this is mica
rich rock.

Now initially I have the same circle I have drawn here and I am applying the same
deformation here and if we deform it both of them would get will get sheared however
because mica rich rocks are rheologically weaker this ellipse after deformed area would not

445
be this ellipse here would not be as systematic as we have drawn here because this would
differ more, this ellipse would be like this and here it would deform less. So we will get a
local variation of the strain ellipse due to rheological contrast. So clearly here the long axis is
like this and here the long axis is like this and this is the reason of your cleavage refraction,
so in incompetent layers or layers like mica rich layers the angle is less and in strong or
incompetent layers this angle is high.

(Refer Slide Time: 44:25)

Let us have a look on some examples, what we see here I made a sketch on the other side but
you can clearly figure out that this is your primary foliation layer and what is overall coming
from this side to this side is your secondary foliation that is the general trend this dash line I
have drawn. But if you look closely here as I have drawn here that at this area this cleavages
are little bit deflected again these are coming at low angle here, here this are at high angle and
again here they are going at low angle, so it appears like it is refracted and therefore this is
known as cleavage refraction and from this image we can figure out that this has more mica
than this area and I was in the field so I know this was mostly sand rich layer and this was
mica rich layer. So this is the classic example of the cleavage refraction.

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(Refer Slide Time: 45:59)

Now if this cleavage refraction do happens systematically in a folded layer then it gives a
fantastic pattern which is known as cleavage fanning. Now what happens you see that this is
he fold so here I would have a pattern like this, the low angle here on the other side I would
have pattern like this, so over all the foliations would try to diverge away from the core on
the other hand in the competent layers they would try to converge towards the core and this
makes a fantastic wavy pattern all over the fold, of course you have to see the entire fold and
this is known as cleavage fanning and this happens due to cleavage refraction.

(Refer Slide Time: 46:49)

So in cleavage refraction actual plane foliations typically fan that is the display a radiating
pattern within the fold. The fan could be convergent or divergent, depending on whether the

447
foliation converges towards the core or towards the convex side of the fold respectively. Now
competent layers tend to develop parallel folds in which strain axes are high angles to the
layer of the boundaries, thereby generating convergent fans. The incompetent layers on the
other hand tend to develop congruent folds with large amount of shear imposed adjacent
competent layers and consequently fostering diverging fans.

Now a series of terminologies are here like parallel folds then congruent folds and so on we
will learn about it later but I believe you understood the mechanism if the layers are strong
layers that means competent layers, the foliations would converge towards the core and if the
layer is incompetent layer or weaker layer the foliations would diverge away from the core.

(Refer Slide Time: 48:19)

So here is the cartoon diagram but we will see the real field photographs in this slide. The
first one is the field photograph as you can see that this is your competent layer or all this
alternating layers are your competent layer, here you can clearly see the foliation is not that
much developed but you can figure out they are converging towards the core, even here if I
try to figure out the trace of the foliations at least I this section is something like that and I
can figure out these are converging toward the core.

However if I try to look at this incompetent layer which is this one this area it got little bit
eroded but I clearly can identify that these are diverging away from the fold core and
therefore these are your perfect example of your cleavage fanning where in the convergent
layers incompetent layers they are converging towards the core, in the incompetent layers
they are diverging away from the core, this is also a very classic example of thin section a
photograph of a thin section, the photograph from John Ramsay, we can see this is this

448
pinkish layer is a quartz layer and this is of course a strong layer compared to this micaceous
layer outside the greenish one, you can clearly see that if this I consider this is a fold core the
layers are diverging away and this is absolutely what is known as cleavage or foliation
fanning.

(Refer Slide Time: 50:00)

The cleavage transaction is something different. So what happens you have form the fold you
form the axial planar cleavage but the fold is continuously rotating due to shearing or some
sort of oblique deformation. So therefore the axial planes or the axial planar cleavage would
also tend to rotate and they not necessarily track the axial plane of this fold. So in this
illustration if you see that this is actually your axial plane or this is the actual axial plane,
however this foliation is drawn by this blue shade plane is not tracking the axial plane it is
slightly deviated and this is known as cleavage transaction. So transaction is generally
attributed to a rotating strain field during folding which eventually pre folding initiation of
foliation and fold axes developing oblique to the bulk flattening direction.

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(Refer Slide Time: 51:520)

Now we more or less have covered the basic terminologies related to foliation. What is left is
the mechanism of formation foliations, how do they form. We will not go into the detail of
this part but I just give you some example so I just give you some examples. So there are four
measure micro mechanisms responsible for the development of the foliation in the different
rocks, and these four measure mechanism they can work separately or in conjugation.

The first one is shape controlled mechanical rotation of preexisting, in equant grains or
fabrics. The second one is modification of grain shape and volume through pressure solution,
the third one is modification of grain shape by intra crystal slip or diffusion if you remember
that the slip system or diffusion creep they produce some sort of shape preferred or crystal
preferred orientation this is exactly what we are talking about and the fourth and the final one
is growth of in equant grains in a preferred dimensional orientation under deviatoric stress
field.

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(Refer Slide Time: 52:45)

So all these four mechanisms are actually summarize by fantastic summary diagram by
Paschier and Trouw in the year 2005 book of micro tectonic, so here the mini texture or mini
features geological features which got deform this way, compress this way and got extend
this way and you can see they all them are showing some sort of fabric development along
this direction. You can look at this image in detail so for example here you have the
elongated grains which were initial spherical, you have some sort of pressure shadows, and
we have grain uniaxial unidirectional grain growth here so multiple crystals, single crystals
came you have unidirectional grain growth so you have a nucleus here and because of this
compression the grain is growing mostly in this direction and so on so this is a fantastic
summary diagram defining or describing the formation mechanism of foliations in different
rocks.

So I conclude this lecture here on foliation and in the next lecture we will discuss the linear
feature of the different rocks in other ways we will talk about lineation. Thank you very
much, see you in the next lecture.

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 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Lecture 19- Linear Fabrics (Lineation)

Hello everyone. Welcome back again to this online Structural Geology NPTEL course.
And today we are in our lecture number 19 and we are learning foliation and lineation-
linen and linear fabrics. And we are at the last lecture of this week and we will learn
lineation today.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:50)

So, the topics we will cover. We will first define the linear fabrics. Then we will classify
lineations and try to provide some sort of general descriptions of linear fabrics. And then
we will mostly look at some special types of linear fabrics or lineations, associated with
most of the structural features and what are their uses and so on.

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(Refer Slide Time: 01:02)

So, lineation as it is defined is a general term to describe any repeated parallelly aligned
linear elements in a rock. And as we have defined foliation, lineation is also something
that has to occur homogeneously in the rock system and at the same time penetratively.
But there are few, a few special types of lineations which are not penetrative. We will
consider this as a special case. And lineation like foliation, so we talked about could be-
primary and essentially secondary which are formed due to the deformation.

So the lineations which are primary, these are mostly as we have learnt for foliation as
well. It could be igneous or sedimentary fabric element. So these are mostly defined by
oriented grain, flute casts, ripple marks and so on. We will have few photographs to show
you. But in structural zoology as we deal with the deformed rocks, so we particularly are
interested and concerned with the lineations which are produced by deformation.

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(Refer Slide Time: 02:24)

And if we talk about a primary lineations, then here are some examples. So in igneous
rocks, you can see lineations due to magma flow. So you see that series of linear features
are being developed here due to the flow of magma. Then in sedimentary rocks there are
series of different lineations, which are of primary origin. Say, these are the ripple marks.
So crest of the ripples, you can consider them as a linear feature or a linear fabric.

Then oriented clasts, so for example, if you consider all this clasts and statistically if you
try to figure out, so their orientations give you a kind of lineation in the rock. And some
sedimentary features like flute cast and so on, which you see in this illustration, these are
also considered a kind of a primary lineation. But as I said, we will mostly deal with
lineations associated with deform rocks. So we will directly switch to that.

454
(Refer Slide Time: 03:29)

But before that will look at some of the characteristics of a linear feature in deformed
rocks. So what is very interesting is that lineations that we see in the deformed rocks or
lineations which are produced during ductile deformation, they actually lie on a foliation
planes. So if I have to find a lineation, I have to see them on the foliation planes. Or if I
try to measure or take some structural information out of these lineations, I have to find
them and then interpret them when they occur on the foliation planes. In any other
sections, they do not provide any meaningful information.

So it also implies the fact that the lineations are therefore as penetrative as foliations.
Now a single deformation in case of foliation, it produces mostly a single set of
foliations. But in case of lineations, a single deformation may produce a number or a
series of sets of lineations with different orientations in a single foliation plane. So this is
very interesting. We learn about it soon.

Then lineations as I talked about, they are mostly penetrative, if there in, if there forming
in the ductile manner. However, there are some special types of foliations. They are
visible only on specific surfaces in a rock body. Some lineations are excellent in
characterizing or in interpreting the strain axes or kinematics trajectory. And there are

455
few, they just remain as lineations and they have virtually no relationship or no
kinematics significance with the overall strain of this region.

(Refer Slide Time: 05:24)

So with this context, we will see that the lineations, therefore generally can form in four
major ways. So there are many mechanisms you can think of that explain the
development of lineations. But if we consider the formation of the lineations, mostly they
are formed either by passive manner or by active manners. And these are listed here. So,
one is essential dimensional elongation or stretching.

Second one is intersection of two planar fabrics. If you remember in our stereo net
lectures or dip strike lectures, we define that a line can be defined by two intersecting
planes. So it is exactly this one. We will see. This is known as intersection lineations
soon and then directional mineral growth. And of course, this is formed by passively. So,
passive rotation and or fragmentation of mineral grains or some oriented layers. So, these
four are the basic mechanisms of the formation of lineations.

456
(Refer Slide Time: 06:28)

Now, this we also have learnt. I just wanted to review that this is a plane. And in this
plane if I consider this as a plane and if this is north and if these are linear features, then
this angle this, that you measure on vertical plane is a plunge of the lineation. Then with
respect to north, so if this is north, then if you measure it horizontal plane, this is the
trend of the lineation.

And if you measure this angle of the lineation on this plane itself, then gives you pitch or
rake. So in summary, the attitude of a linear structure is described by its trend which is
the compass direction of the lineation projected on a horizontal plane and its plunge. The
plunge is the angle made by the linear structure with the horizontal in the vertical plane
parallel to its trend. And the rake or the pitch is the angle between a line lying on a plane
with the horizontal strike of the same plane.

Therefore, it is an angle that you do not measure on the vertical or horizontal plane but on
the plane that contains the linear feature. And this angle sometimes is often measured
mostly to figure out the slickenside striations on a fault plane and so on. And for
example, in this case, if this is the north then we can figure out. So this is the linear
feature and this is how we plot it in the stereonet, okay.

457
(Refer Slide Time: 08:17)

Now, to classify lineations, I must say that there are number of schemes in classifying
lineation. So, I will show you three different schemes. And I will also tell you that these
schemes are mostly based on the, based on some practical purposes, the way you define
it. But each and every type of lineations has their own characteristics. However, as
geologists or as structural geologists, we try to group them together to better understand
their behavior and mechanics and also their descriptions.

So in scheme 1, we generally classify them in three different categories. One is object

lineation. Second one is platelet lineation and in the next slide we will see third one, is a
trace lineation. So in the object lineations that defines that the grains or the minerals, they
are objectified to define the lineation. So, the first one in this diagram is the aggregate
lineation, that means aggregation of minerals do define the lineation along a certain
direction.

Now, I have given this in three dimensional block diagrams, simply because you see that
on this plane, this orientation of this fine grain blue crystals are defining your lineation.
But on this plane, you see that these are not continued. So these are like this. So you can
imagine that you have a block. And in this block, you have inserted a series of cylindrical
rods or so on. So if you insert planes, then it would become foliation. But if you insert

458
some rods, then it is lineation. And if you can imagine, the rod is actually aggregate of
some fine grain minerals or so on. Then this is aggregate lineation and this is an object
lineation.

Here in this case, we see that at least in this plane, these crystals are oriented along this
direction. So this orientation of these crystals is defining the lineation here. Again you
see, on this face there is virtually no fabric or no directional features here. So again these
are just some oriented grains and they are oriented along a particular direction or they got
stretched along a particular direction. Therefore, these two object lineations are also club
and said stretching lineation.

Now in the platelet lineation, what we see that some minerals, they grow or they appear
there as elongated features within the matrix. As we can see here, the blue grains are
defining this. This could be mostly mica and so on. And these are defined by a single
grain or a cluster of grains. And therefore, these are known as grain lineation.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:42)

And if we go to the next slide and continue the scheme 1 classification as I talked about,
the third one is the trace lineation. So here these are mostly intersection of different
planes. And this intersection defines the lineation. So in the first block diagram, what we
see here, again the same block. And we see this blue and this little lighter brown two

459
layers. So, this one and this one, you can imagine that these are bedding planes which are
inclined.

So in this plane, you can consider this as a lineation. And this lineation is the intersection
between this yellow plane and this bedding plane. In this plane as well, we can consider
this line as an intersection lineation. And this plane as well, we can consider this line as
an intersection lineation. And these are sometimes very important in figuring out the
orientation of the actual bedding plane. So you have this lineation. You have this
lineation.

And you, and by using the stereonet, you can figure out what is the dip and strike of the
plane, of this blue plane here. Now crenulations lineation is something that is defined by
the axis of the crenulations. So for example here, this in this illustration what I try to
show here that this area or this block is highly crenulated as it shows. You can consider
this as intersection lineations. However, the hinge of this folds here or troughs of this fold
here, they are defining on this surface. So these are known as crenulation lineation.

And this is how we define in Scheme 1, this object lineation, trace lineation and the
second one that we have discussed here, platelet lineation. So object lineation, mostly are
defined by some aggregation of grains and so on. Platelet grains or platelet lineations are
defined by the oriented individual grains. And then finally, this is number 2. And finally
the number 3 – trace lineations are defined by mostly intersection of two different
structural features or geological features.

460
(Refer Slide Time: 14:28)

And then in scheme two you can figure out, you can define it is as structural lineation and
mineral lineations. So, structural lineations are defined by the preferred orientations of a
linear structure contained within the rock. And mineral lineations consist of a preferred
orientation of either individual elongate mineral grains or elongate polycrystalline
aggregates. So you can see that these two are more or less similar scheme of Scheme 1.
But some people prefer to define or describe lineations, classify lineations in this way.

And in the scheme 3, it is very straight forward non-penetrative lineation and penetrative
lineation. So, non-penetrative lineations, when you see them only on a very specific
surface. And penetrative lineations, they generally are present everywhere in the rock and
therefore, they are penetrative. Now the choice of this classification schemes essentially
depends on the nature of the work.

As I said that it is based on essentially how you are seeing them in the field and how you
are observe them and how you would like to describe them. Now in this lecture, I am not
going to follow any of this classification schemes. What I try, that I will try to give you
some sort of basic ideas of the lineations. Their basic features, genesis and at the same
time their tectonic significances.

461
(Refer Slide Time: 16:08)

So, let us first have a look of one non penetrative lineation. And these are known as
slickensides. So slickensides are rock surfaces naturally polished by motion of the faults.
What happens, if you have a fault going on. On the fault plane when one block move past
the other block, then on this surface the one block rubs the other surface. And the rub;
and this rubbing happens along a particular direction.

And due to this rubbing, this surface is characterized by a number of lines. And these
lines are known as slickenlines. And slickenlines, because it happens only one surface or
a series of surfaces in a very narrow zone, they are confined to the surfaces. So therefore,
they are not a penetrative fabric elements. And these slickensides are mostly
characterized by ridges and grooves or striations.

And they are parallel to each other. So these are fine linear channels made by shear
abrasion of one fault wall with the other. And they also indicate the direction of the slip
vector. For example, if we see here, we see that these are different planes. So this is one
plane, then this is another plane, this is another plane and so on. So, successive steps are
there, but this happened in a very narrow area. And you see this striations.

462
So, these are you slickenlines and these slickenlines also indicate the fault slip happened
along this direction. And here as well, they are characterized by this orientation. So you
can figure out this is a lineations. And then there are some steps. And these steps are
very-very important to figure out what is the actual vector. The way or the direction the
fault plane has moved past the other plane.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:07)

Now on the fault surface as we talked about, that it can be characterized by many
different ways. Here are there four schematic illustrations. So, one is very simple as we
have seen in the previous image. So it is the movement of structures within the brittle
fault plane. So you only found a striated ridges and grooves, like alternating very-very
fine ridges and grooves.

And if you have some sort of clast or something like that a broken pieces, a broken piece
on this fault surface, then this also gets drag. And then you generate something, which is
called smear shadow or groove with clast. This is also possible to visualize in the field, if
you are lucky. Then fault planes are also characterized by number of shear fractures. So
riddle shear fractures is one of them.

And if they perform the step like features, we will learn about riddle shear fractures in
our fault lecture. But they are generally formed if they are connected to each other, then

463
they form this like steps. And these are also characteristics of lineations. And you can
also figure out that the lineations should form in this direction. And you can also form
some sort of crescent shaped cavities or lunette fractures. So they are, they appear like
this.

And they also indicate, what was the direction of the fault movement? So, these four are
very important. Not necessarily, you see all of them on a single fault surface. But in
different fault surfaces, based on their kinematics, based on their mineralogy, based on
the morphology of the fault surface itself, you can get these features either in the single
plane or in different planes. So with these we finish the surface lineations or non
penetrative lineations.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:24)

So we now switch to the penetrative lineations and we first start with the intersection
lineations. Now, as I have described before that intersection lineations are nothing but
intersection between two planes. So most rocks, which are folded, particular we see in
folded rocks in low grades with concomitant development of an axial planar foliations,
they display this intersection lineation between bedding and the actual plane foliation.

The trace of the bedding on the intersecting foliation plane commonly appears as color
stripes generally we call it a striping lineation. And this is something very interesting. So

464
what we see here, that if this is the bedding plane, the orientation of the bedding plane
defined by this. So this grey layers here, these are your bedding planes. And the foliations
are oriented like this. Now this is your foliation plane.

On this foliation plane, the bedding planes appear like stripes. So therefore, this is known
as intersection lineation or striping lineation. However, on this surface, which is parallel
to the bedding plane you see only the intersection lineation. So intersection lineation on
the foliation plane would give you striping lineation of the bedding planes. And
intersection lineation on the bedding plane would give you the traces of the foliations
itself that defines the lineation.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:25)

Now, this has a very interesting significance with the fold morphology. So, how does it
work? We will look at this image later. But let us figure out the fact that if we have a fold
like this, let me draw it with two different colors. So if this is the fold, then the foliations
or actual planar foliations, as you can guess would be a plane like this, okay. And there
would be series of such planes isn't it.

And so on. So these are your axial planes. And these axial planes would cut or would
touch the bedding planes. So, on the bedding plane, if I figure out, so there would be the
series of traces of these foliations. So these are your intersection lineation. Now, if I take,

465
for example, this plane and wipe the and cut it in halves. So therefore, it should look like,
that means I have this plane here, the same plane. And then I have this red layer folded.
And of course, I also have the green layer folded. Now what would happen on this plane?

This is your foliation plane, isn't it? This is your actual planar foliation. Now in this
foliation plane, the red layer would appear like this. And the green layer would appear
like this. So this is also intersection lineation, this line, this line and so on. But these
appear as striping lineation. And here, these are your the trace of the lineations. Now we
see that the trace of axial planar foliation on the bedding plane, in this case, if we
measure their orientations.

So this is trace of axial planar foliation on bedding plane. And this is trace of bedding
planes on actual planar foliation. What is important here that in both cases, they would if
you can measure their trend and plunge, they would give you a similar orientation. So if
you measure intersection lineations trend and plunge in this case, and if you measure
intersection lineations or striping lineation trend and plunge in this case, their values
would be absolutely similar.

We didn't learnt fold yet. But I tell you that doesn't matter whether you are measuring this
or you are measuring this, they would always indicate the orientation of the concerned
fold. But you have to measure them either this way or this way. That means the trace of
the actual planar cleavage on bedding plane or the trace of the bedding plane on the
actual planar cleavage.

Now, let us focus on this photograph, which I collected from the internet because this is
spectacular. You can clearly see this surface is very much similar to this surface. So this
is your bedding plane, right. Now on this bedding plane, these are your traces of this
actual planar cleavage. And this keeps the orientation of the fold axis, we will learn about
it later.

The summary of this slide is that intersection lineation between the bedding plane and the
corresponding axial plane or cleavage gives you the orientation of the fold axis. So this is
very important. But lineation must be measured on the foliation plane or on the bedding

466
plane of the same deformation episode. So this is important. If you measure in different
places, then you will not get the fold axial. You will get something else.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:57)

Now if this intersection lineation between bedding plane and the cleavage is very much
intense or very much prominent, then what happens? Then you tend to break them up
along some elongated fragments. As you can see here, you have bedding surface this one.
And then you have foliation plane this one. So if they intersect them this way. If you, if
you think of that you are chopping a potato, in one side like this and the other side like
this. So one is your bedding plane, another is your foliation plane. The result is some long
sticks of potato, which you make and which you may use for French fries. And these are
elongated staff and these are known as in geological structures as pencil structure.

So as you can see here. In this photograph that some, lot of things are here. I am not very
confident about the orientation of the bedding plane and so on. But this is certainly one of
the orientations of the foliation plane. And this must be the bedding planes. And when
they interact with the other way, you develop the pencil structure, which is a kind of
lineation.

467
(Refer Slide Time: 30:31)

Now crenulation lineation, as we have learnt about it. So it is the lineation defined by the
hinges of the micro folds. So small scale rippling on an earlier foliation and occasionally
bedding very-very fine laminated, very-very fine thinly laminated bedding planes, they
sometimes produce an obvious linear array parallel to the closely spaced and regular
wrinkle hinges.

And these are known as crenulation lineation. The crenulation lineation is a fabric
element parallel to these hinges. And most of the schist, they exhibit examples of this
type of lineations. So crenulation lineations are mostly generation or the indicative the
presence of the second stage of the deformation. As you can see here, these are the folds,
micro folds and their hinge lines are defining a linear feature. And these are known as
crenulation lineation.

468
(Refer Slide Time: 31:42)

So here are some photographs, fill photographs and some photographs from scanning
electron microscope. So what we see here? You see these wrinkles here. And these are
your crenulation lineation. You can see this also in a different way, here in this image.
Again these are your crenulation lineation. Here as well, you see this are some sort of
asymmetric crenulations here.

And these are the hinges of this asymmetric micro folds. And they are also defining the
crenulation lineation. This is scanning electron microscope photography of some
experiments. And you can see the crenulations are there. And these are their hinges,
hinge lines which are arranged parallel to each other and defining the crenulation
lineation.

469
(Refer Slide Time: 32:53)

Now, there are two more important lineations which are associated with folds. One is
mullions and another is rods. So, mullions are generally coarse or columnar corrugations
of the bedding surfaces that separate a competent and an incompetent layer in a folded
surface. So, their ribbed or grooved appearances is often cuspate is this one. And they
generally represent the broad, smoothly curved convex surfaces, as you can see here.

And these broad smooth surfaces are separated by very narrow, sharp, inward closing
hinges, this one okay. So this alternate round hinge and sharp hinge features, they
produce in the third dimension a lineation and which is known as mullions. So we have
cusp here. This hinge, narrow hinge and then we have lobe here, which is broad hinge.
The rods on the other hand, they are elongate, cylindrical and mono-mineralic bodies of
segregated minerals.

And these are mostly defined by quartz, calcite, pyrite and so on, these highly mobile
minerals or highly; the minerals that can get highly dissolved. And these are generally
observed in the hinges of the folds. And rods, they may have any some sort of a profile
outline from elliptical to irregular features within the fold. And they generally at parallel
to the local fold axis, their orientations and they often are isolated fold hinges, detached
from their limbs.

470
(Refer Slide Time: 34:58)

So the mullions, they look like something like this. So you can see that these are lobes.
This broad, wide hinges. And then we have cusps going on here, this sharp thing. And
this, in third dimension defining a lineation, these are known as mullions. The quartz rods
are something like this. They look like in the field. So these are the segregation of quartz
and you can see very nicely the folds and so on going on here.

(Refer Slide Time: 35:46)

471
The stretching lineation is another type of a very special lineation and they are formed by
the parallel alignment of individual detrital grains, aggregates or fragments of any size
that have been elongated and or rotated during deformation. So that means that we have
some random shaped grains in the pre existing rocks. And during deformation, these
grains or these clasts, they got stretched or deformed along a particular direction.

And if that happens, then the deformed grains or clasts define a lineation. And this
lineation is known as stretching or extension or elongation lineation. And sometimes
these elongated grains or grain aggregates also define preferred shape orientation. As you
can see here, this is the maximum stretching direction lambda 1, quadratic elongation.
And therefore, you see that the grains are rotated, the grains are stretched in this
direction.

Few grains, stiffer grains, they also are broken forming some micro budding and so on.
However in this section, which is your lambda 2, lambda 3 plane, you do not have the
stretching or anything. They remain more or less circular. And this is your foliation
plane. And you can see that this lineation, if you talk about, this is the foliation plane.
This lineation is on the foliation surface and this is known as stretching lineation.

(Refer Slide Time: 37:35)

472
Here are some photographs of stretching lineations. So conglomerate beds, when they
deform, you see the conglomerate clasts. You see the clast in the conglomerate here, they
are stretched and defining a lineation on the surface. Here as well, some elongated grains
defining the lineation here. Here as well. This is the fantastic stretching lineation.

These are old grains which got stretched during deformation. And even some voids in
lime stones, these were initially circular. And they are now stretched to define a lineation,
a stretching lineation in this direction. You can also use this image for measuring your
strain using RFI method.

(Refer Slide Time: 38:46)

Now the mineral lineations, on the other hand are essentially minerals which formed
during the metamorphism. So stretching lineation, the minerals or the lineation defining
minerals are older grains. They are from the parent rocks. But in mineral lineations, the
defining grains should form during the deformation. So they are metamorphic minerals
and they often grow with a preferred crystallographic and dimensional orientation that is
with their long axis in parallel alignment.

So, mineral lineation are delineated by long axis of individual, elongate or platy crystal,
for example, amphibole crystal, sillimanite minerals and so on. Or mineral aggregates
aligned and sub-parallel with the foliation plane. Generally we see them under

473
microscopes. But sometimes we see in filed scale as well. I will show you a few
photographs. But what we see here. If this is the foliation plane and again this is your
stretching direction. This is the foliation plane.

So this metamorphic minerals, these minerals, these were formed the long axis are
aligned along the stretching direction. And this one is a very special one. This is the
pressure shadow. You will learn about it soon. So these are mineral lineations. The
fundamental difference between stretching and mineral lineation, I believe you have
understood it but I repeat it again. A mineral lineation is always defined by new
metamorphic minerals and the stretching lineations are defined by minerals which were
previously in the rock.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:47)

Okay, so here is an example of mineral lineation. The first of all what we see here that
this is the trace of the bedding plane. If you have not figured it out, I just tell you. These
are the trace of the bedding planes on this foliation plane. Now this foliation plane is
characterized by crenulation lineation. You can figure out, they are like this. And very
interestingly, mineral lineations you can see, these are oriented like this.

These yellow lines, so the minerals you can see, these are elongated, stretched and they
are also defining a lineation. I wipe this one out. You have a look and figure it out, if my

474
visualization was right or wrong. So you have crenulation lineation this way and you
have mineral lineation this way. Have a concentrated look and figure it out, if you can see
both.

(Refer Slide Time: 42:21)

Now, mineral lineation can also can form in some areas, in inter boudinage spaces as you
can see here. These are getting stretched. And you also can see it under microscope.

(Refer Slide Time: 42:35)

475
So, here you see this stretched new grain, here. These are your mineral lineations. And
also, when we have vent filling then quartz grains are pretty elongated. They grow in the
open veins in elongated manner. And these are also your mineral lineation, at least in this
domain of visualization.

(Refer Slide Time: 43:14)

Now, we will see the mineral lineation in a different way as well. Not necessarily they are
oriented or they grow along the directions. Sometimes what happens, if you have a pre
existing clast, the clast is not deformed but because of the deformation the clast is rigid
and around this clast two little caps on the two opposite sides due form. And these are
known as pressure shadows. In other ways, if you have deformation in this manner, then
everything flows this way.

If you remember the flow path of the (())(44:00) here, so clearly because this is rigid, you
have a shadow zone here like this. Now this shadow zones are low pressure zones. So the
fluid from all over the places can come and deposit here. And then later, these fluids can
help to precipitate some crystal. And these crystals can be oriented along these pressure
shadow directions. So, if we have multiple of this, then you define a lineation which is
known as pressure shadow mineral lineation or fringes.

476
We will not go into the detail of the mechanisms of these. But there are two types of
pressure shadow or fringes. One is syntaxial fringe and another is antitaxial fringe. In
syntaxial fringe is, the fibers of fibers are generally same of the core. So, here is a core
and the fibers. These are of the same composition. And then they also grow from the side
of the wall rock. In antitaxial fringe, the composition of the fibers are different. And they,
different from the core and they are actually similar of the wall rock. And this minerals
this time in antitaxial fringe, they grow between the core and fiber.

(Refer Slide Time: 45:35)

And there are many possibilities of looking at this pressure shadow and fringes. So it
could be displacement controlled and it could be phase controlled. That means the
orientation of the fringes can be governed by the overall strain features or the orientation
of the fringes could be governed by the shape of the clast that we are talking about. So
here is a table. If you are interested, you can look at all these things in the book of
Passchier and Trouw, Microtectonics 2005.

477
(Refer Slide Time: 46:09)

But here I give you some examples or images. You can see these are the clasts and these
are the fringes or pressure shadows. So you can see that in the entire piece of this rock,
these are defining a lineation. Here as well, you have some pyrites here as the clast, as a
rigid clast and fine fringes are formed with quartz grains. Here as well, we have an iron
oxide as the core and these fine quartz fibers are defining a kind of lineation in the area of
observation.

478
(Refer Slide Time: 46:59)

You can also have different types of things. Not necessarily you develop some fibers. So
here this is a core. And you see some large crystals are deposited here. In this case as
well, you have a large crystal which is your clast and you see in the pressure shadow you
have some phyllosilicates deposited.

(Refer Slide Time: 47:25)

479
So, with this note, I finish this lecture, and this week’s lecture. So we learnt foliation in
two lectures and lineation in one lecture. I gave you a very basic idea of these two topics.
But we will continue with these two, when we will learn fold and foldings, which is the
topic of our next week's lecture. And then also we will use the foliation and lineation
extensively when we will study ductile shear zone. Thank you very much. I will see you
in the next week.

480
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Lecture 20 - Fold and Folding: Basic Concept

(Refer Slide Time: 00:30)

Hello everyone, hope you are doing welcome back again to another lecture on this structural
geology in NPTEL online course. We are also in a new week and we are on our lecture
number 20 and in this week will be learning folds and folding. So this particular lecture we
will focus on the basic concepts of folds. The next lecture would mostly we will see the
classification of folds and the final lecture will dedicate to understand the different
mechanisms, the way the folds form in nature and at the same time we learn after that, how
different folds interfere each other or we call it superposed folding or superposed
deformation.

481
(Refer Slide Time: 1:20)

So in this lecture we will mostly focus as I said the basic concepts of folds and folding and
we will cover first we will define the fold in single and multi-layered systems and then we
will look at or try to understand some basic terminologies associated with folds description.
Now at this point before we go to this defining fold, I would like to remind you that this
lecture and the next lecture as well would consist of a lot of new terminologies that we
generally use to describe the folded structure and these terminologies are very very important
and essential, not only to understand the folded structure but also to communicate your ideas
or your understanding to someone else. So, you may figure out that it is little boring because
it would include lots of terminologies, their definitions and so on, but I request you to keep
patients and listen to this lecture carefully and try to understand the terminologies, their
physical significance and meaning.

482
(Refer Slide Time: 2:35)

So first let us try to define that what is fold? So the concept and definition of fold. Now as it
is written here in this slide, fold is represented by a curved surface or a stack of curved
surfaces whose initial curvature has increased by deformation. Now, apparently this sentence
looks very simple, but it has some very important words which we need to remember in
defining or in understanding the fold. The first and 4 most important term or phrase of words
is increased by deformation. In many notes or texts, you may find that fold is defined in such
a way that a fold is undulations on earth’s surfaces.

Well this definition is not wrong, but essentially it does not describe the fold that we try to
understand in the subject structural geology. Any curvature is not necessarily any undulation
is not necessarily a fold. The curvature or undulation whatever word you use this has to be
produced by deformation. So that means that if I have an initial curvature, that may not be
produced by deformation and by application of deformation if that curvature got increased,
then we term this structure as a folded structure or simply a fold. So deformation is very very
important in defining fold. Without deformation if you have any curvature that is not at all a
fold.

Now in this context, you can imagine the fact that the stratification of sedimentary layers in
undeformed sedimentary beds is generally planar within a very short distance. So, within that
short distance, if you can develop wavy or curved surfaces or wavy or curved stratification,
then it is a fold provided, I repeat this curvature or waviness has produced by deformation.
Now in this context, there are also some a very typical sedimentary structures where you may
find that it is curved, but you have to inspect whether this curvature has produced just by

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sedimentation or during the sedimentary processes, in that case it is not a fold but if that
curvature got increased due to deformation, then it is essentially a folded structure.

So, in that sense you can think of the cross-stratified beds, as it is written here, the cross-
stratifications as you know, this is a structure like this. So, you have sedimentary layers and
in between you may have a very typical structure sedimentary structure like this or this has a
lot of information. First of all, it tells you the younging direction of the sedimentary deposit.
It also tells you the flow direction, paleo flow direction and so on.

Now, essentially we see within this two layers, this sandwiched structure. Now, there is some
sort of curvature as you can see in this illustration. Now, is this a fold? You have to inspect or
you have to understand by some processes that whether this curvature you see here is due to
deformation or it is just the depositional feature. Now, you can also deposit layers something
like that, whether the curvature is very very less and then during compaction, you may
develop a curvature here in this layer and this is then a fold.

So, while you define a fold then you always remember, I am repeating it that you must see or
you must have to find some sort of perceptible deformation feature within this structure or
within this curvature. Then you name it as a fold or understand it or recognize it as a folded
structure. Now, a fold as we have seen in one of our first lectures can be of various scales.
This indicates that the fold mechanism or the way the fold forms is a very constant process,
but their scales could be different. You can see folds in an orogenic scale and you can also
see folds under microscope, even under transmission electron microscopes, whether the
length of a fold is in nanometre scale.

So with this, we try to understand that what defines a fold in this particular slide. Now, so far
we have learnt about structural geology or so on or with some sort of information from other
subjects that most of the time we think or we perceived the fact that folds are defined by
sedimentary layers and I tell you, this is very much true. However, as per the definition any
layer can produce a fold provided it has competence contrast with its surrounding.

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(Refer Slide Time: 8:28)

So as it is written here we mostly observed folds defined by the deformation induced

curvatures of sedimentary bedding planes, however, folding is possible and also commonly
observed in any layer having competence contrast with associated layers and these layers you
can think they can include dike, veins, metamorphic or igneous compositional layers,
foliations and so on.

So, to distinguish between the sedimentary layers and all these other layers or all these other
planar features that is listed here in this slide. We generally term them as form surfaces. So
form surfaces are nothing but along which a fold can develop or a surface that has a potential
to develop a fold. So you can see here are 4 images. The first one is this folded structure is
defined by sedimentary layers. Here, you see this is a dike that got intruded at one point of
time and then it got folded.

This one is a metamorphic layer compositional banding in a migmatite migmatitic rock

alternate dark and white bands and this also got some sort of deformation and that is why it
generated the curvature, and here you can see this, we can understand from our previous
lecture, that this is a continuous foliations as there is this fold, so this foliations certainly got
folded. So initially it was planar of course foliations do develop in a planar manner and then
by deformation this foliations got curved and that is why it has now a folded structure.

So doesn't matter whether it is a sedimentary layer or a dike or a metamorphic compositional

layer or some foliations. It can generate folded structures provided there are feasible
conditions and these conditions are mostly included whether this layers or surrounding

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materials of these layers have enough competence contrast with the layer that we are
expected to be folded. So, the obvious question comes now that, why we should study fold?
Why it is important in studying fold and related features?

(Refer Slide Time: 11:15)

First and foremost, folds are one of the most spectacular natural structures that you see in the
field, they are really beautiful. I personally got excited by seeing the folds in the field. If I get
time I sit there, take out my field notebook and try to sketch it and if I do not have time, then
I just take a photograph and leave that place, but it excites me a lot of folded structure in the
field. Apart from this, folds are studied to reveal their 2 and 3 dimensional geometries, as we
talked about that fold can be of any scale, so you can think of a fold of orogenic scale you not
necessarily are going to see the entire folded structure.

So therefore, if you see a part of this fold in different places, different parts of this fold, it is
very important that you construct their first 2 dimensional and then 3 dimensional geometries
and it is not only the field work you have to collect the data like dip, strike, trend, plunge of
belated structures and then you have to plot it on the stereonet, and then you can construct the
2d and 3d geometries. This you must learn from your field studies.

Apart from this, the shape orientation and extend of the folds are of very much importance in
finding economically valuable deposits and predicting their continuity. You probably know
from your petroleum or hydrocarbons geology lectures that hydrocarbons particularly oils,
these are generally found at the top of the folded structure. We will define it later that these
are antiforms, but generally at the top of this folded structure, you find hydrocarbons.

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Sometimes some old deposits are confined along a particular sedimentary layer or along a
particular dike or vein and so on.

Now, if the sedimentary layer and dikes are extremely folded, then it is very challenging for a
mining engineer to plan the mine, because the layers do not have a constant strike and dip and
so on. So, the mining engineer cannot just drive the mine along a single direction, so there a
structural geologist can guide him or suggest him that “hey, this is the folded structure, the
mineral of importance is confined within the folded structure, so plan your mining like this.”
So, this is how the folded structures are also important in finding economic or economical
valuable deposits and so on.

Now the final and most importantly, the folds do carry a lot of information regarding the
tectonic activities. So, folds and their associated structures like foliations are very very
important in revealing the tectonic processes in earth, particularly dip earth processes. The
variety of folded structures and shapes record significant information of the many physical,
chemical and mechanical aspects of deformation. So folds, the layers, the form surfaces, their
relation with the foliations, and so on, do carry a lot of information and it is a challenge for a
structural geologist to study this information to reveal finally, the overall tectonic
deformation of that particular region that you are studying.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:19)

Now, how to study a folded structure so if you see a fold, not necessarily you can study, there
are many ways you can study the folded structure. But as we discussed with foliations, the
descriptions and associated terminologies of folded structures also have evolved through time

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and sometimes the terminologies or their descriptions are not always very consistent.
However, with recent days, these terminologies and their descriptions became very very
strong and mostly globally people are using the very similar terminologies. So, life is a little
easier now, in terms of describing folded structures.

So, to define a folded structure you can think off in two different ways. The first one is you
can describe if you consider a single layer or an interface between two layers and then we call
it a single folded surface. So, if you have two layers, then you can think of their interface that
how this interface is defining the fold or you can consider a very thin layer of the rock and
how it is defining the fold. This is the example.

The example is given in this photograph. You can see that in this gravity matrix, we have a
black layer, which is defining the fold, the other sides we do not have any other layers to
interfere this fold, so if we study this folded layer, then we can figure out the deformation of
this area. But that is not always the case, sometimes you find a stack of layers that can also be
folded and in that case, we term them as multilayer folds, which is the second image, we see
here.

You see here this is alternate bands of metamorphic foliations and you see these layer got
folded, like this, then this layer got folded like this, the layer in between it got folded like this.
So if you study a single layer and you can see that the fold pattern of this particular layer is
significantly different from this particular layer and this particular layer. So in multilayers,
they can produce fold in a very similar fashion or in a very different fashion, we will learn
about it later, but the concept is you can study the folded structure in single layer or also in
multilayer and they do have their own pros and cons. So, how will you proceed in this
lecture? I wanted to give you this slide that we will proceed this lecture in a very very
structured manner and how will you do that it is written in this slide.

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(Refer Slide Time: 18:05)

We will first define some spatial features as points on a single layer fold at its cross-section.
So, what we mean by cross-section at this stage of our understanding of folded structure is
where the “waviness” is best visible in 2d. So, if I have a folded layer, then I have to see it in
2d and I will see it on a section where this waviness is best visible.

Then we will extend these points to the third dimension. That means we will draw some lines
along successive and similar points and will try to understand the features of the fold in
three dimensions and finally, we will connect the lines, wherever possible and applicable to
construct some imaginary surfaces, which further constrain the folded sequence and define
the folded structure. So, with this concept let us start with our first definition.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:20)

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The first thing we learned is inflection point and fold train. So these are the elements of a
single layer fold, we will see more terminologies in the next slides, but let us focus on the
inflection point and fold train. Now as we talked about the trace of a folded surface appears
as wavy line on the plane, when the waviness is seen at its best. Let us take this example, so
this is a folded layer, as you can see here, this particular layer, this light brown layer that got
folded and we are seeing this along a section where this waviness is best visible.

Now you see this wave has a very typical point, if I consider this point here or the best this
point here, this point is a very important point because it separates the curvature of the fold or
in other way, the nature of the curvature of the folds. So if I go this way from this fold then it
generates a convex pattern and if I go this way, it generates a concave pattern. Similarly this
convexity at one point here, it terminates and then it goes again to the concave side.

So when we define a single fold, we take this point and this point, so this distance or this
particular curvature is defined as a single fold and in a very similar way here to here, it is
defined as a single fold and this particular points at each and every wavy surface or each and
every wavy line, you can define this point as a point which is separating the fold segments of
opposite sense of curvatures. So here, it is convex and here it is concave and this point is
separating this convex and concave side of this fold and this point is known as inflection
point.

(Refer Slide Time: 21.59)

At the same time, we learn another term, which is called extrados and intrados. This is a
relatively easier term to understand the outer and inner arc in the fold are extrados and

490
intrados respectively. As it is written here, so this is the outer arc, so this is known as
extrados. This is inner arc, this is known as intrados. The fold core is also towards the
intrados side. Now, if we come here so this would be your intrados and this would be your
extrados, so this side the outer arc here is extrados and this inner side is your intrados.

Now, if you have a series of folds with alternating sensors of curvatures, like you have series
of convex, sorry concave and convex and then again concave and convex layers, they move
on from one point to another point as it is shown here in this illustration, then it is known as a
fold train. So fold train is a series of folds with alternating senses of curvature. So, here it is
concave, here it is convex, here it is again concave, here it is convex and so on. So, this
alternation when it happens then we call a fold train in a single layer fold. Now in this
concept of inflection point, fold train, extrados and intrados let us move to the next element.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:51)

What we learned here is 2 very important terminologies related to fold geometry and fold
description is antiform and synform. Fold segments, which are convex upward are antiform
and the folds that are concave upward are synform. So, a fold train is generally characterized
by alternate antiform and synform, so now we define the fold train with the help of antiform
and synform.

So, as you can see in this illustration here, this is a concave side and this concavity is upward.
So, as by definition, this is synform. Here, this is convex and the convexity is upward. This is
antiform. Here, again this is concave, concavity it is upward. This is synform and so on. So, a
synform is where the fold closes downwards, you can say it that way as well and an antiform

491
is something where the fold closes upwards. So, upward closing folds are antiform and
downward closing folds are synform, we will talk about more with antiform and synform in
the next lecture, particularly when you talk about the classification of the folding.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:29)

Now, 5 more very very important terminologies as well we are going to learn in this slide.
First, we will define these, and in the next slide, we will see them in the form of illustrations.
These are curvature, hinge, limb, crest and trough. Now we start first with the curvature, we
know that curvature is the measure of the change of orientation per unit distance along the
line or surface. That means that a circular arc, so if I draw a circle, then the curvature is
continuously changing and the change of curvature is constant. Mathematically, it is defined
as a curvature d2y by dx2 okay? Now, a straight line, when if you consider, then the
curvature does not change because, at any, any segment of this line, the orientation of this
line does not change if you proceed along the line. So in that sense, within a fold train, we
can figure out that it changes it curvature from the synform to antiform and so on, keeping the
inflection point at the middle.

So if I consider a curved segment of a fold, then we define a typical point at this (curv)
curved segment, which is known as hinge, which is a point for the curvature is maximum.
Now, not necessarily in a folded segment, you will have or a typical curve segment single
curved segment, you will have a single hinge, you may have more than one hinge points. The
hinge zone is the segment of highly curved line around the hinge point. It also includes the
hinge point as well. Then it comes the limbs or flanks, which are the regions of lowest
curvatures and includes the inflection points. Then comes the crest and trough. These are the

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points of highest and lowest elevations, in a folded train or in a fold train, respectively. The
crest and trough sometimes they coincide with the hinge points and sometimes they do not
coincide with the hinge points. We will see this in the illustrations.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:05)

So, here we have defined this hinge, inflection point, limb and so on. Hinge zone in this very
typical illustration of a folded structure, particularly with the concept of curvature. As you
can see here this first illustration this one let us define this as, a. What we see here, this is
certainly an inflection point, which is separating this folded segment to the other side of the
folded segment right! So this is here, this is convex and this is here, this is concave. So, I
have alternate or continuous inflection points. Now, if I consider this segment from here to
here, of this fold, then I see that there is a particular point where the curvature is maximum
and this point is known as the hinge point and around this hinge point, we have a small
segment of this fold, where the line is mostly curved and this green area here, here, here. The
green areas here, here, and here are known as hinge zones.

Whatever is left hinge and hinge zones; this is the limb of the fold. So as we have defined in
the previous slide, limb must include the inflection point and hinge zone. Also, I am sorry
hinge zone should include the hinge point. So, we have defined in this illustration, A, the
hinge, hinge zone, again inflection point and the limb of the fold. Now let us have a look of
this second illustration, as B. What do you see here, a very similar feature, but in this segment
if I consider this particular segment, we see that it has two points where the curvature is
maximum. So this particular folded segment has 2 hinge points, this one and this one.
Therefore, 2 hinge zones as well.

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In these 2 illustrations C and D, if we define it like this, then typically, we see that from here,
if we start from here, inflection point and then we travel along this folded train. The curvature
is more or less constant and it is very similar in the illustration, D as well. The curvature is
constant, but inflection points is there because it separates sensors of opposite curvatures. So
in that case, if I have constant curvatures all along the folded trains, then it is the hinge point
is defined the middle point between two successive inflection points. So this is the hinge
point here, this is the hinge point here, this is the hinge point here. Similarly, in illustration D,
these 3 are the hinge points that you can consider. Let us have a look of the same similar
illustration in a different way.

(Refer Slide Time: 31:50)

As you can see here, we have also defined the crest and trough. But before that, let us quickly
summarize what we have learned. So hinge is where we have maximum curvature here and
here. Inflection points are these 3 points that separates the convex side to the concave side of
this folded structure. Now crest, at least in this image, as we have defined is the maximum
elevation you can achieve in a folded train and in this case, this is coinciding with the hinge
point and similarly the trough as well, which is the lowest point, you can achieve in a folded
train and this is here as well, coinciding with the hinge point. The limb is this entire region
from the hinge zone to the next hinge zone in that segment.

If I look at this image, I see that the maximum curvature is here. But this is not the highest
elevation point. So therefore, crest is defined here, hinge is defined here. Similarly, this is the
maximum curvature of this concave side. So hinge is here, but this is the lowest point of this

494
entire fold train. So this is the trough. So, we have understood now that hinge may or may not
coincide with the crest and trough points.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:35)

We have another very important term, that we are going to learn now is interlimb angle.
Now, interlimb angle of a folded layer is the angle enclosed by its 2 limbs. The way it is
constructed or the way it is measured that you first figured out the 2 successive inflection
points. So in this case, I can consider this one and this one and then, from these inflection
points I draw a tangent, which for example, is this red line and for example here, this red line.
They will intersect somewhere and the angle they make is interlimb angle.

Similarly, I can also draw an interlimb angle on this convex side and this is again your
interlimb angle. Now in a fold train this interlimb angle may vary from one curve to another
curve or it may remain constant, we learn about it later. But interlimb angle tells us or it
measures the tightness of the folded structure, the lower the interlimb angle, the tighter is the
fold, we learn about it later and we classify the fold also based on the interlimb angles, the
fold is mostly defined by a term or by a parameter is known as fold axis.

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(Refer Slide Time: 35:35)

Now, fold axis is something that is initially not so easy to understand or to conceive, but I
will try to give you the ideas or how different ways you can understand the fold axis and this
is because the fold geometry is often very complex and it is very irregular wavy surface. It is
just not a very typical sine curve that you can think of, which is consistent on its third
dimension and this photograph; we see here is an excellent example of such irregularity. Now
what we see here, we see the form surface, the folded surface itself with the shadows. You
can figure out that this layer, which was horizontal at one point of time, it has a compression,
it had a compression from these two sides and then this layer got wrinkled or folded.

Now, you see that if I talk about the interlimb angle that we just have learned. If we can
measure this interlimb angle here and if we can measure the interlimb angle here, these two

496
would be very, very different. So, on a single folded surface, the interlimb angle is changing.
We can also figure out that the overall geometry. So here I have a very distinct fold and here
the fold has almost disappeared. So it is extremely heterogeneous, thus as we have learned
does not matter how heterogeneous is your structure is? There is always a small segment of
the structure where you can find some sort of homogeneity. So, this is what it is written here.
Fortunately, most folds, at least in small segments have a sort of regularity and the shapes.
Do not show significant variation in one particular direction. So if I again concentrate on this
little box that we have drawn here and if we try to figure out what is going on, then we can at
least can conclude or can convince ourselves that here the deformation is more or less
homogeneous.

The interlimb angle, if I measured here, if I measure here are very much consistent and so on.
So this is how we try to define or in the next slide will try to define the fold axes, based on
this segment. So what is that, I see that if I have a series of lines like this that I can draw on
this folded surface, which is curved. Remember, this I am drawing on the plane, so it is
appearing like this, but these are actually curved folded right! So it is somehow like this and I
am drawing individual lines around the folded surface. Now in this case, the direction of all
these lines are parallel to each other, okay?

(Refer Slide Time: 38:46)

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So, we can define the fold axis, that way that along a particular section or we can define the
fold axis. So we can define the fold axis in this manner, but we will learn it later. But before
that, we see how we can conceive this fold axis in a different way. Now, if I have a folded
layer, then along a particular section cutting across the fold, the direction of the trace of the
folded surface appears as a straight line, while in all other sections the trace appears as a
wavy line and this particular direction is known as fold axis. What does it mean? You can
consider that you have a fold like this okay! and then, you may pass a plane through the
folded structure, something like that, okay? So you did got somewhere here, something like,
something like that. I am sorry, it may not look like this and so on. I can also draw this one a
little better way for your better understanding.

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Now, what we see here that if I now take off or slice of the fold along this plane, then I would
see that on this plane, the folded layer would appear. Something like that. On this plane or in
other words, this is curved. I can also draw any, any other plans or I can also construct any
other planes, which is cutting across the folded surface, but in each and every surfaces, will
always see that the trace of this folded surface on this plane would be always curved.
However, there would be a particular plane along which this folded structure would appear as
a linear structure and this would be in this particular case may be this plane.

So, if I pass this plane this way, then I would see the folded structure, so it is like this then
this green plane is this one and I would see the fold here. The trace of the fold on the surface,
something like that. So in any section, you can rotate this blue plane in any direction in any
axis, you will always get a curved trace of this fold on this surface, but this green surface is
the unique one, whether you would get this trace, a straight line and this straight line or the
direction of this straight line is known as fold axis.

Now I have 2 drawings for you. So what we see here, a very similar drawing that we have
made. So, this blue layer is, is this passing through the folded structure and this is the trace of
this fold and there is this, again the blue plane passing through the folded structure and you
have a straight trace of the folded structure on this blue plane and this is your fold axis. This
direction is fold axis. Now if we go back to the photograph that you have seen, this one. So,
now you see that these are the straight lines, right? So, these straight lines can move parallel
to them and can form the fold surface. How does it work?

(Refer Slide Time: 43:49)

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The illustration is here. So series of parallel lines that you can see here, they can move
parallel to each other and define a fold. So fold axis is defined in other ways, a fold axis is a
line, which moving parallel to itself generates the folded surface as it has done here. Now,
from this illustration or whatever we have discussed about the fold axis, I hope you can
understand the fact that fold axis is not a material line or it is not a fixed position in the space.

It is a direction with constant orientation and this is important for a particular type of fold or
this is valid for a particular type of fold, the fold is known as cylindrical. If that does not hold,
then the fold is non cylindrical, we will learn about it, but for a small segment of a very very
regular or systematic geometry of a folded structure, we can define fold axis as it is written
here, a fold axis is a line, which moving parallel to itself generates the folded surface.

Now, the geometry of this cylindrical fold that we talked about or any fold is best described
by the orientation of the fold axis, of course, because this fold axis is defining the folded
surface or the fold axis, actually can form the form surface and at the same time, a section
perpendicular to the fold axes. So in other ways, the geometry of a cylindrical fold is best
described by the orientation of the fold axis along with the description of a section,
perpendicular to the fold axis. Now this particular section or this particular plane is known as
transverse profile or simply a profile or a cross-section of a fold. We will see later that if we
vary this if we cut the fold in different sections, but the transfers profile, the appearance of
the fold, would change drastically.

(Refer Slide Time: 46:18)

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Now we will see this fold in 3 dimension, when we have defined the fold axis properly. So,
what do you see here, we see the fold axis? That should go like this and interestingly, in this
case, the fold axis is also parallel to the hinge line. Something to note here hinge line is a
material line and what is hinge line? If you have a hinge point and if you connect the
successive hinge points, then you generate a line and this line is hinge line. Hinge line is most
of the cases parallel to the fold axis, but not necessarily fold axis is the hinge line. Any line
that defines the trans parallel to this folded surface can define you or can give you the fold
axis.

So, this is your interlimb angle defined with this green lines. This is your hinge zone. This is
your limb. This is your hinge zone. This is your concave side. This one and this one is your
convex side and this was the inflection point. So if you similarly like the hinge points if you
connect successive inflection points on this surface, then you get inflection lines. So this is
how you construct the 3d geometry of the fold. So we learned fold axis. We learned hinge
line, we learned inflection line and we also have seen the interlimb angle. 2 terminologies are
written here amplitude and wavelength will learn it in the next slide.

(Refer Slide Time: 48.06)

So, once we have, as I said in the very beginning, the way the lecture would proceed. We first
learned points, then we connected the points, we got hinge line, we got inflection line and
now we try to see if we can connect the lines in a way to define the folds geometry in a much
better way. So here comes 4 terminologies enveloping surface, median surface, amplitude
and wavelength.

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The enveloping surfaces are the two surfaces and they are not necessarily parallel to each
other that bound the fold train developed in a single folded surface. We will see the
illustration in the next slide. The median surface includes and connects all the inflection lines
of a folded train in a single surface. The amplitude of any fold is the distance from the
median surface to either of the enveloping surface measured parallel to the axial surface.
Now, we learn axial surface in one of the next slide soon.

The wavelength is the distance measured parallel to the median surface, between one point of
a fold and geometrically similar point on the neighbouring fold in the same fold train. So, if I
take the hinge point in an antiformal hinge. Then I have to take the hinge point of another
antiformal hinge, which is next to the hinge we have selected. So the distance between these
two is wavelength. Let us have a look in a better way

(Refer Slide Time: 49:58)

So again, this is the fold. The enveloping surface, which is covering the fold or that envelops
the fold this from distance from the here is known as fold height. The median surface is the
green one that connects the inflection lines, successive inflection lines and generates the
median surface. So the distance from one of the enveloping surface to the median surface,
this one or this one is the amplitude. The wavelength is, if I consider this as the hinge point of
this antiform, then this is the next antiform and this is the next hinge point. So distance from
here to here is wavelength. So, we have now learned in enveloping surface, median surface,
amplitude and wavelength of the fold. Now, these planes are imaginary planes.

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(Refer Slide Time: 51:20)

But there is another plane that is considered as imaginary plane, but along this plane, we form
a very typical structure and this is known as axial surface and we will also learn at the same
time, trace of the axial surface. Now again, we will first describe these with these texts, I will
read it and then in the next slides we will see them as illustrations. The surface, joining all
hinge lines in a particular nested set of folds is generally known as axial surface. It is also
termed as hinge surface or axial planes.

Now, the intersection of the axial surface with the form surface, so it is a kind of intersection
lineation because you have axial surface and the form surface. So 2 planes are intersecting
each other. So that will produce a line and we learned from our lineation lecture, that this is
an intersection lineation. So that particular lineation on the folded surface is known as axial
surface stress and it generally indicates the fold axis of the associated fold, we will see this in
the illustration.

The axial surface trace can be seen on any other surfaces, so this is something very very
important and therefore, if you can see it in exposure so you can see in outcrops or in
typography and so on other than the form surface. So if you see them any of the surfaces,
then the form surfaces, they actually do not define the fold axes and this is how it works.

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(Refer Slide Time: 52:53)

Now, this is the illustration showing what is axial plane. So, this is one hinge point. This is
another hinge point and if you can imagine. We have series of folds here in the multilayer
goes like this. Then you can always find series of hinge points and their corresponding hinge
lines. So if you connect all these lines together, then you generate a surface. The surface is
known as axial surface or axial plane that essentially has to pass through the hinge line.

(Refer Slide Time: 53:39)

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Now, you can construct a series of planes parallel to the axial plane. So this is your hinge line
and this parallel axial planes would intersect on the fold surface. So you can see this axial
plane and the hinge line is essentially passing through the hinge line, of course this is how it
has to be. This also defines the fold axis. Now this parallel planes of axial plane, when it
intersects this form surface, they are intersection lineation or you can call it as trace of axial
plane on the form surface and they also define the fold axis of this folded structure. We learn
more about it and we will see how we can use them in analyzing the folded structure in a
complex funded structure and so on. But with this, I conclude this lecture, but we will
continue with folds and folding in the next lecture and learn the classification of folds, based
on the terminologies, we just learned in this lecture. Thank you very much. I will see you in
the next lecture.

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 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture 21- Fold and Folding: Classifications
(Refer Slide Time: 0:25)

Hello everyone. Welcome back again to this online structural geology NPTEL course. In this
week we are learning folds and folding and we are lecture number 21 and we learn in this
lecture, this is the second lecture of this week, we learn classifications of folding. In the
previous lectures, we learned a series of terminologies to describe a folded structure or a
folded layer and these ranged from a point related structures a line related structures and also
a plane related structures and these include hinge, hinge line, fold axis, inflection points,
inflection line, median surfaces, enveloping surface, then we also learnt interlimb angles, we
learnt crests, we learnt trough, we learnt limb we learnt hinge zone and so on.

So, there are so many terminologies we learnt in our last lecture. I hope you went through
these and you understood all these terminologies, their physical significance and their actual
meaning. In this lecture what we will do we will use most of these terminologies to describe a
folded structure and to understand that which fold is what and in other way or in other words
we will be classifying the folded structures.

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(Refer Slide Time: 1:43)

So yes, there is only one aim in the structure and that is classification of folded structure.
Now, as you have understood from the previous lecture because we had to use a lot of
terminologies to describe a folded geometry. So, it is not very easy to quantitatively or
accurately describe the geometry of a fold and it is difficult and at the same time it is time
consuming. Also, it is not very easy to communicate the other people that, yes, I have seen
this kind of fold in the field in a quantitative manner, of course.

So most of the time what structural geologists do, they try to describe the folded structure in
qualitative manner and while doing so, the structural geologists do use a combination of
certain terminologies. We have learnt few in the previous lecture and in this lecture, we learn
a few more. And all these descriptions, these qualitative descriptions, sort of provide us a
rough idea of the shape of a fold and at the same time the orientation of the structural
elements which are associated with folded structure. Just for example if I use a terminology
that this is X type of fold, then a visualisation appears that okay the fold is like this if I say
no, this is Y type of fold then another visualisation appears. So, in this lecture we will sort of
cover all this kind of features and will try to again classify the features that we have learnt in
the previous lecture and few of these we learn in this lecture

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(Refer Slide Time: 3:28)

So folds are commonly classified based on series of parameters and here I listed a few which
I will cover in this lecture and these include sense of curvature of this fold, or form surface of
this fold, when stratigraphic direction will consider that as well that whether the fold core is
representing younging layers or older layers. Then folds also do have symmetry because it is
some sort of (sine verse). So whether the fold is symmetric or asymmetric will also test that.
How the actual plane is oriented that is also parameter to classify the folds. Plunge of fold
axis because fold axis is a linear feature so it must have a trend and plunge and we take the
plunge to classify the folds.

The curvature of hinge line and fold axis is also major parameter that whether the fold axis is
straight or curved and we will see how do we classify folds based on that. Then curvature of
the axial plane as well a plane not necessarily is a straight plane, it can be curved and we will
classify folded structures based on that as well. The interlimb angles the angles can be
widened or wider or shorter. So we will also check that in classifying the folds. Then shape of
the fold hinge is also an important parameter. And finally we will classify the folds based on
how it is related with the neighbouring structures.

And while we will study all these things, I have restricted all these things to illustrations or in
other ways that I did not use in this presentation any image or photograph. You can check all
these images and photographs if you would like to in your search engine. You just typed the
name of the fold and you will see it. So I did not want to sort of populate or crowd this
presentation, but tried to give some easily understandable illustrations to better identify and
better comprehend the classification of folds. However, if requires in the next lecture, I will

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try to add some photographs which are very key features where you will see some key
features of a folded structure.

(Refer Slide Time: 5:55)

So let us start first with the sense of curvature and these two terms, we have learnt already in
the previous lecture one is antiform and another is synform and they are given in these two
illustrations. So we learnt in the previous lecture antiform is a fold that closes upward so as
we can see here, this fold is closing upward so this is an antiform this fold is a synform
because it is closing downward. But there could be a series of possibilities where the fold is
not closing upward or downward but sidewise in that case we call it neutral fold where the
closure is not upward not downward but sidewise. We can also consider a fold something like
that. This fold has a special name we will learn it later but as you can see this fold is also not
closing upward or downward so this is also a kind of neutral fold. So any fold which is not
closing downward or upward you can classify them or you can group them as a neutral fold
that closes sidewise.

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(Refer Slide Time: 7:15)

Now stratigraphic younging direction of the fold closure. Here we have two primary
terminologies to classify or to take into account the stratigraphy of the folded strata. So this,
these two terms that those are written here anticline and syncline these are only restricted to
the form surfaces, defined by sedimentary layers because in other stratigraphic in other form
surfaces like veins or foliations and so on these are not really included in describing anticline
and synclines.

So let us have their definitions first as it is written here an anticline is a fold in which the
direction of younging is away from the fold core. And a syncline is a fold in which the
direction of younging is towards the fold core. Let us first look at this image, so as you can
see that in the top layer which is written here this is younging layer and the bottom layer is
older layer say in the top layer you find the fossils ammonite and in the bottom layer you find
the fossil of trilobite so therefore top layer is of Mesozoic age and the bottom layer is of
Palaeozoic age. Now what do you see in this in this first fold if I consider this one. Then this
is a synform as we have learnt from the previous lecture and it is closing downwards. So this
is essentially a synform.

Now in this synform the younging direction or the younger layer is towards the fold core. So
this is the younging layer and this is the older layer. Now younging layer if it is towards the
fold core then we call it syncline. But in the next wave if we considered this one this
particular wave what we see here that it closing upward so this is an antiform and in this
antiform the younging layer is away from the fold core so this is your fold core and the
younging layer is away from the fold core therefore we as per definition we term it as

510
anticline. So syncline anticline, syncline anticline this is how it progresses in a folded
stratum. So I repeat synform and antiform are geometry-based terminologies and anticline
and syncline are also geometry-based terminologies but they also include the stratigraphic
younging direction.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:14)

So if we have a large anticline with many smaller folds then we term it anticlinorium and if
we have a large syncline with many smaller folds then we term it as synclinorium. So as you
can see this is a packet of folds or we can actually make a large fold like this and it is defined
by many small folds as you can see here in this illustration. Now in all these folds the top part
is defined by the fossil ammonite that so that means this is the younging direction. So this is a
synform and this synform contains many smaller folds so this is a synclinorium and in a
similar way this is an antiform because it is closing upward and younging direction is also
away from the core so this is an anticlinorium as it is consisting of make smaller folds. So we
learnt syncline anticline and now we learnt anticlinorium and synclinorium. The picture
becomes a little complicated when this stratigraphic younging direction reverses and we will
see this in the next slide.

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(Refer Slide Time: 11:30)

The first one we will take is synformal anticline and then we will take antiformal syncline.
Now an anticline is we learnt in the previous lecture when the younging direction is away
from the fold core in an antiformal structure. But in this case in a synformal anticline a fold
that closes downward but the direction of younging is away from the fold core and the
reverse happened when you have antiformal syncline. A fold that closes upward but the
younging direction is towards the fold core. The folds generally produce this kind of
structures like synformal anticline or antiformal syncline is little complicated but we will
understand it with this illustration given here.

So you can imagine the fact that this is your younging layer here, going here defined by this
ammonite fossil and this is the older layer. So if I see in this section which is little faded. So
clearly this is an anticline. And the next segment the younging layer is at the core older layer
is away from the core and this form is a synform so this is syncline. No problem. But if the
folded strata is curved and got a turn in this side then interestingly you see that this brighter
area here which is not faded the younging layer comes at the bottom of the stratigraphy and
the older layer is at the top of the stratigraphy.

In that case this structure is a synform because this is closing downwards. Its closing this
way. The structure next to this the folded structure is an antiform because it is closing
upward. However we see that in this synform the young layer is away from the fold core. So
this is actually anticline. So therefore we name it a synformal anticline and similarly in this
antiform the younging layer is towards the fold core so this is antiformal syncline. So we
learnt a series of terminologies related to fold geometry and their stratigraphic younging

512
directions. Synform antiform, syncline anticline, synformal anticline, antiformal syncline and
anticlinorium and synclinorium. Let us talk about the symmetry of the fold. So you can
understand this fact that a fold can be symmetric or asymmetric.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:31)

A symmetric fold is if in a profile section that means a section perpendicular to the fold axis
the shape of one side of the hinge is a mirror image on the other side and the limbs are of
identical length. The plane of symmetry therefore is the axial plane and is also the bisector of
the median surface. An asymmetric is where all these conditions do not hold or in other ways,
a fold that does not have any mirror plane of symmetry and the limbs are of unequal length.
Let us concentrate on these two Illustrations in this slide. The first one is an illustration of a
symmetric fold.

As you can see here, that if I bisect the fold, with this red line here then this part of the fold
and this particular part of the fold, which is also the next plane of symmetry, mirror plane of
symmetry so this part and this part they are very similar to each other or they are mirror
image to each other. So therefore this folded structure as per definition is symmetric fold.
Also the length of the limb if I can consider from here to here or here to here considering it
has no hinge zone then they are also similar to each other. Also this layer as it is mirror
symmetry if I consider this angle theta one and if you consider this angle as theta two in a
symmetric fold theta one should be equal to theta two and this plane of symmetry is the tress
of the axial plane. We will learn it later that this is also axial planar cleavage.

In contrary in asymmetric fold there is no plane of symmetry or there is no plane of mirror

image so you can see that if I consider this segment of this fold and this line if I consider or

513
any other line you cannot have a… you cannot produce a mirror image of the other side. So
therefore this fold is asymmetric. You can also see the length of this limb is longer than
length of this other limb considering it does not have any hinge zone. This angle if you
measured, this angle is theta one this angle is theta two and in this case theta one is not equal
to theta two. So this is how we define the symmetric fold and asymmetric fold.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:22)

The asymmetric fold is the counter clock wise fold or an S fold if that short limb has rotated
counter clockwise with respect to the long limb. Also the short limb together with the
adjacent long limbs define an S shape. Now we now focus on this illustration again if I
consider that there was a symmetric force something like that and then if I rotate it counter
clockwise then it may a take a shape like this. Where this is the short limb and this is the long
limb and the resultant structure is here so it rotated counter clockwise, the short limb. Also
you see that this short limb together with the adjacent two other limbs, it defines the English
letter S. So this is clockwise. And this is anticlockwise. Asymmetric fold. Now in a single
straight or in a single layer we can have this clockwise or anti clockwise folds or in other
ways we can figure out Z and S shaped folds.

514
(Refer Slide Time: 18:44)

So here, so with folded structure the Z and S folds systematically appear across the actual, the
axial surface so in a single fold you can see them. Now if the folds in a limb have a clockwise
apparent versions are described as Z folds. So let us have a look here you can see in this limb
particularly if you consider this one and this one. Okay? So here you see these are Z. On the
other hand those on the other limb have anticlockwise apparent versions. Here, here these are
S shaped. Now in between these Z and S you may find symmetric M fold if it is an antiform
as you can see here it is closing upward if it is synform instead of M you may find a W type
of fold. So in the field we sometimes describe this as S fold Z fold W fold or M fold. So if
your teacher, colleague or if your friend tells you that, okay, in the field I have seen a Z fold
then now you can immediately relate what he or she is talking about.

515
(Refer Slide Time: 20:24)

Now let us have a look how we classify the folds based on the orientation of axial planes. A
number of terminologies we will be using here. The first one is upright fold with vertical or
nearly vertical axial planes. The second one is recumbent fold with axial planes dipping at an
angle of 10 degrees or less or you can consider the axial plane is somehow sub-horizontal or
horizontal. The inclined fold is anything in between upright and recumbent fold that means
the fold axial planes are inclined.

The reclined fold is a very special type of inclined fold in which the pitch of the fold axis on
the axial plane is vertical or is, is orthogonal is, is about 80 to 100 degrees. An overturned
fold is also a kind of inclined fold in which both of the limbs have the same sense of
inclination. So based on the orientation of axial planes we define folds or we classify folds as
upright folds, recumbent folds, inclined folds, reclined folds, and overturned folds. The
definitions are given here and now we will see them in the form of illustrations. And here
they are.

516
(Refer Slide Time: 21:45)

In all these illustrations the blue shaped rectangles are the axial planes. What do you see in
this first illustration? Which is an example of upright fold. We see that this is the folded strata
folded layer and this axial plane is, this one and the axial plane is almost vertical. In the
second one we see that this is a recumbent fold so in the field if you figure it out you will
write it like this. Or you can orient it like this in this way so if you have to map it, you can
plot it like this where this long line is the strike of this axial plane and this defines that this is
vertical we learnt it in our dip strike lecture. In the recumbent fold you see this is the folded
strata and here this is your axial plane which is horizontal and we call it recumbent. So in the
map you will define it something like that.

Now inclined fold we clearly see that this axial plane this blue plane is inclined. It is dipping
towards this side. So axial plane is neither vertical nor horizontal, it is inclined. Reclined fold
as I said it is very interesting fold where the pitch of the fold axis is almost 90 degrees or it
ranges from 80 to 100 degrees with the strike of the axial plane. So if this is the axial plane
then you can consider the strike could be something like that. And this is the dip. Now the
fold axis is like this so the pitch of the fold axis with a strike of this bed is at high angle and
therefore we term it as a reclined fold.

The overturned fold is something that has both limbs dipping in the same direction. So this
one you see is dipping this direction and this one is also dipping in a same direction but with
different dip angle. You can also see them in the stereonets and stereonets are the best way to
visualize if you plot the axial planes in the stereonet and you can clearly identify whether
your fold is upright, recumbent, inclined, reclined or overturned together with the fold axis.

517
Just come back in this upright fold, this is the fold axis, here this is the fold axis, here this is
the fold axis, here we have defined already this is the fold axis and in this overturned fold this
one is the fold axis.

Now for the first one if we take the upright folds, clearly the axial plane is vertical so that plot
of the axial plane would be the redline the fold axis as you can see this is horizontal so it
would come somewhere on the primitive circle. On the recumbent fold it does not have any
strike because it is a horizontal bed so the entire primitive circle is actually the plot of your
axial plane. And the fold axis we can plot if you measure, if you can measure it, it is
somewhere here and this is also horizontal. In the inclined fold as we have seen here it is
dipping in this direction so it should be an inclined plane that is why the plot is curved not a
straight line. And this is the fold axis.

The reclined fold as we talked about that the axial plane here is also inclined so we see the
red circle here as a curved circle. And the fold axis should be somewhere in the middle of this
axial plane. In the overturned fold we call this one as normal limb which has the lowest dip
amount so this is the normal limb and then this one is the overturned limb that means it got
turned towards the normal limb and giving rise the same dip direction but with different dip
angle and this is therefore overturned limb and the axial plane should pass through the middle
of this normal limb and overturned limbs. Now all these things we have to see under or all
these we have to see in profiles sections otherwise there could be some little error in plotting
your data.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:33)

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Now we will see how to classify the folds based on the plunge of the fold axis and in this
section we have three different types of folds. One is a horizontal fold, another is plunging
fold and third one is vertical fold. As the name suggests a fold is horizontal if the fold axis is
horizontal that means it doesn't have any plunge,so plunge is close to zero. A vertical fold I
am taking the third one after that is where fold axis is vertical or it is closed to 90 degrees and
anything between horizontal and vertical fold is known as a plunging fold or a fold whose
fold axis is inclined. As you can see in this illustration here. This is a horizontal fold because
the fold axis is horizontal here.

This is a plunging fold because the fold axis has a plunge if you consider this is your
horizontal line on this plane. So this would be the plunge of this fold axis and if you consider
this one the vertical one then this is your fold axis and of course the angle is quite high or
close to vertical. So therefore we have based on the plunge of the fold axis we have
horizontal fold, plunging fold and vertical fold. In some text books this plunging force are
also classified in so many different categories based on zero to 10, 10 to 20 and so on. So
highly plunging, moderately plunging, gently plunging and so on. We are not going into that
part but anything in between horizontal to vertical is plunging fold. This is what we are going
to consider for the lecture.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:23)

Now we are going to take over that on the fold axis whether now we are we are going to see
if the fold axis is straight or curved. So far all these illustrations we have seen we have seen
the fold axis was straight. Now if the fold axis is straight then we call it cylindrical fold. Or in
other way the way or in other words the way we defined the fold axis in the previous lecture a

519
fold which can be generated by moving a line parallel to itself and this line this particular line
is your fold axis and if you can do that the produced fold the fold you will produce out of it is
a cylindrical fold because the fold axis the direction of the fold axis is not changing in this
case.

So a cylindrical fold therefore has a rectilinear hinge line parallel to the fold axis and if the
fold axis does not have a straight hinge line or straight fold axis then this is non-cylindrical
fold. So a fold which cannot be generated by moving a line parallel to itself and the hinge line
is either curved or the fold is conical. Here is one example of cylindrical fold we are little bit
bored now but seeing the similar image or similar illustrations so here we see we particularly
focus on the orientation of fold axis this dotted black line is the fold axis here. And you see
the orientation of this black line does not change so it is straight therefore it is a cylindrical
fold. However in this case we see that the variation of fold axis.

The orientation is changing along the hinge line and the hinge line as well so this is a non-
cylindrical fold. Here you can have a line and with this line if you place it you can produce
the fold completely. But here if you have a line you cannot produce the fold completely
because at this stage you will have some sort of gaps and so on. This is also a different kind
of non-cylindrical fold so here we have the depression along the hinge line and here the entire
hinge line is folded in a different direction. But the bottom line is that fold axis here is also
not straight. It is curved and therefore this is also a type of non-cylindrical fold. Now we will
see how we can classify the folds based on the curvature of the axial plane. Again so far all
these illustrations we have defined axial planes or axial surfaces. All of them were straight.
And this time we are going to see if the axial planes could be curved or not.

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(Refer Slide Time: 31:31)

So if the axial plane is straight or axial surface is planar then we term it as plane fold and if
the axial surfaces are curved then we term it as non-plane fold . And here are four
illustrations for you. The first two are examples of plane folds so and it is not a function as I
have drawn these two Illustrations to convey the message that orientation of the fold axis not
necessarily indicate or not necessarily justify whether the fold would be plane fold or non-
plane fold. So here we see we have learnt in the previous slide. This is a cylindrical fold and
this one is a non-cylindrical fold. In both cases the axial surface or axial plane is straight this
blue plane.

So these are therefore plane fold and it is indifferent whether the fold axis is straight or
curved or in other words whether the fold is cylindrical or non-cylindrical. The same logic
applies to the non-plane fold. The fold could be cylindrical or non-cylindrical in producing
non-plane fold what we see here that here the fold axis we have seen it in the last slide so this
is your fold axis which is curved the axial plane is also curved so this is a non-plane fold but
here the fold axis you can see it here you can see it here or even here these are straight. But
axial plane as you can see here this blue plane which is driving the fold or bisecting the fold
curvature here is curved as well. So here it is curved here it is curved therefore both are
examples of non-plane fold however in this case the fold axis is not straight here fold axis is
straight.

So we learnt that plane fold and non-plane fold is simply defined by whether the axial surface
is planar or curved it does not have any relation with the orientation of fold axis or whether
the fold is cylindrical or non-cylindrical. However we will use this plane fold non-plane fold

521
cylindrical and non-cylindrical fold when we learn more the superposition of deformation and
we will see and come back to all these kind of illustrations so I request you to understand this
part very very clearly.

(Refer Slide Time: 34:37)

Now based on interlimb angle we classify the folds as gentle fold, open fold, closed fold,
tight fold, isoclinal fold and fan fold. It is essentially based on the difference or the
classification is based on that how much the interlimb angle is. If interlimb angle is from 80
degrees to 120 degrees then it is gentle fold. If it is between 120 degrees to 70 degrees then it
is open fold. We assign a fold as a closed fold if the interlimb angle is between 70 degrees to
30 degrees.

A tight fold is where the interlimb angle is 30 degrees to 0 degrees or sub-zero. The isoclinal
where you cannot define an interlimb angle that means the two limbs are sub parallel to each
other and the fan fold is something where we have negative interlimb angle. So this is an
illustration you hardly see these kind of folds in a single layer but this I have drawn to sort of
accommodate all these classified folds under interlimb angle. So this is fan fold. As you can
see that here and here we the interlimb angle you cannot measure in this side this is therefore
a negative interlimb angle and we call it a fan fold. In some texts fan folds are also given a
term called elastica.

If you hear it then you just remember that it is related to fan fold but elastica is something
completely different in terms of waves and other descriptions. So we are not going into that
part but fan fold sometimes you can see in some text books that are termed as elastica. Now
of course this is a gentle fold this one, the interlimb angle is pretty wide. This is an open fold,

522
this is a closed fold. This one is a tight fold and here you see the two limbs are running
almost parallel to each other and therefore this is an isoclinal fold. So this is how we define
folds based on their interlimb angle. Gentle fold, open fold, closed fold, tight fold and
isoclinal fold together with fan fold.

(Refer Slide Time: 37:10)

Now shape of the hinge is also one of the very important parameters to describe folded
structure and here I have shown only four end members you can think of so these are kink
fold, chevron fold, concentric fold and box fold. What do you see here that this kink fold and
chevron fold both of them have sharp hinges? Like this. And in terms of fold geometry that
you have learnt in the previous lecture let us have this profile or this line we try to do it. You
see when you encounter a chevron fold in the field it is very difficult or it is impossible to
define the inflection point. Right?

So it is somewhere here right? But the sense of curvature actually is changing at the hinge
points. So this point you do not change the sense of curvature so typically this cannot be
inflection points and this is why I am repeating the fact that these terminologies that we use
to define the geometry of the fold are very much qualitative and they vary from one kind of
geometries to another kind of geometries. So keep this always in your mind that not
necessarily in each type of folds or each type of geometry you can define each and every
terminologies that we are learning so far.

The concentric fold is something like this where along this point the folds generate here along
this point you can see the folds are generate that means it has some sort of a centre along this
centre the folds are generating this is known as concentric fold and if so here we see this in

523
multilayer but sometimes we call it cuspate lobate fold as well. So cusps and lobes, these are
forming alternatively in this kind of fold. Now box fold or double hinge fold is something
like this where we have seen it before we have in one segment of the fold we have two hinge
points and therefore the axial stress you can see here they are some sort of converging
towards the fold core. And these are known as box folds and sometimes we see this kind of
folds when we deform the multi thin multi layers of contrasting competence contrast. So
based on the shape of fold hinge we define it as kink fold or we just say kink fold chevron
fold concentric fold and box fold and they are mostly identified or they are classified based
on their appearance and geometry of the hinge.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:39)

Now we are on the last part of this classification which is geometric relations with the
neighbouring structures and here we learn the series of terminologies as well to define how
one folded layer or stack of folded layer is related to the neighbouring features and the first
on we will take over is harmonic and then disharmonic folds. Now folds in which axial
planes are continuous across successive folded layers that show approximately the same
wavelength and amplitude are called harmonic folds.

So as you can see here in this part on the left side of this illustration, you can connect the
actual tresses of all these successive layers. Okay? Here you can also connect all these
successive layers so these are your axial traces. Okay? So when that happens that is folds are
in a harmony these are known as harmonic folds. However in contrary folds in which the
amplitude, wavelength and style of this folded layer do change along this continuous axial

524
surfaces from one layer to another are disharmonic folds as you can see here on the right side
of this illustration.

You cannot connect so you can connect there three but then it is here. So there is a
discontinuity there is a disharmony here for example you see an antiform and if you connect
try to connect to you arrive to a synform so here all these things are little jumbled up and
therefore they do not have any harmony in this folded layer and we call them therefore
disharmonic folds so we learnt what is harmonic and what is disharmonic fold.

(Refer Slide Time: 42:40)

Now harmonic and disharmonic folds also related to some sort of ordering of the fold. As you
can see here if I consider this that this is some sort of what we learnt there that Z fold M fold
S fold and so on clockwise local vergence, anticlockwise local vergence and so on. Here you
also develop this W folds and so on. Now what is the message I try to convey here that you
can have a large fold like this and then this large fold may be defined, something like that.
And then this small folds also, can be defined by smaller folds and so on. So the red on we
call it first order fold.

The green one is the second order, I write it this way for better space and the blue one is third
order fold and this first order second order third order so on this folds can be of harmony or
can be of disharmony. That is, this is how they appear but this is where in this light we learn
the orders of the fold. So large fold wavelengths are generally lower order and small
wavelengths are generally of higher orders of folds. Okay.

525
(Refer Slide Time: 44:52)

Then there is something called periodic and non-periodic folds. Now if within a train of folds
you have series of synforms and antiforms and so on. So with more or less same geometry
between alternate points of inflection if you, if you see that then this is known as periodic
fold or in other ways other words folds look very very similar they are they are similar to
each other. So one set of fold here the next set of fold here and they appear in a similar way
and these are known as periodic fold that is the same structure appears periodically and if that
does not happen that they have a dissimilar geometry then this is non-periodic fold.

So as you can see here in a very rough sketch, that this structure is appearing here as well
appearing here as well, here as well and therefore this is, this particular structure is getting a
periodicity in the next structure. However in this we do not see this. So first one is like this,
second one is something like that third one is like this and so on so this is a non-periodic fold.
Now non-periodic folds there is a special kind of non-periodic fold which is known as
polyclinal fold. What do you see here in all these cases I use this typical colour for actual
planes.

The trace of actual planes does not matter whether the fold is periodic or non-periodic. The
trace of actual plane are more or less constant right? But in polyclinal folds you may have
folds like this, or you may also have folds like this. This is not very common. Where there
where you see the in the first case the axial planes are converging towards the core and here
axial planes are converging away from the core. So these are known as polyclinal fold where
axial planes in successive layers are different to each other the orientation of the axial planes
to be specific.

526
(Refer Slide Time: 47:40)

Now then there is another type of fold which is known as en échelon fold or enéchelon fold
this is a French word I. I do not know how to pronounce it properly but most likely en
échelon fold. So it is a very special type of folds in some non-cylindrically folded surfaces or
doubly plunging, relatively short nearly upright folds. In these see, in a parallel series they
have alternating antiform and synform axes oblique to the fold string and these folds are
stepped and consistently overlapping to each other they define an en échelon array of folds
know as en échelon fold.

So this is an illustration as you can see here so if you have some sort of a ductile layer on the
top this yellow one so this is little ductile and if you have a strong layer which is brittle and if
you generate a fault a strike slip fault we will learn it soon in the one of the next lectures
when we talk about fault. So if this block slips the past the other block then it drags the top
ductile layer and then that happens then you form series of folds in an array and these folds
together known as en échelon folds.

527
(Refer Slide Time: 49:12)

Now there is also another important terminology related to the geometric relations with
neighbouring structures and this called decollement or decollema. A process, a decollema is a
process which gives rise to a train of folds in a layer which becomes detached from the
adjacent layer either at the bottom or at the top so the adjacent layer therefore does not suffer
or enjoy any deformation so it is almost unfolded or undeformed and these kind of decollema
these kind of features is generally seen in large scale origins.

So what do you see here this series of layers these are getting folder so it got folded like this
however here so here is a fold it got detached from the surface so this is the opening due to
detachment and this is kind of slip surface and this is known as decollema or decolomous
surface and I repeat these things you hardly see in small scale feature but you mostly see
these kind of features when you go to or when you map a large scale structures then you see
these kind of decollemas. The final one we will see is called intrafolial fold. So folia means
leaves so intrafolial means a fold between the leaves in our case a fold between some layers
or fine layers.

528
(Refer Slide Time: 50:54)

So this is defined as an isolated asymmetric type or isoclinal fold sandwiched between

apparently unfolded foliation surfaces. Usually the apparently unfolded layer forms the limbs
of the larger folds when intrafolial folds occur as tectonic inclusions they are described as
rootless intrafolial fold or we simply define it as rootless fold. And in this context there are
few other types of folds so we generally term them as subsidiary folds like minor folds, drag
folds, parasitic folds etc, etc. these are kind of smaller folds and they occur over a large fold
with sub parallel hinge lines.

So let us look at the intrafolial fold here. So you see you have a straight strata with apparently
no deformation at least in this section and in between you have a layer which is strongly
asymmetric very tight fold in between or which is sandwiched between almost partially
undeformed layer at least in this section and these are known as intrafolial folds. Folds within
finely laminated layers.

529
(Refer Slide Time: 52:19)

So with this I conclude my lecture. In the next lecture we will first learn a very special type of
fold classification is given by professor Ramsay is called dip isogons and then we study the
different mechanisms of folding processes that is how the folds do form differently in
different tectonic settings and so on. Thank you very much. See you in the next lecture.

530
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Lecture 22: Fold and Folding: Dip Isogons and Mechanism

(Refer Slide Time: 0:30)

Hello everyone. Welcome back again to this online structural geology NPTEL course. In this
week we are learning folds and folding. We are in the third lecture of this week. It is lecture
number 22 and in this lecture we will learn dip isogons and mechanisms. Initially, at the
beginning of this week I said that we will cover this entire topic folds and folding in three
lectures. However the topic is somehow quite large and I decided to split the last lecture in
two halves. So you will have another lecture after this that will deal with mostly the
interference folds or superposed deformation.

531
(Refer Slide Time: 01:06)

So in this lecture we will classify the folded structure based on dip isogons. And then we will
look to the mechanics or mechanism of folding that is how the folds do form in nature. What
are the different ways we can form folds in natural deformation.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:17)

Now we certainly can ask this question that why it is required to classify. Again we have seen
a series of classification schemes in the previous lecture. And we now more or less have a
very comprehensive idea that how to describe folds, how to term sort off, how to describe the
folds and how to present them in different ways, how to popularize them, how to talk about
them and so on. But if you remember, I said also at the same time when I was showing the
different schemes of the classification all of them were very much qualitative classification.

532
Some sort of descriptions, their different orientations and so on. None of them have any ideas
or any parameters to quantify the folded structure. Be it morphology, be it geometry or be it
something else.

So there is only one classification scheme for folds proposed by John Ramsay that actually
classifies the folded structure pretty much quantitatively. And this is why it demands a
separate attention and I have added it in a different lecture.

So in the field, we have seen from different illustrations and photographs, as you have seen in
the field as well and also in the internet that they do appear in many different ways. And in
the previous lecture as I said, you have learnt how to take into account all such variable
features and describe them.

Now as I said these are all qualitative measurements but at the same time if you look at the
folded structures in a different way, then we see that the thickness of the folded layers also do
very greatly, when you see them parallel to the profile section or along the profile section or
close to the profile section.

So here I have one image. This one and the next one is a sketch of this image or you can say
it is a geometric model of this folded structure that we see on the right side. This is a bended
iron formation that got folded. I collected this photograph from the internet. And it is
spectacular isn't it? It is alternate red and black layers. They got folded. The red layers are
chalky layers and the black players are iron rich layers. And what we see in particular, apart
from the beauty of this image that this red layers if I try to measure their layer thickness. Say
for example, here to here I change the color. It will be easier.

So if I try to measure here to here or here to here and here to here and so on. We see that the
thickness is more or less constant along this layer. However if I approach the next layer,
which is actually the iron rich layer, what I see here the hinge thickness is much more
compared to the thickness we have on the two limbs. Now this is something that we need to
consider because if I have to measure the thickness of the layer, then in some layers as it is
seen in this image, it is not possible to measure the thickness and the thickness is not
constant.

533
(Refer Slide Time: 05:06)

We can see another image in the next slide which is very similar. As we can see here these
are alternate layers. These are sandwich layers and the second one is a phyllosilicate rich
layer. So this is the sandwiched layer and again, I am sorry. If we try to measure the thickness
of this sandwich layer, then it is like this. Here it is like this. Here it is like this. So they are
more or less constant. But here in this phyllosilicate rich layer, it greatly varies.

Again, how to take into account all these features, particularly the thickness of the layers?
And we also have to justify that, why in alternating, for example here, the thickness the
sandwich layer, the thickness is more or less constant. In shell or in phyllosilicate rich layers,
the thickness is greatly varying from hinge to the limb. We also can figure out that is it
always true that the hinge would be always thicker or the layer thickness would be constant?
Is it possible that hinge can be thinner and limbs can be thicker and so on?

534
(Refer Slide Time: 06:41)

So to take into all these things into a comprehensive picture and ideas, the concept of dip
isogon has been proposed by Professor John Ramsay. Now what it says that as I was talking
about the normal thickness of a layer cannot be defined for layers with non parallel bounding
surface. So what you mean by the bounding surface? That I consider a layer- the top layer
and the bottom layer. Or in other ways, the layer that contains extrados and the layer contains
intrados. If they are not parallel to each other then there is no meaning of measuring the
thickness of that particular layer.

So to avoid that, what Professor John Ramsay proposed that you can consider a transverse
profile of a folded layer as it is illustrated here. And then at the very beginning, you figure out
what are the hinge points in the outer layer and inner layer. So in the inner layer, the hinge
point is here, which is A and in the outer layer the hinge point is here, which is B. Now I can
assign this thickness A to B as the hinge thickness or termed it as T0, right. And in that, after
that what I can think that as I can see visually that here the T0, if I try to measure here that it
is obviously lesser than what we have measured at the hinge.

So what Professor Ramsay proposed that you can take a point any point at the outer surface
which is not the hinge point and then draw a tangent, which is the tangent at the outer layer
okay. And then you find another point in the inner layer where the tangent of this particular
point, which is in this case D, is parallel to the tangent of the T outer. So T inner is parallel to
the T outer at point D. Now if I consider the fold is also cylindrical, then you can imagine
that the dip of this tangent line, a dip at this point would be alpha. Or we can define it in a

535
different way that this tangent outer and tangent inner when they are similar, the dip at C and
D are equal and in this case there equal to alpha.

Now these lines, this T outer, T inner, these are known as dip isogons. So they always appear
in pairs and that means the points with similar dip angles. Now once we figure out the dip
isogons, then we can measure the thickness of this layer as the distance from one layer, one T
inner to T outer. So this is known as the orthogonal thickness which corresponds to the dip
angle alpha. So at particular angle alpha is the distance between the two tangents, in this case
C and D.

Now this, if I connect these two points that is C and D where the T outer and T inner are
parallel, then the distance I can assign as capital T alpha. Now from geometric relationship
you can figure out that small T alpha divided by capital T alpha should be cos alpha. Now
these are the concepts of dip isogon or this is how it is constructed. Now it is possible that
with the change of alpha, we can actually check the variation of thickness along the layer.
And this can be represented by showing, as I said the variation of small T alpha or capital T
alpha against alpha.

Now this analysis has also one more advantage that you do not have to have the absolute
values. What I mean by that, that in the field you may take a photograph and one of your
friends can zoom this photograph and do the analysis of dip isogons. And you print it in a
different scale and you do also the analysis, dip isogon analysis. Now of course your friend
would measure all the values much higher than what you have measured. But here in this
analysis because these are all normalized, so what you are actually measuring is doesn't
matter. So absolute values are not important here because all of them will be in the form of
ratios.

536
(Refer Slide Time: 11:37)

So therefore, the shapes of the different fold, it is essential to represent the thickness variation
by a non dimensional parameter. So therefore, I can define a term T prime alpha, which is the
ratio of T alpha by T0 or capital T alpha which is equal to capital T, capital T prime alpha
which is equal to capital T alpha divided by capital T0, where T0, the small T0 and capital T0
are the orthogonal and axial planar thickness at the hinge point.

So in this case T0 equals Capital T0. Here T0 would be axial planar thickness, something like
that capital T0. We will not consider this for the time being. But the shape of the fold,
therefore you can using all these parameters, so either you can use T prime alpha, small T
prime alpha or capital T prime alpha. You can use this and you can plot it against alpha and
then figure out the different shapes or geometries of the fold, which we are going to see in the
next slide.

537
(Refer Slide Time: 12:51)

So what we see here that along the X direction we have the dip angle, which can range from 0
to 90 degrees. And along the Y axis, we have orthogonal layer thickness which got
normalized to the hinge thickness. And you see that three different possibilities are there,
okay. So in one case or you can say that five different possibilities are there. But we will see,
we can classify them in three groups.

So the first class which is above the value, normalized value 1, we call it Class 1A, where T
prime alpha or small T prime alpha is greater than 1. And the full geometry would look like
this. Now along the normalized value 1, we call it Class 1B, where T prime alpha is equal to
1 and the fold would look like this. Now then there is another curve line where T prime alpha
is equal to cos alpha, which is this line, which is this line. And the fold would look like
something here is drawn.

So between T equal, T prime equal to 1 to T prime alpha equal to cos alpha, we have another
class which we call Class 1C, where T prime alpha is greater than cos alpha and less than 1.
And then we have another class, which is Class 3 where T prime alpha is less than cos
alpha. And therefore, we can actually define three classes. So Class 1, where we have three
possibilities – 1A, 1B and 1C. Then we have Class 2 and then we have Class 3. So the field
of Class 1 is this. Class 2 is represented by a single curvilinear line. And class 3 is this one,
okay.

Now we will see what is the meaning of this Class 1A, 1B, 1C and then Class 2 and Class 3.
We will take them over separately and discuss their implications, their geometries and so on.

538
(Refer Slide Time: 15:55)

So Class 1 folds are the folds with convergent dip isogons. As you can see here, in this 3
images, we will come here later, that this requires that the radius of curvature of the outer arc
or say, at the hinge zone is larger than that of the inner arc. Or in other ways, extrados has
higher curvature than the inner arc. So if that happens then all the dip isogons along the hinge
and along the hinge zone and limbs would converge towards the fold core.

And here we can have three possibilities one is Class 1A and the folds with orthogonal
thickness, minimum at the hinge and then it increases slowly towards the limb side. So as we
can see here, in this is your Class 1A fold. And we can clearly see that hinge thickness here is
something like that and limb thickness, if we try to measure, it is something like that. Clearly
this one is much larger than this one. If this condition happens, we also see that curvature of
the outer arc, this one here is more than the curvature here. So in such a condition what we
see that dip isogons are converging towards a fold core. The blue lines are the dip isogons.

In class 1B, the folds with the orthogonal thickness are constant along the layer. So here
therefore, this layer, the outer layer and the inner layer are arranged such a way that along the
hinge and along the limb, anywhere the orthogonal thicknesses are constant. In such a
condition as well, you will have your dip isogons converging towards the fold core. And then
comes class 1C where folds in which the orthogonal thickness is maximum at the fold hinge
and it decreases away from it.

So what do you see here that here the thickness is maximum and the thickness is decreasing
away. So what we see here that here the thickness is maximum and the thickness is

539
decreasing away towards the limb. In this case as well, we can see from this illustration that
the dip isogons, the blue lines are converging towards the fold core.

Now the Class 1A folds are also known as supratenuous fold. However these kinds of folds
are rare. We hardly see them in nature. Class 1B folds are also known as parallel folds or
concentric folds because their curvatures are such a way arranged that these are always
parallel to each other. And generally Class 1B folds we figure out, we mostly see in very very
competent layers. So if the layer is extremely stronger compared to the surrounding layers
then we see Class 1B folds. Now Class 1C folds we generally see in stronger layers, so which
is very close to class 1B. But it is different in the fact that the orthogonal thickness slowly
reduces towards the limb side.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:44)

Now Class 2 folds are folds in which the dip isogons are parallel, as we see here. So in this
case, the geometry can develop only if the actual planar thickness is constant all along the
fold. Or in other words the outer and inner arcs have exactly similar shape. Therefore, it is
known as also similar folds or shear folds.

What we see here in this illustration that if I have a fold like this. And then I have a similar
curve like that, then this is my actual, the trace of the actual planar cleavages. So if I
considered this height, this height, this height and so on. If these lengths are equal then this
fold is known as Class 2 fold. And these are also known as similar fold because outer arc and
inner arc are geometrically very similar.

540
Class 3 folds, as it is given here are the folds in which the dip isogons diverge towards;
diverge away from the fold core. Or in other ways we can figure out that for such folds the
radius of curvature of the outer arc, say at the hinge is smaller than that of the inner arc. So
the orthogonal thickness therefore is also maximum at the hinge point. So what we see here?
The orthogonal thickness here is maximum and then slowly it is reducing.

Now you can, you may confuse this fold structure or Class 3 folds with class 1C because their
hinge thickness was higher. But in this case, the dip isogons are diverging away from the fold
core. But in class 1C, the dip isogons diverge towards the fold core. And we will see their
implications. The class 1C folds, we generally see in an alternating sequence of competent
and incompetent layers. And generally, the incompetent layers show the Class 3 folds.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:20)

So let us revisit this image, okay. So this red layers, as I have said these are chalky layers and
the black layers are iron rich layers. And we clearly see that here the hinge thickness, now
you can understand this kind of features much better because we have understood the dip
isogons just right now. In other ways, if I look at this red layers, the thickness is more or less
constant or slightly variable or so on. So what we can do?

You can download such images, as I have done this one. And then try to draw their outer line
as I have done in one of the previous slides. You do a geometric model and then try to figure
out or try to draw the dip isogons and then see that which fold is what class. And this is a
very important exercise. If you do it by yourself, you will gain more and more experience.
And then at one point of time you will be so experienced that you even do not have to

541
measure. You see a photograph of a folded layer, you see a photo, you see them in the field,
you can immediately see them and recognize “Hey this is Class 1A, 1B 1C or Class 2 or
Class sorry Class B or Class 2 or Class 3 type of folds.”

So we finished the part of this lecture on dip isogons. So I repeat. This is only quantitative
scheme of classifications of folded structures, where we can more or less describe the
geometry, the shape, the morphology. And at the same time some sort of competent contrast
that means their rheology also is taken into account in this classification scheme and this is
very very important.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:35)

So now we will switch to the next topic which is folding mechanisms. Well the obvious
question of to study the fold mechanism is how did the folded structure actually form. That
we have learnt all these different terminologies to describe a fold but so far we did not talk or
we did not say a single line on the mechanisms of folding or how do they form in nature.

542
(Refer Slide Time: 25:22)

Now there are many ways you can consider. So one way is that you can consider the way
force or stress acts on the layered rock. Another consideration could be that how the different
layers react to the force and stress, for instance, whether the layers fold by layer-parallel
shearing or orthogonal flexure or some other mechanisms which are controlled by rock
rheology and so on.

And we have apart from this, a very few typical folds, such as you can consider kinking and
chevron folding. They are related mostly to fold geometry. So all these complexities are there
and for this reason there are several different fold mechanisms are in the literature and many
of them sometimes are overlapping each other. But in this lecture, we will primarily look at
some primary mechanisms. And we will try to mostly ask this question or the most
convenient way to look at the fold mechanism is whether the layers got folded actively or
passively due to some sort of imposed stress field.

Now what I mean by active folding or passive folding? Now you can consider this in a, you
can do an experiment by yourself that for example, you take a scale or ruler, a plastic scale or
ruler. And then you hold it like this keeping the long axis or the length of the scale in this
way. And then you slowly press it. You will see there is a particular point of the loading
when the scale will buckle or the scale will bend. And this is active folding. So there is a
particular elastic limit when you just start bending the fold or start buckling the fold.

You can now visualize another way that you can take a block of plasticine and so on. And
you draw a curved line on this plasticine block. And then you shorten or you compress this

543
plasticine block almost parallel to the curve line that we have drawn. Or in other ways, what
I, better I try to draw here that you may consider a plasticine block like this. And then on the
top of this plasticine block you may draw a gentle curved line something like that, okay. Now
if you compress this plasticine layer, what you will see?

It would get compressed and then these red things that we have drawn, it may appear
something like that. Now you see here, this entire plasticine block is actually getting
shortened. And this red line or red curved line that we have drawn is just passively folding or
passively showing a curvature with the deformation of this plasticine block. So this is
passive or this is something where the layer itself is not folding because you actually do not
have any layer. Or even if you have a layer here, the rheology of this plasticine block and this
layer, that you have drawn or you can insert something, they do not have any competence
contrast. Or there is no viscosity difference, then this we call that this layer got folded
passively. So I hope I can communicate you what is active folding and what is passive
folding.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:25)

Now based on that, a number of mechanisms have been proposed to take into account the
mechanisms of folding. And we will mostly discuss these four mechanisms. One is buckling.
Then we will look at flexural folding, which is also known as shear folding. Then we look
bending mechanism of folding. And finally, will talk about passive folding.

544
(Refer Slide Time: 29:52)

Now first let us take into account the most common mechanism of folding which is buckling.
So active folding is kind of buckling. So active folding or buckling is a fold process that can
initiate when a layer is shortened parallel to the layering. Now at a constant viscosity, so a
constant viscosity is required for buckling to occur, with the folding layer being more
competent than the host rock or the matrix. The result of the buckling is rounded folds,
typically parallel and with more or less sinusoidal shape.

What do we see here, an excellent experiment most likely perform by Professor Shubhir
Ghosh in Jadavpur University or his students. I have this photograph in my collection but I do
not know who did this experiment. But you clearly see this; this grayish material here is
putty. And this white layer is a plasticine, a thin plasticine layer. Now you see, how nicely
when this putty got compressed, then this white plasticine layer made excellent fold. And this
is a buckle folding. And you see the fold axis in the third dimension, okay. These are not
necessarily cylindrical but the buckling you see here in experiments that have been produced.

So this is a typical buckle folding where you need a layer parallel compression. It happens in
few different stages. We will see it soon. But before that let us have a look few of the
characteristics of buckle folding.

545
(Refer Slide Time: 31:45)

Now in buckle folding, it is very important that you take into account this ratio of wavelength
and thickness. Now for a single layer, this wavelength versus thickness ratio is constant for
each folded layer, provided the material is homogenous; the stress you are applying to the
system or strain you are applying to the system is very much homogenous. And other
physical conditions were kept constant. In buckle folding the folds in the component layers
generally are approximated to Class 1B folds or the geometries are very similar to Class 1B
folds. That means their orthogonal thicknesses are constant.

The outer part of the competent layer is stretched while the inner part is shortened. And the
two parts are typically separated by a neutral surface, where you do not have much strain.
Now when you have a fold produced by buckling and then you certainly would form the axial
surface. So the axial surface or the axial cleavage, if you have seen in the buckle folded
layers, then it indicates the direction of maximum shortening. So if you have buckle folds.
And if you generate axial surfaces or axial planar cleavages, then the perpendicular direction
to this axial planar cleavage is generally the direction of maximum shortening or Z direction
of the strain ellipsoid.

Now you can also quantify in a way, the wavelength versus thickness ratio by an equation
and this is the simplest form of this equation, considering the layer is Newtonian viscous and
there is no initial layer parallel shortening. Then the relation between wavelength and the
layer thickness is given by this equation,

546
where L is the wavelength, H is the thickness of the layer, 𝜇L is the viscosity of the layer, 𝜇M
is the viscosity of the matrix. We will see this in the next slide.

(Refer Slide Time: 34:06)

So what do you see here that initially this is a configuration that I have a thin layer with the
viscosity 𝜇L and which is embedded within a matrix with the viscosity 𝜇M. The condition is
𝜇L is greater than 𝜇M. Now if I try to compress it, at the very beginning I will not see any
folding or buckling. The layers would shorten homogeneously the strain is distributed within
the layers. And the entire system would shorten along the compression direction.

Now at one point of time, this thin wavelengths or these wavelength would appear and they
further titan with continued deformation. If I vary the layer thickness, then the wavelength
would vary as well, as it is represented in this illustration. You can see the same matrix with 3
different layers of same viscosity but different thickness. The top layer has the lowest
thickness and the bottom layer has the highest thickness. Now when if you start compressing
the top layer because it is thinner, it does not take much layer parallel homogenous shortening
so it starts folding immediately.

The middle layer also start folding but the bottom layer because it is thicker it is still
undergoing homogenous shortening along the compression direction. You also note that this
thinner layer has produced shorter wavelengths and the little thicker layer, the medium
thicker layer produced higher wavelengths. Here we did not produce any wave yet. With
continued deformation, you see here this fold starts tightening. This folds also. But this one,

547
now we have even much higher wavelength compared to this. So lower the thickness, we can
see here from this equation that it is related to the wavelength of this fold.

(Refer Slide Time: 36:35)

Now this is a fantastic example of buckle folding. As we can see here, this is a little thicker
layer compared to this one and this is also a thicker layer of more or less similar thickness
initially. These are the axial planar cleavages going on like this and you see the wavelengths
here is higher than the wavelengths here. So this is how we understood now that buckle
folding is an active folding, where layer parallel compression is required to produce buckle
folding.

(Refer Slide Time: 37:12)

548
Now let us have a look what we understand or what is the physical meaning of flexural
folding, which is one of the important mechanisms of folding. Now within the domain of
flexural folding, we have two basic mechanisms one is flexural slip and another is flexural
shear or flexural flow. Now flexural slip implies a slip along layer interfaces. Or you have
very thin layers between the two layers during folding. The fold maintains the bed thickness
and thus produces also Class 1B or parallel fold. We will see this in some illustrations soon.

So for flexural slip, it is a prerequisite that the deforming medium is layered and it has a very
very strong mechanical anisotropy. And this anisotropy in natural cases could be mica-rich
thin layers in a quartzite or mylonite, or very thin shale layers between thicker sandstone or
limestone and so on. So you need a plane along which the two adjacent layers can slip past
each other. We will see in the next, in the illustrations that maximum slip occurs at the
inflection points and it dies out towards the hinge zone, where the slip is zero. And this we
will see in one of the slides. But before that let us have a look what is flexural shear.

(Refer Slide Time: 38:51)

Now flexural shear is something where this individual displacements or individual shears
along these layers are sort of homogenized by making the layers very very thin or you can
imagine the way, if you have a paperback book and if you try to bend it or if you try to fold it,
then the individual slips do happen along the pages of this book. But if you draw a circle or if
you do a rectangle and then you deform it, you do not see the individual slips. It may appear a
continuous ellipse or a continuous sheared rectangle. So these are known as flexural shear or
flexural flow.

549
So in other ways as it is written here, in case where strain is more evenly distributed in the
limbs in the form of shear strength, as it is commonly the case of the plastic regime, flexural
slip turns into the closely related mechanism which is known as flexural shear or flexural
flow. So individual slips are not visible and it is coming to more or less some sort of shear
strain.

Now for original horizontal layers folded into an upright fold, shear strain is directly related
to the dip of this limb or folded layers and the sense of shear is opposite on each side of the
axial trace. Flexural flow produces identical strain in the inner and outer part of a fold but
strain increases away from the hinge and a pure flexural fold generally are also class 1B fold.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:55)

Let us have a look of this two type of folds that we have discussed flexural folding, one is
flexural slip and another is flexural flow. What do you see here that the thin white layers in
between the blue layers are the slip planes. So when the fold is forming, these individual
layers, they slip past each other. So this is the shear direction. So you can see that this layer is
shearing. This layer is also shearing and so on. The magnitude of shear is slowly decreasing
and at the hinge point the shear is virtually zero.

The similar case happens in the flexural flow that it also gets sheared but not as gross as for
flexural slip. So instead I have drawn the three lines here but you can imagine there are
number of lines which are involved in flexural slip. So approximately if individual lines like
the pages of a book, they start slipping, then you can actually figure out that if you have a
straight line this red one, then it rotated due to the deformation, due to shearing of individual

550
sheets to a certain angle and this angle defines that what is a strain at the limb. So the entire
limb is under shear, not the individual layers and so on. But again in this case, at the hinge the
shear strain is zero. So now we learnt what is flexural slip and what is flexural flow.

(Refer Slide Time: 42:44)

The next one we take over is bending. Now bending occurs when forces act across the layer
at high angle, unlike buckle folds where we have seen that you need a layer parallel force. So
the configuration mechanically you can figure out like this that these two points are hinged.
That means that these two points are fixed, these two little triangles. And if you apply a load,
then it would bend like this and this is a fold like structure and if your fold is forming by this
mechanism, then we call it bending fold.

551
(Refer Slide Time: 43:22)

In this slide, we have a series of examples that are very much similar, what we have seen in
the previous slide and these are assigned or these are termed as bending folds. For example,
here in between the two bodkins, the layers at the top and the layer at the bottom, they try to
sync-in in the free space. So they form something like that and this appears to be a folded
structure. And these are bending folds. Also we see them in fault bend folds or sometimes we
call it forced folds, when you have a fault at the bottom layers which are brittle. And then, if
you have some layers that can be adjusted with the fault at the bottom and therefore, you
form a structure which is fold like and this are bending fold.

Sometimes in large-scale you also form, bending fold particularly during magma intrusion or
in the salt dome comes up to the surface. So these are the examples. You can imagine this is a
salt dome, the pink one and the layers surrounding it, it has to intrude and then it forms a
folded like feature and this is a bending type of fold.

552
(Refer Slide Time: 44:50)

The last one in this classification is passive folding and we have already given an example of
the passive folding. So the passive folds are something that is produced by accentuation of
pre-existing curvatures. This is very important. If you have a straight line or straight bed, you
cannot produce passive fold. You have to have even it on a very micro scale, a little
curvature. So when you produce a passive fold, you are actually produced an accentuation of
pre-existing curvatures of layers by more or less homogeneous deformation. So deformation
all along the layers are more or less similar or all along the body or the rock is more or less
similar.

Now the homogeneity of the strain is not an essential condition. However, what is required is
that the strain in the neighboring points of the successive layers is approximately the same.
This implies that the passive folding can take place, only if there is no significant competence
contrast among these layers. So this is an example. We have drawn it before in a different
way.

So I have a curved layer here. You see the colors are similar here, here and here. So their
viscosity or compositions are very much similar. But they are separated by some sort of
layers. And if I apply a shear, then this slightly bended layer may produce a folded like
structure, like this. But this is not an active fold. This is passive fold because the strain here,
strain here and strain here are very very similar.

553
(Refer Slide Time: 46:31)

Now passive fold, sometimes they develop in rocks in a similar way in shear zones because
in shear zones what you have very very thin foliations and the compositions or viscosity
within these foliations of the layers are very much similar. So provided the layers do not have
a strong anisotropy or strong competence contrast, in terms of the mechanical properties, then
you can form passive fold in the shear zones. The initial curvatures in the shear zones
generally developed by local distortions. This could be around pebbles, porphyroblasts,
porphyroclasts etc. and later deformation causes also a passive accentuation of this
curvatures.

You also see passive falls in penecontemporaneous structures or sort of regular train of
passive folds by deformation of sedimentary layers before lithification and this can happen
due to some sort of tremors or diastrophic movements.

So with this I end this lecture. So we learnt how to classify folds via dip isogons and then we
also learnt four different mechanisms of folding. We learnt buckling, we learnt flexural
folding, we learnt bending and at the end we learnt passive folding.

554
(Refer Slide Time: 44:59)

Now based on all these ideas, in the next lecture we will switch to that how two or more
individual folds, they may be different, they may be similar; they may be different or they
may be similar, they can interfere each other and produce what is called superposed folding.
Thank you very much. I will see you in the next lecture.

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 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture 23
Folds and Folding: Superposed Folding
(Refer Slide Time: 00:33)

Hello everyone welcome back again to this online NPTEL structural geologic course and in
this week we are learning folds and foldings and in this particular lecture we will learn a
superposed deformation of folds so, this week is little long for you because we have 4
lectures of quite long hours, but this is how it is fold is one of the spectacular features as we
have discussed in previously.

So, we decided to spend quite a lot of time learning folds and different features but a good
news, this is the last lecture on folds and as I said today we will be learning a superposed
deformation of folds and we have in lecture number 23.

556
(Refer Slide Time: 00:56)

So, the things we will learn in this lecture the first one is the basics of superposition of folds
then we will try to a figure out the different morphology and the classification of superposed
folds and finally we will see what are the different outcrop patterns of the superposed folds.
So we will take one after another with a lot of descriptions, illustrations and also some field
examples.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:22)

So let us first understand that what is the superposition of fold or get the basic idea what it is
now, if you remember in the previous lectures, we have seen some folds where the fold axis
is curved or the axial plane is not a very much a straight plane. Now, to give you an example
of this for example, so you can consider that you had this initial straight layer something like

557
that and then it got folded to form the shape like this so this is an anti-form it is one up right
fold and so on okay.

Now what we see here, the fold axis is this one which is straight the axial plane if you can
consider, is also straight now, in this second we see that there is only one deformation that
has happened so, the deformation came from this side to this side to make this fold but we
have seen folds which are non-cylindrical for example we have seen shape of a fold
something like this where the fold axis is not straight but, curved and interestingly the axial
plane is straight and this we have identified has a non-cylindrical fold.

So, to form this it is very much clear to us if we understand the stress lecture that to form this
kind of curves in a straight layer we need a deformation layer parallel shortening layer
parallel compression so, after that, after this structure has formed this particular one, you
must have to have another deformation almost perpendicular to the previous one, the
compression that could curve this fold axis which was initially straight. And this is the basic
concept of superposition.

So, you have formed the structure and then you modify the structure with a second or third of
fourth deformation which may be similar to the previous one or may be different to the
previous one, and this is the basic concept. So to produce this complex structures you can
infer the fact that in an orogenic belt there might be more than one system of folds which will
interfere with one another. We will learn about more on this kind of structures and features
throughout this lecture.

(Refer Slide Time: 04:34)

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Now here is an example just to orient you, as you can see here that this is an outcrop, this is a
photograph from John Ramsay and you see if I just first try to understand the fold closer then
I see certainly we have a closer like this so it is closing in this side and then we have series of
closers which is closing up ward forming anti forms and then series of closers this way
forming synforms and this happened in the single layer. Now if I try to draw the axial traces
and if I consider that this is the profile plane of this fold, profile section of this fold, then if I
consider this is the folded layer, then certainly the axial trace would be something like that.

And interestingly the axial trace is not a straight line, so therefore the axial trace got curved
and how did it get curved, it got curved because you have another fold which I see the axial
trace of which are like this and in this case the axial trace are very much straight. So, one the
axial trace which is curved one the axial trace which is straight or common intuition says at
least looking at it that, the blue one must have formed initially and then it got refolded with
this green one.

So this is how we look at and interpret things now, we will learn these things in more detail
with different other kinds of structures and features but, this is something an example of the
superposition of folding.

(Refer Slide Time: 06:28)

Now how it can happen now, fold interference may take place either synchronously that
means you can have shortening along the layers in all directions so, not a particularly oriented
direction but all sigma1, sigma2 and sigma3 if you consider in on a plane so, sigma 1 and
sigma 2 you can consider that these two stresses, these two principal axis of stresses are equal
or it can happen successively that means one after another which was the example I sighted at

559
the very beginning that we have compression along this direction so, you made a fold then
you have compression along this direction then, you curve the fold axis. So, this is how it
occurs.

Now, this successiveness that one after another deformation can happen in 3 different ways
so it can happen when a single continuous deformation is going on but the orientation of the
stress axis are continuously changing that can happen in an orogenic belt. Now, it can also
happen in the course of a single orogeny which there could be some sort of superposition of
separate faces of deformations with different orientation of the stress and at the same time
incremental strain axes and you can have superposition of deformations that can belong to
different or separate orogenies.

So, there could be many possibilities and we will look at each of them but, first we will see
the first kind of a features where it can deform synchronously that means you do not need
two stages of deformations or one after another successive deformation so in one single event
you can produce superposition of folds. Whatever be the case you have your initial structure
and then you get your final structure by superposition, so the second one is known as refolded
folds.

(Refer Slide Time: 08:29)

So here is an example of interfering patterns in a single deformation so this is, these two what
you see an experiment the first one it was a circular canister or something like that you can
consider and the stress axis it got compressed. From all directions equally and then it was a
modeling clay and then you can see here, that these are your fold axis and they are not

560
necessarily oriented equally and also from the shades you can figure out that fold axes are not
straight.

In this case the second example you see the buckling is happening you can understand by the
shapes of this shadow and things like that, so these are fold axis and you can clearly visualize
that these are not straight. They are some sort of getting branched and so on and in this case
the deformation was directed mostly due to shortening in two directions. So, this is what can
happen in a single deformation but this kind of feature we see in the field but not very
common so we will not focus in this particular type of deformations a lot.

(Refer Slide Time: 09:47)

But we will figure out how, we can see these things in different stages of deformation and the
first generation of folds generally is refolded by the second generation and by all subsequent
generations. We have a first generation fold then it can get refolded by second generation it
can get refolded by third generation and so on.

Now, you can imagine the fact that the features particularly the fold axes and axial plane
which are developing in the first generation of fold can get modified in the second generation
of fold at the same time the second generation of fold can also produce a different fold axes
and the different axial planes and so on. So it is important in the field we identify which one
is what. And also coordinate them with the deformation.

So generally we studied mostly based on over printing relationships, that is how was your
first fold axis then how it got modified by the second deformation and what was the
orientation of the fold axis of the second deformation and so on and also we consider this

561
with the axial planes. So one is the direction there is a plane and then we co-relate them with
deformation.

So, we have 3 terminologies one is surfaces that we have producing successively then we
have fold axes which we are producing successively and they correspond to the deformation.
So surfaces are defined as S if I denote as S 0 where 0 is on the index position. So, S 0 or S
Naught means that there was no deformation so this was generally considered as sedimentary
surfaces or bedding plane.

Then you generate your first axial surface, second axial surface, third axial surface and so on
and these are assigned as S1 S2 S3 and so on. Similarly, F0 is hardly used because that means
there is no fold but, then you produce successively fold axes like hinge lines or fold axes on
first, second and later generations and then you refer them as F1 F2 and F3 and so on and
these S1 S2 S3, F1 F2 F3 should be correlated with the deformation. So, D0 means no
deformation and then deformation sequences you can go with D1 D2 and D3.

So enough a S1 should have F1 and that should be correlated with D1 S2 should modify S1
and produce F2 and that deformation should be correlated with D2 and so on. So this is how
we learn in the field how we identify the structures in the field and also interpret them
successively.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:50)

Now, as I talked about that the classification of fold superposition is based on mostly the
geometry of the axial surfaces and hinge lines or fold axes of the first generation fold and in
that case we can have 4 possibilities 2 for the axial surfaces and 2 for the hinge lines. So,

562
axial surfaces could be either plane or non-plane and hinge lines could be either cylindrical or
non-cylindrical. So combination of these 4 would give you the classification of superposition
of folds which is in the next slide.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:28)

So, the first classification is type 0 which is known as plane cylindrical that means the fold
axis is straight, therefore it is cylindrical and axial plane is also not curved it is straight, so
therefore it is plane cylindrical. Type 1-fold superposition is plane, non-cylindrical axial
plane is straight fold axis is curved. Type 3 is non-plane, non-cylindrical both axial planes
and fold axes are not straight they are curved. And in type 3 what is remaining it is, non plane
cylindrical axial planes are curved but fold axes is very much straight.

What is written within the parentheses here, that redundant superposition or dome basin
pattern, dome crescent mushroom pattern, or hook pattern these are the structures or
superposition outcrop features that you see in the field we will learn about it later after we
classify or we see them through some geometric considerations and then we will go how we
form this dome basin crescent mushroom and hook patterns.

Now, the majority of this complex folds are mostly produced by superposition of buckling
deformation so you do not get it by bending and so on. So it happens mostly due to the
buckling fold mechanism which essentially is a very complex process and people still work
on it because it is not very well understood and it is a very hot topic in the structural geology
research community.

563
So in any event the distinction among the 4 categories of this superposition can be made
entirely on the basis of their morphology and without considering their mechanisms and so
on, but people generally try to coordinate with the mechanisms but, in the field you mostly
identify by their mutual relationship and so on, so, we will learn about it soon.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:40)

Let us focus on type 0-fold superposition so initially cylindrical planar and after deformation
it is also cylindrical and planar that is the initial fold morphology does not change after the
deformation it may get tightened only. So, what you see here this is your initial fold we can
see the fold axis is straight, here and in the refolded fold that simply tighten base fold the fold
axis are also straight here, so it is cylindrical before and after deformation, if I consider the
axial planes I just draw one here this is the axial plane of this fold it was straight plane and
here it is also very much straight. So therefore, this is plane cylindrical superposition and this
is type 0-fold superposition.

564
(Refer Slide Time: 16:40)

565
Now here is a movie short movie you can see how does it work, so you see here it just the
fold gets tighten and tighten and tighten but, it can happen episodically that means the
deformation can stop and then it can start again but, without changing the orientation of the
principle axes of stresses. Or the direction of layer parallel compression.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:18)

Now, let us the look what is type 1 superposition as we have defined so, initially cylindrical
planar and after deformation, it turns to non-cylindrical and planar so, here again if I consider
the fold axis in this initial fold is very much straight and here, we will assign this as F1 so
that means these are the folds of the first generation fold axes of the first generation and axial
planes if we draw only one is like this and this we assigned as S1 because this is something
which is being developed on a surface which we can consider as S0. So, this is your S0 that is
your formed surface or initial bedding plane and so on.

Now after the deformation if we try to trace the fold axis F1 we see that F1 now is very much
curved then it went inside then it is coming that again here, it went on the other side and so
on. So, F1 is clearly folded so this is your F1 this is also your F1 and so on. Now who is
folding the F1 or who is refolding the F1, is something a different fold which is appearing
here, that you can figure out from this, so this is your F2. The S0 is again here the form
surface which is this brownish layer.

Now, if I try to consider what happened with the S1 we can clearly see that S1 is still very
much straight though it deformed in this direction but, the axial plane is still very much
straight so this was your S1 and that did not become curved due to the second stage of
deformation. What is also important that if I try to draw the S2, then S2 probably would

566
appear if I just, this section actually this section you are looking at, this section is parallel to
S2. However, if I try to draw the S2 would appear something like that.

So, I have F1, I have F2, I have S1 and S2 in both cases we see that S1 and S2 they remain
plane planar so it is planar deformation but F1 and F2 both are curved therefore the fold is not
cylindrical and therefore it is non cylindrical planar superposition or type 1-fold
superposition.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:24)

567
We have again a movie for this. Let us have a look, and now the superposition started you see
how F1 is getting folded by F2.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:44)

Let us consider the type 2 fold superposition so, initially as we have defined a cylindrical
planar fold would turn to a non-cylindrical and non-planar fold. So again this is your initial
fold I again defined all these features this is your F1 and this is your S1 where, this is S0 as a
form surface. And that happened in D1. In this case I just draw to the same color the stress
came from the layer parallel shortening happened in this direction. Now, if you deform it
from this side after that you may have a shape like this let see, what happened with the F1,
after the deformation, you can clearly see that F1 is now, running like this so F1 is not
straight any more.

568
Therefore, initial fold axis F1 is non cylindrical what happened with the S1 we choose this
one we can also see I draw it here, the S1 is also curved as it is going here, because it is
intersecting the plane in a curvy way so S2 is also, sorry, this is S1, so S1 is also curved so F1
is non cylindrical we have established and S1 is not planar any more so this is non planar,
non-cylindrical non planar fold we have developed due to fold superposition and this is type
2 fold superposition.

What happens with F2 in this image and you can see that this fold axis this red line here is
getting folded by of course F2 so, F2 is coming this way. So this is another fold axis of F2.
And if this is F2, then you can guess that what would be your S2, now I am now drawing it, it
is up to you, you figure it out how this S2 would look like in this image. We will see this later
in many many cases. So this is type 2 superposition where we developed non-cylindrical non
planar refolded folds.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:46)

569
And finally, we have this movie so we see how does it develop, is this clear to you? I believe.

570
(Refer Slide Time: 24:08)

Now we will look at type 3-fold superposition where, as we have defined initially cylindrical
planar and after deformation, it becomes cylindrical and non-planar. And this is also known
as coaxial folding and we will see why, so again we do the same process as we have been
doing with the other superposition so, this is your F1 this is your S1 and again the form
surface is S0.

Now, what is happening with the F1, after deformation we see that F1 is straight, it did not
get curved or it did not change its orientation but, S1 interestingly if you try to look at this
plane it is now, extremely curved and it is going like this, is not it so, if I try to do the axial
stress it would be something like that so, S1 here is very much curved now, who is curving
the S1, of course it is happening due to the deformation. So, where is the F2, F2 is seating
somewhere here.

So all these secondary curvatures that is see here here, and so on, these are your F2. Now it
clearly sees the orientation of F1 and F2 are parallel to each other and because they are
parallel to each other these are known as coaxial folding, where the fold axes are oriented
very similarly. Now where is the S2 here, you can figure out from this fold that S2 is lying
something like this and in this case S2 is very much straight.

So this is how we developed the type 3-fold superposition which is known as coaxial folding
or cylindrical non planar folds.

571
(Refer Slide Time: 26:28)

572
And here, is the movie again, for this type 3-fold superposition, brilliant so this how you
develop type 3 superposition of fold now, we have a very clear understanding of how to
define or how to classify this type 0, type 1, type 2 and type 3 superposition as given by
professor Ramsay. There are some other classifications professor Ghosh has come up with
another classification which is based on more sub superposed deformation we are not going
to learn this, but you certainly can refer the book of professor Ghosh that I have recommend
at the very beginning of this lecture and this is also very interesting to look at.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:22)

573
Now, let us talk about the outcrop patterns of fold superposition but before we jump in to the
actual topic let us understand what do we mean by outcrop patterns. Now we have seen all
this kinds of folds actually we have seen many different geometries so in all these 3 folds that
we see here, in this slide, these are all anti forms and this is an upright fold the fold axes in all
cases are very much straight and so on. So what do we mean by outcrop patterns that, we just
have seen the geometries but, they can appear on the surface in different ways because, the
non-necessarily will appear the way we see them, or we draw them.

What I mean by this that this fold after they are formed they can break or we can see them in
any sections and these are their appearance on the outcrop scale what do I mean by that if I
make a horizontal section like this, here then the fold will appear I have to use a different
color because I do not have this color here, so if try to trace them on the horizontal surface on
this green surface, and if I plot this green surface hare, then the two limbs would appear on
this surface something like that.

In a very similar way if I try to with the next one, the plunging fold and if I take a section
along this, you see that it has to cut on this side so it probably would look like on the surface
something like that and if I do the same on the third one, I am sorry it will be opposite, this
would be thinner and this would be thicker. So these are the outcrop patterns of this fold,
these 3 folds what we have drawn here.

Now can we draw the axial trace the answer is yes, so in this case the actual trace would be
something like that. Again it is here, like this and here this are the actual cleaner cleavages
that would form successively. Like this, like this, like this and so on. So if I try to draw the

574
traces they will appear here, as the traces of this axial planes on this surface for actual cleaner
cleavages. Ohh sorry, and here as well it would appear something like that.

So these are outcrop patterns now you can imagine that I can draw a series of sections on this
folds, oriented differently and we can get different kind of outcrop patterns. It can be a
vertical section, it can be a horizontal section, it can be an incline section and so on. So the
best possible way when you have a single fold is the, if you see, through the perpendicular
section of the fold axis but, if we have a superposed deformation than it is not very easy to
figure out that which fold axis I should take, to have the profile section number 1, number 2 if
the fold axis is curved, then how to get the successive profile planes and so on, but in the
field there is no control.

So they do appear in many different ways and therefore the superposition also appeared in the
field in many different ways and this is exactly what we have going to learn that what would
be the typical outcrop patterns of this 4 types of superposed deformation that we have just
seen.

Now in this image, these 3 are given here in the previous slide we have seen different kinds
of outcrop patterns of these 3 very simple folds, so what we can do, you can take these 3
images and you can make them sections in different ways and see what kind of outcrop
patterns you get out of it. You can also use all other kinds of folds. It can be inclined, it can
be tied, it can be open and so on.

(Refer Slide Time: 32:52)

575
Now, let us the look, how do we get the superposition patterns of type 0 as I have told in the
very beginning that the superposition is redundant in type 0, so what we see here, that F1 and
F2 these are parallel to each other in type 0, because it just getting folded in a very similar
way so, therefore S1 and S2 as well parallel to each other. So, the outcrop patterns if you cut
it along a horizontal plane it would show up like this if it is an inclined it would show up like
this but, this is somehow this section is as we can see it cuts both F1 and F2 and if you cut
this in a different angle which is here, then it may show up as a folded structure but, this is
something we really cannot interpret looking at it, whether it is type 0 superposition or it is a
single type of fold. So, this is how it is with the type 0 type of superposition.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:56)

Now, outcrop pattern of type 1 is very interesting and it produces mostly what we call dome
and basin structure or in other ways oval or somewhat rhombic or lozenges shaped outcrops.
Now the curved hinge line of an early fold that is F1 must meet the plane of outcrop at least 2
times to produce dome and basin structures, we will see this how it happens and the type 1
interferons will not give however the characteristic dome and basin outcrop patterns in all
outcrop faces.

For example, if you see it along the F2 axial planes then what you will get, the sinusoidal
pattern of F1 fold and vice versa is also true. If you see it along the F1 axial plane you will
see the sinusoidal, you will see the sinus pattern of the F2 folds we will see it soon.

576
(Refer Slide Time: 34:54)

So what we see here, in this so this is as we can imagine here, that we discussed about it so,
this is how, F1 is going like this, and this how your F2 was moving, so this is your F2 and
this is your F1 now, this section is your S2 the green one and this is your S1. So this S2 is
actually the section of here this one as we can see, so this is showing up a sinusoidal pattern
on S2 you see this and S1 if you see this way then you see also the sinusoidal pattern and you
may not figure out that this is a product of superposed deformation.

However, if you cut it, along this plane then you see something very interesting and which we
are going to see in the next slide.

(Refer Slide Time: 35:56)

577
So, these are known as dome and basin structure the type 1 interference produces dome and
basin structure as we talked about oval or somewhat rhombic or lozenges shaped so we can
see here, that these are your basins so that means it is like a boll and these sections as you can
see here, these are like a domal structure. So these things if we can talk about they are
dipping towards the center of this basin and this layer if I talk about they are dipping away
from the top of the fold you can actually figure it out here, so they are dipping this side and
therefore, it is producing a dome and basin structures.

(Refer Slide Time: 36:39)

Do we see them in the field, yes we see them in the field, as we can see here, that you have
this, you can figure out that these are your some sort of folds going on here, and here you
have a closer where, the fold axis is going something like that, and this here the fold axis is
plunging towards this side and here, fold axis is plunging towards this side so, they are
converging here, and the beds are dipping also towards the center so, this is a basin.

On the other hand, if I consider this particular area you see here, the fold axis is plunging to
this side, here the fold axis is plunging to this side, the beds or the form surface is in this side
dipping here, and in this side dipping here, so, this is a dome and this is the basin. And this is
how we produce alternatively dome and basin structures.

578
(Refer Slide Time: 37:42)

There is another example here, we can see this is again a very classical photograph from
professor John Ramsay so we can see this is your one set of axial traces of course you do not
see in three dimensions and another one is going like this. Here it is going like this so this is
the interaction between F1 and F2 producing the dome and basin structures in type 1
superposition.

(Refer Slide Time: 38:13)

This is an experiment again performed by professor Nibir Mandal and you see here, that these
are your basins these are curved here and here and these are your domes because when you
cut the section the domes are out and then you see them exposed in this way and you see
these are all dipping away from the hinge zone which is somewhere here. The fold

579
superposition you can study the best if you do, some sort of experiments and people have
done it since long time and this is just an example.

(Refer Slide Time: 38:49)

Let us have a look, what happens with type 2 superposition in terms of their outcrop patterns.
The type 2 pattern of fold superposition is generally identified by crescent shaped or
mushroom shaped outcrop patterns. Now you do not see them again in all sections so for
crescent or mushroom shaped outcrop patterns you can only see when, F1 and F2 fold hinges
meet more or less a planar outcrop faces at least more than one point so, that means F1 has to
pass through the plane at least 2 times and same for the F2.

Now, also in other sections you can get a sinusoidal pattern when you see the F2 hinge meets
the F1 hinge at one point only and you can also get a hook type pattern and we will see how
does it work.

580
(Refer Slide Time: 39:44)

So again this is what we have drawn this is your F1 going like this your F2 is going like that
and this is your S1 and this is your S2 so clearly, on the S2 surface which is this one you see
the fold patterns of S1 only and you cannot figure out whether this is a superposed
deformation or not.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:15)

However, we can see some excellent features when you make sections in different ways so
this is typically a crescent shaped outcrop where you can see the F1 is going like this and F2
is going like this and this one is known as mushroom as you can see from this typical shape.
So it is like this, isn't it. So this is like a mushroom and this is known as mushroom type of

581
exposers and again we see their F1 is going like that here, and F2 is like this. The crescents
are also here, as you can see here F1 is like this and F2 is coming like that.

(Refer Slide Time: 41:13)

This is a crescent as we can see so F1 is something like that, this is a first fold axis and this is
your F2. In this example you can also see it is going like this so, gain this is your F1 and this
is your F2 here, it is a tilted outcrop but, you still can figure out the shape of the crescent this
is your F1 and this is your F2 in this image, this image you can also see how this is folding
here. And the same layer is coming up here like this, so this is a very complex pattern but, if
you understand the geometry of superposition you can figure it out.

In this image which I received from professor Biswal we can clearly see that at the center we
have a crescent but we have an excellent mushroom on this side so the best is if you do a
geometric analysis and you figure out. So again you see this is your F1 and this is how it got
the entire 4 that you see here, this is because of the second deformation and the trace of the
F2 going on along this side.

582
(Refer Slide Time: 42:37)

This is an excellent mushroom as well you can see here this is the outcrop pattern, so clearly,
you can figure out this is your F1 here and this is your F2. So this is how it works but, by the
way this is not the first fold we see here, this is a highly deformed terrain, so could be a many
second generation fold we can define it particularly for this, so if this is a N, then this is N
plus 1. So the N is the number of deformations we are looking at.

(Refer Slide Time: 43:15)

Now, we can also see a sinusoidal pattern if we cut it flat so, in this section you see the traces
of this S0 here, and on this surface which is horizontal surface here, so these are your S0, the
form surface and you see the traces of your S1 folds on this case and you also see the S2 folds
in way. You can also see the hook shaped pattern something like that, it is coming like this

583
and this is known as hook because it is coming something like that so these hooks are also
possible in type 2 on superposition of folds.

(Refer Slide Time: 44:00)

Now, let us talk about what happens with the type 3 superposition, now type 3 fold
interferons is essentially characterized by hook shaped outcrop. So, you also get them in type
2 deformation so you have to look from other, look in some other surfaces, if you can also get
hook shaped outcrops, or not or crescent or something like that, but they generally are very
complex so, you have to be very careful to identify that which type of superposition is
actually what.

Now the hook appears in the outcropped faces that intersect both F1 and F2 hinges now,
sections again either parallel to F1 or parallel to F2 would not produce any typical
intersection pattern or it would be a redundant interferon.

584
(Refer Slide Time: 44:50)

So what we see here again, as we have learned in these previous slides that this is your F1,
this is your F2, this is your S1 and the green one is your S2. So S1 is curved that is why it is
non-planar but it is cylindrical because neither F1 nor F2 are curved. So they are straight.

Now, you can clearly see in this section we see this hook shape okay so sections particular to
F1 and F2 would give you a hook shape or if the outcrop pattern cuts at an angle F1 and F2
you would see essentially a hook shaped pattern like here.

(Refer Slide Time: 46:37)

So, we cut at an angle so, this was your F1 and this one is F2 so this is the plane, this outcrop
pattern that is cutting both F1 and F2 at an angle and producing this hook shaped outcrop.

585
(Refer Slide Time: 45:53)

But, if they are parallel to F1 and F2 then you can have an outcrop pattern as you see in this
slide and these are some sort of redundant superposition.

(Refer Slide Time: 46:02)

Now do we see them in the field, the answer is, yes. First have a look here, we see that this
thin layer is folded something like that to thick layer is straight and then here, we see a very
faint hook formation. Okay, so this is again your F1, this is your F2, they are aligned almost
perpendicular to this projection plane and these are your traces of the actual planes and this is
another one. So we can figure out this must be your S1 and this must be your S2.

586
(Refer Slide Time: 46:38)

But we can see them in a much much detailed and better way. So this is again one hook as we
can see this is one-fold axis and this could be another fold axis where this one is certainly F1
and these are F2 fold axes they are parallel to each other and in this section that you are
looking at they are approximately perpendicular to the plane of view and here as well we see
this is, this must be your F1 and then these two fold axes are where it got maximum curve.
This is the trace of S2, this is the trace of S1 in this case and these are your F2.

(Refer Slide Time: 47:37)

So I conclude this lecture of fold superposition and also the conclusion of this week's lecture
so I repeat it was again a long week, I am sorry for that for, that you have to spend time in
front of your computers or something for quite a long time this week, but I believe this is

587
something we should understand and learned as an undergraduate students of structural
geology and in the next lecture we will actually continue this superposition but we will see
them in a different way.

The next week is assigned for boothins but I would like to spill part of it to the next lecture
and we will look at things in microscale and we see how this different kinds of planar fabrics
appeared in the field so what are their mutual relationships what are the overprinting
relationships together with the metamorphism because during metamorphism we form some
new minerals and the new minerals grow during deformation and while they grow they
include or they produce some characteristic micro structures.

And these micro structures are very very crucial and important to identify when and how the
deformation had happened. So stay tuned. I will see you next week. Thank you very much.

588
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture No. 24
Porphyroblasts

Hello everyone, welcome back again to this online Structural Geology NPTEL course, we are
going to start a new week and we are in our lecture number 24.

(Refer Slide Time: 0:27)

As I said in the last lecture that we will continue with the superposed not folding, but superposed
deformation. So in structural geology there are some typical micro structures that help us to
figure out the different stages of deformation, so I thought that before we go to the actual topic of
this week which is boudinage, we talk a little bit about this particular micro structural features
which we will cover in this lecture today and this is on porphyroblasts.

589
(Refer Slide Time: 0:59)

So the aim of this lecture is basically to understand the metamorphic mineral growth prior,
during and after deformation. Now, this is something very important for us to understand at this
time that structural geology, it is not a standalone subject in the sense that deformation most of
the cases particularly in the ductile domain do happen with the metamorphism of rocks. So rocks
experience high pressure and temperature, they undergo a lot of phase transformations, they
develop different fabrics due to deformation and these fabrics also do control some sort of
metamorphic reactions as well.

So, if we try to study structural geology separately without considering the processes of
metamorphism it would be a good idea. So this lecture in a way would give you a visualization
or an impression that how metamorphism or metamorphic petrology is closely related to
structural geology, so this is why we learn the metamorphic mineral growths that do develop
before, during and after deformation.

590
(Refer Slide Time: 2:12)

So there are two common terminologies that we use, one is porphyroclasts and another is
porphyroblasts. Now in general both porphyroclasts and porphyroblasts, they are both relatively
larger crystals within a finer-grained matrix or the host rocks. So Porphyroclasts, when it starts
with C that means clasts are generally large grains that remained large while their surrounding
matrix became fine-grained. Clasis or this word clasts came from this word particularly clasis
and clasis means breaking, we will see some examples soon.

On the other hand, porphyroblasts, so the new grown metamorphic minerals that grow over pre-
existing minerals, so this is the new minerals, these are the reaction products during
metamorphism, so blasis means growing. So porphyroclasts are old larger grains and
porphyroblasts are new larger grains. Now, why this is important to study porphyroblasts? This
is actually the topic we are going to learn today so Porphyroblasts mostly contain information on
tectonic and metamorphic evolution.

Now there are series of inclusion patterns within the porphyroblasts that record the micro
structures of the rock during their growth and therefore they are very very useful in
reconstructing the deformation history and to some extent the history of the metamorphism as
well. Porphyroblasts you can also use to study the different kinematic behaviors or kinematic
significance of their rotation and non rotation with respect to a specific reference frames, this we
will learn in a sheared zone lecture and there we will see that how you can use the rotation of

591
Porphyroblasts in figuring out the kinematics, so whether we which sense the shear zone moved
with respect to a fixed reference frame, we will learn it in the shear zone lecture.

But in this lecture will mostly focus on this point 2 and we will see that how porphyroblasts are
useful the information that is that it contains within itself to figure out the when they have grown
and therefore we can figure out the deformation history.

(Refer Slide Time: 4:42)

So here are a few examples of Porphyroclasts and Porphyroblasts as you can see in the right
panel we have examples of porphyroclasts, so these are clasts and these are we will see it soon
blasts, of course they have to add the prefix porphyro. Now, what do you see in the first image?
We see this matrix is as you can see it is fine-grained, you can also figure out that there is a
foliation going on, almost east, west in this image.

But there are few larger grains, for example, this one or this one. Now these are not new grains,
these are some old grains which did not participate in the deformation process, but it may
participate or it could participate if the deformation would continued, but it did not happen, so it
stayed like this probably because this is the stronger minerals or did not have enough reaction
kinetics to develop new grains or to fragment for not having enough stress.

So this is a field photograph as you can see from this scale and this is a optical microscope image
so a thin section and here again you see that we have this yellow grain here and this is a

592
porphyroclasts and you see the grain also got fractured and developed asleep along this. So these
are examples of Porphyroclasts, you also see that grain was before this is why the foliation got
wrapped around this porphyroclasts.

Now, on the other side we have examples of porphyroblasts, what do we see here? This is again
a foliated rock, you can see the foliation is overall going like this little bit undulated foliation, but
it is a continuous foliation and what do you see here there are again some large grains these
grains are garnet and these garnets they grew during the deformation, during the metamorphism.
So the host rock is mostly mica schists and then at high pressure temperature due to reactions the
garnet grains grow and these garnet grains contain a lot of information or they inherit a lot of
information during their growth.

So again this is a field photograph, the second one is an optical image and there you see that this
garnet grain again this is a garnet grain, is a plane polarized light and you see that this garnet has
many many inclusions in it. So these inclusions are studied for series of petrochemical and
geochemical information, but at the same time you can also study this to figure out the
deformation histories and so on and this is the aim of this lecture, we will learn this soon.

(Refer Slide Time: 8:00)

Porphyroblasts, these are mostly (wise) widespread in rocks that have been at upper greenschist
or higher metamorphic facies that means you have to have enough pressure and temperature to
make these minerals react and produce new grains. Now in common metapelitic rocks you find

593
the porphyroblasts like chlorite, chloritoid, biotite, garnet, cordierite, sillimanite, kyanite
andalusite and staurolite, so these are all metamorphic minerals and they are considered as
Porphyroblasts if the source rock is metapelitic by composition. If they are metabasites that
means the source rock is a basic rock, then the Porphyroblasts or typical Porphyroblasts minerals
one can form are garnet, plagioclase, epidote and hornblende and there are few other minerals.

So, if you see this kind of minerals in your thin sections, you can actually figure out that these
are porphyroblasts they have grown during deformation and then you can look for if they are
containing some information within it and most of the cases I repeat we study them under a
microscope.

(Refer Slide Time: 9:16)

So there are three classifications of Porphyroblasts, one is poikiloblasts and other is xenoblasts
and the third one is idioblasts. So a poikiloblast is when porphyroblasts contain high
concentrations of inclusions. So for example, this is an SEM image, you see this is again a
garnet, the matrix is very fine grain and then you see a few garnet grains here, here and here and
these garnet grains have lot of inclusions within it, so these are known as poikiloblast.

Now a Porphyroblast with a shape that is not controlled by its crystallographic features known as
xenoblast. For example, again we are looking at a porphyroblast that has grown and you see that
it has lot of finer grains outside, you can also figure out a foliation here. But this crystal which

594
you say inside it really does not have any crystallographic features within it. So we will call it
xenoblast.

On the other hand, if a porphyroblast that has, that appears to us with some sort of
crystallographic features within it then these are known as idioblast. For example, again in this
image you can see that you have a fine grain matrix with the foliation and within this foliation
you have porphyroblasts which are showing very straight edges. And therefore, they are, their
growth or their presence in this thin section some sort of their growth were controlled by their
crystallographic features and these are known as idioblasts.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:01)

Now Porphyroblasts you do not form in a monomineralic rock you need to have a polycrystalline
rock to develop the porphyroblast and this is simply because you need two different minerals so
that they can react to each other or two different phases to react each other and produce a new
mineral which would be the porphyroblasts.

Now small grains have relatively high free surface energy and therefore less stable than larger
grains, so how do they grow porphyroblasts? So this problem is generally solved at specific sites
controlled by small irregularities such as strongly deformed grains or micro fractures, so these
are the sites where it controls the free surface energy and so on and therefore grains can grow
bigger and bigger.

595
Now the crystals they can grow by solid-state diffusion, so diffusion mechanism in solid-state
matter through or it can develop some sort of fluid phases through fluid phases that can present
along the grain boundaries and these fluid phases can help in growing this porphyroblast or
minerals and these things you may have learned from your metamorphic lectures, so I am not
going into the details.

Now during their growth if the diffusion rate is extremely high then you do not have any reaction
product remaining in your material. So therefore, the porphyroblasts do not contain any
inclusions or any sorts of features of the previous stages of deformation or its own host rock and
in that case if it is free of any inclusions and things like that then you get a gemstone. But, if the
diffusion rate is extremely low then the porphyroblasts they over grow and include the reaction
products and these are known as passive inclusions, we will mostly look for this. So gemstones
yes they are useful but for structural interpretations gemstones are not that useful.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:09)

Now, if you have many nuclei then you will form small porphyroblasts, so if the nucleation sites
in the rock are many then you do not grow large porphyroblasts so porphyroblasts could be also
many numbers but they are of less size. But, if there are few nuclei then you grow large
porphyroblasts as it is explained here and for small porphyroblasts we have explained in the
diagram on the left side.

596
(Refer Slide Time: 13:40)

Now this is a fantastic image showing the use of Porphyroblasts or why this is important? What
do you see in this image that these are garnet grains, let me consider this one, these are also
garnets this a field photograph and then in the matrix we have mostly homogeneous features, we
also do not see a strong foliation and so on, but you may figure out there might be a foliation
going like this but that is not a very very strong foliation.

However, if we look now inside the garnet grains we see that it contains an excellent fabric, so
this fabric must be the fabric which was present also in the matrix at one point of time. Now
these garnets when they grew, they tracked this fabric and then the deformation stopped for a
while or it continued, but the garnets because they are very strong in the later stages of
deformation the fabrics inside the garnet is still there.

But the outside, the host rock or the country rock does not contain any fabric similar to this. So
these new fabrics have come in the picture and they completely destroyed the older fabrics. So
this tells us that this garnet or this rock has suffered at least two stages of deformation, the first
deformation tracks this fabric inside and the second deformation that washed out the fabrics
outside. Now of course it may have few other formations, but from this picture we at least can
interpret that this rock has undergone two stages of deformation.

Now in the following slides what I am going to show you that development of this kind of
features and so on and the photographs I will use the micro photographs these are mostly derived

597
or mostly adopted from a book called Micro Tectonics written by Passchier and Trouw, so for
this particular topic I will refer that book of Passchier and Trouw MicroTectonics that explained
the features of porphyroblasts in a very nice way.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:21)

So, what we see here in this image we are going to see that how these porphyroblasts
successively develop. So we can imagine that all these straight lines here these are as we have
learnt in the previous lectures that these could be considered as continuous foliation and we can
assign them as our S1 that means foliation or schistosity that developed at the first deformation.
Now, we will see what we can do with this foliation which is S1 foliation and that has formed in
the stage of deformation D1.

598
(Refer Slide Time: 17:01)

Now, this foliation can get further deformed this S1 and can produce a crenulations cleavage
which now is oriented like this and we can assign them as S2 whether this one was S1, so S1 got
crenulated to develop S2 and this is crenulation cleavage because this is the cleavage domain and
these are the microlithon domains and microlithon domains here at least in this illustration
contains the fabric, so this is why this is crenulation cleavage.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:45)

Now, at this stage what can happen that a reaction can go on and the rock can produce a
metamorphic mineral. For example, in this case this yellow grain. Now, when this yellow grain

599
has grown it tracks the crenulation cleavage within it, as you can see here it has the foliation not
necessarily as continuous as it was outside, but it has the foliation within it which is mimicking
also the foliation outside. Now this mineral grain this yellow mineral grain can track or can host
this foliation for a quite a long time and can protect this foliation while this outside can be
deformed further and which we are going to see in the next slide.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:36)

What you see here this crenulation cleavage outside is now completely washed out because of a
third stage of deformation. So what we have developed here this is the traces of S3 and there is
no trace of S1 and S2. So just looking at if I do not have this mineral grain here this
porphyroblast here I probably could not figure out that there were at least two stages of
deformation and this rock had S1 and S2 foliation within it.

Now, how do I know this? Yes, this mineral is going to give me the clue, what we see within this
mineral that it had a fabric and that fabric got folded, so you must have a deformation to produce
this first fabric which was your S1 and then you have the second fabric that was the S2 and these
two fabrics were also present in the matrix, but the matrix could not protect them due to the third
stage of deformation, but because they were already included in this mineral grain they could
protect it.

So, we see that this rock at least suffered three stages of deformation and this we can only know
because we have a porphyroblast that has grown during the third stage of deformation or

600
between second and third stage of deformation. So these are therefore are very very important, if
you see them in your thin section, then it is very important you try to figure out if it is containing
some information or not. Now these Porphyroblasts can grow before, during and after the
deformation.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:29)

So based on that we classify the porphyroblasts and we will learn it in the next slide, but before
that let us have a look that how we can sort of figure out that what are the different parts that we
need to look at to understand the porphyroblasts. So in this illustration what we see that this is
the porphyroblasts this yellow grain and these Porphyroblasts contains a fabric which is going or
which is being shown by these dotted lines and these will refer as internal foliation or Si.

Now whatever stays outside will refer it as external foliation or Se, now within this Se we can
have cleavage domain, we can have microlithon and so on, we will not go into that and because
we have a rigid porphyroblast, then we can also expect some sort of areas around this
porphyroblast which on the both side it can be symmetric or asymmetric or in different shapes
we will learn it later and these are known as strain shadow. And at the top and bottom of this
porphyroblast in particular the foliations are somehow wrapped or they are squeezed together
and these are known as strain cap as you can see here. So these are the basic anatomy of a
porphyroblast related features.

601
(Refer Slide Time: 22:08)

And now we will see the classification of Porphyroblasts. As I said that we can have three basic
types of porphyroblast, one is pre-tectonic, another is syn-tectonic and the third one is post-
tectonic. The pre-tectonic porphyroblasts as the name suggests pre that means they were before
the deformation or prior the deformation, syn means during the deformation and post means after
the deformation.

So the classification is very straightforward and simple porphyroblasts if you grow before the
deformation then it is pre-tectonic, if the porphyroblasts are growing during the deformation it is
syn-tectonic and when the deformation seized and then you have developed the porphyroblasts
then it is post-tectonic porphyroblasts. Now there is another category which is known as inter-
tectonic porphyroblasts, so this is another possibility whether or where the porphyroblasts grow
in between two deformation phases.

So one deformation has happened, then a porphyroblast has grown, then a second deformation
came, so that is also a possibility which is known as inter-tectonic, we are not going to learn this
inter-tectonic porphyroblast in this lecture particularly. But if you are further interested to go
ahead with this topic you certainly can consult the book of Passchier and Trouw MicroTectonics.

602
(Refer Slide Time: 23:38)

So let us have a look of these three classifications that we have just learned. So first we will take
over the pre-tectonic porphyroblasts. Now as we said that pre-tectonic porphyroblasts, they grow
before the development of tectonic fabrics. So the porphyroblasts you can imagine that they are
actually with respect to the deformation they can behave as porphyroclasts because they actually
appear as or they are present in the system as old grains.

Now, if the Porphyroblasts can have some sort of fabrics within that so the inclusion pattern
would be random or there should be no foliation so indicating that there is no foliation at the time
of blastesis. And the younger foliation also because the inclusions you have already there the
porphyroblasts you have already new systems so younger foliation may wrap over this.

So as you can see here you may have some sort of random foliation within this which does not
make any sense, just because it is not connecting with the foliation outside. So you may have or
you may not have Si in internal foliations within the blasts. But interestingly you can see that the
foliations as you can see here these are wrapping around, so that means that porphyroblast you
had since the beginning of the deformation.

603
(Refer Slide Time: 25:09)

Now syn-tectonic porphyroblasts, these are very interesting porphyroblasts that we study a lot.
So they grow during the deformation or during the development of the tectonic fabrics. Now
inclusion trails or outside foliation or inside foliation in a way Se and Si, they are continuous as I
can see here this I can consider as Si and outside I can consider as Se, so you see here in this
schematic illustration the Si and Se they are continuous.

Inclusion patterns and outside foliations are very similar and this can also happen, you see that
these are going more or less in a very similar way. The gradual transition of pattern and
orientation of inclusion trails from core to rim of porphyroblasts. So for example, you can see
here that there is here the fabric is oriented like this, then like this, then like this and then like this
and here as well. So there is a gradual transition from the core to the rim and then to the matrix,
so this transition also indicates that this is a syn-tectonic porphyroblast.

Now orientation of the inclusion trails in the core of Porphyroblasts may have different
orientation due to the rotation this is exactly what we are talking about and we will learn it soon
that if this is rotating this way, then it was actually initially straight but then it has been rotating.
So therefore, you do not see them aligned the foliation outside and these are typically known as
snowball garnets because garnets generally show these kinds of structures but there are other
minerals that also produce this kind of features.

604
And you also should have a possible deflection of foliations outside like you see that it got
deflected outside like this and like this and so on and here on and here on. So these are the
typical features of syn-tectonic porphyroblasts.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:15)

Now post-tectonic porphyroblasts on the other hand that do grow after the tectonic deformation
and fabric development. So, what we see here the inclusion trails outside and inside or Si and Se
are exactly similar, so it just continued like this. But this is also a condition we imposed for syn-
tectonic porphyroblasts but in syn-tectonic porphyroblasts this internal foliation or Si has the
very similar trend of Se, so it is not rotated or something like that within the Si.

So therefore, this is an example of post-tectonic porphyroblast and you also would not see any
deflection or foliation because deformation is over deformation is switched off so these new
minerals are just growing over it so you do not see any deflection of foliation outside this so they
would be extremely straight away entering into the inclusions or porphyroblasts.

605
(Refer Slide Time: 28:24)

Now there are some examples that tell you that yes these are porphyroblasts and these are pre-
tectonic porphyroblasts. Now you can imagine if I have a pre-tectonic porphyroblast so the
porphyroblasts also suffered the deformation, now based on the composition, based on the
mineral and based on the orientation of the minerals with respect to the overall deformation
access and so on it can produce a series of micro structures which are extremely useful to
identify whether they are pre-tectonic or not.

And these include bent crystals with undulose extinctions, the foliation can wrap around a
porphyroblast, pressure shadow or fringe, kink bands or some sort of folds if you have
phyllosilicates or tabular minerals in your tabular porphyroblast in the rock. You can have Micro
Boudinage, the drains can fracture as you can see here example E, and of course you can have
deformation twins or deformation lamella. We will see this in the next example.

606
(Refer Slide Time: 29:32)

For example, you see here this is a competent lens and you see the foliation outside wrapped
around this, so this must be a pre-tectonic blast. Now it can be a purphyroclast as well but in this
case we can consider for our understanding that this could be a pre-tectonic porphyroblast.

(Refer Slide Time: 30:08)

Now here, there are a series of examples as you can see here these are all pre-tectonic
porphyroblasts but they can be also porphyroclasts, but the mechanism is very similar. The first
image you see that is a trails so probably this was the grain and because it was deforming
compression was from this, in this side you develop the foliation here nicely and you see this

607
grains are stretched so this is indicating that this is a porphyroblast. Also you can see that the
foliations are wrapped around this or here you see in a fantastic way. So these are typical
examples of pre-tectonic porphyroblasts.

This is a gif image that I have collected from Wikipedia and you see the stage is rotating and you
see a continuous undulose extinction going on in these quads and you also see that outside the
matrix is extremely fine-grained and this grain is pretty large, so this could be a porphyroclasts
as well, but it is showing an undulose extinction and therefore this must be there in the rock
before the deformation.

This is again something that you can see that a large calcite grain with some sort of twin lamellas
here and these are the twins so this must have grown before the deformation. In a very similar
way that we have seen here this image also shows that this is your porphyroblast which was
broken here producing some Micro Boudinage and it also shows this strange shadow in a nice
way and we also see that foliations are wrapped around this and there is also no internal fabric Si
is absent so you do not see any Si within this porphyroblast.

The Micro Boudinage you can see here that two feldspar grains here on this quads mica metrics
the foliation goes like this you see the foliation first of all got wrapped like this here and here.
And this was a single grain before but because of the deformation the grain got fractured and
therefore you see them in two different pieces, so that clearly indicates that this large grain or
porphyroblast was there at the beginning of the deformation or before the deformation and
therefore it got broken.

You can also see this we have seen this image before in one of the lectures this is a biotite
aggregate of biotite crystals and this is a porphyroblast because it got deformed in a (diff) and
producing a fold whether the matrix is mostly quartz and feldspathic rich and it is much more
finer grain so this is a porphyroblast and because it has a deformation within it, it got folded so
therefore it must be in the rock before the deformation. So this is how you identify the pre-
tectonic porphyroblasts from your thin section studies.

608
(Refer Slide Time: 33:07)

Now the syn-tectonic porphyroblasts they grow during the deformation as you have already
learnt and here is a cartoon diagram illustrating how this can happen. So again this is your
foliation say for example I can consider a continuous foliation as S1 and a porphyroblasts is
growing in this rock and if this rock is deforming or it is under shear, so that means it is having
sinistral sense of shear so this inclusion would rotate and this is how the rotation is being shown.
But at the same time the inclusion is also growing.

So the foliation here at this stage is already there so it would simply rotate, so you see that this is
not as straight as it is, so this foliation would rotate but the outside foliation also is being
incorporated within this inclusion. So this is gradually becoming straight or gradually becoming
aligned with the foliation outside. Here you see this is Si and this is Se so you see this gradual
rotation is happening during the growth and at the same time rotation of this inclusion.

And this continued and finally you see that this is your final porphyroblast and you have the
deflection of the foliation, you have rotation of the foliation inside, you have continuity of Si and
Se and so on. So this clearly tells you that this if I have this in my thin section and if I see the
features inside the thin section like this, this clearly tells you that this is a syn-tectonic
Porphyroblasts, not only that we know that this must be aligned with the foliation before so but
just looking at this angle you can also figure out how much rotation the grain has suffered, this is
a very simple analysis that you can do but it could be much complex as well.

609
(Refer Slide Time: 35:26)

Now here are examples of syn-tectonic porphyroblasts, all photographs are from the book
Passchier and Trouw, Micro Tectonics. And you see here how nicely the foliation you see
outside is very much like this the continuous foliation, these are your porphyroblasts, so the
foliation is going like that and then you see it went in and going like this. So it is continuous, you
can see also here this is a large grain in the fine grain matrix and you see that this is showing a
continuous trail or continuous strain of the foliation. And therefore, this is a syn-tectonic
porphyroblast. You can also see this here so this is your porphyroblast and this is exactly the
example we have seen before so this is how your foliation inside the porphyroblast is appearing.
So whenever you see this you can figure out that this must be syn-tectonic porphyroblasts.

610
(Refer Slide Time: 36:40)

Now we see examples of post-tectonic porphyroblasts. As you can see here this is a chloride
grain here within a fine-grained matrix or showing some very fine cleavage we call it we can call
it slaty cleavage and you see outside and inside there is absolutely no difference, the foliation is
going like this and the crystal is just like a glass is being placed on that surface. So there is no
deflection of foliation, there is nothing no difference between Si and Se. So therefore, this must
be a post-tectonic porphyroblast.

As you can see here, this is a biotite crystal which has overgrown this crenulation cleavage you
can see the transition cleavage is going like this and you see that it did not disturb anything, there
is no deflection of the foliation outside. So foliation is very much straight, here nothing has
happened. You also see that this is continuous inside wherever it could track and it did not
disturb anything in the matrix it just grew over it, so is again an example of post-tectonic
porphyroblast.

611
(Refer Slide Time: 38:18)

This is another example, so this is a staurolite crystal at the bottom and here you see this is a
biotite crystal and the foliation outside goes like this. And here you see that this foliation is being
continued through the porphyroblasts without any deflection, without any change of orientation
and anything. So these two so Si and Se and here as well Si and Se has virtually no difference.
And therefore, this is again an example of post-tectonic porphyroblast.

So with this I finished this lecture, so this was just a little idea that how you can also figure out
superposition of deformation not necessarily from the folds but from metamorphic textures
together with the study of fabric analysis, we can understand how to figure out the different
stages of deformation not always by looking at super post folding but some sort of over printing
relationships. And in the next lecture we will start the actual topic of this week which is
boudinage, thank you very much I will see you in the next lecture.

612
 Structural Geology
Professor. Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Science
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Lecture No. 25
Boundinage & Pinch and Swell Structure - I

(Refer Slide Time: 0:22)

Hello everyone, welcome back again to these online structural geology NPTEL course. We
are in our lecture number 25 and we are actually in the week of boudinage and related
structures. However, this is the second lecture of this week, in the first week, we learned
something related to called porphyroblast, where we looked at deformation at different stages
and how it happens in microstructures and then how we can relate these sort of things to a
large-scale deformation and at the same time metamorphisms and so on. I hope you will like
that lecture. In this lecture you we will start actually the topic of this week, which is
boudinage and related structures and today we will focus on boudinage and pinch and swell
structures which is the part 1 of this lecture series.

613
(Refer Slide Time: 1:07)

Now what we are going to learn in this lecture, the geometric concept of boudinage and pinch
and swell structures. Then we look at that how do this boudinage structures actually do form
in nature, will see a series of experiments as well and then we will try to classify the boudins
based on their geometry and kinematics. Now you see that most of the times when we deal
with a particular structure, particularly delta with foliation or planet fabrics, then lineation,
then we learned fold and now this time boudinage.

These all these topics of structural geology actually include a lot of terminologies and these
terminologies also take a significant part in describing or in defining the classification
schemes of these structures. So boudins also not an exclusion of this topics, so will also see a
lot of names, will see lot of different geometries and so on. Because with these we actually go
to the field, try to identify and describe them and this is very common for all structures and
also applicable for boudinage structures.

614
(Refer Slide Time: 2:28)

Now, so the term boudinage actually was coined by Lohest 1909 to describe the process of
formation of a certain type of structures by fragmentation of a sheet of brittle rock, which is
sandwiched between layers of ductile rocks and the structure Lohest first figured out and
described from a sandstone bed in the Bastogne region of Belgium. I do not know if I have
pronounced the area, name of the area properly but it is spelled as Bastogne. So could be
Bastogne or something like that. So in plain view, let us come to the topic that is on the
surface, and a parallel to the stratification plane if you look at then he described it this way
that the sandstone beds are separated into enormous cylinders or boudins aligned side-by-
side. And the fragments are separated by pods of vein quartz.

Now boudins is a French term that generally describes the sausage to be very specific blood
sausages if you have seen it. So we will see the structures very soon and interestingly in
transverse section the fragments are barrel shaped. So in the, if you look at from the top
surfaces, it appears like long enormous cylinders. But on the transverse section the fragments
are barrel shaped and are aligned in a row.

The individual fragments are called boudins as we have described already. And the process
itself is called boudinage. The term boudin means sausage as we have described and in
making this analogy Lohest emphasise the plan view of the cylindrical boudins. However, to
some people the analogy meant the similarity of cross-sectional view of a row of boudins to a
chain of sausages tied one end to another end. Now most of the time in the field we see
boudinage structures, particularly on transverse section, we hardly see them on the horizontal
surfaces.

615
So we mostly would actually describe most of the boudinage structures in this lecture and the
next lecture, mostly seeing them on the transverse section. What is interesting, this image
here in this slide, this is actually the presentation. So the illustration of the original boudins in
the report of the field meeting that happened again in Bastogne of the Societe Geologique de
Belgique. So it happened in Bulgaria and this work, he presented in 1909. So this is his
drawing and we will see, actually these, this typical we figure that type we are seeing here we
will see this later as well. And this is known as gash boudinage or something like that we will
learn it soon.

(Refer Slide Time: 5:30)

So here are some descriptions that we have just learned. So stretching, necking and
eventually segmentation of a layered body surrounded by a less competent or more
deformable matrix develop side-by-side, sausage shaped bodies and these are known as
boudins. And this is a structure the boudins it generally expects in low-grade metamorphic
rocks or boudins generally to form during low-grade metamorphism of the rocks.

Now boudinage as we have understood so far that this describes the processes of
fragmentation and separation of the linear segments produced by extension parallel to the
bedding plane and the failure of a brittle or competent layer which is embedded with a ductile
or less competent host. Objects such as fossils, pebbles and minerals can also be boudinaged.
So in other ways you can think that you need a strong layer which should be sandwiched by
relatively weaker layers.

616
And this is actually included the study of boudinage, you will see in few textbooks and also
in some study materials that they are included within the topic of lineations. Because we see
them in a, as a linear feature in the rock, we will see or learn more about it later. However,
boudinage is just not I would say a lineation like we have learned, it is not just, it is not a
typical lineation it has some interesting characteristics within its structures, so within its
geometry and shapes. So therefore it demands a special attention and therefore we have
dedicated a week to learn boudins and pinch and swell structures.

Now boudinage it can range from micro to macroscopic scales. So you can see them in large
scales in the filled, sometimes on the road sections or some mountains and you also see them
under microscopes. So typically you need a strong layer or a dyke is broken up at regular
intervals into a series of elongate and aligned blocks. So whose profiles, seen orthogonal to
the axis of the boudins, are the basis for the boudinage.

(Refer Slide Time: 7:49)

Now here is the anatomy of the boudinage. I will first describe the image and then we will
talk about the different parts of it. So what do we see here? So this is slightly yellowish
blocks here, these are actually less competent layers and also these, these grey and then
yellow and so on. And then this dark layer, this darker layer, this brown layer is actually your
competent layer, we will see soon how did it form but this is how it looks like.

So this section you are looking at, this particular section is your transverse section and this is,
this is what you are looking at from the top, where you have. Now you see this large
cylinders that Lohest has described. So this typical direction is known as the longitudinal

617
boudin axis. Then the layer which is undergoing boudinage process is the thickness of this
layer, we call it thickness. The individual width of this boudins in the transverse section are
actually the width of the boudins.

And interestingly when you have the boudins, you have separations when these layers are
separated, then the layers which actually sandwiched the boudinage, they come in to fill the
gaps. So this gap is known as scar or separation or sometimes nodes and because this is an
empty space, we will see it soon. Then these things try to fill up or occupy this space, and
therefore it forms a fold like features. But this is not a buckling type of fold, this is kind of
bending fold.

Now as we can see it, you can also relate it because this is the deformation related feature. So
you can relate it with the overall strain ellipsoids. So if I considered this certainly this was my
stretching direction. So this was the X and then Y. I can align it along the longitudinal boudin
axis and this is the compression direction and then I can refer to it as Z. So we will see it
later. Also in the next lecture that how boudinage or boudinage processes are directly related
to strain and strain features.

So the boudinage structure, the fragments occur in a row. So that you can figure out or you
cannot question the fact that about the continuity of a layer before the boudinage occurred. So
what I mean by this that these separated blocks that you see now they must be once upon a
time was continuous layer. So it in certain areas, we find sometimes irregular isolated
fragments of a competent rock within an incompetent host.

Now the fragments are occasionally folded, although they are derived from one or more
layers. So the general continuity of a layer therefore cannot be deciphered with certain T by
joining this fragments. So this is a very special case, I am talking about and these are not
typically known as boudinage, but they are called tectonic inclusions or fish rather than
boudinage.

So to more about this slides so geometry of boudinage as we have seen of boudinage

structures may be described in terms of the series of structural elements. So one is we learned
the length of the boudin, so, which is measured along its longest direction and the direction is
the boudin access we have seen it. The width of a boudin is measured in a section transverse
to the boudin access and along a direction parallel to the layering. So is this one as you have
learned little before.

618
The thickness of the boudin is the thickness of the layer which has suffered boudinage. The
distance between two adjacent boudin's inner transverse section is called separation or we
have seen we can call it gap or scar or node and in general way the gap between two boudins
may be described as the scar, sometimes also known as node or gap or separation zone as we
have already described all these features. Now there is one very important part we should
remember. So when we have seen this in an illustration.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:40)

Let us have a look of some real photographs of boudinage structures. This is one of the
classic images as you can see the date is 1955, is a photograph from a paper by Hans
Ramberg. When you see that this, the black layer is the competent layer and these are
incompetent layers and this as well. So you can clearly see that these fractures are
concentrated only in the black layers. Now these are not separated yet, they are yet to be
separated, but this is very initial stage of the boudinage process.

619
(Refer Slide Time: 13:45)

Now we see here that this is a photograph from ChotaNagpur nics complex and here you
clearly see that this must be a continuous layer is not it, this black layer if you consider, this
was be a continuous layer and now they are broken in parts, you can also see it here in the top
layer and it also broken in parts, it got folded a little bit, but we will talk it about later. But
this is how you see the boudinage in the transverse section. So this is your, what you call
scaror separation or gap and this is the width of the boudin.

And you can see here that this is somehow going in you see here, this layer which is less
competent is trying to flow inside a layer, will also see here, it is trying to flow inside the
layer, inside the gap that is being created. So these are known as your scar folds as we have
seen in the illustration and these are actually the bending folds and these places are actually
initially open places and later this places are filled by mostly some fibres and this could be
quartz or calcite or some other minerals and these are mostly characterised by larger grain
size than the grain size you have in the matrix.

620
(Refer Slide Time: 15:22)

Okay, this is another image, you see that a series of layers are good boudinage, here, this host
rock or the matrix is a marble and then it had some competent layers of pelitic rocks and what
is interesting you see that here these layers got also a little bit also a rotation here. So if I try
to follow the trend of this, it does not match here. So there is a little separation, will talk
about this, these are known as asymmetric boudinage, this is not fill typical asymmetric
boudinage. But yes this as a, this is on the verge of formation of a symmetric boudinage, we
will see about it.

But this is an example of boudinage structure and this is allanite crystal, this one, these dark
things and you see here again thus this is a microscopic image, the width of the images 7
millimetres and here you see this allanite crystal is somehow, at least from this image we see
they got fractured along its length and we see the separations here, we see another separation
is happening here, the separation is here as well. The also see in this scale that this scar folds
are happening here as well. And we see this scar folds here as well, things are trying to go in.
So this is how you describe the difference you see in the field or under the microscope, this
boudinage layers.

621
(Refer Slide Time: 17:01)

Now there could be another possibility, as we see in this slide that if you have extension in
both directions. So you are compressing along the Z direction, but X and Y, both are in the
extensional field. That means you are having more or less a flattening type of strains. So if
that happens. That means if the boudinage takes place in two directions. The individual
boudins in plain view may either be equidimensional or more commonly in equidimensional
as you can see here in this illustration, this is mostly equidimensional.

So if you compress it from the top, then it flows in this direction along the Y direction, it also
flows along the X direction. So and these compression direction is your Z, as it is reveal here.
So it would certainly fracture along the X direction or for boudins along the X direction and it
would also form boudin along the Y direction. So now it is very important that if the
individual boudins are equidimensional. The longer direction you can call as boudin access.

But if they are equal in dimensional, equidimensional then it is little difficult. But if
necessary, it is possible to distinguish between the longitudinal boudin access, which we have
defined in this case, this one and then the other one would be your transverse boudin access.
And in a similar way, you can also distinguish transverse separation or scar this way and you
can also figure out what is your longitudinal separation along the longitudinal boudin access.

So this is how we see the boudinage which is happening in two different directions under the
flattening conditions and difficult types of boudins are known as chocolate tablet boudinage.
We will learn more about it in the next lecture and will see how with different structural

622
features, particularly with buckle folding we can have or we can form the chocolate tablet
boudinage at particular conditions.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:30)

Now this is an example of a field photograph of chocolate tablet boudinage. I took it from
EGU blogs. So what do we see here the matrix as you can see here, these are the matrix, this
matrix is actually calcitic or marble. And then you had a dyke of dolomite or dolomite vein or
dyke and then it got fractured, you can clearly see the trends. So one trend is like this, as you
can see here and another trend you can figure out is like this.

So almost orthogonally they got separated and as a result, you get this blocky shape. So this
is a very typical or you can figure it out here the chocolate tablet boudinage. So that means it
got extension along this direction and also along this direction, you can put it here. So it
would look in that photograph. So we will see the mechanics of chocolate tablet boudinage in
a different way later but to give you an impression how they look like in the field, this is how
it is, you can also search in your search engines on the internet and you can find many more
photographs.

623
(Refer Slide Time: 20:53)

Now in a very similar way when we talk about boudinage then another type of structures to
appear in the field and these are known as pinch and swell structures and as I said that
boudinage we find mostly in lower grade metamorphic rocks. But pinch and swell structures
are generally observed in higher grade metamorphic rocks. So in higher grades, sometimes
also in unconsolidated rocks, what I mean by saying this is that the competent contrast is less
between the layer which would be undergoing boudinage or pinch and swell and the
sandwich materials.

So the competent layers have generally not broken through. So narrow, thinned necks
separate and alternate with boudins of relatively still, thick layers. The resulting structure is
called pinch and swell, we will see it soon. After separation, the disconnected layer segment
display lens or pillow shaped forms. Extremely stretching reduces necks to very thin and long
selvage of the layer connecting variably shaped swells.

Now in boudin we saw that it occurs like this, so you have real blocks. But in pinch and swell
instead of this block they actually don't get separated. What it happens that they forms some
sort of necks in between. This you can experiment by yourself by using a straw that you use
to generally drink cold drinks and so on. So these are known as swells and these are known as
necks or you will see in the next slide actually.

624
(Refer Slide Time: 23:03)

So yes, this is how it is again, it is the same configuration we have incompetent layer,
incompetent layer, incompetent layer, incompetent layer, incompetent layer and we have a
competent layer here. However, the competents contrast between this, incompetent layers and
the competent layer in this case is less than what we have seen before. So if that happens then
again, this is your stretching direction X and instead of fragmenting the competent layer it
forms the pinch and swell structure.

So pinch we have understood that this is the pinch and the swollen part is known as swell.
Then instead of width we generate describe it is as wavelength and then this alignment of the
neck is known as neck line or swell access. So this is how it looks like, you also develop the
scar folds along the necks of this pinch and swell structures.

625
(Refer Slide Time: 24:01)

Now this is an example of pinch and swell structure. It is a diopside amphibolite layer that
you can see here, this dark layer and then material matrix is a marble. But this is how the
pinch and swell structure looks like in the field.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:18)

And this is another one and you see that it is not fragmented as we have seen before. It has
this swells here and then pinch here right, then again as well. So this is alternate calc silicate
rocks. So these are the silicate part and this is the calcitic part and of course silicates are
stronger than the calcite at I grades at some temperatures and therefore the silicates are
undergoing pinch and swell whether calcite is working as less competent material or matrix
to produce the pinch and swell structure.

626
(Refer Slide Time: 25:04)

Now how do they form? What is the origin of this boudinage structure? Now people mostly
figure out the boudinage structure or most of the structures that we see in nature by
experiments. So that also happened with the boudinage. So boudinage mostly results from
heterogeneous layer parallel extension and destruction of a relatively hard layer or objects
surrounded by a more ductile matrix.

So these we have been talking several times, but this is how the boudinage do form. So you
can imagine that if I consider a model, then I have a model that model essentially needs to
have a three layer package. So the middle layer as you talking about is a competent layer and
the upper and lower layers must be less competent layers. Now the sequence is made such a
way that the rate at which the middle layer would flow slowly compared to the confining
matrix layers.

So that means we see it next soon that, if I apply a layer normal compression as you can see
here. Then these top and bottom layers would flow faster than the layer in between. So what
is happening if that happens? So if this layer is flowing faster the rate of strain accumulation
in this layer, if it is faster than the layer in the middle it generates an enormous amount of
friction at the boundary. So whether this red layer here is trying to deform, trying to flow
horizontally but this grey layer at the top and the bottom is also trying to pull it away from
each other. So therefore with a particular condition, at a particular condition we will see that
this interfere friction and then the outward flow would produce an extensional stress in the
stiff layers. So therefore you have some sort of stress going on in this direction.

627
(Refer Slide Time: 27:32)

And if that continues, so if the strain rate in the sequence as a whole exceeds the rate at which
the stiff layer can behave in a ductile manner, then it splits when its strength is exceeded.
What I mean by this that we have generated in the previous slide, a significant amount of
tensile stress or extensional stress, along the layer. So therefore it has to break at the middle
and then the force is still there. So you still have friction continued and then this separation
increases. However, that is not the case that would run forever.

What I mean by this, that if this deformation continues then this block behaves separately and
again, this block also has developed an extensional stress within itself and therefore it
produces another fracture and the same happens here. So this is how it multiplies and the
boudinage processes go on. Now, one can also form boudins or pinch and swells structures as
you have seen here that you need a layer normal compression.

But when you have the global stress in a compression mode, you also can form a boudinage
structure, we will see later that folds and boudinage are sometime close associated if there are
certain conditions but even in that case we will see that even the global stress is compressive
but the layers that is undergoing in boudinage processes have to have a local extension
direction along the layer, will see about it later.

628
(Refer Slide Time: 29:22)

Now, as I said that the boudinage structure that we have learned the origin and so on. These
we mostly derived from experiments and here I would like to show you some of the
experiments. So the again the first one is one of the very classic ones from 1955 Ramberg
paper. He used a plasticine as the competent material in the first panel and you can see that
this is how he is developing with the flow, how is developing this boudinage.

And the second panel these white things are is stiff layers and these are cheese and the
outside materials in both cases are putty. So you can also see here that how with this when
the compression went on he produced the boudinage structure nicely. Now this is another
experiment from Marque settle, where you see these are, these four are four different
experiments, He changed the layer thickness and then deformed it.

So here the layers are actually clay and the matrix, the less competent matrix is PDMS is a
kind of polymer is known as polydimethylsiloxane and here also produce as you can see that
boudinage structure. People have also produce boudinage structure numerically once you
know the rheology and so on, we can produce it with some numerical codes and this is an
work of Abe and Urai published in 2012 as you can see here.

This black is a competent rock and the light grey is matrix which is incompetent and here the
sequence is like this. So you can see that as I was talking about, you just do not stop with 1 or
2 boudinage, you continue multiplying the numbers and at the end you arrive somewhere like
this. The red line here is just a marker and you see these red lines are here and here
developing the scar folds.

629
(Refer Slide Time: 31:32)

Now the boudins in the profile as we have seen in few cases that we have pinch and swell
structures in one hand. So it is like lensoid shape and in few cases in fill, fill photographs we
have seen the boudins are really strip. So the boudin profiles variable as you can imagine and
we will see later that it can be symmetrical or asymmetrical. The long or exterior faces
usually, the layer boundaries of the boudins, can be concave or you can call it bone shaped
boudins, it can be convex, it can call it barrel shaped boudins or parallel to each other, then
you call it blocky boudins.

All these terminologies have their own meanings and significances, we will learn about it
later. But when you have this concave, convex or parallel boudins. They actually indicate
some sort of rheological consequences. The shapes reflect the ductility and contrast the
between layer and matrix. So large contrasts generally tend to produce sharp edges, and small
or less contrasts produce rounded boudins.

So here is an example, as you can see here. I just gave four, examples will see more later. So
this is straight, this is convex, this is concave, sometimes it is known as fish mouth as you can
see from this particular shape here, it is like a fish mouth and then tapering where the age is
tapering here I have given some examples. So as you can see here, these faces are pretty
much straight also this, so these are straight faces. These are convex as you can see here.
Then concave or fish mouth, you can see here, this is the shape of the boudin so on, and then
tapering, you can see here it is exactly like this and also the next one. Now these photographs
I took from a large image, so I have cropped it. I also rotated them to adjust the shape.

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(Refer Slide Time: 33:47)

Now classification of boudinage is something that we have to do, which is one of the aims of
this lecture, there many classification schemes of boudinage and again many classification
schemes are there and in a very similar way no classification is complete, but they are
classified based on either geometry or kinematics and so on. So what I will do in this lecture,
I will just give you a tour of this with some logical explanations of this classification scheme.

The first classification you will learn is symmetric and asymmetric boudinage. A symmetric
boudinage is when there is no slip along the inter-boudin surfaces. So the scar or the
separation of these boudin spaces did not undergo any slip in between. So what you see here
in this image, that these are pretty much straight. So there was no slip along this or any way.
So these things were absent. So therefore these are known as symmetric boudinage and
sometimes will also call them no slip boudinage.

Asymmetric boudinage is exactly the opposite when you have a slip along the inter-boudin
surfaces. And there could be 2 possibilities, one is antithetic or a slip type of boudinage and
synthetic or S type asymmetric boudinage and this is with respect to the bulk shear sense. So
in both cases these two illustrations the shear was something like that.

And as you can see here, within this intra-boudinage spaces. The shear direction, it went this
way, and this, and this way so here the shear sense is dextral but here it is senistral. So it is
not matching with the global or bulk shear strength. So therefore this is anti, so this is
antithetic slip and then in this case, you see that this is the shear sense which is very similar to
the global shear sense and therefore this is synthetic type of asymmetric boudinage.

631
(Refer Slide Time: 36:11)

Now there is another classification scheme, which is given by Ghosh and Sengupta in 1999
and they classify the boudinage in four ways. One is object boudinage, then single layer
boudinage, multiple layer boudinage and foliation boudinage. Now object boudinage are
some sort of competent object, but of limited dimensional extent. So you can think of a
mineral grain or something like that, very small competent material undergoing boudinage
processes, so here you can see an example here. So this is the scale about 1 millimetre and
you see here, this is a mica grain which undergone some sort of boudinage processes.

Now single layer boudinage is generally you see a competent layer. A single competent layer
which is embedded within a less competent host, as you can see here. As a single competent
layer undergoing boudinage processes here and here. Now multiple layer boudinage is very
interesting one is some sort of a packet of thin competent layers, as you can see here, so these
are some thin competent layers and they actually get boudinage together and sometimes they
also call composite boudinage. So composite boudinage is sometimes a variation of multiple
layer boudinage composed of boudinaged sublayers within a boudinaged packet of layers
giving nested of boudins of different scales, as you can see here that this you can consider as
a boudin but it has many other individual boudins.

So therefore this is a competent boudinage and then there is foliation boudinage. So

sometimes foliated rocks do show boudinage process, as you can see here, that here we have
this boudinage and this happens apparently with no competence contrast. So foliation
boudinage at one point of time was extremely important for researchers. Now people have
understood why do foliation boudinage happened but this foliation boudinage a spectacular to

632
see in the field as well, along with the other types of boudinage. So these are the
classifications four types, object boudinage, single layer boudinage, multiple layer boudinage
and foliation boudinage.

(Refer Slide Time: 38:35)

Let's see another classification scheme. So this classification scheme is given by Goscombe
& Passchier in 2003 and here they considered both kinematics and geometry. So kinematics
means that how do these boudins form with respect to their displacements and so on and we
have learned about it. When we were learning the symmetric and asymmetric boudinage. So
they define it as no slip boudinage or symmetric boudinage.

Then antithetic slip boudinage and synthetic slip boudinage. So it can figure out that this is a
symmetric type, as it is written here. And these two are actually asymmetric jump to the
geometry from the kinematics. Then we see that no slip boudinage are of course symmetric
types, antithetic slip boudinage domino types and synthetic slip is the large shear band types.

Now let us focus on the symmetric types. In symmetric types we have two classes, one is
drawn boudins, another is torn boudins what these are we will see the next slide. Within the
drawn boudins we have naked boudins and tapering boudins. And within the torn boudins we
have straight face boudins and concave face boudins.

In the domino types domain we have domino boudins and gash boudins. Then, within the
domino boudins we have planar domino boudins and dilational domino boudins. Within the
gash boudins we have forked gash boudins and sigmoidal gash boudins. The shear band
boudins remain as shear band boudins, it does not have any further grant applications within

633
this. Now let us have a look that what do we mean by all this terms, this drawn boudins, this
torn boudins, domino boudins, gash boudins and shear band boudins.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:42)

So let us start with the domino boudins, domino boudins are some sort of blocks of
asymmetric, usually short, stubby rhomb shapes with angular edges. Now the domino
boudins is now people use it, but it has legacy of many names and I have listed here are few.
So these are also known as tilling structures, bookshelf sliding, sheared stack of cards model,
type I asymmetric pull aparts, extensional fraction boudinage and so on.

The gash boudins are when the inter boudinage or the scar is dilational and sigmoidal and it
could be either smooth or continuous curved or angular geometry. Now sometimes these
dilational spaces are filled by some other minerals and these are known as so some, it is some
sort of tensile gashes and therefore it is known as gash boudins, will see examples soon.
Shear band boudins are asymmetric with bounded rhomb or tapering lens shapes, typically
with relatively high aspect ratio. And these are also known as asymmetric pinch and swell,
sigmoidal boudinage, share fracture boudinage and asymmetric extensional structures.

Now drawn and torn boudinage or boudins they are little different from this. So these three
the domino gash and shear band. These are mostly their shapes and geometry together with
their kinematics, but drawn and torn these are essentially kinematic things. So drawn boudins
are symmetric boudins with significant ductile stretch and no blog rotation. Drawn boudins
vary continuously in scar space and degree of thinning of the interconnecting neck zone, you
define in two classes. One is naked and another is tapering boudins. What you have learned,

634
so someone is drawing it, so that means it is like this, then, you form it this way. So you see
this, what I have drawn here tapering boudins. So it is a kind of pinch and swells structure.
But someone is drawing this layer from both ends and therefore you see the features like this.

And torn boudin have the sharp inter boudin surfaces, so it is like this and equivalent to the
boudin's face, across which there is a significant dilation. So this is the dilations you can talk
about which is also equivalent to layer extensions. Now for strain measurements torn boudins
are much better than drawn boudins. So we have learned the strain measurements from
boudins. But now you can figure out the torn boudins because their layer extension is
equivalent to the dilation. So these are much more useful for strain measurement.

(Refer Slide Time: 44:07)

Now here, we can see better that this boudin block geometry. So shear band type, it is like
this, so here the shear sense is again like this and this is the sheer sense and this is the shear
sense in the intra-boudinage spaces. These are drawn boudins as we have drawn, these are
torn boudins, these are domino boudins, again the shear sense here is like this and this is
deforming this way, this is slipping this way and these are the gash boudins where you see
this asymmetric veins are inside the boudins where the shear sense is somehow like this
inside the intra-boudinage spaces.

(Refer Slide Time: 44:46)

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You can further classify in a different way. So this is another one that you can have the face.
So what we defined here, that if I have a boudin here like this, then this is known as exterior
face and this is known as face, intra-boudinage face only or intra-boudinage face, you can
call it. Now based on the curvature of this faces, so whether it is like this or like this, or a
straight, whether IB face or intra-boudinage face is straight or like this or like this. So based
on this, it is possible to classify the boudins in a different way, based on their exterior
curvature and face curvature. Now what do we see here that theoretically you of course,
many possibilities are there. But these two shapes, this one and this one are rare and what is
under this light yellow area is defined by uncommon.

These are also not so much visible in the field but these which is under the white field, this
we see frequently, this fish mouth and so on we see them commonly. So it is actually based
on the how do your exterior face and interior face or inter boudinage face, whether it is
curved or straight and if it is curved then whether it is concave or convex. So based on that
people also do classify the boudinage in this way.

Now with this I finish this lecture. In the next lecture we will continue this and we will see
that how we can relate boudinage structures. So what is importance of boudinage structure
when you try to interpret some other structures? For example, fold and so on. So thank you
very much. I will see you in the next lecture.

636
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Lecture 26
Boudinage and Pinch and Swell Structure 2

(Refer Slide Time: 00:23)

Hello everyone, welcome back again to this online NPTEL course on Structural Geology. We
are today in our lecture number 26 and we are learning (this) in this lecture Boudinage and
Pinch and Swell Structures and this is the last lecture of this week.

637
(Refer Slide Time: 00:32)

So this week we will cover a few topics very-very briefly, the first we look at Boudinage in
transverse sections. We have learned a few terminologies in this previous lecture but in this
lecture we will mostly look at their processes that how we actually do generate different types
of cross-sections in the transverse sections and then we will look at a very special topic which
is Aspect Ratio of boudins.

Then we will see the Foliation Boudinage we learned about it while we were classifying this.
We will talk a little bit more on this because it demands special attention. Then we will see
that how Strain Ellipsoid, the bulk strain ellipsoid is related with the boudinage processes. So
which direction, what kind of structures or boudinage we can form.

Then we will see the relationship with folds with respect to the boudinage and then finally we
will conclude this lecture with boudinage under superposed deformations. So a lot of topics
but they are very small and we will cover it one after another.

638
(Refer Slide Time: 01:47)

So here, we have learned about it in a transverse section. We figure out that the boudins they
may have varied shapes and this could be rectangular, barrel shaped, lenticular, fish head and
rhombic shapes. Now these dissimilar shapes give us some information concerning the
competence contrast between a boudinaged layer and its host rock and at the same time it
tells us the pre-boudinage and post-boudinage plastic deformation in particular. So what I see
here a series of illustrations are here you see this, this is rectangular boudins, then barrel
shaped boudins then lenticular boudins and then fish- head boudins and rhombic boudins.

Now these are not necessarily the products during the boudinage. So rectangular boudins yes
when you just initiate the boudinaged processes then it is possible that you form the geometry
of structure like this but with continued deformation we actually arrive somewhere here. The
rhombic boudins are somehow different and will not look at it in detail but if you are
interested you may have a look of a paper by Professor Mandal in 2001. So that describes but
we mostly restrict ourselves towards the up to the fish- head boudins.

Now the presence of rectangular boudins with edges at right angle to the general layering this
is what we see here it simply indicates the fact that throughout the course of development of
boudinage the layer, this layer which is undergoing boudinage processes behaved in a brittle
manner. Now at the corners of these boudins there is relatively high shear stress which tends
to deform the boudins.

639
(Refer Slide Time: 03:44)

Now this is exactly what happens at the post boudinage processes. What we see here that this
was initially probably in this illustration this was initially rectangular boudinage but with
continued deformation it is possible. This is the way the boudins deformed or shear stress at
the extensional faces or exterior faces. So the preservation of the sharp right angles corners of
rectangular boudins therefore indicates that competence contrasts within boudins and the host
rock is very large. So if the competence contrast is extremely large then you would see this
kind of rectangular boudinage but if not then you will see features like this which will be
discussing soon.

So barrels shaped boudins which is this one. This is a very typical process and this evolves
with the boudinage processes. So the barrel shaped boudins with straight edges are produced
with some amount of making which is followed by extensional fracture at the neck joints
mostly at these places. So this shaped that which we see here this barrel shaped boudins these
actually can be further modified by post boudinage plastic deformation. Now this is
illustrated here we will see one after another, that how these do happen.

Now the boudins are more competent than the host rock this is what we have learned so they
deform more slowly than the surroundings. So the matrix outside deforms faster than this
okay and if that happens then you develop a shear strength at the longer edges of the boudins
as it is represented here. So you see that you have a shear strength not only that the gradient
of the shear strengths are there as well.

640
So at the middle the shear strength is the magnitude of the shear strength is less and while we
are travelling towards the edge of the boudinage the corner of the boudins. The magnitude of
the shear strength continuously increased and you also see that the sense of shear is opposite
if you make this boudin asymmetric line which is this one.

So, since the sense of the shear is opposite in the two halves of the boudins the sheared is
associated with an effective lengthening of that part of the boudin with or which is close to
the contact. So these materials actually tried to drag it and you always remember that in this
case the competence contrast is not as hard as you can expect for the rectangular boudinage.

So the shear strength and the associated lengthening decreases towards the mid-level as it is
here of the boudinage layer. Now we can see that as a result the lateral walls of the boudins
curved inward, this is exactly what is happening here. So they try to curve inward and also
this one. So the zone of curving also undergoes a larger layer normal compression so that the
barrel like shapes is exaggerated this is exactly what we see here.

Now when a very large amount of such post-boudinage plastic deformation leads to the
formation of fish- head boudinage this is exactly what we see here. So here we had a barrel
shaped and with progressive deformation during the post boudinage plastic deformation we
arrive at the fish boudinage process.

Now this can actually further continue to develop something which is exactly the shape of
lenticular boudinage which we have learned in the last lecture and this is also evident from
experimental deformation and these experiments generally show that with soft models the
decreasing competence contrast between a layer and its embedding medium extensional
fracture is produced. As you have learned by a greater layer parallel homogeneous elongation
as well as a greater localised deformation by necking.

Now if the competence contrast is small the necking continuous as we see here. Till the
pinched zone stepper of lenticular boudins are separated without the formation of a clearly
defined layer normal extension feature.

641
(Refer Slide Time: 08:43)

So this has been noted by Hans Ramberg and this is the classic paper of 1995. As we can see
the first one, this one is a classic lenticular boudin. So there it was like this, this is the shape
of this boudin. Okay, this is some sort of a pinched swell structure but the pinch are got
teared of but here if you look clearly that the shape of the boudin is something like that.

So it was initially a barrel shaped boudinage then it turned into fish mouth boudinage and
now its morphology is very similar to that of a lenticular boudinage. So it is a continued
process where you actually can figure out that initially you form a barrel then slowly it tapers
inwards and then it forms fish mouth with further progressive deformation you can arrive at a
shape of lenticular boudinage or lenticular boudins.

642
(Refer Slide Time: 09:53)

Now let’s talk about the aspect ratio of the boudins which is the next topic we will cover. So
here I have given two drawings for you. What I see here is that if you imagine that this layer,
this layer, this layer, this layer they have very similar properties and also this to orange
layers.

Now what I also see here in this illustration is that this layer is thicker than this layer. So this
is the competent layer, this is as well compared to the surrounding grey layers. Now if there
is layer normal compression of very similar magnitudes, similar deformation rate and so on.
Then you can ask yourself a question or I would like to ask you the question what is the
expectation after a finite time of the deformation and the boudinaging is going on?

Then where I would form the maximum number of boudins in this case or in this case? We
can think of this and you can likely back your answers but this is a very interesting problem
and we will see with time that how we can go ahead with that and we can figure out that what
would be the aspect ratio of the boudins. But before we jump into this topic let us have a very
common understanding of this.

643
(Refer Slide Time: 11:33)

So general observation as we can see here from this illustration, its from Marques et.al, 2012
that large boudins are generally form thicker layers and small boudins, they do originate from
relatively thinner layers. So this is the plot boudin's thickness versus boudin width they more
or less follow a linear relationship as we can see here from a lot of data that is found and
collected and he also conducted analogue experiments we have seen this image in the last
lecture.

But what we see here that this is thicker layer and this is much thinner layer and with this
thicker layer we have large boudins and with the thinner layer slowly we are increasing the
number of boudins. Now you can also see one more very important thing we will see this also
in the illustration that the gap between these two is smaller than these gap this indicates that
we had the first fracture here then this one and so on and this is how it proceeds.

644
(Refer Slide Time: 12:45)

So generally what we can figure out is that the aspect ratios of boudins are generally
measured in sections perpendicular to a boudin axis. For unidirectional boudinage the aspect
ratio is the ratio of width versus the thickness of the boudins. And you can consider the two-
dimensional boudinage then we have also to measure the length to thickness ratio.

The width to thickness ratio of boudins interestingly may vary within a wide range. However
in most areas there is a general tendency of thicker beds to form boudins of larger widths.
Now what do we see here that the general range of width of thicknesses which are being
reported from different field studies that field studies reported that it is generally from 2 to 4
if you made it really large 2 to 20 and then some made it really narrow 1.4 to 3.3 and so on
and these are from different studies.

So the theory of boudinage if we can consider predicts that in any one of the competent bed
boudins with a restricted range of aspect ratios should be more frequent than others. Now you
can consider a simple situation, assume that a brittle layer is sandwiched between two ductile
layers and is subjected to a layer normal compression. This is the case we can consider we
have seen in this illustration before okay.

Now we have understood this before that when stress exceeds the strength of this piece rock
it flows and then it forms a fracture in the middle and then the boudinaging process starts so
in a way we can say that when the stress exceeds the strength and extension fracture develops
perpendicular to the layering and the layer is thus broken into two segments which is this
case, so this is one segment and this is the second half of that segment.

645
Now if you continue the deformation that means if you continue the layer normal
compression and it continues flowing laterally in the separation between two cases increases
so this is exactly what is increasing and very interestingly that the you have the fresh
midpoint fractures from each of these pieces. So you are having these new fractures whether
this is the first one and then you arise at the new fractures.

Now the stress within a competent fragment increases with increasing widths that means that
is the length at a right angle to the boudin axis and decreases with increased thickness. This
means very interestingly that it becomes increasingly difficult for a bed or for a layer
competent layer to fracture when boudin width become shorter right and this is very easy
because if we have a shorter boudin the length of the boudin is less than instead of fracturing
it will try to produce if the ductility of the layer is pretty high but still more than these two
layers then it can form the barrel shape, fish mouth shape and so on.

So this is the reason why it is expected that the boudins of a bed would show a small range of
width to thickness ratios. Now then the question comes what would be the final aspect ratio?
The final aspect ratio which is obtained after this processes this midpoint fracturing is a
function on its initial length and this becomes clear if we consider you can think of an
example and you can imagine that the critical aspect ratio for example you can think of that
will be the two.

Now what is the crystal aspect ratio here? That there is always a critical aspect ratio below
which further midpoint fracturing is not possible that means the boudinage processes for that
particular layer is finished for this particular deformation. Now you can think of that if we
start from a layer segment of aspect ratio 20 where you can consider that the critical aspect
ratio for that particular layer is 2 then by successive midpoint fracturing you can arrive at a
value of 2.5 this is simple arithmetic.

Now since this is larger than your critical aspect ratio or Ar, the segment will suffer further
extension fracture to yield stable boudins with aspect ratio in that case it would be 1.25. Now
if instead you can consider that instead of 20 if the starting layer segment has an aspect ratio
30 we get the final aspect ratio to 1.875 of a stable boudins. So depending upon the initial
length of the layer segments in a transverse section the final boudin aspect ratio may range
between the original critical aspect ratio which is Ar to Ar/2 as it is written here.

646
Now in the nature because this is some sort of geometric aspects that we are considering here
but in nature the range is likely to be modified by lot of other factors such as you can
consider the occurrence of flows in the competent bed, variation of strength and micro
structuring in different parts of this bed, some defects or some initial fractures within all these
layers and so on. So these also control the aspect ratio of the boudins but in general if
everything is homogeneous then you expect the aspect ratio of the boudin between the critical
aspect ratio and half of it.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:01)

Let us move to the next topic which is the foliation boudinage (I know) we have learned
about it this foliation boudinage. If you remember the classification we also consider that the
boudinage is possible in multilayers and also in foliations. Now in somewhat, in the
somewhat similar way of single layer boudinage processes, the multilayers or foliations can
get densely packed and generate boudinage structures with a thickness that is considerably
greater than that of individual layers or lamina and these are known as foliation boudinage.

Now what do you mean by this? So for simple single layer boudinage processes we
understood that requires a competence contrasts between the boudinage layer and the layers
outside. But when we have a foliation like this or multilayers like this there is apparently no
competence contrasts, it is almost a continuous layer with very high and strong an isotropic.
But what is interesting in this kind of situation is that you are still applying a flow along the
layers and therefore you can also imagine that there is a layer normal compression.

647
Because an isotropic is very-very high and layers are very thin you can expect the fact that a
group of layers can fracture at one point of time or one after another. When that happens then
you arrive at a situation where everything flows like this outside and these layers are
fractured and they appear like this. The layers on the other side are like this and so on. Now
you see that this actually is representing your like a shape of boudins. But apparently these
segments, this segment, this segment or this segment they do not have any competence
contrast with respect to the surrounding layers.

So this is a very interesting process and we see this in nature people do research on it and
here is an example of the foliation boudinage. Now foliation boudinage is common in well-
foliated rocks, the foliation simply tears as I have explained here they just break in little
pieces which allows for more extension and foliation boudinage is therefore a type of
structure that develops at a relatively late stage of deformation because we need this strong
anisotropy and it generally forms after the foliation is extremely strong and is well developed.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:15)

Now foliation boudinage as we have classified can be symmetric or asymmetric, so

symmetric foliation boudinage is where we do not have any, you have only separation by
tensile fractures the separated zones or the makes zones as we can see here they do not
undergo any shear deformation, so it is only separation by tensile fractures and if that
happens then this is a symmetric foliation boudinage as we can see here so you see that these
layers, this packet of layers here they got boudinage and this is the tensile fracture that it has
developed right.

648
So there is no apparent sleep along this or no feasible sleep between this segment and this
segment and this segment and therefore this is a symmetric type of foliation boudinage.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:23)

However asymmetric foliation boudins are separated by brittle shear fractures or by ductile
shear bands showing a relative displacement along the fracture or bands as you can see here
that it had a tensile fracture at one point of time but after that it has a sense of displacement
along the fracture zone and this is an excellent example as we can see here.

So we can imagine that this is a packet and then is another packet defining the boudin, this is
another packet which is defined in the boudin and this is another packet which is defined in
the boudin. And you can clearly see that it got relative displacement along the make zone or
fracture zone of the boudins and therefore this is asymmetric foliation boudinage.

649
(Refer Slide Time: 24:20)

Now we will switch to the next topic that how this boudinage are related or budins are related
with the strain ellipsoid? Now the boudinage is a deformation induced process this is quite
obvious we have learned it, so the structure must correspond to the stain ellipsoid either
regionally or locally. The transverse section, where we generally see the boudins in a row can
be approximated to the XZ plane of the strain ellipsoid. However, the Y direction is also
important for kinematic analysis, as it is not necessarily is always under plain strain and we
will see this very soon.

Now depending on the relative magnitudes of the 3 principal axis of strains, the 3D
disposition of an entire layer undergoing boudinage may display variety of structures and this
is exactly what we are going to see into next slide and I request you to recall the strain lecture
or go back to the strain lecture because we will be seeing now plain strain, constrictional
strain, flattening type of strain and so on and then we will see how we form the boudinage or
some other related structures along with this kind of various strain ellipsoid.

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(Refer Slide Time: 25:48)

Let us have a look, so what do we see here in this slide? This dispersed image looks like a
gift box but it is not. So this is you can consider a unit cube and this brown then blue and this
green layers are competent layers which are aligned perpendicular to X, Y and Z axis. So for
example this blue layer is aligned perpendicular to the x-axis, the brown layer is
perpendicular to the z-axis and the green layer is perpendicular to the y-axis.

Like one can also ask this question, do you see this kind of features in geology in structures
where you have three layers cross cutting each other? The answer is yes, you can consider
one is your primary bedding plane and then the other two could be two different types that
have intruded at different stages of time and then the entire packet is undergoing deformation
so this is not a problem therefore we will see that yes this is a possibility.

Now first we will take over this problem of uniform flattening, uniform flattening if you
remember that your z-axis has to be shortened and y and x-axis should move or should flow
equally. So the condition is x equal to y which is greater than 1 and z is less than 1 this is the
condition. Now if that happens then this brown layer because it is flowing in perpendicular to
the z section therefore the brown layer would get boudinage along the X direction also along
the Y direction and therefore this layer if I consider this brown layer here this one exactly
then it would produce two sets of boudinage and this is known as we have learned it
chocolate tablet boudinage okay.

If that does not happen if the strain is like a plain strain that means your y-axis is constant
there is no deformation along the y-axis then this brown layer which is the horizontal layer

651
perpendicular to the Z then the flow is only along the X direction and shortening along the Z
direction so this brown layer of would actually experience a layer normal compression and
layer parallel extension therefore we would have a boudinage of shape like this.

And if we have a uniform constriction which is shown here that means this brown layer is
very interestingly would flow in X direction so no problem that it is forming boudinage along
the X direction but because it is uniform constriction so it is getting compressed along Y
direction. So along Y direction because it is getting compressed it will produce some
compressional structures like fold.

Also the green layers would produce a compressional structure if you view perpendicular to
the X section and the blue layers also produce on both sections because this is something that
we are looking at the layer is undergoing compression in all directions. So this is how you
have the chocolate tablet boudinage, a simple one layer single boudinage or single boudinage
as we see here and then boudinage with folding you can form this in a single deformation we
will see soon that boudinage in superposed deformation.

But the message I would like to give you with this slide is that if you see a chocolate tablet
boudinage or if you see a boudinage in one section in another section the same layer is folded
that not necessarily indicate that it is a result of superposed deformation so when you
conclude your observations it is very important you look at some other sections or you
observe things in a better way to arrive at a conclusion that whether these are the products of
superposed deformation or from a single phase deformation.

And speaking of which we will come to the boudinage which are related to the folds because
in folds it is very interesting because a layer at one point of time undergoes compression and
then it can go extension at one point of time. So at one stage then it can again come to the
compressional field and so on because it is very complex with respect to the local orientations
of the strain ellipsoid we have understood it in the fold lectures.

So generally in most cases the majority observations that people have seen that boudin axis
are roughly parallel or perpendicular to the fold axis but that is not the thumb rule.

652
(Refer Slide Time: 31:27)

The boudin axis or the length of boudins need not to be either parallel or perpendicular to the
fold axis, the boudin axis maybe parallel, perpendicular or oblique to the fold axis. Now how
to conceive this idea? Let us have a look on this with some simple drawings. Will see this in
the form of illustration but let us imagine the fact that we have a layer then we are applying
layer parallel compression, so when we do that then this is undergoing the interlayer is
undergoing at least in this section compression, so the layer would produce a gentle fold.

Isn’t it? What is the orientation of the principal axis of the strength in this case? Now this
must be your Z direction isn’t it? Because this is the shortening direction, so this is your Z
okay if that happens then it is extending in this direction okay because this could be a long
axis so we can consider for the time being this is X that the principle extension direction and
we can assume that along the side there is no strain or plain strain condition so this can be
your Y.

Now with further deformation if we assume it to the next stage then the fold would get would
produce a tighter fold and then we will see very nicely if the orientations are same, this is
your Z, this is your Y and this is your X. That these limbs of these folds are slowly orienting
themselves along the principle extension direction. So therefore this layer if I consider this
particular segment here or this segment here is actually suffering or slowly undergoing a
deformation which is an extension along the layers.

However the bulk strain ellipsoid is still the same direction the way we started. If that
happens then essentially these layers with further rotation they would form boudinage like

653
this and so on. So you see that under compression the global strain ellipsoid is under
compression but in this particular case as we see here with the continued deformation we are
forming a boudinage structure which is associated with the fold in a single deformation.

So if we try to get it that we have just learned that not necessarily it has to be in this case
actually, in this case we have seen that this is the fold axis, this is parallel to the fold axis
however if the compression is oblique to the layers then you can actually form.

(Refer Slide Time: 35:48)

Let me wipe this one out because I do not have any more space. You can actually form
boudinage which can be oriented oblique to the fold axis, I am just giving you the rough idea.

Now we will learn about this processes soon in a different way but the boudin axis or the
length of the boudins need not to be either parallel or perpendicular to the fold axis, so this is
what is important and the lengths of the boudins can be also oblique to the axis of the folds
and such oblique boudins as we see here that these are oblique, boudin axis are oblique to the
fold and these oblique boudins may develop if the bed is oriented oblique to the principal axis
of stresses.

Now the geometrical relation of boudinage structures with folds should never be taken for
granted, especially in rocks which are known to have undergone repeated deformations. This
is something as I told also (with) when you look at the boudinage and try to correlate with the
strain ellipsoid the same warning or same measures must be considered when you try to
correlate the boudinage processes with the fold.

654
So this is because the occurrence of the boudinage structure in a transverse section of a fold
does not necessarily imply that the boudin axis is parallel to the fold axis. The reason for
emphasising this obvious point that I am trying to convey you repeatedly that the parallelism
of the boudin axis and the fold axis has so often being emphasized that you or the student
tend to make this assumption when they observed boudinage structures on a fold profile and
they consider that this is either parallel or perpendicular to the fold axis and this may not be
always true.

However, it is true that boudin axis and fold axis are often approximately parallel but in
making this assumption without actual observation or measurement there is a possibility that
we are losing a vital piece of information in the reconstruction of the history of the
superposed deformation. So in areas of superposed deformation the earlier boudin axis may
be oblique to the later fold axis. So the boudin orientation may get completely modified and
since the plan view of the boudinage is very rare to see in the field. So such evidence unless a
careful search is made is likely to be overlooked.

Now you can also think of the pinch and swell structures and extension fractures boudinage
in which boudin axis parallel to the fold axis, they cannot form at the initial stage of the
folding processes. As you can see here that when the fold is pretty open we do not have any
possibilities of the boudin.

The bodins may form or they generally form at a later stage of folding when limbs of the
folds have entered in the extensional field as we have seen I have worked out the drawing but
it you can remember this drawing you can go back with the slider and see the back slides but
here you see that this was your compression direction and this is this layer in particular was
actually suffering a layer normal compressions.

So this occurrence of small extension fracture boudinage that this is here that these are the
extensional fracture boudinage and so on or you can have also pinch and swell structures here
in a very similar mechanism. At the broad hinge zone you do not see that, so if you see
boudinage in the hinge zone there must be a second stage of deformation. So if you see
boudinage like this there must be a second stage of deformation but otherwise in a single
stage of deformation your hinge is generally unaffected.

We will see this, that where we have some boudinage where the hinge is affected and in some
places where hinge is not affected. Now if there is an extension parallel to the fold axis then

655
the boudinage may develop even at an early-stage when the amplitude of the fold is small and
this is something can happen when you have extension along the Y direction in that case you
can develop boudinage along this direction. But this is again possible but not very much seen
in the field.

So thus among the extension fracture boudinage structures which have grown during fracture
or buckle folding those which have their axis parallel to the fold axis must have been initiated
when the folds were fairly tight. On the other hand the boudins which are perpendicular to the
fold axis could have been initiated either at an early-stage or at a very late stage of the
folding. Now we will see some illustrations in the next slide.

(Refer Slide Time: 41:24)

As we can see here we have been drawing this but this is better drawing what we see here
that this is open fold nothing has happened then this is your extensional direction X then Y
and Z is a compression direction fold is forming in this way. So in such a situation lambda
one that is the principal stretch is 1, lambda two there is no movement along the Y direction
so this is 1 and lambda three is less than one because this is the compression direction.

Now with progressive deformation as we can see here that this layer along the lambda1 is
getting boudinage and if at later stage the lateral extension or it gets extended along the fold
axis like this so Y takes over that means lambda 1 is also 1 much-much greater than 1 and at
the same time lambda 2, so this is a kind of constrictional deformation okay.

Then you form the boudinage in this direction and also in this direction either simultaneously
or one after another and this is again a chocolate tablet boudinage associated with folds.

656
(Refer Slide Time: 42:50)

And I have a very nice example for you. Now what do we see here this is the formed surface
of a fold this, this surface. This is a form surface of fold and you see that this is characterized
by one set of fractures and then another set of fractures like this almost orthogonal to that.
Therefore it produced the chocolate tablet boudinage and if you are not convinced that this is
a fold I would like to request you to see this side you see that this is going like this and
coming back like this. The fold axis or hinge zone is actually exposed here, so it is going like
this okay.

So this is how it happened, so this could be your X and the or Y and this could be your X or
Y and of course the perpendicular direction the way the person is looking at the direction of
the person is looking at here is the direction of the Z along which the fold has formed or
along which the bulk compression came to generate the fold.

657
(Refer Slide Time: 44:22)

Now let us talk about the boudinage and superposed deformation. Now what you see in this
image that you see this is a fold but it got boudinage here then it rotated it got some pinched
then it got some swelling and it has several fractures here and these indicate that these were
once a part of boudinage. So what I would like to emphasise here is that you can form
boudinage during folding processes then you have a layer undergone boudinage, boudinaging
process and then the entire layer can be folded. So these two processes are essentially
different and this is one example.

658
(Refer Slide Time: 45:19)

And let us have a look to the other example. What we see here that this is a fold, right? I
mean if I draw it thoroughly it is a fold going like this and deforms in form and so on. But we
see here that this got a break, so this was one single boudin then this is another boudin and
you see it is off here.

So it was once upon a time something like that very much very long aspect ratio boudins and
then it got some rare parallel compressions and then eventually produced a shape like this
what we see in this other image this is from the book of Prof. Subir Ghosh. You see that the
hinge zone of this fold is boudinage so as I have told you that if you see that boudins at the
hinge zone that means that this it records essentially the second stage of deformation or this is
the product of superposed deformation.

So the folding of the boudinage layer in certain instances can be easily distinguished as you
can figure out that from the boudinage structure which are initiated during folding. Thus
when extension fracture boudinage structure occurs on the transverse profile of a gentle fold
wave with the layering in both the hinge and the limbs in the compressional field, we can
conclude convincingly that the boudinage layers have been subsequently folded we can arrive
at the same conclusion when small boudins are situated at the broad hinge what you see here
in this illustration and in addition the shortening of the boudinage layer also produce a variety
of characteristic patterns and we will see this in the next slide.

659
(Refer Slide Time: 47:39)

Before that let us have a look that how do we understand that experiments on folding of
boudinage layers generally show that unlike folding, boudinage is not recoverable. But you
make a fold then you can unfold it so you are compressing something, so you make a fold
and then you can unfold it because it is a continuous layer. But if it is a boudinage layer then
it is a segment of several blocks. So once you fold it then it is very difficult to unfold it
because these individual blocks also deform their own way.

Will see this in the next slide but during layer parallel shortening of a boudinage layer, the
nature of the deformation of the layer is mostly controlled by one the competence of the
boudins related to the host rock and the width to thickness ratio of the boudins. So these are
the main, main ways or these two are the main reasons you can think of and then we have a
series of structures that you can produce when you have layer parallel compression in a
boudinage layer.

660
(Refer Slide Time: 48:52)

So here are some examples, these are experimentally derived and also observed in the field so
one is herringbone pattern of rigid boudins, then tiled up longer rigid boudins then folding
and tilting of flexible boudins and folding of tilting boudins into half waves. So how do we
form short or medium sized very stiff boudins that can only undergo body rotation. So these
are very stiff boudins and it can go only the body rotations so they just rotate with the layer
parallel compression and these are known as herringbone patterns and if this stiff boudins
have large width to thickness ratio as we see here and they are also very stiff then they may
produce a structure like this which is known as tiled like piling of one boudin over another. In
the flexible boudins which we see that means the competence contrast between this and this
not that significant. They are folded and if the width thickness ratio is not large then the
individual boudins are folded into half waves like you see here or here or here and so on and
the neighbouring fold often closing in the same sense so you see that this is an anti-form and
the second one is also the anti-form. So these are the different structures that the researchers
have produced by experiments and they figured out that this is how you can produce different
kinds of structures when you apply layer parallel compression in producing folds when you
have boudinage layers in it.

So with this I conclude this lecture and also the lecture of this week and we will see some
other features in the next class.

661
(Refer Slide Time: 50:58)

And in the next week we mostly would focus on a new topic and which will be mostly
concerned the brittle deformation of rocks and this would be fractures, joints and faults. So
thank you very much and I wish you all the best, see you in the next lecture.

662
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Mishra
Department of Earth Sciences,
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lab Session Stereonet I
True dip from two apparent dips
(Refer Slide Time: 00:25)

Hello all, welcome to the online NPTEL structure Geology course. I am Saquib Abdullah,
one of the teaching assistants of this course, along with another TA and my colleague Manav
Mukherjee is here to have a live session on stereographic problems. So, the first problem is
how to determine the true dip from the two apparent dips.
If we have two apparent dip on the plane and so how we will determine the strike and the dip
of this plane. So, the question is in an underground mine the apparent dips of the coal bed are
measured as 32 degree, 252 degree, 40 degree, 192 degree means the apparent dip of the first
is, the plunge is 32 degree and the trend is 252 degree and the second one plunge is the 40

663
degree and the trend is 192 degree. So, we have two apparent dips so using Stereonet. How
we will determine the attitude of the bed, means strike and the true dip. We will solve this
problem through Stereonet.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:13)

So, we what we will do, we will take a tracing paper and then place it on the Stereonet, so
this way there is one pin through that we will adjust the tracing paper on the Stereonet so now
we will draw a perimeter circle around the periphery of this Stereonet. So, we have drawn the
circle around the periphery of this stereonet and we will now mark the North. This is north,
this is east, this is south and this is west.

Now the question is, we have values of two apparent dips. The first is the plunge is 32 degree
towards 252 degree, So, we will draw this, so this is 10 this is 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90,
this is 90 and this is again 90 this is 180 then 190, 200 and 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, this is 250 and
The trend is 252, this will be the 252.

So we will mark the trend 252 and now we will rotate this trend to the East-West line and
count the plunge. The plunge is 32 degrees and then we will count as 10, 20, 30 and this is
32. So this point will represent the trend and plunge of the first apparent dip.

Now, again we will rotate this tracing paper to its original point and point coincides this
North on the tracing paper with the North on the Stereonet and again then we will again read
the value of trend and plunge of the second apparent dip. So, the plunge is 40 degree and the
trend is 192 degree.

664
So, this is 90, this is 180, this is 190 and this is 192. This is 192, again I will rotate this
tracing paper and bring this 192 on the East-West line and count the plunge. The plunge is 40
degree. So, 10, 20, 30, 40. So this point will represent the trend and plunge of the second
apparent dip.

Now I will again rotate this tracing paper and bring it back to its original position and since
we have two apparent dips and we have to calculate the true dip of this plane. Since this
apparent dip and true dip. They all, if we draw a great circle, so they have to lie on the same
great circle so what we will do? we will try to bring these two points on the same great circle
in order to get the true dip.

So, again we will rotate this tracing paper and will bring these two points on the same great
circle, so here we can see these two are lying on the same great circle. So, what we will do?
We will draw a line passing through this great circle and will now count the true dip because
this will represent the strike. So, the perpendicular to the strike will give the true dip.

So, the true dip is 10, 20, 30, 40. So the value of true dip is 40 degree, and we can now know
the strike by bringing this tracing paper back to its original position. So, this strike is 90, 100,
110, and this is 119. So, the attitude of this planner feature strike is 119 degrees and the dip is
40 degree. So, the true dip is 40 degree and the strike is 119 degree.

665
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department Of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute Of Technology, Kanpur
Lab Session: Stereonet II
True Dip from Strike and One Apparent Dip
(Refer Slide Time: 00:14)

How to determine the true dip if we have strike and one apparent dip. The question is the
bed has a strike of 30 degree and apparent dip of a bed has a trend of 155 degree and
plunge of 45 degree. So we will use the stereonet to determine the true dip. We have
already drawn the primitive circle on the tracing paper.

666
(Refer Slide Time: 00:39)

So first we will mark the strike, the strike in the question the strike is 30 degree. So this is
10 this is 20 this is 30. So the strike is already given and we have the value of one
apparent dip, the trend is 155 degrees so, this is 90 this is 100, 110, 120, 130, 140, 150
and then this is 152, 154 this will be 155 in between. So this is 155.

Now I will rotate this tracing paper and bring this mark on, bring this 155 on the East
West line and count the plunge. The plunge is 45 degree. 10, 20, 30, 40 this is 42, 44 and
this in between will be the 45. So this point will represent the trend and plunge of one
trend having 155 and the plunge 45.

Now again I will bring this tracing paper back to its original position and to determine the
true dip what we know the strike. So what we will do we will just bring this strike on the
north and will draw a line passing through this apparent dip. So that line on the great
circle with represent the bed on the stereonet. So this is the point so since this strike is at
this north so perpendicular to this strike will give the true dip.

So, we will count the true dip from this east side. So the true dip is as follows this is 10,
20, 30, 40, 50. So the value of true dip is 50 degree. So the attitude of the bed is 30
degree means this strike is 30 degree and dip is 50 degree. So this is the attitude of the
bed 30 degree, 50 degree.

667
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department Of Earth Sciences,
Indian Institute Of Technology, Kanpur
Lab Session: Stereonet III
Pole to the Plane
(Refer Slide Time: 00:14)

Now we will learn how to plot the pole to the plane on this stereonet, if we know the
attitude of the plane its strike and its dip say then how we will plot the pole to the plane
on the stereonet. Pole is basically the perpendicular to the plane the question is in an
outcrop is a sedimentary bed is exposed whose attitude is 70 degree 44 degree southeast
means the strike is 70 degree and dip is 44 degree and its dip direction is southeast. So,
how to plot the pole to the plane on the stereonet.

668
(Refer Slide Time: 00:49)

So we have drawn the primitive circle on the stereonet or we have drawn the primitive
circle on the tracing paper and marked its direction north east south west. The question is
the bed has a strike of 70 degree and dip 44 degree. So first we will mark the strike 10,
20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, this is a 70 degree strike.

Now we will rotate this tracing paper and bring this 70 degree strike on the north and dip
is 44 degrees. We will count it from the east. So, this is 10, 20, 30, 40 this is 42 this is 44
and we will draw a line passing through this point.

This line represents the attitude of the bed on this stereonet. Since, we have to plot the
pole to the plane so the pole is basically the 90 degree to the plane. So we will count 90
degrees from this point 44 degree on the east west line. So this is 4 degree to 4 we will
add it later. This is 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80. 80 and this 4 is 84 this here it will be the
total it will be 84 and we will add 6 degrees more to make it 90 so 86, 88, 89 so this point
will represent the pole to the plane or are either you can also at from this end too so this is
2, 4, 6 this is 6 degree so we will add it later so this is 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80. Now
this is 80 plus this 6 so it is 86 so 88, 90. So we will arrive on the same point if we will
add from either end. If we want to know the trend and plunge of this pole to the plane so
we will mark here on the east west line to determine its trend and the plunge is 10, 20, 30,

669
40, 40 plus 246 degrees. So the plunge is 46 degree and the trend is this is 360 suppose if
we come 270, 280, 290, 300, 310, 320, 330, 340.

So the trend is 340 so the trend and plunge of this pole to the plane is the plunge is 46
degree towards 340 degree and this point represents the pole to this plane and the plane
the question is that it strikes the 70 degree and it dips towards south east and the dip is 44
degree.

670
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Lab Session: Stereonet IV
Fold axis and Axial plane from attitude of two limbs

(Refer Slide Time: 0:15)

Now we will plot and determine the fold axis and the axial plane of the fold on this stereonet.
The question is using this stereonet find the attitude of the fold axis and the orientation of the
axial plane and interlimb angle of the symmetrical antiform and the attitude of the limbs is 40
degree, 44 degree and 260 degree, 50 degree means the first limb has a strike of 40 degree and
dip is 44 degree and the second limb has a strike of 260 degree and a dip of 50 degree. So we
will plot it on the stereonet.

671
(Refer Slide Time: 0:57)

The primitive circle is already marked on the tracing paper and direction North, East, South,
West is also marked, so the attitude of the first limb is 40 degree and dip is 44 degree. So first we
will mark the strike. This is 10, 20, 30, 40. This is 40 degree and the dip is 44 degree. Now we
will rotate this tracing paper and bring this 40 degree on the north and draw a great circle by
counting 44 degree from the east.

This is 10, 20, 30, 10, 20, 30, 40, 42, 44. This is 44 so we have drawn the great circle of the first
limb, now we will draw the great circle for the second limb so the strike is 260 degree so this is
270 so below that it is 260.

We will now bring this 260 on the north south and read the dip from the east 50 degree. 10, 20,
30, 40, 50 this is 50, so we will draw a great circle from this so any attitude of the bed is given.
We will first mark the strike and always bring it to the north and read the dip from the east side
not from the west side.

If we are bringing the strike on the north so the dip will be read always read from the east side.
So again we will bring this tracing paper back to its original position, coinciding north on the
tracing paper with the north on the stereonet and what we see is that the great circle representing
these two limbs are intersecting at one point. The intersection of this great circle on the stereonet
will represent the fold axis so to read the trend and plunge of this fold axis what we will do, we
will again bring this intersection point on the east west line and read the amount.

672
So this is 10, this is 20 and will mark do a mark which will represent the trend of this fold axis.
So the plunge is 20 degree and the trend is, this is 40, this is 50, this is 60, this is 62. So the trend
is 62. So the attitude of the fold axis is the plunge is 20 degree towards 62 degree. Now we have
to determine the axial plane of this fold, how to plot the axial plane of this fold?

The first point we know that it pass through the fold axis so we know this first point but how to
determine the second point since this fold is symmetrical, so if we can determine the interlimb
angle of this fold and so the bisect and able to determine the bisector of this interlimb angle. So
we will get this another point and then by blegging this 2 point on the great circle, we can
determine the axial plane of the fold.

Since we know the fold axis, what we will do? We will draw a point 90, 90 degree to the fold
axis and will draw a great circle. Great circle through this point since 90 degree to the fold axis
represents a profile plane to the fold. So on the profile plane we will determine the interlimb
angle. So what will we do? We will again bring this fold axis on the east west line and read 90
degree from this fold axis. So 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 so this point is 90 degree to the
fold axis and now we will draw a great circle through this point.

Which will represent the profile plane to the fold axis or to the fold, so this great circle represents
the profile plane to the fold and on this profile plane we will read the count the interlimb angle.
The interlimb angle is 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 92. So the interlimb angle is 92 degree
and the bisector of this interlimb angle will be 46 degree.

So we will again count the 46 degree 10, 20, 30, 40, 42, 44, 46 so this point this point represent
the bisector of this interlimb angle so what for to draw the axial plane, we will bring this fold
axis and the this bisector point on the same great circle.

So again we will rotate and will try to bring this 2 point on the same great circle, so these 2 now
came on the same great circle and we will draw a line passing through this point. So the dip of
the axial plane is steep (high) so the dip is 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 82, 84, 86 degree and
the strike is 60 degree. So the attitude of the axial plane is 60 degree, the strike is 60 degree and
the dip is 86 degree means the axial plane is almost vertical. Since the interlimb angle is 92
degree so it is open fold.

673
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Lab Session_ Stereonet 5
Fold Geometry from Pole Data of Two Limbs

(Refer Slide Time: 00:19)

Hello everyone. So I will continue the problems on stereographic projections as Sakib has
already started. So the first problem that I will deal with, Is the determining fold geometry when
the pole data of two limbs is given. The pole data clusters around two maxima which is given in
the problem. So one pole data plunges 27 degree towards 248 degree and the other pole data
plunges 19 degree towards (27) 37 degree. So these two pole data are poles of the limb of a
symmetrical non-neutral fold. So we will try to get the orientation of the fold attributes using
plotting these two poles in the stereonet. So we will get started with the stereonet.

674
(Refer Slide Time: 1:09)

So we will first plot the first pole, so the first pole is 27 degree towards 248 degree so we will
first determine the 248 degree. So here is the north mark, so this is the south is corresponds to
180 degree so 248 degree will be 190, 200, 210, 220, 230, 240, 248. So as Sakib has already said
in many examples. We will take the angle on the east-west line measure and the angle is 27
degree so this corresponds to 27 degree.

Now we will again bring the tracing paper in its original position. Now to determine the limb,
corresponding to this pole maxima we will again bring this point to the east-west line and now
what we will do is that, we will go 90 degree from this point and the great circle 90 degree from
this point will obviously represent the limb because as Sakib has mention in one of the problems
90 degree from a plane represents a pole, we will do the reverse operation here. 90 degree from
the pole will give us the plane.

So we will count 90 degree. Clearly this is 27 degree. So in order to get 90 degree, we will count
63 degree from this side. So this is 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 63. So this great circle would represent
one of the limbs. So clearly first what we will do is that this great circle on the east-west line.
The dip is already known to us because this will represent the dip as Sakib has mentioned in the
previous problem that dip is seen in the east-west line.

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(Refer Slide Time: 03:25)

And now I mark the great circle. So clearly this would and this would be another end of the
strikes. Now we will again rotate and bring it to coincide with the north and we see that the strike
is around. So if this is 90 degree, this is 100, this is 110, 120, 130, 140, 150, 160. So the strike is
158 degree. So the dip angle is 63 degree of one limb and the strike is 158 degree. So limb
orientation of limb one will be 158 degree, 63 degree. The dip amount is 63 degree.

Now in the similar manner we will plot the second pole. The second pole is 237 degree is the
trend and the plunge is 19 degree. So first we will see whether the 237 degree south corresponds
to 180 degree. So this is 190, 200, 210, 220, 230. So this would be around 237. In a similar way
we will rotate this to an east-west line and then we will calculate 19 degree. Clearly this is the 19
degree, so this is represents the pole 2. So 90 degree from this pole, the great circle 90 degree
apart from this pole will clearly represent limb 2.

So now in case of limb 2 what we will do is that we will calculate this is 19 degree. So from here
we will calculate 71 degrees. So because 71 plus 19 corresponds to 90, so this is 10, 20, 30, 40,
50, 60, 70, 71. So clearly again the dip amount is 71 degrees and this represents the second limb
of the fold. So this is one strike, this is another strike and the dip angle is 71 degree. Now again
we bring the north and we see that the two limbs of the fold intersect at this point but before that
we will mark the strike end of the second limb. So the east corresponds to 90 degrees.

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So 100, 110, 120, 130, 140, 147, so the orientation of limb two is the strike is 147 degree and the
dip amount is 71 degree. Now as Sakib mentions in the previous example where the two limbs of
the fold intersect, the point represents the fold axis in the stereonet. As Sakib did we will do the
same operation. We will first what we will do is we will rotate the fold axis in the stereonet to
move it in the east west plane and now we will count the angle.

(Refer Slide Time: 08:15)

So the angle clearly is 1, 3, 5, 15, 25, 35, 45. So the plunge amount of the fold axis is 45 degrees
and the fold axis plunges towards 100, 110, 120, 128 degree. So the orientation of fold axis is 45
degrees towards 128 degrees. Now we will have to determine the axial plane. So in the problem
it is mentioned that the fold is the symmetrical non-neutral fold. So as Sakib has done in the
previous problem I would rotate the fold axis in the east-west plane and first count 90 degrees.
So the 90 degree from the fold axis will obviously in the east-west plane will give us the profile
plane.

So this is 45 here, so this 45 from here and we will count 45 again from the center so from the
fold axis to center is 45 and center to the great circle represents the profile plane would be 45
again. So 10, 20, 30, 40, 45. So this great circle will be our profile plane. Now what to do is that
which angle to bisect? So if the fold is symmetrical so we have two angles. This is a very low
angle in between the two limbs. We refer to as internal angle and this plus this refers to the
external angle with respect to the limbs in the profile plane.

677
Now in a symmetrical fold the inter limb angle will be bisected but how to determine which
angle the interior angle or the exterior angle to bisect? Now it is mentioned in the problem that
fold is a non-neutral fold. In this time we have to think of the fold geometry. What happens in a
non-neutral fold is that the axial plane dip should be steeper than the dip of one of the limbs. So
in this case if we bisect the exterior angle clearly the dip of the limb would become shallower as
the great circle will lie closer to the periphery (of) in the stereonet.

Hence in this problem what we will do is that we will bisect the very low angle in between the
interior angle between the limbs. So first we will calculate the interior angle.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:12)

Basically the interior angle is 2, 4, 5, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13. So 6, 6 and a half corresponding to 7
will be the point of bisection. So the bisecting point would be this is 6, so probably this is the
bisector of the inter limb angle. Clearly now the plane passing through this fold axis and the
bisector will represent the axial plane. So now I will rotate this tracing paper, so as to pass a
great circle through the fold axis and this plane.

Now we have found the great circle that passes through both the points. So we will mark the
great circle. As we have done we will mark this two points to determine the strike and clearly on
the east west plane, we will calculate the dip of this great circle which represents the axial plane
and the dip corresponds to 8, now 8, 18, 28, 38, 48, 58, 68. So the axial plane, the dip is 68
degrees and the strike is this east is corresponds to 90, 100, 110, 120, 130, 140, 150 so this is and

678
we have marked the limb one wrongly. The strike of limb one would be not 153 but 158 degrees.
So the axial plane of this fold, the orientation of the axial plane of this fold is the strike is 153
degrees and the dip is 68 degrees. So from two poles of a plane, we have reconstructed the fold.

679
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture 27
Fractures and Joints - 1

Hello everyone, welcome back again to this online NPTEL Structural Geology course and we
are going to start a new week and this week we will mostly focus on the brittle deformation
of rocks.

(Refer Slide Time: 0:29)

So mostly we will see fractures, joints and essentially faults, so we will have 3 to 4 lectures.
And today we will start with this topic with mostly focusing on fractures and we are in
lecture number 27. We already have started this lecture on fractures and so on particularly
when we talked about boudinage, but there we also inserted or included the structures like
pinch and soils and so on where it is not typically a brittle deformation, but this week we will
mostly stay in the brittle domain or brittle deformation domain of rocks.

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(Refer Slide Time: 1:18)

So, in the first lecture which is today we will learn mostly concepts of fractures and joints,
then we will talk about fractures and failures in rocks, then we will see the different kinds of
fractures that we produce in compressive stress regime and in shear stress regime. So, these 4
points are the topics of today's lecture and so these 4 are the things we will cover in this
lecture.

And then in the next lecture and the following lectures we will mostly focus on joints in
particular and then we will see the faults of rocks and we will see what are the different
processes that are involved, the mechanisms, different structures, their implications and so
on. So, let us start with the concepts of what are fractures and what are joints.

(Refer Slide Time: 2:04)

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Now, in rocks, like all other materials, both fractures and joints are essentially the
expressions of brittle deformation of rocks. Now, in an intact rock, the fractures are produced,
you can produce a fracture in an intact rock when the stress exceeds a critical limit and we
generally call the critical limit as rupture strength, fracture strength or failure of the rock, we
will spend a lot of time on the failure of the rocks in this lecture.

And generally you identify the fracture in the rock systems by mostly a planner, or sub
planner sheet like surface discontinuity. So, this is what you see mostly in 2D or 3D, but in 1
dimension or what I mean by these that in sections, in any surfaces, eroded surfaces or it can
be a fractured surface itself, we see the fractures like a hairline sort of crack or hairline
discontinuity in the rock mass.

And as fractures are produced by stress, because you need to apply some sort of stress to
fractured the rock. So therefore, the orientation, distribution, relative displacement along the
fracture planes if there is any displacement at all, these are the surface features and these are
extremely important in concluding the dynamics and kinematics of deformed rocks in brittle
domain.

So whatever fracture you produce its orientation, the distribution, and so on must have some
relations with the stress field of this regime. And if there is a relation and we can calibrate
this relationship then just looking the fractures, their orientations and so on in the field, we re
can conclude convincingly the stress regime by which the fractures have formed in the field.

(Refer Slide Time: 4:18)

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And in this context joints in contrary to the fracture they all joints are generally fractures, we
will see that, but they are defined as fracture surfaces along or across the movement is
negligibly small. So joints just produce a fracture, but there is no displacement or very less
displacement along the fracture planes and in particular because in geology we deal with
scales.

Now this definition of joint that I just said that or is written here that joints are defined as
fracture surfaces along or across which the movement is negligibly small is essentially a scale
dependent statement. Now a joint may not show a displacement in the mesoscopic scale that
means in the field scale, but may show evidence of displacements in the microscopic scale.
So it is also important that you remember the definition of joint is scale dependent and we
generally describe this in the context of field scale or even a large scale.

Now a freshly exposed joint that means that joint just have formed and exposed on the
surface appears as a hairline crack, a very thin line. And the opening may increase with time
when you have weathering or some other natural processes go on on this joint surfaces, then
we see that opening is happening along this surface and eventually the rock breaks and fall
apart along the joint planes that happens very frequently and this is quite normal and
common. Some joints are filled with minerals. If the mineral field is very thin say, few
millimetres in thickness, it is still regarded as a joint when observed in the outcrop scale.

However, we have a different name of the same feature if we see this under microscope and
then it is known as a vein and so on. So we will learn all these different terminologies mostly
to assign the same processes or same feature, but this is how it is, this is our subject is, we
have very similar feature, but depending on the scale at which we are looking at, we name
them differently or the way we are observing, it will see some examples in this lecture as
well.

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(Refer Slide Time: 6:29)

Now, as I said the joints are essentially a typical kind of fractures, but not all fractures are
joints and this is exactly what we are looking at today and will mostly focus on the fractures
where we have displacements along the fracture planes. So we focus in joints today. But there
are few typical brittle deformations because we are dealing with brittle deformations in this
lecture or in this week that do not involve fracturing of rocks, interestingly brittle
deformation is happening.

So, for example, you can think of that granular flow and even frictional flow of
unconsolidated sediments or of poorly consolidated rocks do not involve characteristic
fracturing in the brittle deformation. The grains actually do translate or rotate or both to
accommodate the deformation and this is known as particulate flow. We have learned all
these things in our deformation mechanism lecture, particularly in the lecture of cataclassis.

And cataclassis is also one of the important processes of fractures and joints, where the grains
produce intra-granular fractures in porous or non-porous rocks when the grain are in contact
and the areas or the stress you apply is high enough to break these grains and this is known as
cataclassis. Now, there is another term which is pulverization, a typical process of fracturing
at very high strain rates and that produce extremely fine grains due to grain crushing and this
is known as pulverization.

So you have a piece of rock and there is a fracture happened and then this inside these
fractures because of the movement of these fracture walls the grains inside they got extremely
crushed and eventually remain as very fine grained structure and this process is known as

684
pulverization. And pulverization you can imagine this can happen mostly when you have an
earthquake or an impact cratering on the surface.

(Refer Slide Time: 8:33)

So, let us review some of the basic terminologies that we have learned in the previous
lectures. We have a two pairs of terminologies with three terms in each group. The first group
consists of brittle, ductile, and brittle-ductile. And the second group consists of elastic,
viscous and plastic. Now you already are familiar to these terms, maybe not with brittle-
ductile.

So brittle and ductile we know that these are the processes of deformation, if the cohesion is
maintained that means the rocks do not produce any visible fractures, then we call this is a
ductile deformation. But, if the cohesion is lost then we call it brittle deformation. Now there
is something in between that a rock may produce fractures and at the same time it may not
lose cohesion at some parts of this rock mass, and then we call it brittle ductile or
simultaneously brittle and ductile deformation, if it happens together then we call it brittle
ductile deformation.

On the other hand elastic, viscous and plastic these are rheological terms, so we can
summarize it this way that brittle, ductile and brittle-ductile are types of deformation and on
the other hand elastic, viscous and plastic are some sort of flow or mechanisms of
deformation or in other ways you can call it rheology. We have also learned that this brittle,
ductile, brittle-ductile and elastic, plastic, viscous they apparently do not have any
relationship.

685
However, brittle deformation is always plastic, whereas, ductile deformation includes
everything which are not elastic because ductile deformation is a permanent deformation, so
it cannot include elastic deformation and of course which are not brittle because the brittle
deformation is essentially not a ductile deformation because in brittle deformation we will
lose the cohesion of the rocks.

Now we also learnt two other terms and I already mentioned one of these terms, one is
cohesion, and another is friction. So cohesion is the ability or stress to hold particles together
in static condition that means I have some sand grains kept on a bowl and I make something
cover on it and then I just leave it there. So the intra-granular interactions between the sand
grains if this is good enough to hold the shape, then we say that yes it is a cohesive material,
but if I continue piling up sand on the bowl at one point of time it would fail that means it
would not maintain its cohesion in the static condition.

Friction in contrary is a resistive force that develops between two adjacent particles or
surfaces due to stress. So, once there is a stress from outside, then the intra-granular forces
are known as friction and once there is no stress from outside only the static condition is
prevailing, then the intra-granular forces are known as cohesion and these two are very
important parameters. I would like to also highlight one point here that rocks with high
cohesion are generally strong, hard and intact, we will learn about it soon.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:40)

We have also learned that apparently cohesion and friction these two material parameters
they do not have any major relationship. So they are some sort of independent, what I mean

686
by this if the friction of a rock is high that does not mean that the cohesion of this rock has to
be high or low and vice-versa. So here are two plots and we have seen this before, but I
would like to highlight it again.

These are the cohesive strengths which are measured in megapascal or the unit is in
megapascal and these are some rocks, common rocks, igneous, sedimentary and
metamorphic. And in this plot we have coefficient of friction which is mu and we have again
the similar rocks in three classes igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. What we see here
that, so let us take the example of granite and we see it has a quite wide range here and again
if we come to the granitic rocks, the friction is pretty high.

Now interestingly if we come to the schists here which is a metamorphic rock and we know
this is extremely foliated rock, schists or phyllites and so on we see phyllites have a very low
cohesion, but once we see phyllites have very high friction and you can compare all the rocks
here in this plot and you will see that these two terminologies which are very important in
controlling the fractures and joints of rocks have apparently no relationships between them.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:04)

We also have learnt about this equation that will that we will learn soon, but in the context of
the classical rock mechanics we have to understand that what is the rock failure or when we
are going to produce the fracture in the rock. Now, rock failure is generally achieved when
the rock under stress achieves permanent deformation. Now, in brittle deformation the
permanent deformation is mostly manifested or achieved by the fracturing of rocks.

687
So, for perfect brittle rocks the yield stress is equal to the failure stress. For brittle-ductile or
ductile rocks failure stress is different from yield stress. And we have learnt about it but still I
would like to give you a little idea about it. If I am dealing, so this is strain and this is stress
and if I am dealing with a brittle rock, then this elastic loading would happen and then the
rock would fail like this. So, clearly this is the yield stress of this rock, this is the elastic limit.

Now, if I have a rock in the brittle ductile domain, then it may follow the same path, but it
may not produce fracture here, it may go a little bit and then it may produce a fracture and
this part here is where you achieve your ductile deformation and then finally it produces a
fracture or multiple fractures.

But, if we talk about the ductile range, then even if we have the same yield strength it would
not produce a failure, it would not produce a fracture in the rock, and it would continue
flowing this and we know from the previous lectures that it can flow with at constant stress
then we have to call it steady state, it can flow at higher stress then we call it strain hardening
or it can flow at lower stress and then we call it strain softening.

So these are the processes we have learnt and we can see this more in one of the next lectures
when we talk about the stress-strain curves, but the brittle fracturing or rock failure expressed
by fractures are commonly described by a relationship which is known as Mohr-Coulomb
failure criteria. Now, we have learnt about this before where this equation is expressed as
shear stress is equal to cohesion plus mu which is the coefficient of friction multiplied by
normal stress minus pore fluid pressure.

If you do not have pore fluid pressure then the equation stands like this S plus mu (you do not
have to do the bracket here) sigma N, so this is how we figure out that this is the condition, so
this is the critical shear stress that you need to have to make a fracture in the rock, make a
(failure) fracture failure in the rock and which is a function of the cohesion of this rock, the
coefficient of friction of this rock and the normal stress is being applied to the rock.

688
(Refer Slide Time: 17:28)

Now, there are some assumptions and how do we get all these things, the fracture strength,
the failure strength, what kind of fractures we will produce and things like that. Because if
you remember at the very beginning I told that if we can calibrate the fractures, their
orientations, their aggregates or their shape and so on, then it is possible to identify or to
understand what is going to be the orientation or what was the orientation of the stress axis,
principal axis of stresses or overall stress regime of this area.

And experiments here are extremely useful because we can do experiments in different ways
keeping the stress axis differently and then we see what kind of fractures we are producing in
our samples. And once we have these ideas then we go to the field and check that what kind
of fracture have produced and then we see these fractures, we match it with our experimental
results and see and finally conclude, yes, this is a fracture that must have produced under
such and such stress domains.

But to do that, (we do) for these type of calibrations of fractures in experiments to the field,
we have some sort of considerations and these considerations are very very ideal. So one of
these considerations is rock is isotropic, homogeneous and stresses are applied uniformly.
The second consideration is textural characteristics such as grain size and sorting have no
influence. The third one is temperature and strain rates are ignored, and the fourth one is
intermediate stress or sigma 2 does not produce any role.

Now, these are very sweet statements, but as experimentalists generally do not try to follow
any rule except the basic laws of science and physics, so we generally deviate from this and

689
this is why this statement is written. These are often violated in rock deformation experiments
and all of them have been demonstrated to have significant influences in rock failure and
fracture generation.

So that means if I deal with an anisotropic rock it would vary from isotropic rock, if we deal
with homogeneous rock it would certainly vary from the failure and other things (from
homogeneous) from heterogeneous rock, the textures and grain size and sorting have no
influence this is the consideration. But we have seen people have shown from experiments
that all these textural characteristics grain size and sortings they do have a significant
influence in the strength and failure of rocks.

And similarly, temperature and strain rate we have seen it they have a significant influence.
So all these things are not considered in actual rock deformation experiments, but these are
some thumb rules that one has to taste at the very beginning to understand the essential
parameters that one can vary in rock deformation to understand the fracture patterns and other
processes of brittle deformation. As I said that experimental rock deformation has a series of
considerations and these considerations we generally do mostly to understand the fracture
patterns, their orientations and so on.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:12)

So, here are four examples that experimental rock deformation or rock mechanics people
generally do consider in their experimental setup. The first one is hydrostatic state of stress,
from our stress lecture we have understood that if sigma 1, sigma 2 and sigma 3 these three

690
principal axis of stresses which are being applied to the rock samples are equal then it is
hydrostatic.

So in that case if they are compressive then the rock will shrink, if they are not compressive
but in the tensile domain that means these arrows are in the opposite direction then the rock
would expand or it would produce fracture in a different way we will see that soon. Then
there is one consideration which is uniaxial deformation or unconfined deformation that
means that you do not have any confinement, atmospheric pressure is there or vacuum is
there around the rock samples and then you apply a load from the top and bottom or only
from the top where bottom is constrained.

So the condition is sigma 1 which is the stress you are applying has a value but sigma 2 and
sigma 3 they are first of all equal and they are either in atmospheric conditions or under in
vacuum. Then we have another set up called triaxial where sigma 1 is as it was we considered
here for uniaxial, but sigma 2 and sigma 3 they are either equal to each other or sometimes
they are not equal to each other. If they are equal to each other then we call it triaxial that
means sigma 1 which is essentially greater than sigma 2 and sigma 3, and sigma 2 and sigma
3 they are equal and not equal to 0. So that means the rock is under confinement and then a
(())(23:16) stress is applied to the sample.

Polyaxial is sometimes we call it true triaxial stress that means the sigma 1, sigma 2 and
sigma 3 they have three different values and they are not equal to each other. So this is how
we considered these four different stress regimes, but there are some other experimental set
up as well one can work on biaxial and so on. But these are the standard processes, we work
with this, we generally use cylindrical samples for some special advantages in preparation
and so on. But for true triaxial we mostly use or polyaxial we mostly use samples of cube or
parallelepiped shapes.

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(Refer Slide Time: 24:14)

Now the study of rock failure is generally done with Mohr circle. So Mohr circle or a linear
Mohr-Coulomb failure envelope is or you can consider that these two generally are
considered together so Mohr circle and linear Mohr-Coulomb failure envelope they generally
are plotted together are the most common methods used to indicate failure limits, so we will
see this soon.

And this technique predicts the failure when the stresses surpass both the cohesion of a rock
and the internal friction and this is essentially an expression of this Mohr-Coulomb failure
criteria which I would like to write again. So, what you need? You need shear stress and you
need normal stress.

So this is an example here is I have shown by a cartoon diagram that if I apply sigma 1 which
is the compressive force and then sigma 3 here and then this is the fracture this blue one is a
fracture you have produced and this fracture can make an angle with the normal to the
fracture plane and with the sigma 1 and say this angle is theta. Now from the stress classes
we know that we can calculate sigma N and we can calculate tau once we know sigma 1 and
sigma 3.

So, to figure out the cohesion and mu we need to plot tau versus normal stress. And if we do
an uncontained uniaxial test then it is very very important that at that time your sigma 3
would be 0 and then sigma 1 has a value when the rock is producing the fracture. So if I take
these two points like this here is sigma 3 which is the atmospheric pressure or you can say if
you do it in vacuum that there is no value and then I can find by rock deformation that what is

692
the stress at which the rock produced its first fracture. And say this is sigma 1 and we plot
sigma 1 here.

Now, it is possible that considering this length along the sigma N axis as the diameter of a
circle we can draw one half circle like this and this is your sigma 3 and this is your sigma 1.
So in this case sigma 3 was 0. Now, if I increase the sigma 3, say for example, sigma 3 is
now I plotted it here that is the value, I applied some confinement, then we know that with
confining pressure the failure strength of the rock increases.

So sigma 1 in that case in the second case has to be certainly higher than the sigma 1 when
there was no confinement. And then again I can consider this as the diameter of the circle and
draw another circle like this, the half circle. And then I can increase again sigma 3 and plot
sigma 1, I can again increase sigma 3 and plot sigma 1 at which the rock is producing the
failure.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:18)

Now, in doing so we can continuously plot these values and we can see actually that how this
evolution of this stress happening. So I do not know if you can see this this is sigma 3 and
sigma 1, then the next one sigma 3 and sigma 1, then the next one this is sigma 3 and this is
your sigma 1, and then the next one this is sigma 3 and this is sigma 1.

So, what is happening here? At each time I am increasing the confining pressure and as a
result the failure stress is increasing from here to here, then here to here and then here to here.
The failure stress is at which we see the first fracture is appearing or you can see this like this
that this is a stress at which it is failing.

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(Refer Slide Time: 29:15)

Now, interestingly this is a plot of normal stress versus shear stress. Now it is possible that I
can actually figure out a line which is touching all these half circles and this line which is
drawn here with the blue color is known as Mohr envelope. And this, the equation, the
expression of this line is essentially where shear stress is a function of normal stress, this is a
nonlinear fit.

(Refer Slide Time: 30:13)

Now, once I approximate this non-linear fit to a linear fit for example like this then we call it
linear Mohr-Coulomb Failure Envelope the definition is same. Now what happens here, what
is the importance of this blue line? In this case you see that this blue line is a straight line and
therefore, I can write it in this format and this equation is essentially an equation like y equal

694
to mx plus c, where c is s, m is the coefficient of friction. So this value here is the cohesion
and this is measured in megapascal and this angle if this is theta then tan of this angle is the
coefficient of friction.

Now, what is the importance of this line that we are drawing or linear Mohr-Coulomb Failure
Envelope? If the stress, applied stress stays below this line then the rock is not going to
produce any fracture, so this is a stable zone. If the stress is in this side then the rock would
produce fractures so or unstable zone. So this line is actually very important to separate out
the stable field and unstable field of the rock.

Now, you can clearly understand if I apply pore fluid pressure and start working on then this
line would change and they may shift, they may rotate and so on, but you can try by yourself
that how it can happen if I apply pore fluid pressure to this considering the fact that tau equal
to s plus mu sigma N minus pore fluid pressure. So this is one type of failure criteria that if
this line is defining the failure criteria here that if the stress is above this line then we fail the
rock or we produce the fracture in the rock and if it is below we do not produce the fracture in
the rock.

(Refer Slide Time: 32:55)

Now, there are many other failure criteria and here is a list. The first one is the Mohr-
Coulomb failure criteria that we have already learnt and these failure criteria mostly aim to
mathematically express the conditions at which failures do occur. Now here are some
important failure criteria that people use in rock mechanics or rock fracture mechanics, so
Mohr-Coulomb we have learnt.

695
Then there is Hoek-Brown, Griffith criteria, then Bieniawski-Yudhbir criteria, Modified
Wiebols-Cook criteria, Modified Lade criteria, Ramamurthy’s criteria, Tresca’s criteria, von
Mises criteria and Drucker-Prager criteria, so it has two inscribed and circumference. These
are the mathematical expressions of all these failure criteria and here I have given the
explanations of the symbols I have used in these equations.

Now, interestingly let us have a look of these parameters which are actually being used to
look at or understand the failure criteria, yield stress, principal axis of stresses, critical tensile
stress, I am sorry the first one is shear stress, then yield stress, uniaxial compressive stress,
young’s modulus, length of the initial crack, surface energy or unit area, some series of
material constants, then series of coefficients and the stress invariants.

So we see that all these are related to the stress of the system and at the same time some
material constants, material parameters, some material coefficients and at the same time some
geometric considerations, length of the initial crack, and so on. So in the following slides we
are not going to look at all these, so generally structural geologists or rock mechanics
engineer use Mohr-Coulomb, Hoek-Brown, Tresca’s criteria and von Mises criteria,
sometimes Griffith criterion is also used.

But mostly restricted to a lot of theoretical analysis, however, this list is not complete, if you
are further interested you can read this paper which is a very recent paper and there are a
series of failure criteria, rock failure criteria and their modified versions and their
relationships, their advantages and disadvantages. But in this class we will mostly look at the
Mohr-Coulomb failure criteria which we have already seen. Next slide we will Hoek-Brown,
Tresca’s criterion and von Mises criterion.

696
(Refer Slide Time: 36:02)

So, Hoek-Brown criteria is nothing but because in our construction of Mohr circle we have
seen that the Mohr envelope is actually a nonlinear curve, we approximated it to make it
linear Mohr-Coulomb failure criteria to fit in the More-Coulomb equation, but indeed it is a
nonlinear fit and to account this nonlinear fit you need to include a non-linear function in
your equation.

And this is the expression of this equation and here you have sigma 1 and sigma 3, principal
axis of stresses, then you have some material constants C 0 and then you have another
parameter which is m. Now m is very very important in Hoek-Brown failure criteria. Now
people have done experiments and they figured out that m ranges from 5 to 8 if the rocks are
dolomite, limestone, marble so mostly carbonate rocks.

The m ranges from 4 to 10 if these are sandstones, greywackes, and quartzite. m drastically
jumps to 15 to 24 when we are dealing with andesite, dolerite, or rhyolite or in other words
fine grained intact highly cohesive rocks. And it is even higher when we have m ranges from
22 to 33 when you are dealing with coarse grained amphibolite, gabbro and granitic rocks.
Now this S is 1 for intact rocks and S equal to 0 for completely granulated or non-cohesive
rocks, so S is the cohesion here and we have learnt later. So this is how they put it in the
equation.

697
(Refer Slide Time: 38:00)

Tresca’s failure criteria is the simplest one. Now, if we consider a failure curve like this and
this is the Mohr-Coulomb failure criteria so then we can simply figure out that the maximum
shear stress here is coming somewhere here, this is the maximum shear stress we can achieve,
so this is tau max. And if we are on the negative side then this would be your tau max here
somewhere. So, and it tells that it is simply the radius of the circle of the Mohr circle.

So, therefore, tau max is expressed as half of sigma 1 minus sigma 3 and this is the simplest
form of Mohr-Coulomb failure criteria. Now, what is very interesting of this failure criteria is
that this equation does not involve any material parameter or any material property. Say for
example, here we have coefficient of friction and cohesion but it does not include anything
only the failure criteria is applicable just based on the principal axis of stresses 2D sigma 1
and sigma 3 and if you go to 3D then sigma 2 comes in the picture.

698
(Refer Slide Time: 39:28)

Now von Mises failure criteria is something that really does not deal with fracturing of rocks,
but it is one of the important criterion to understand the failure of rocks or in other ways the
ductile failure or plastic failure of rocks. We have learnt about it, so I am not going to spend
more time on this. But generally von Mises failure criterion or you can call it maximum
distortion energy theory of failure suggests that failure of a ductile material begins when
distortional strain energy or second deviatoric stress invariant reaches a critical value or the
yield strength.

Now, if yield strength is sigma y and second stress invariant is something like that, then von
Mises failure criteria is expressed in this way. And you can also achieve the similar equation
using distortional strain energy, but we are not going into that part right now.

699
(Refer Slide Time: 40:32)

So here is some comparisons of these failure criteria that we have learnt Mohr-Coulomb,
Hoek-Brown and Tresca’s failure criteria together with von Mises failure criteria. Now, what
do we see here? These are your some data that for you can get from a sandstone which is I
took from this paper and you see it for different failure criteria these values do vary
significantly.

And therefore it is somehow important to understand that which failure criteria I should use
at which point or which particular application I am going to do. So the Mohr-Coulomb,
Hoek-Brown and Tresca’s failure criteria are very similar and one needs only sigma 1 and
sigma 3, the cohesion and coefficient of frictions do come automatically. The Hoek-Brown
failure criteria is a better choice as it better feeds the actual Mohr envelope than the linear
approximation of the Mohr-Coulomb failure criteria.

The Tresca’s failure criteria is extremely simplified and considers 0 friction of the rocks,
good for metals and deep rocks which have yield strength, but strength does not increase with
confining pressure. The von Mises and some related Drucker-Prager failure criteria include
intermediate principal axis of stress sigma 2. And therefore, require true polyaxial
experimental data unless you have some sort of boundary conditions, I mean whether you are
doing in 2D then you can exclude sigma 2 and can deal with only sigma 1 and sigma 3.

700
(Refer Slide Time: 42:32)

Now, is this always is true that we talked about that when we have to consider the rocks are
always isotropic, rocks are always homogeneous, they are so on. Now consider a situation as
a structural geologist you are there to build a bridge across a river. So you can imagine that
these are the pillars that we have to build and you have to suggest that how much strength this
rock can have to hold the pillar for quite a long time.

So, what generally you do? You can take a sample from here, you test in the laboratory, you
do series of measurements and then suggest yeah this is the strength of this rock, so the
weight load of the pillar on this rock should be less than the strength of the rock and there are
some other calculations you go with this. And then you also survey here and you see the rock
is very similar that you have seen here. So you suggest the similar treatment for pillar 1 and
pillar 2.

However, in this case, in the second scenario if you have a fault here and the rocks in this
side is layered or anisotropic rock, then the situation here and the situation here for pillar 1
and pillar 2 would be essentially different. And this is where the deviations do come in the, in
our understanding. So, what do you do? You actually scheme an experiment where you take
this rock from the field and then you vary this angle as I have illustrated here.

When you vary this angle alpha then you can plot actually the strength of this rock, the failure
strength of this rock say sigma with respect to this angle 0 to 90 degree and then you see
whether the strength is constant, strength is changing like this, strength is changing like this
or so on. So how your orientation of the layering or orientation of the bedding planes

701
foliation or in general planar fabric is influencing the strength of the rock considering that
rock is anisotropic.

(Refer Slide Time: 44:54)

So, people have done a series of experiments and this is how are the results. The influence of
weak bedding planes on rock strength is referred as strength or mechanical anisotropic. The
presence of weak planar fabrics bedding or foliation planes in rocks have a marked effect on
rock failure. As you can see here again these are very old experiments, people still do,
continue this kind of experiments.

So these are the alpha, the degrees 0 to 90 degree and this is maximum differential stress
where the rock fail. These values are the confining pressure, so at 50 megapascal confining
pressure we see that when the angle is about 45 degrees the strength is lowest and this is for
the all confining pressure ranges only the strength increased but failure happens at very very
low stress compared to the angle, so when it is either parallel or perpendicular to the loading
direction.

For shale this shifted towards 30 degrees and for shale here as well in a different shale it
shifted around 30 degrees and these are due to some rock properties. But what is the take
home message from this slide is that an isotropic homogeneous intact rock may have a
strength which is completely different if the similar composition we have but rock is layered
or foliated, then the strength of this rock actually or failure of this rock is a function of the
orientation of these layerings with respect to the loading direction.

702
(Refer Slide Time: 46:47)

So, from the rock failure part or that we have learned so far we can summarize that
mechanically rock failure is manifested either by fracturing or by plastic yielding or both, but
in this lecture we will be mostly concentrating on fracturing processes. The fractures are
mode 1 in low confining pressure and mode 2 in high confining pressure, this is something
we are going to learn very very soon. The concentration of fractures also increases with
confining pressure, again we are going to learn this soon.

All failure criteria considered the principal axis of stresses and a few internal rock properties
and or coefficients. The Mohr-Coulomb, Hoek-Brown failure criteria are good
approximations for brittle fracturing and this is what we have to consider. However, the von
Mises, Tresca and other failure criteria are better for characterizing the failure due to plastic
yielding. And finally you have learnt in the last slide that mechanical strength anisotropy
alters the rock failure criteria and the failure required least stress when the plane of isotropy is
around 30 to 60 degrees to the principal compression stress direction.

703
(Refer Slide Time: 48:15)

So in the previous slide we talked about mode 1 and mode 2 fractures and here are the
explanations. Mode 1 is an opening mode fracture where a tensile stress acting normal to the
plane of the rock. Mode 2 is a sliding mode and it is conceived as a shear stress acting
parallel to the plane of the crack and perpendicular to the crack front. Mode 3 is a tearing
mode fracture where a shear stress acting parallel to the plane of the crack and also parallel to
the crack front.

Let us have a look on these three illustrations, this is mode 1 you see here this is the fracture
and this is the fracture tip. So our tensile stress acting normal to the plane of the crack so this
is essentially the plane of the crack as you can see here. And these tensile stress, these two
red arrows are acting normal or perpendicular to the plane of the crack and if that conditions
are satisfied then we call it mode 1 fracture or tensile fracture or opening mode fracture.

Mode 2 fractures are shear fractures or sliding fractures where again this is the fracture plane
and this is the fracture tip the way the fracture is propagating in this direction it says that a
shear stress of course a shear stress is acting so because this is going this way, this is going
this way along the fracture plane of the crack and perpendicular to the crack front. So this is
the crack front and this is acting perpendicular to the crack front.

The tearing mode or mode 3 on the other hand again this is the fracture plane I just do this
here to demarcate this is a fracture plane and what it says that a shear stress acting parallel to
the plane of the crack so it is acting parallel to the plane of the crack as we can see and also

704
parallel to the crack front, this is the crack front and it is acting also parallel to the crack front
unlike the sliding or shearing mode.

So, mode 1 fracture is opening mode you open it, you open the fracture. Mode 2 is sliding or
shearing mode something like that and mode 3 is tearing mode something like this. So in
mode 1 we generally open space between the two fracture walls. In mode 2 and mode 3 we
generally, typical mode 2 and mode 3 fractures you generally do not open a space between
the two fracture walls.

Now, there are many geological examples of mode 1, mode 2 and mode 3 fractures. And
these examples range from very very large scale to micro scale. I am not going to show you
all of them, but I particularly focus on mode 1 fractures and in the following slides we will
see how these mode 1 fractures we can actually observe from a very large scale to a very
small scale. Mode 2 fractures we will see anyway when you will be dealing with shear
fractures.

(Refer Slide Time: 52:00)

So here is the large scale example of mode 1 fracture and this example is from East African
rift. As you can see here this is the eastern part of the Africa continent and this is actually
opening, so what we see here these are demarcated by lot of lakes or water bodies and along
this this continent is actually rifting. And therefore, we have a continental scale mode 1
fracture produced here.

705
(Refer Slide Time: 52:44)

We would like to see another example and we would go to Iceland, what do you see here?
This you see is the mid-oceanic ridge in the Atlantic and it passes through here and then it
goes here and here and so on, so this is known as the hinge zone of the Mid-Atlantic ridge.
And if we see the map of the Iceland we see that the ridge is coming like this, this black
dotted lines, then it is one going here, then there is another one which is going like this.

If I take you somewhere here then you see it is like this and this is essentially a mode 1
fracture where it is rifting this side and this side. So you see a space is being created, a river
or whatever is flowing through this and this is Iceland’s rift valley that actually marks the
crest of the Mid-Atlantic ridge and this is essentially an expression of mode 1 fracture.

(Refer Slide Time: 54:02)

706
In the field scale, yes, we see dikes and these are one of the classic examples of mode 1
fractures as you can see a diabase dike intrusion here in this rock this one and here there are
two different dikes at two different generations, the first one is a pegmatite dyke and the
second one is a dolerite dyke the black one. So this example is from Sweden, so you can see a
tensile domain is i remaining as a tensile domain and it happened in two different generations
and it is continuing fracturing it at least in two different stages.

(Refer Slide Time: 54:41)

So these were the examples from the field scale or mesoscale. Now let us see some examples
also on the field scale and that the microscale at the same time, what do you see here in this
image, that you see this little white marks here these are actually tensile fractures, we will see
it soon how does it happen. But clearly you see this these little things, these small fractures
they have some sort of opening.

So the fractures were opening in this way. And these are typical initial on or initial and
fractures generally happen due to shearing of the rocks, we will learn about it soon, but these
are examples of mode 1 or tensile or opening mode fractures. Now, if you make a thin section
of this kind of features then you will see under thin section that these are the host rock or the
country rock which is in this case shale and this opening fracture is filled by this quartz fibers
and these we do not call like opening fractures or something like that.

Here in this case as I said this we call vein or something like that which is filled by some sort
of minerals. In this case this is quartz, but there are many many veins which are filled by

707
economic minerals and therefore these are also very-very important to study fractures in the
structural geology.

(Refer Slide Time: 56:14)

And this is a even further micro scale so this is the scale is about 100 microns so you can
imagine that the entire width of this image could be close to 500 microns and what do we see
here that this is a host matrix, a single grain and you see this grain got fractured in different
ways so these are essentially opening mode fractures. And in a very similar way that we have
seen in the quartz we see that poly mineralic deposits happened here and at the middle we
have some oxides.

Now, people study this for different purposes but here we are trying to understand the mode 1
fractures and we are trying to see this in different scales. So these are the opening mode and it
happen and in different ways maybe same time or in different times and this is what people
generally do observe and do research on this.

708
(Refer Slide Time: 57:15)

Now, we will switch to the next topic of this class which feature fractures under pure shear or
under compression and then fractures under simple shear and we will see what are the
different ways the fractures do form. The image as you see here in this slide are the classic
examples of rock deformation experiments performed by Mervyn Paterson. So these are
Carrara marble samples and this is the initial sample the diameter of the sample was 15
millimetre.

And from here the experiments, different experiments were conducted with increasing
confining pressure and as you can understand from the shape of the samples that these
samples were compressed, what do you see here when the confining pressure is very very
low? Then we see that opening mode of fractures are appearing, opening modes fractures
here and shear fractures here and they are less in numbers with little more increase in the
confining pressure we see that mode 1 fractures are gone from the system and we mostly see
mode 2 fractures in two different sets one set is like this, another set is like this.

With further increasing of the confining pressure we see numerous mode 2 fractures as you
can see here from this little yellow dotted shades, when we go with further confining pressure
a higher confining pressure or highest in this range of experiments you hardly see any
macroscopic fracture. However, a very close look would give you an impression that a series
of very tiny small-scale fractures in the sample. So there is a transition from the fracture
patterns with the confinement of the sample.

709
(Refer Slide Time: 59:40)

And if we try to summarize it in a different way by sketches we can figure out that when the
confining pressure is low or no confinement then the rocks would produce mostly tensile
fractures as we have seen here. When we have a little more confining pressure then we see a
combination of tensile and shear fractures with further increase of the confining pressure we
see that conjugate sets of shear fractures do appear in the sample with more confining
pressure and numerous number of shear fractures in conjugate sets and at highest confining
pressure we hardly see in the sample scale any shear fractures or any conjugate shear
fractures. However, under microscope if you make a thin section of this you may see some
sort of very-very densely packed conjugate shear fractures.

(Refer Slide Time: 60:42)

710
The scenario somehow changes a lot when we go with simple shear, so a rock is being
deformed under simple shear and in brittle domain in that case we produce or there is a
possibility of production of number of different shear fractures one set of tensile fracture and
the shear fractures would have different sense of movements with respect to the bulk shear.

So, let us have a look if this is the brittle piece of the rock and we are applying a dextral sense
of sear or clockwise shear then it would produce primarily a tensile fracture in this orientation
because once you have setting like this then your instantaneous strain ellipse would take a
shape like this and you can figure out that this is your extension direction and this is your
compression direction.

So clearly perpendicular to the extension direction you would produce tensile fractures, series
of tensile fractures you would produce. And if you remember in one of the slides we have
seen in one of these type of fractures. So these are opening mode of fractures in sheared rock
deforming in brittle domain. One set of fractures you can expect which is parallel to the bulk
shear direction and these are known as y shear fracture.

The sense of displacement in the y shear fracture is synthetic that means the sense of shear is
very similar to that of the bulk shear, then you form a very low angle shear which is marked
by this red line and this is known as R1 or low angle riddle shear fracture, this angle is
typically 10 to 20 degrees and classically at 15 degrees. The sense of shear is also synthetic
that means the displacements happening along this shear fracture is very similar to that of the
bulk shear.

You form another set of shear fractures which are known as R2 or high angle riddle shear
fractures this angle is typically 75 degrees and here interestingly the sense of shear is
reversed that means it is antithetic. So the shear sense is here sinistral, but bulk shear is
dextral.

Some sort of mirror image of these two fractures form on the other side of the shear zone or
brittle shear zone. One is P shear fracture where the sense of displacement is synthetic similar
to the bulk shear direction and then we have another set of shear fractures X shear fractures
where the sense of shear is opposite to the bulk shear direction or this is antithetic.

So if I try to list tensile fracture which is generally at 45 degrees then Y shear fractures which
is synthetic, then we have R1 which is synthetic, we have R2 which is antithetic, we have X
which is again antithetic and P which is synthetic. So there are a lot of possibilities where we

711
can form all these 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 types of fractures in a brittle shear zone, but interestingly it
is very rare that you see all these fractures in a single place. So here I would like to give you
some examples again that how do these shear fractures do happen in large scales in small
scales and then what is the general implications of these shear fractures and their mutual
interactions with the local and global stress regime.

(Refer Slide Time: 65:46)

The first example I would like to take you to the Gulf of California, so what we see here this
is again a kind of rift zone, but it is with a shearing mode and you can see here this little
fabrics and these are apparently your low angle riddle shear fractures here is a map so this
North American plate is moving in this way and Pacific plate is moving this way and this is
tearing this the San Andreas Fault is somewhere here, so these are all low angle riddle shear
fractures and they are being connected to each other and this produce a lot of earthquakes.

712
(Refer Slide Time: 66:36)

Now, this is a very important or interesting photograph this is an aerial photograph, if I do not
tell you it is not possible for you to understand what it is but what we see here this is a canal
right and you see this got a shift along this I said this is an aerial photograph so this is a field
and this could be a cow or something like that you can consider as a scale and this
photograph is taken by Mark Quigley of University of Canterbury in New Zealand and these
typical structures were produced during the 2011 earthquake in the Canterbury.

And you can clearly see the two sets of fractures here, one set is like this and another set is
like this. Now, based on this if I ask you that look at this image and figure out what was the
bulk shear direction it will not be something I would like to ask you at this stage and you try
to figure out and send me an email or to the TAS or posted in the discussion forum that what
is the bulk sense of shear in this structure at looking at these shear fractures what you can
figure out, what was the sense of shear in this area.

713
(Refer Slide Time: 68:10)

Now, not necessarily these shear fractures are continuous so when you produce this low angle
riddle shear fractures they generally make some step overs. So this is an example that I
performed with the clay models and you see that we have shear fractures one set like this,
another set like this, one set like this and so on and this you also see in the field, you see one
is here, one is here, another is here and here, here and so on, so this is how it happens.

So you have series of shear fractures at low angle or high angle or different ways and they
together define a fracture zone a shear fracture zone, but it has an excellent implications when
these steps or these shear fractures do interact with each other what I mean by that you see
this was a fracture here and this was another fracture and from the shadows here you can
figure out that this part got elevated and we will see that why and how does it happen.

714
(Refer Slide Time: 69:30)

So we have two possibilities one it is right stepping and another is left stepping what do I
mean by this that you have two shear fractures and this is their overlapping zone and this part
as you can see is moving this way and this part is moving this way because of the sense of
shear in this side. Interestingly if you have a left stepping which is similar sense of shear
dextral, you can see this is a compressing here and this is also compressing here.

So this domain is under compression and this domain is under extension, this overlapping
zone. When they connect eventually you form an area something like this in this particular
case this is under extension and in this particular case this is under contraction. So what you
finally come out that here you form a basin that this part is moving this side and this side and
these are characterized this boundary is characterized by normal faults and in this side you
have oblique normal faults, we will learn about what is normal fault, what is oblique normal
faults later.

And we will also connect these when we learn large scale processes particularly in terms of
the strikes defaults and other places. Interestingly this side because we are compressing this
so this place would get pushed up and therefore it is known as push up, so these boundaries
would be characterized by reverse or thrust faults and we will have oblique reverse or thrust
faults here.

So you see that the same process in one setting if it is right stepping in the overlapping zone it
is possible to form depressions or pull apart basin and if it is left stepping then in the

715
overlapping zone instead of forming a basin we can form a mountain or a hillock or
topographic elevation due to push up.

(Refer Slide Time: 72:05)

Jean-Pierre Burg came out with a very excellent illustration and I did not reproduce it. So this
is from his lecture notes as you can see here the same sense of shear this is your master fault
and here you form a basin and here form a ridge or some topographic elevation and known as
shatter ridge, so this is associated with a dextral strike-slip fault, we will learn more about it.
But it is important to understand that when the fractures to interact they can form the series of
different structures in between. With this note I conclude this lecture.

(Refer Slide Time: 72:46)

716
And in the next lecture we will talk about Joints in Rocks and associated structures, thank
you very much, see you in the next lecture.

717
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur India
Lecture 28
Fractures and Joints -2
Hello everyone welcome back again to this online NPTEL structure geology course and
today we are in our lecture number 28 and we are learning fractures and joints and we are in
the part two of this lecture.
(Refer Slide Time: 00:26)

And today we will mostly learn joints systems and their orientation, anatomy of a joint and
mechanics of joint formation. So, most of the contents of this lecture I adopted from lecture
notes of Prof John Pear Burg. So, you can also go there and see further about this topic that
we are going to cover today at the link of this professor Burg’s lecture notes were given at the
very beginning of this lecture.

718
(Refer Slide Time: 01:03)

So yeah, we will define the joints again in a different ways. So, joints are mostly mode one
fractures and these are plain soft separations on which no or sort of very negligible
undetectable shear displacements has taken place and the two walls of the joints generally
they maintain very tiny opening and the opening is known as aperture and they typically
remain in tight or in matching contact.

Now, joints form due to of course, we learnt it that you need some sort of stresses. So, it can
happen due to regional tectonics. So, you can consider the compressive stresses in front of a
mountain belt and so on, folding due to curvature of the bedding or any foliations plains or
layers, faulting also causes joints or internal stress release during uplift or cooling. So, all
these are possible reasons for formations of joints.

They often form under high fluid pressure sometimes so that is the low effective stress when
you have in your system. The porosity is there and the pores are filled by some fluids and this
generally perpendicular to the smallest principle stress. So, this is how the joints do occur in
the system and this is how we can actually identify or we can have an idea. Once we know
the orientation of the joints what was the orientation of the stress axes.

The growth of the joints so once the joint forms then it grows. The growth of the joints is
controlled mostly by the thickness of the deforming rock. The apertures can be open resulting
in permeability enhancement. So, if you open the apertures that means you are adding more

719
porosity to the system and sometimes you can close these apertures with some deposits the
vain filling deposits.

So, that results in the permeability reduction. Now, when you have a joint with pretty large
apertures so greater than a few millimetres, then we call it a fissure. Joints have a very-very
important role in some sort of exploration geology. Now you can imagine that you have a
significant number of joints in a system in a rock and then they have a little bit of opening.

So, apertures are quite high, they are like fissures and then they provide you adequate
porosity and permeability and therefore, the jointed rocks in apparently the rock type maybe
is very intact. Say for example, the granite and so on can act as a very productive fracture
reservoir. So therefore, joints are important and we need to understand a few of its basic
characteristics and that is the aim of this lecture.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:47)

So, joints mostly form in terms of families. So, they have their sets and these sets could be
straight or curviplanar fractures typically perpendicular to the layer boundaries in the
sedimentary rocks. Now, what we see here in this illustration, that we have two different sets.
So, one set is like this and another set is like this. So, this one is set one and this one is set
two, they mostly form one after another.

So, a set is a group of joints with similar orientation and morphology. Now several sets
usually occur at the same place with no apparent interaction, giving exposures a blocky or
fragmented appearance as you can see here. We will see some photographs soon. So, you see

720
this rhombic can be squarish as well. So, this fragmented appearance if you see in the fields
that means this rock is jointed.

Now, two or more sets of joints present together in an exposure the compose generally a joint
system and in the joint system you can figure out the spacing between the joints. So, for
example this is the spacing between set two you can also figure out the angles between the
joints and these are also sometimes important for structural analysis provided they form in a
same time.

(Refer Slide Time: 05:14)

So, here is one example, the first one you see that it is predominantly one sets of joints which
are this one. So, all these are joints in this rock. It has another set of joints which is running
something like that but that is not dominant as this set is. However, the second image you can
see as I was talking about this blocky nature. So, you have one set of joints going like this
and another set of joints almost perpendicular to this giving rise to these little blocks. So, this
is how you interpret or you see the set of joints in the field.

721
(Refer Slide Time: 06:00)

Now, not necessarily you always have parallel sets of joints. So, they can be in a different
way, we will see this image again but you see there is no apparent parallelism of the joint
sets. So, maybe these sets are little bit of parallel to each other but then they terminate with
another joint and so on. So, this we call something which we learn later in the next slide.

(Refer Slide Time: 06:23)

Now, one set of joints you can think that, this could be bedding contained joints. So, that
terminates at the top and bottom of the beds. What I mean by that these are your traces of the
bedding plain on the surface and if the joints do form, then you may have joints only confined
in one set and then you may have joints confined in the other bed like this.

722
We will learn soon about what would be the characteristics of the spacing and so on, whether
they would be similar spacing or a different spacing and so on but the point here with the
bedding contained joints is that this joint did not propagate through this interface between the
two beds and so on. If that happens then we call it bedding contained joints

Systematic joints are characterised by a roughly planar geometry, they have relatively long
traces and typically form sets of approximately parallel and almost equally spaced joints.
Exactly what we have seen in one of the first illustrations, that you have one set like this and
then you develop a second set of joints like this. So, individual sets are mostly parallel to
each other and then they develop this mostly equidimensional blocky shapes.

And when it is not systematic not systematic joints are usually short, curved and irregularly
spaced. They usually terminate against systematic joints. So, in a similar way you can
consider that if you have joints like this and then a second set of joints maybe they may
originate in a different way not necessarily they are parallel to each other. So, they terminate
at each place, they may continue but stop somewhere and so on. So, these are the processes of
non-systematic joints.

(Refer Slide Time: 08:33)

And here is again the photograph I added here again just to give you an idea. So, for example,
here you can see that you have this set which is more or less parallel to the set we have seen
here, but we generated another set that terminated here at this junction, it did not propagate in
this side. So, these are non-systematic joints.

723
(Refer Slide Time: 08:56)

Now, spacing of the joints as you talking about that what control the spacing, the size and
spacing. That means the average orthogonal distance between neighbouring fracture plains
are essential characteristics of joint sets. In isotopic rocks, for example, you consider granite
joint spacing follows an approximately log normal frequency, the number of joints occurring
within a unit length.

So, in anisotropic layered rocks, joint spacing differs according to several parameters and
these parameters mostly control by bed thickness, lithology and structural position along with
the strain. Bed thickness we will see soon, lithology as well, structural position means that
where the joint is forming in other words. If I have a folded layer like this then the orientation
of joints or spacing of the joints at the hinge zone would be essentially different from those of
the ling zone so on.

And if this fold is also, in this case this is a cylindrical fold if the fold is non-cylindrical then
also you may expect different types of joints and also valuable spacings. The strain is of
course how the magnitude of the strain influence the joint pattern and I tell you they do it. It
is also important to understand at this point that the rate of strain or rate of deformation also
influences the pattern, the size and the spacing of the joints we will see in one illustration
soon on this.

724
(Refer Slide Time: 10:47)

So, here is an example that if you have weak layers then the spacing of the joints is pretty
wide. If you have stiff layers then the joints are very much concentrated that means the
spacing is much less and if you have weak layers. So, this is a very weak layer and if you
have a weaker layer then you see spacing in between the stiff layer and very weak layer. This
is another example that is showing that the plot bed thickness versus space between the
fractures. So, that means how lithology is controlling the spacing of the joints.

So this one is for greywacke this one is for greywacke which have inter layers greater than
five centimetres and this is greywacke inter layers less than five centimetres and you can
clearly see the space between the fractures in the same compositions but if the layers are
thinner than spaces between the fractures are also less, in this case if the layers are thicker
than the spaces also do increase.

And similarly, the greywacke if you have this way and in limestone it carries in different
ways. So, these greywacke and these greywacke they are different in terms of their grind size
and so on. So, you also see the grind size also do play a role in determining the spacing
between the joints or fractures in rocks.

725
(Refer Slide Time: 12:28)

So, here is an example, a photograph you see that clearly understand that this little whitish
layers here this are competent because they are whitish and they are most likely sand rich
layers and these are sand poor layers. So, these are sand rich and these are sand poor. We
clearly see that within the sand rich layers we have more joints here but this particular layer if
I consider.

You see some of the joints pass through this but this one no, this one passes through this but
all this two joints they did not pass through this. So, this is almost free of joints from here to
here if I consider this space but the space just below and just above because these are sand
rich layers you see the number of joints are very-very high within the same area that we are
looking at. So, this tells you that the spacing of the joint is essentially controlled by the
lithology of the rock.

726
(Refer Slide Time: 13:49)

Now, the pattern of the joints they you can actually see many different types of joints. So,
joint sets that mean their relationships with the other joint or neighbouring joint plains with
another. So far we have seen most of the joints are parallel like this or sometimes they have
angular relationships.

So, these are parallel sets and this could be curved or strained. Then fans sets so joints can be
ready to radiate like this. Then radiating sets around an intrusion centre and this happens
when you have, you particularly see this kind of joints, this radiating joints in pillow lavas.
So, when the pillow lava cools then it generates radiating joints like this. Then concentric sets
around intrusion and collapse centres.

So, this concentric set generally we need to see the x foliations and something like that then
these are concentric set of joints. And then polygonal sets as columnar or prismatic joints
mostly seen in the basaltic rocks and known as columnar joints we learn about it also in one
of the slides.

727
(Refer Slide time: 15:03)

So, here is an illustration that shows what the different features that you expect are in a joint
surface. So, joints normally are barren cracks so you will see just a crack surface but with a
lot of interesting features. So, or it can be empty fissure but some may contain coatings.
Narrow veins with infilling minerals, commonly quartz or calcite, are also extension fractures
and you can treat them as joints but let us concentrate on this image.

So, what we see here, this plain where you have all these illustrations, this plain is your joint
surface. So, it happens this way and this is another trace of the joint surface this is the joint
tip and this is another surface you can see the joint is exposed. We will learn about it, so the
joint originated from here and then it propagated in this direction. So, the fracture plain
originated here and then it propagated radially this way. In all this direction with the major
growth direction in this and this is known as plum axes.

728
(Refer Slide Time: 16:18)

Now the joint surface is characterised by a feather like marks which you see here and this
feather like features generally do originate from the origin from where the joint started and
these are known as plumose marks. You can also see around this origin some radiating half
circles or half ellipses like this, these are known as rib marks and rib marks are generally
characterised by some sort of steps and these steps are known as ramp rib mark.

On the outer side of the joint where it intersects with the opening faces of the rock, you see
the fringe face. So, these look like this and in this case these are also some sort of small scale
plumose mark and these do happen by your step and these are known as fringe steps. So,
these are also known as plumose marks and so on, these are also known as hackle marks and
we will, in the next slide,we will talk about mostly on the plumose marks.

729
(Refer Slide Time: 17:38)

So, plumose structures are aggregates of gentle, curvilinear undulations and known as hackle
marks as I just told you in the previous slide, that radiate from the point where the joint
originated and fan outward from a generally straight, more rarely curved axial line.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:00)

So this line you see here it is very much straight. However, in few cases we may see that this
can be curved, but this is very rare and then it resembles a shape an imprint of a feather. So,
sometimes you may mistake it by considering that this is a fossil of a feather or something
like that but it is not.

730
The origin of the plumose commonly is that some rock heterogeneity you can consider them
a ripples on bedding plains or inclusions. So, this could be a concretion, nodule, clast, fossil
etc in the beds. The hackles are often very fine near the joint origin, while the differential
relief may amplify lengthwise towards the joint margin toward the fringe. We will see the
example very soon.

Now hackles diverge sharply at angles of about thirty degrees from the central axis and
gradually this angle increases. So, curving to angles of about seventy degree near the margins
of the joint surface. Now this plumose marks and the ribs mark these are also important in
terms of or in correlating the stress versus the fracture velocity. So, I have stress access in this
side and fracture velocity in log scale in this side.

At low stress if the propagation velocity is relatively fast then we see this radiating rib marks
but we hardly see a plumose mark as it is represented here with this illustration. If the
velocity is more or less constant or very slow but stress is intermediate then we see some sort
of radiating rib marks and also plumose marks and these are known as transitional markings,
but if the fracture velocity is very-very high and also the stress then we see features like this.
So, you see plumes and fringes. The rib marks are absolutely absent in this kind of tectonic
settings.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:14)

Now, rib marks, they do form series of regular, concentric and arcuate changes or ramps in
the orientation of the joint surface, giving some sort of cuspate, waveforms or rounded ridges

731
or furrows. The central zone of rib marks or you call the mirror is often circular or elliptical.
And there is another terminology that is Wallner lines and these are similar to ribs but they
occur as one or two sets oblique to the hackles. Now, what do we see here?

We will see fantastic images of plumose marks in the next slide, but you see probably the
plumose marks like this here and these are your rib marks. So, this is a jointed surface and
these things are your rib marks. Now, do not focus on these plains, these are most likely the
marks of the water. So, this has nothing to do with the structural geology or tectonics. But
these are rib marks in this joint surface. Now, not necessarily you see both rib marks and
plumose marks at the same time.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:42)

So, here for an example that you can figure that joint originated from here and then your
plumose marks are going like this and just drawing this or looking at it, even you can look in
the next surface. You can clearly figure out that the joint propagated from this side to this
direction. Now, this does not have any rib mark but in this again you can figure out that it
probably originated somewhere here and then it is going like this, it is a feather like feature.

And in this case this plume line is a little bit curved and these are your rib marks and these
are the steps as you can see here they appear something like this. So, this is how if you see
this kind of a features in the field, first you identify that this essentially a jointed surface, and
when you are convince that this a jointed surface, then you try to figure out that what was the

732
propagation direction of the joint, and then you also try to see whether it has rib marks and
other features or not.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:12)

Now, the mechanics of the joint are also very important. So, we mostly talked about it and we
know that most of the joints are generally mode one fractures. So, extensional or dilatational
but there are deviations. So, genetic classification of joints has been based on the size of
inferred, imperceptible displacement related to the three principal stress axes of a region.
Now, if the total displacement is normal to the fracture surface, it is an extension or dilatant
joint or mode one fracture as we are talking about.

If the shear component has some finite, but very negligible value, then the fracture is called a
shear point. So, we can have extensional joints and we can have shear joints. Now, these
definitions are or classifications are essentially restricted to the point when joints just have
formed. Now, an extensional or dilatational joint or a shear joint at latest stage of the
deformation can eventually produce a fault and so on. But this is exactly what we are not
going to look at right now.

733
(Refer Slide Time: 24:27)

So, there are some common joints. I am just reading their names and their characteristics that
we generally find in the text books or sometime in the class lectures or in the field. The field
in the structure says that this kind of joints and you can also figure it out by yourself after this
lecture I believe. Now, I just giving here only four names but there are many other names but
these four are the mostly common used terminologies related to identifying joints in the
fields.

One is sheet or exfoliation joints mostly seen in the granitic rocks. So, these are dilatants
joints formed during erosion of homogeneous rocks such as granite, are sub parallel to the
topography, and this orientation results in sets of flat lying, curved and large joints referred to
as sheeting or sheet structure. Now, if you go to the field and see a granitic exposure you
must have seen that it is like exfoliating, it is like onion. So, some curved joints appeared
there going out or falling apart. So, this is the process of weathering and these are essentially
termed as sheet joints.

Now, you can have bedding parallel and bedding contained joints. So far we have seen
bedding contained joints, which are perpendicular to the bedding plains but you can also
generate bedding parallel joints and both of them can happen during the decompression. So,
horizontal dilatants joints may form bedding parallel joints due to unloading or
decompression and these decompression joints can also form as I was talking about vertically
and commonly about against layer boundaries and dissect layered rocks in blocky elements.

734
We have learnt about stylolite in one of the previous lectures when you are talking about the
diffusion crips. So, stylolitic are actually kind of joints and stylolitic joints have a
characteristic saw tooth profile. So, in other joints it is more or less straight flat the surface
are characterised except the plumose related undulations or rebilated undulations but
stylolitic joints are essentially different because these are amalgamated there is no opening or
shearing but compaction is working there.

So, stylolitic joints therefore have a characteristic saw tooth profile and an interdigitating
cone like form in this dimension and the mechanism is pressure solutions. We have learnt
about it in one of the previous lectures. And finally the most spectacular joints are columnar
joints. You are seeing this in the background and columnar joints are most prominent in
basaltic sills and lava flows.

So, they form a three dimensional network of interconnected fractures that dissect the rock in
long and spectacular polygonal units commonly five or six sided columns. So, columnar
joints are very spectacular, if you see them you are lucky, but you see in India or if you travel
to Lakshadweep and so on there you can see these columnar joints spectacularly. So, with
this note I finish this lecture. This is a relatively shorter lecture.

(Refer Slide Time 28:02)

But you will be having a long lecture on faults and faulting there will mostly look at the
geometry and mechanisms of these terminologies or these two very-very important structures

735
of structural geology and also in geology. Faults and faulting is the topic for the next lecture.
Thank you very much, have a nice time I will see in the next lecture.

736
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture 29 – Faults and Faulting - I

Hello everyone! Welcome back again to this online NPTEL Structural Geology course. We
are learning fractures, joints, faults and in this lecture we will start faults and faulting. This is
part I of this lecture and this is lecture number 29. So in this course we will cover faults.

(Refer Slide Time: 0:35)

So, we will start at the very beginning that why we have a structure like faults and then we
will see the brittle, ductile and brittle-ductile type of faults. Just we will start showing you
how these things do occur in nature. Then we will directly jump into the brittle fault, so we
will start with the anatomy of the fault systems, What’s the different morphologies,
geometries and so on. Then we classify the faults and also we will give the description of the
faults and their structures and then we will move to the, we will discuss a little bit on the
typical characteristics of normal faults.

The thrust faults and strike-slip faults we will discuss in the next lecture. So you have already
learnt what is fault; I have shown many illustrations, many diagrams and also from other
lectures you may have a little bit of familiarity, what is fault. Now, one part you must have
noticed when you were taught or when you learnt about fault that the deformation in faults, it
localizes along a very narrow zone. When we will define, we will see this but it is always a

737
question and still we do not know the answer that why deformation localizes along a narrow
zone. There are some observations and the best observation comes from the experiment.

So what I will first do, I will try to show you schematically some of the experimental results
and then we will figure it out that’s why and which domain it is possible to see the faults and
under what conditions what type of faults we can expect. So, let us start with the diagram.

(Refer Slide Time: 2:20)

738
So, on the vertical side we have stress. This is a simple stress-strain plot and horizontal side
we have strain. At the very beginning we have an undeformed sample and we know that
initially when you load a sample it undergoes an elastic deformation. So the elastic
deformation goes on, it shortens a little bit. So the rock would shorten in this direction and
also extend in this direction just because of the elasticity and then it continues deforming
following this red curve which is the elastic curve. Now after this part there are many
possibilities, I show you the one possibility first. That is that the rock is deforming in brittle
manner. We saw it in the previous lecture. So it can either fail in mode 1, that means
producing tensile fracture or it can produce mode 2 fractures or shear fractures. So here if the
curve is something like that, that it reaches the yield stress and immediately after it produces
a failure type of curve.

And therefore we interpret that in this domain we expect a brittle type of deformation and the
expression of this brittle deformation is either mode 1 or tensile mode or shear mode. Now,
we will see soon that this shear mode actually is very similar to what we call fault in large
scales. Now if the deformation continues, for example if I have enough pressure and also a
little bit of temperature then we know that it would show a little bit of hardening.

That means to deform the rock, we need more stress and the rock deforms in homogeneous
manner. And the deformation after this yield stress is permanent deformation. So it shows
some sort of barreling, that is the characteristics of the experiments. If the strain further
continues and the rock does not produce any fracture then the homogenous plastic and

739
permanent deformation continues and it goes this way with more and more stress
requirement.

So we have seen two possibilities. One that the rock may fail in brittle manner or it may
continue showing homogeneous deformation without producing any fracture. And this is the
second type of deformation. Now a third possibility is there. We have learnt in our
deformation mechanism class that it can show strain softening. So here this is strain
hardening.

(Refer Slide Time: 5:12)

And there is another possibility that we can have strain softening and if that happens then we
see a localization here in the sample. And this localization or this shear surface here that we
see here, this is characteristically different that what we have seen here in the brittle domain.
So this is ductile because the rock is accommodating deformation without producing any
fracture and this is brittle. So we see three possibilities here.

Now what happens here at this stage of the deformation? The sample is a little confused. So it
tries to understand that whether I should distribute the deformation I am receiving entirely on
the sample or I find a zone, a narrow zone where I can channelize all the deformation. And
the rest of the body of the rock sample can remain virtually undeformed or less deformed.
Now the same thing happens here. But here it happens in brittle manner and here it happens
in ductile manner.

740
So you see that when the deformation is actually under compression, we can have
possibilities of brittle deformation in mode 1 or mode 2 manner. We can have possibilities of
homogeneous deformation and we can have possibilities of ductile shear localization or
heterogeneous plastic deformation which is also permanent deformation. So clearly if we
continue with this kind of deformation then we do not see any localization or faulting like
features.

So we are restricted ourselves now in brittle and ductile domain, that where localization is
happening either in brittle manner or in ductile manner. Now when you have localization of
deformation along a narrow zone inside the rock sample we call it shearing stability or
localization and so on.

This is still a problem, people do not know how and why we have localization in the
deformation and how it extends the way it is on the earth surfaces or even in a tiny micro-
scale grains. But we will not go to that part right now, we will avoid this homogeneous
deformation part for the time being. We mostly look at this brittle part and ductile part in the
context of this lecture of faults and faulting.

(Refer Slide Time: 7:54)

So as we talked about brittle deformation, so the brittle deformation we learnt that it does not
retain or it does not maintain the cohesion of the rock. So if this was intact initially this
orange marker in this blue matrix, then because of the shearing you see that the entire rock
mass did not deform but it just deformed along this narrow zone. And therefore this got

741
shifted and it lost its cohesion. And we can see here some examples, so this is a large scale
field example, we can see that slip happened along this narrow zone.

And here we see that we have a series of planes along which the deformation localized and
here as well it is a microstructure where we see that because of this brittle deformation the
rock lost its cohesion and it is almost brecciated. Now another extent is of course as we learnt
is the ductile deformation where this orange marker zone did not lose its cohesion. So it
remained continued and therefore we see that some examples here, for example this black
layer you can see that it is going like this. Or this one as well it is going like this. So it did not
break, it maintained continuity.

If we see in a different scale, we also see that these things are maintaining their continuities.
It is not some sort of fracture processes and so on and this is the image of the microstructure.
Now this brittle and ductile, these two are the end members of deformation processes. So
whatever happens in between brittle and ductile we call it brittle-ductile deformation.

So that means it receives some sort of ductile deformation and also it receives a significant
amount of brittle deformation. Now how much brittle? how much ductile? is a question, is
observation that we have to do in the field or in the laboratory. Now whether brittle came first
or ductile came first, this is again a question of research and observation of specific areas. But
if we focus on this brittle-ductile part and particularly on this image, we see that these layers
they are little bent, they are a little bit curved and that indicates that these layers at one point
of time suffered ductile deformation and later it produced the brittle deformation here.

We can see here, it is a microstructure, so these are some brittle fractures but at the same time
it is producing some other features. We will learn more about it in our shear zone lectures.
But these are evidences of brittle-ductile deformation. Similarly we see that here in the matrix
dynamic recrystallization is going on but this large clump we have seen this image before that
these clumps they were broken and they are slipping past each other. So it has both brittle and
ductile deformation in this. So based on this idea we will now try to define what is a fault.

742
(Refer Slide Time: 11:08)

So faults are defined when two adjacent blocks or rock have moved past each other in
response to induced stresses. The notion of localized movement leads to the two genetically
different classes of faults reflecting the two basic responses of rocks to the stress. One is
brittle and another is ductile and whatever stays in between is brittle-ductile. Now brittle
faults which is commonly known as faults, we generally refer, faults as brittle faults, they are
fracture discontinuity, so there must be some fracture. So cohesion must be lost to define the
discontinuity.

So fracture discontinuity along which the rocks on either side have moved past each other in
a direction parallel to the fracture plane, and because it is a brittle type of deformation, it is a
brittle fault, so it is a low pressure temperature feature. On the other hand ductile faults we do
not say it ductile faults, we mostly call it shear zones or ductile shear zones commonly. These
are narrow zones of localized but continuous ductile displacement between two blocks
without developing or producing any characteristic fractures at the scale of observation. If
that happens then this is a high pressure temperature feature.

And we learn about ductile faults or ductile shear zones in the next week. And this week we
will focus on brittle faults or faults as we commonly talk about. Now how these things do
happen in nature? How do we understand that where we expect brittle faults, where we
expect ductile faults? And as it is mentioned here this is a low pressure temperature feature
and this is a high pressure temperature feature.

743
(Refer Slide Time: 13:06)

So professor Fossen came up with a very nice illustration that on the surface of the earth or
on the subsurface of the earth, we have faults. So this is the expression of the fault on the
surface and if we see on the deeper side, at the subsurface we have incohesive fault rocks,
that means the cohesion got lost. And slowly we reach to the cohesive fault rocks and then we
arrive the brittle-ductile transition and finally we see here mylonitic rocks. We will learn later
what is mylonite in the next week. But these are your ductile faults.

And then it anastomoses and widens its depth and so on. So we have brittle deformation here,
we have ductile deformation here and whatever stays in between it is brittle-ductile
deformation. So this is exactly what is written here and we also have learnt deformation
mechanism, so we can figure it out that in this part this is mostly defined by frictional way
and this is mostly defined by plastic way and when you define the frictional way, we know
that we have derived the law Mohr–Coulomb failure criterion, that was shear stress was S
plus friction multiplied by normal stress minus pore fluid pressure.

Now this is a linear equation, so the strength here increases linearly. But here we remember if
you remember the power law, then power law was exponent dependent. So therefore this is
now linear and this particular pattern of the strain profile shear strain profile of the earth
through depth is known as the rheological profile of the earth. We learn about it later but this
is how the faults are distributed at the surface. These are brittle, at the depth these are ductile
and in between we have brittle-ductile type of deformation.

744
(Refer Slide Time: 15:25)

Now let us talk about the brittle faults and their terminologies. Now faults we know that as
we have defined that it is a fracture discontinuity. So the discontinuity must represent a plane
and if we have a plane, then as a structural geologist the first thing first is we have to
understand what is the strike and dip of this particular plane. So the fault surface itself defines
the fault plane and if it is a plane then we can measure the strike. So in this case this is a
plane and this is intersecting with the horizontal plane. So this is your horizontal plane.

And where this horizontal plane intersects the fault plane, this blue plane is a projection of
the fault plane. So that defines the strike line. And the angle it makes is the dip angle. We
have learnt about it. Now there are very interesting terminologies related to fault rocks or
faulted rocks. So the rock mass which is immediately above the fault plane and that tells you
that fault is not vertical. That means the dip is not 90 degrees. In that case anything above the
fault plane we call it a hanging wall and anything below the fault plane we call it foot wall.

And these hanging wall and foot wall, these two terminologies we will use continuously and
also professionally if we continue geology or specifically structural geology. There are few
other terms. Let us talk about in outcrop scales. Faults generally as I said, that these are
mostly straight planes, however faults are really large scale features and in general, they are
curved in large scales and these are mostly revealed by 3D seismic reflection data.

These fault corrugations thereby identified and attributed to the linkage of fault segments
through time. So when the fault is curved and concave upward, then it gradually flattens with

745
a depth. That means the dip generally reduces with depth, then this is known as listric fault.
We will see the diagram soon. If the fault dip is greater than 45 degree, then we call it high
angle faults. And if the fault dip is less than 45 degree then we call it low angle faults.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:06)

There are some other terminologies. As you can understand that fault is some sort of, you
have to have a displacement along the fracture surface and there it is different and it is
exactly where it is different from joints because in joints we do not have any displacement
along the fracture surfaces. But in faults, yes we have displacement along the fracture
surfaces. Now imagine if this displacement is large enough then where actual rock was
originated can travel kilometers after kilometers and rest in a different place. If that happens,
that rocks that have been translated great distance away from their original site, these are
known as allochthonous.

And then they come to rest on some rocks, those are actually resting on their original
location. And these are known as autochthonous rocks which have retained their original
location. Now in this context there are two other terminologies, one is window and another is
klippe. So imagine that this one of the fault blocks travelled a lot and staying somewhere as
an allochthon. For example, this bluish material here and now this can get eroded and can
expose the autochthon rock in between. If that happens then this is known as window.

And similarly, if it stays in a little higher topography and stays in an isolated manner and
erosion made it staying isolated then the sheet is completely surrounded by autochthonous
material. What we see here, these are known as klippe. And these are terminologies generally

746
those who work in large scale orogenies they use. But it is important that we know what is
allochthonous, we know what is autochthonous, we know what is window or fenster and we
also know what is klippe.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:24)

Now there are some other terminologies associated to the faults and these are mostly
kinematic terminologies and this is what we are going to learn now. First I define this, I read
these texts or I just explained to you what it is and then we will look at this diagrams. So net-
slip is the direction of movement of the hanging wall relative to the footwall. This term
relative is very very important here.

The length of the net-slip provides the amount or magnitude of displacement on the fault
which generally is the addition of several movements. So what we see here, if we just have
this example, so we see that this point and this point, they are together at one point of time or
before the fault happened. Now fault this displaced this point from here to here. So these two
points which were neighbors at one point of time now they stay far away.

Now along which this displacement happens is a vector and this vector is known as net-slip
which is A. You can see here, a zoom diagram here, so this was, these two points were
together, now they are separated along the fault plane and the vector of this displacement is
known as net-slip. If this net-slip happens along a particular direction, then it is possible that
we can resolve the component of this net-slip vector along the strike of the fault plane and
along the dip direction of the fault plane.

747
So these are B and C. So the components of the net-slip along the dip and strike directions are
dip slip which is B in this image. So its component along the dip direction and then strike-slip
which is C, the component of the net-slip along the strike direction. And these are known as
dip slip and strike-slip. Now we have also an offset because of this fault. So when we see a
planar feature, for example this surface we can consider, this horizontal surface is a planar
feature. Now this horizontal surface is now resting here. So it moved down.

So the magnitude of the movement if you measure vertically, then this is known as throw. So
in this case is this distance which is marked by B. And the horizontal displacement if there is
any, then this is known as heave which is marked by E. Now clearly we can see that the fault
movement can be in the sense that you can have dip slip 0 and you can have only type strike-
slip. At the same time you can have zeroth strike-slip. And you can have the dip slip
component only.

So net-slip can vary from the strike-slip to dip slip along a fault plane. Now sometimes we
use another term which is called separation, we will talk about it later. And this is very
important but at this time please understand that dip separation or strike separation are not
equivalent to the dip slip or strike slip respectively. We learn about it soon.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:04)

So slip on the fault plane we can define the faults in three major categories. The first category
of the brittle fault of course is dip slip faults. The second category is strike-slip faults and
third category is oblique faults. We will learn their definitions very soon in the next slide.
Within the dip slip faults we have normal faults and reverse faults. Within the strike-slip

748
faults based on the sense of the displacement, sense of the strike-slip displacement to be
specific, we have dextral faults and we have sinistral faults. So let us look at their definitions.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:45)

So as I said that dip slip faults are classified in two sections. One is normal fault and another
is reverse fault. So normal fault, we can define it now, is a high angle dip slip fault on which
the hanging wall has moved down relative to the footwall. We will see that drawing soon. A
normal fault brings younger rocks over older ones. Because of the separation of geological
horizons that results from normal faulting, such faults are also termed extensional faults. We
will see that.

The reverse fault is on the other hand is a dip slip fault as well on which the hanging wall has
moved up over the footwall. So, consequently older rocks are brought over the younger
rocks. A thrust fault is low angle reverse fault. So, generally the angle is 30 degrees. If the
fault dip is less than 30 degrees then we call it thrust faults and if it is more than that, then we
call it reverse fault. The strike-slip faults usually have very steep or vertical dips.

And the relative movement between the adjacent blocks generally is horizontal, parallel to the
strike of the fault plane. Large strike-slip faults are also referred to as transcurrent faults and
or wrench faults. We will talk about it later, this transcurrent and wrench fault. Then oblique
fault is something that combines the dip slip and strike-slip fault, so it is a combination of
strike-slip fault with normal or reverse slip components. Let us see what is the normal fault.

749
(Refer Slide Time: 26:37)

A normal fault as we have defined is a high angle fault on which, hanging wall moved down
past the footwall or relative to the footwall. So this is the hanging wall. So first define the
fault plane. This is the fault plane here and it is going down as well. So this block has moved
down in this direction relative to the footwall. So this is the sense of displacement as it is
marked by the red half arrows. So this is a normal fault. Now, we see that this is a pure dip
slip normal fault because it does not have any strike slip component.

Or in other words, if I considered, try to draw the net-slip here, the net-slip is moving like this
because this point and this point were together at one point of time before the fault. So this
displacement happened or the slip happened along the dip direction of the fault plane. And
therefore it does not have any strike slip component. So therefore this is a pure dip slip fault
and in that case the hanging wall moved down relative to the footwall. Now talking about this
younger rock over the older ones, we can see it here but let us do it in other ways.

Because this has gone down so this would be a topographic high in the system and if this is
topographic high, this would erode with time. And if it erodes then it would stay like this.
Now if you do a fieldwork, you can figure out that you are walking in this rock and then if
you walk along this side then you encounter a contact with another type of rock which is
younger than this. So your younging direction, you may plot in the field like this way but this
is not a true lithological contact. This is a faulted contact.

750
The lithological contacts are actually here. So you have to look here and there to figure out
that whether this is a true lithological contact or this is a faulted contact. There are some
features here that actually would tell you that this is a faulted contact but not a lithological
contact. So this is a kind of unconformity. But what I wanted to say that if you drill a log
here, you will see that this is younger rock then younger rock then younger rock and then
older rock. So it brings the younger rock over the older ones. So it maintains the normal
stratigraphy of the rock.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:31)

As I talked about the listric fault, you can see here that if the scale is very very large then it is
not just a straight plane. At depth the dip of the fault changes or in specifically dip of the fault
reduces. So the fault in section appears like a curved line and this is known as listric fault
particularly applicable for normal faults.

751
(Refer Slide Time: 30:01)

So, here is an example or field photograph of normal fault from Peru. And you can see here
these are the horizontal bedding planes, the traces of the horizontal bedding planes and this is
separated by this fault line. So we are seeing this in a vertical section. So the beds were
horizontal, bedding planes were horizontal and this got separated this way. We see also
another normal fault here but not as spectacular as it is because of the slip. So it was here and
the net slip from this we can calculate from here to here. So this is an example of normal
fault.

(Refer Slide Time: 30:52)

752
Reverse fault as we learnt that it is a dip slip fault essentially on which hanging wall has
moved upward and over the footwall. So this diagram illustrates that. So we have the same
footwall but hanging wall unlike normal faults instead of going down it moved up. So that is
why the arrow is given, half arrow is given this way. And the footwall relatively moved
below the hanging wall. So when the hanging wall moved upward relative to the footwall, the
fault is a reverse fault and again you can figure out that there is no strike slip component.

Whatever component it has, so it was here and now it went here. So you can figure out this is
the net-slip and this net-slip here is entirely dip slip. In a similar way as we have looked at in
the normal fault now this is a topographic high, this region and this can erode out. And if that
erodes out then we have a feature like this. And again if you start walking from here and do
the fieldwork you may find an older rock because you are here on the younger rock and then
you arrive to an older rock and then there are some features by which you can identify that
this is a faulted boundary or faulted contact.

This is not a lithological contact. Interestingly if you drill here, you make a bore hole. You
figure out that you have first older rock and then you arrive to an younger rock here or here.
So that is the characteristics of reverse faults that it brings older rocks over the younger rocks.

(Refer Slide Time: 32:45)

Here is an example of a spectacular thrust fault from Utah. So you see here that this is the
fault plane, most likely it goes like this. It is not a single line here. So this suite of layers now
it is here, so it moved this way. So this is your footwall and this is the hanging wall of this

753
fault and hanging wall moved upward with respect to the footwall and therefore this is a
reverse fault.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:29)

Strike-slip faults as we talked about at the dip of the strike slip faults are generally steep or it
is almost vertical. And the relative movement generally happens along the strike. And what
we see here that this is an example, this is an illustration of strike-slip fault and here the
movement is dextran. That means if I stand here and try to look at it, then I see that the block
away from me is moving towards the right side.

And when that happens this is we called dextral displacement or dextral sense of shear. Now
what we see here that this point and these two points were, so this point and this point they
were together before the faulting and now this point has moved to this place, right? So this is
the net-slip and there is no dip slip component. So entire slip component is strike-slip
component and therefore we assign it as strike-slip fault.

Now because the marker this bedding planes in this case they are horizontal, if this part gets
eroded though this is not topographic high but for the sake of argument let us consider that
this part is eroded. Then it would look like this and you do not see any offset on the vertical
side because it is strike-slip fault. However if the beds were at an angle, then you could figure
out that this is a strike-slip fault. We will see this later.

754
(Refer Slide Time: 35:13)

The sinistral strike-slip fault is exactly opposite. So this point it was here and now it moved
here but here that sense of displacement is sinistral. Again if I stand here and I look the far
away block is moving in which direction then I will see it is moving towards the left. And if
that happens then this is sinistral. Relative to me it moved towards the left side and therefore
this is a sinistral fault.

Again I can erode this part and we will see more or less the same feature that we do not have
any vertical or dip slip component. And we also cannot understand any strike slip component
though we know there were deformation but because we do not have any marker planer or
maker line we cannot understand that at least from the fieldwork that this was a strike-slip
fault. But there are ways, we learn about it soon.

755
(Refer Slide Time: 36:17)

So here is an example of strike-slip fault and as we can figure out that if I stand here then I
look at the further part, then it moved left side. So this is an example of sinistral strike-slip
fault. And why I am, I understand this, that this part has moved relative to this way because I
have some marker lines here. So, these marker lines show me the offset is like this. So this is
from an earthquake from California and photograph from US GS. But you see here how does
it work.

(Refer Slide Time: 37:05)

Now, I will take you to another spectacular place where I used to live at one point of time.
This is Wairarapa fault and this is near Wellington in New Zealand. And this is one of the

756
large active faults in New Zealand. And it was responsible for the massive magnitude 8.2
earthquakes, it happened in 1955 and almost shaken the north island of New Zealand and this
is one of the largest recorded earthquake in the New Zealand.

What we see here, first of all we see a fault scar. So this fault is not a true strike-slip fault but
it is mostly strike-slip fault with a little, very little dip slip component. But what we see here,
so this red dot here, dotted line here that defines the fault plane, what we see here that this is
the river right now which is flowing like this which is continuous. If we consider that this part
is fixed and this part is moving in this direction, then what we see that this river was initially
here and it was flowing like this and then the river in this side got moved. Then it was
flowing here and now it is flowing here. So the river is continuously shifting and this has
been dated to be of pre-1855 earthquake and this is a classic example of dextral strike-slip
fault. And why this is dextral? Exactly because if you stand in this side you will see that this
is moving towards your right side.

(Refer Slide Time: 38:44)

Now, oblique faults, when you have both strike-slip and dip slip component in your system.
And it can be either normal dip slip component or reverse dip slip component. So here the
illustration is for the normal dip slip component. So, if I consider this is the fault plane, this
one, then this is the hanging wall and this is the footwall and these two points were together
before the faulting, it moved this way. So, we can figure out that this is the strike-slip
component and this is the dip slip component.

757
So it combines, its net slip combines both strike-slip and dip slip component. Therefore, this
is an oblique fault and here we see if we can erode this topographic relief and also this side,
then it appears like this and we see that because it is a normal oblique fault, so we see it bring
the younger rock over the or above the older rocks. But if it is a reverse dip slip fault, then it
would make the opposite scenario. That means it would bring the older rock over the younger
rocks.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:13)

Now, there are few other typical faults and these are known as scissor faults. So, this one is a
scissor fault that one fault lock can rotate around an axis perpendicular to the plane of the
scissor faults. So, for example, this one, so there could be an axis and this block actually
rotated over it. So it does not have any typical fixed net-slip, so the net-slip could vary.

And this is you can, this you can geometrically analyze by the rotational displacements or
movements. But these are scissor faults and if it happens following a hinge point then these
are known as hinge scissor faults. So you can see that net-slip is varying from the hinge and
as you go far away. So this is known as hinge scissor fault.

758
(Refer Slide Time: 41:13)

Now, let us talk about what are the very important parts that I mentioned before. That
whatever we learnt so far this normal fault, reverse faults, strike-slip fault, scissor fault and so
on, these are known as mostly marked or mostly classified separated by their slip movements
based on their kinematics. And if you go back and see all these illustrations, the bedding
planes were always horizontal but not necessarily has to be the case always.

The bedding planes because of some pre-deformation fold, fault, or so on, could be tilted.
And if the tilting happens and the faults do move either in normal or reverse or in strike-slip
manner, the separation of the bedding planes may not show you what is dip-slip; what is
strike-slip and what is your net-slip component. And therefore, it is important that in the field
to study if possible three-dimensionality when you particularly look at the fault.

And when you look at this illustration we will figure it out how dangerous it is just by
looking at the separation concluding the kinematics of the fault, that whether this is normal,
reverse or strike-slip. So, what we see here first of all, that in this illustration the bedding
planes are not horizontal like before.

So, here the bedding plane has a dip and this is the strike of the bedding plane and this is the
dip of the bedding plane in this case and if this rock block displaced by a normal oblique slip
movement then we know that this would be its strike-slip component and this would be its
dip slip component. So you just write strike-slip, this is dip slip, ds and this is ns net slip.

759
Now imagine that this fault with time, this part got eroded and then we here doing fieldwork
on the surface.

(Refer Slide Time: 43:53)

So, if I project this on the surface, I would see it something like that. So, on the surface you
see this strike-slip separation, right? And if you just look at the surface, then you may
conclude the fact that the fault is a strike-slip fault without any dip slip component and
looking at these 3D illustrations it is clear to us that this is not only a strike-slip fault but this
is an oblique fault. Now, say this fault got an exposure by some river cut or so, something
like that or an erosion and this vertical surface is exposed.

(Refer Slide Time: 44:40)

760
If that happens then we may see it on the vertical section like this where this is the fault
plane, or trace of the fault plane, let us, and we see that it is showing a normal slip
component, normal dip slip component. And if the top surface is not exposed, say it is
topographically very high, we cannot reach there, then just by looking at in the field I can
conclude that this is a normal fault. But again this idea is wrong.

So the message I would like to give you with these illustrations, these two particular
illustrations that just do not look at the separation. So this is known as separation that when
you have a planar feature is offset by the fault movement, so this offset is known as
separation but that necessarily indicate that it offset is also the kinematic parameter or it does
not lead you to conclude about the kinematics of the fault surface.

(Refer Slide Time: 45:58)

So, the strike-slip or dip slip evidently depends on the net-slip that is for sure. But the strike
separation and the dip separation depend both on the net-slip, and at the same time orientation
of the bed with respect to the fault plane. For example, a bed may show a strike separation
even if the strike-slip is 0. I try to draw it but you can also try it by yourself. So, for example,
I can consider a fault like this. I draw a normal fault.

So, if there is no marker, nothing, this is a normal fault. No problem. But if I have the
bedding plane something like this and here say then it would go this way, is something like
this, that means the bed is inclined and has a dip. And again if this part gets eroded like this,
then what we will see in reality or in the field, this is the trace of the fault plane and on this
side we may have something like that.

761
But the vertical side is not exposed, so the horizontal side what you see that it is, so you see
that this is indeed a dip slip fault. This is a normal fault without any strike-slip component but
you see here this is showing a strike-slip fault. So be very careful. Now, again a bed may
show a dip separation even if the dip slip is 0. So, for example, you are having a strike-slip
fault and it is showing a dip separation. So we can try this drawing.

Even if you can have a dip slip fault, but you do not see any dip separation, so all these things
are possible. And the fault may have a large net-slip and yet a bed may not be affected by the
fault and it may not show any offset or any separation on either sections. So, I have given you
just an example and you can try these all possibilities. Try to draw that which way the bed
should be oriented and how this can happen. I give you one more example.

For example, I have again say, for example, an oblique fault is happening. I am not going to
complete the entire demonstration. This is for your idea. So we know that this is the net-slip,
okay. Now, we can figure out if your bedding plane is dipping exactly the way slip happened,
so it is parallel to the slip direction, then you can guess that if this part gets eroded you do not
see any separation.

So but you have a significant magnitude of net-slip. So this you always remember when you
look at faults in the field. So these are beautiful structures, look at it, try to interpret it but
when you conclude about the kinematics that what is the dip slip, whether this fault is normal
fault or strike-slip fault or reverse fault, do not do it just looking at separation unless you are
confirmed by a third dimensional observation.

Now, we will see some special type of normal faults and we will sort of name them that how
do they occur in nature. So, normal faults we have seen so far that it is one-sided but it is
possible that normal faults may happen either converging to each other or diverging to each
other and both of them could be normal faults and they can stay there as conjugate sets.

762
(Refer Slide Time: 51:55)

Now, when the normal faults dipping away from each other and then they create an upthrown
block, this is called horst, so as we see in this illustration so it was initially a straight layers
and then it had a normal fault in this side and another fault in this side and they are dipping
away from each other or their dip directions are opposite. So here it is dipping this side and
on the other side it is dipping in this side. And this particular feature is topographic elevation
is known as horst. And these are conjugate sets of normal faults.

(Refer Slide Time: 52:34)

If the opposite happens that means the normal faults dipping towards each other, then they
create a downthrown block and this is known as graben. So again you see that this part went

763
down this way and this part went down this way. So these are two normal faults again in
conjugate sets. But they are dipping towards each other, so this fault is dipping this way and
this fault is dipping this side. And therefore the block in the middle pushed down.

And this is known as graben. You can also have something called half-graben where you do
not form the other conjugate set but one set is extremely prominent and these are known as
half-graben. You may see some sort of subsidiary faults here but the major or master fault is
this one. We will see this soon. So this is known as graben. And this is known as half-graben.

(Refer Slide Time: 53:39)

764
Now there is also one very interesting nature of normal faults and we call it, domino model.
Now domino is something that kids do play or even adults play as well. So you remember
that we have little blocks like this, we align it like this in a different way. And then you push
from this side and they slide and they stay like this. So this is called domino or dominos. Now
in normal faults it happens in a very similar way. So sections through a rifted portion of the
upper crust typically show a series of rotated fault.

So that means you are having normal faults one after another and the fault blocks arranged
more or less like the domino bricks or overturned books in a partly field bookshelf. This
analogy has given rise to the name bookshelf tectonics or the rigid domino model. So you
have books in the bookshelves, there you make them space in between and then you arrange
one after another and then if you tilt from one side then the books will rotate past each other
and they will make a shape something like this.

So this is a rigid domino style fault block. So initially it was like this and then it can take the
shape of like this and in the other way you actually can tilt them back, so now it is 30 degrees
but you can tilt them back to match this layer with this layer and this layer and so on. And
then you can figure out what is the initial orientation or initial angle of the original
deposition.

Now this also happens when in large scale tectonics particularly where when you have riff
tectonics. So here we see that maybe a plume is coming here or some extensional tectonics is
happening. So it produces large number of normal faults and eventually they tilt and they
produce features like this. And these are all kind of domino structures that are characteristics
of normal faults.

765
(Refer Slide Time: 56:10)

And then we have as we talked about, we can have master and subsidiary faults. So once you
have a normal fault and then the other block may or may not show some sort of rotation. And
if it cannot rotate properly, it produces a series of subsidiary faults. It can happen both in
hanging wall and also in footwall. It can happen both in normal faults and also in thrust
faults. So the largest fault in a faulted area is known as master fault.

And these are associated with minor faults that may be antithetic or synthetic. An antithetic
fault dips towards the master fault while a synthetic fault dips in the same direction as the
master fault. Now these expressions are relative and only make sense when minor faults are
related to the specific larger scale fault. So it can happen in a different generation. In that case
we have to be very careful to name them as either antithetic faults or synthetic faults.

So the first example here, first illustration here is a modified version from professor Jean-
Pierre Isbouts illustration. What we see here that this is the master normal fault and then it
produced a synthetic subsidiary normal fault. So this spelling is wrong here. It should be
subsidiary. Everywhere it is wrong and then you see that we have normal faults but the dip is
on the other side. So therefore these are antithetic with respect to the master normal fault.

In the thrust fault it can happen in a very similar way. So this is the master fault you can
consider and then we have same dip of, same dip direction or similar dip direction of this
synthetic thrust faults. But on the other side, we have antithetic faults where the dip direction
is opposite to that of the master fault. And these are sometimes known as back-thrusts. So

766
these are very-very important in a fault system that you have to identify what is master fault
and then what is subsidiary faults and whether they are synthetic or antithetic.

(Refer Slide Time: 58:50)

So with this I conclude this lecture and also this is the last lecture for this particular week. If
you have complain that whole week was very-very long, so what I decided that a thrust and
strike-slip faults, we will spill to the next week in the lecture week of shear zones. So we will
start with this thrust and strike-slip faults in the shear zone week and then we will go to the
shear zone lectures. So till then have a nice time. I will see you in the next lecture. Thank you
very much.

767
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur India
Lecture Lab Session Stereonet 6
Fold geometry from interlimb angle and fold axes

Now, we have come with another problem.

(Refer Slide Time: 0:21)

In this problem we will determine the fold geometry from interlimb angle and fold axes.
When we know the interlimb angle of a fold and know the orientation of the fold axes, how
can we reconstruct the fold geometry? The question states that the line of intersection of the
axial plane of a symmetrical overturned fold on one of its limbs striking 48 degrees plunges,
28 degree towards 40 degree while the interlimb angle is 40 degree. Find out the orientation
of the axial plane and the limbs.

So, clearly the line of intersection of the axial plane on one of its limbs gives us the fold axes.
So, we have given the information that the fold axes plunges, 28 degree towards 40 degree
and one of the limbs strike 48 degrees while the interlimb angle is 40 degree and the fold is in
symmetrical overturned fold. So, with this information in mind, we will try to determine the
orientation of the axial plane and the limbs of the fold. So, we again will use the tool
stereonet to determine the orientation of the axial plane and the limbs of the fold.

768
(Refer Slide Time: 1:32)

So, now we will mark the fold axes; so, as I have already mentioned, the line of intersection
on the axial plane and one of the limbs gives us the fold axes. The fold axes orientation is 28
degree the plunge amount and the direction is 40 degree. So, first we will mark the 40 degree
which is this point, in the stereonet. So, this 40 degree we as we have done in the previous
problems where we will take it in the East West section and then mark the 28 degree which is
the plunge amount.

(Refer Slide Time: 2:17)

So, this is the 28 degrees point. So, clearly this point as I have marked is the fold axes. Now,
from the fold axes we know if we 90 degrees from fold axes, we will get the profile plane.
So, 90 degrees from this point the great circle corresponding 90 degrees from this point will

769
give us the profile plane of the fold. So, clearly this is 2 degrees and this would be 62 degrees
because we have count 28 degrees from this side. So, this is 62 degrees; so, we will count 28
degrees from the centre.

(Refer Slide Time: 3:02)

So, this is 10, this is 20, this is 28 and this great circle will be the profile plane of the fold. So,
I mark the profile plane of the fold.

(Refer Slide Time: 3:29)

Now, I again rotate back the tracing paper to its original position. Now, we have another
information; that one of the limbs strike 48 degree, so we mark the 48 degree which is here.
Clearly, the limb will pass through the fold axes because the intersection of two limbs gives

770
us fold axes. So, the limb should pass through the fold axes so one of the strikes of the limb is
48 degree and we have the fold axes. So, the great circle that has the strike of 48 degree and
passes through the fold axes will correspond to one of the limbs of the fold.

(Refer Slide Time: 4:21)

So, now we construct that great circle. Clearly, this is the (othe) other end of the strike and
this is the dip angle; so, the dip angle is 6, 16, 26, 26, 36, 46, 56, 66, 76. So, the dip angle is
76 degrees and the strike is 200, 210, 220, 228.

(Refer Slide Time: 5:43)

771
So, the orientation of the limb one is 228 degrees and the dip angle is 76 degrees. Now, what
we will do is that we will bring the fold axes on the East West plane and the profile plane we
will calculate the interlimb angle which is mentioned as 40 degrees.

(Refer Slide Time: 6:22)

So, we have brought the fold axes on the East West plane and now we have to calculate the
interlimb angle. The interlimb angle is 40 degrees; so, now it is a dilemma, so, we will
calculate the interlimb angle in this side or get in this side. So, again we have to think about
the geometry of the fold which is given in the problem and we have to visualise it so it is
mentioned that the fold is in symmetrical overturned fold.

So, now from the properties of symmetrical overturned fold; we know that in an overturned
fold, the axial plane of the fold and the two limbs dip in the same direction. So, now, if we
calculate the 40 degree from here, clearly, we will find a point and the point that one of the
points of the great circle that corresponds to another limb and this fold axes would be the
other point.

So, if we join this we will get the limb but if we count 40 degrees from here the point, we will
get the two limbs will dip into opposite directions. So, what we will do is that we will do not
count the interlimb angle 40 degrees from here but if we count the interlimb angle 40 degrees
from here we will get a point (an) and if we join that point and this fold axes through a great
circle, we will get an orientation of the other limb.

And the other limb will dip in the same direction as limb one. So, the fold will correspond to
a symmetrical overturned fold. So, as in the question; it is mentioned, the fold is in

772
symmetrical overturned fold, so we will count the interlimb angle in this side. So, by this way
we do and visualise the problems, the geometry of the fold and try to solve it via this
stereonet.

(Refer Slide Time: 8:33)

Now, I count the 40 degrees in this plane so, this is 4 degrees, so this is 14 degrees, this is 24
degrees, this is 34 degrees and this is 36, 38, 40; so, this is the point. So, If I join this point
and the fold axes; clearly, I would get the other limb.

(Refer Slide Time: 9:02)

Now, I try to bring these two points on a great circle so that I can have the orientation of the
other limb. We have come to the great circle that connects the fold axes and the other limb.

773
And we will also mark the dip, so the dip comes out to be 2, 12, 22, 32, 42. So, the value of
dip is 42 and we mark these two ends of the strikes, and rotate the tracing paper to the
original position.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:32)

Now, when we come to the original position, we see that the strike of the limb is; so, if this is
180 degree, this is 200, 210, 220, 230, 40, 50, 254 degree. So, the limb 2 the orientation is
200 and now again I count 230, 240, 250, 254 degrees and the true dip amount is 42 degrees.
Now what, in order to construct the axial plane what we have to do is that we have to bisect
the interlimb angle.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:25)

774
Now, in order to bisect the interlimb angle we bring the profile plane to the North South and
we calculate the interlimb angle we know the interlimb angle as mentioned in the problem
that is 40 degrees. So, the bisection would be 20 degree so we calculate the point so we
started from this or this end each will be the same. This is 2, this is 14, this is 16, 18, 20. So,
this is probably the bisection point and again if we join this point and the fold axes, we would
get the orientation of the axial plane.

So, we do it similarly we find the great circle that joins the fold axes and bisection of the
interlimb angle. Probably, not probably; certainly, this is the plane. So, we draw the great
circle that corresponds to the axial plane of the fold. So, this is one of the strikes of the axial
plane. This again would be one of the strikes and now in the East West section we calculate
the dip of the axial plane.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:19)

Now, the dip of the axial plane is; this is 8, 18, 28, 38, 48, 58. So, the dip of the axial plane is
58 degrees, so now I rotate the tracing paper to its original position and now I find the strike
of our axial plane. So, if this is 180, 200, 210, 220, 230 so the axial plane strike is 239 degree
and the dip amount is 58 degrees. So, when we have a fold geometry and the data of interlimb
angle and the fold axes we can reconstruct the fold geometry so we have the found out the
orientation of the two limbs as well as the axial plane.

775
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur India
Lab Session Stereonet 7
Fold geometry from pitch of the limbs on another plane

(Refer Slide Time: 0:13)

So, now, we have come with another problem. So, when we have the data of pitch of the limbs of
a fold on another plane, then how to reconstruct the fold geometry. So, the question reads as - On
a fracture plane normal to the hinge line of a plunging cylindrical fold the trace of the axial plane
pitches 0 degree while those of the two limbs 36 degree given that the fracture dips 60 degree
towards 280 degree. Find out the orientation of the hinge line, the axial planes and the two limbs.
Suggest a suitable name of the fold on the basis of interlimb angle.

Now, when we read the question we have to get the information out. So, first it is written on a
fracture plane normal to the hinge line. So clearly, a plane normal to the hinge line or the fold
axis is the profile plane. So the fracture plane is clearly the profile plane of the fold and we know
the orientation of the profile plane which is mentioned later in the question as 60 degree towards
280 degree. So the profile plane dips 60 degree and the direction is 280 degree.

So, we have another information, the fold is in a plunging cylindrical fold and the trace of the
axial plane pitches 0 degree on the profile plane or the fracture plane. Now, we have been sure

776
about the fracture plane is basically the profile plane. So, the trace of the axial plane on the
profile plane of the fold pitches 0 degree and other information is that the two limbs pitch 36
degree on the profile plane. So, with this information we will try to figure out what is the fold
geometry of the given fold. So, we will again help the use of the same tool that we have been
using, that is the stereonet.

(Refer Slide Time: 2:24)

Now, in this problem we will first mark the fracture plane or otherwise the profile plane of the
fold. So the profile plane of the fold dips 60 degree towards 280 degree. So, west corresponds to
270 degree so 280 degree is this mark which I have drawn. Now, I make the 280 degree on the
east west limb and calculate 60 degree. So, this is 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60. So, this grade circle is
basically the profile plane of our concern fold. Now, we have marked the profile plane of the
concern fold.

Now, 90 degree from this profile plane is basically the fold axis. So this is 30 degree from this
profile plane to the center so we will calculate another 60o from the center to get the fold axis. So
this is 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60. So, this is clearly the fold axis or the hinge limb. Now, the axial
plane passes through the fold axis and we have another information on the axial plane then the
trace of the axial plane pitches 0 degree on the fracture plane or profile plane in this fold. So, if
the axial trace pitches 0 degree on the fracture plane so clearly the axial plane would pass
through these points.

777
Because these two points correspond to the 0 degree pitch on this plane or this fracture plane. So
if we count certain values then it will have certain values of pitch from one of the directions of
the strike. But it is mentioned that the axial plane pitches 0 degree on the fracture plane. You
should be convinced that the axial plane will pass through these two points because the pitch of
the axial planer phase is 0 degree on the fracture plane and also the axial plane passes through
the fold axis. So the grade circle corresponds to this point and the fold axis will give us the axial
plane. So we also now draw the axial plane of this fold.

So the dip of the axial plane is this and the dip amount is 30 degree. Now it is again mentioned
that the two limbs pitch 36 degree on the fracture plane or the profile plane of the fold. Now, it is
not mentioned from which end the pitch we should calculate, it is not mentioned from which end
of the fracture plane we should move 36 degrees but it is mentioned that the fold is in plunging
cylindrical fold. The fold is plunging. We obviously see that the fold axis does not lie on the
periphery of the stereonet.

So, the fold obviously plunges. Now, the question comes is that, which end of the fracture plane
we should take the pitch of the limbs. Now, as it is mentioned the fold is in the cylindrical fold so
the two limbs should be in two opposite directions because in a cylindrical fold a limb should
move parallel to itself to generate the fold surface and if that is the case then the two limbs
should be in two directions. So, pitches of the two limbs will be from the two ends of this
fracture plane and the amount of pitch is same for both the limbs that is 36 degree. Because the
fold is symmetrical so we calculate 36 degree from this end to get the point of one of the limbs
and 36 degree from the other end to get the point of another limb. And so if we join this point
which is 36 degree from one of the ends of the fracture plane with the fold axis we will get one
of the limbs and we again join the other point with the fold axis we will get another limb. So,
now I plot the 36 degree pitch on this fracture plane which is clearly 10, 20, 30, 32, 34, 36. So,
this is one and this is another 20, 30, 36.

778
(Refer Slide Time: 8:20)

So, now, I rotate the overlay of the tracing paper to find out one of the limbs which pass through
the fold axis and also the point we have obtained from the pitch of the limb trace on the fracture
plane and clearly, this grade circle represents one of the limbs. This would one of the strikes, and
this is one of the strikes and the dip is this, So the dip is 6, 16, 26, 36, 46.

(Refer Slide Time: 9:38)

So, now, I rotate the overlay. So we have found the orientation of one of the limbs. Now we
count the streak east corresponds to 90 this is 100, 110, 120, 130, 134, 135 but considering right-

779
hand rule we will consider this end of the streak of the limb which is west corresponds to 270,
280, 290, 300, 310, 315. So the orientation of one of the limbs is 315 degree, is the strike and the
dip is 46 degree. Now, to find the orientation of the other limb we will join this point and again
the fold axis.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:37)

So we will find the grade circle passing through this point by rotating the overlay. Probably we
have arrived at the same grade circle. Yeah, so now we will join these two points. So the grade
circle that passes through, this is the other strike and we mark the dip. So the dip is 5, 10, 15, 25,
35, 45.

780
(Refer Slide Time: 11:56)

So, now, I again rotate the overlay and read the strike. So the dip amount is 45 and the strike is
north so this is 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 66. So the limb two we have 66 degree is the strike and the dip
amount is 45 degree. Clearly, this is the fold axis so the fold axis is plunging 30 degree in
direction of 100 degree. So, the orientation of the fold axis is plunging 30 degree and the
orientation is 100o and clearly this is our axial plane. So, the axial plane we find out the streak.

The axial planes this aim at the strike of the axial plane and the dip is also 30 degree similar to
the fold axis and the axial plane streak is 10 degree. So the axial plane orientation is 10 degree
and the dip amount is 30 degree. We have pitch of the two limbs on another plane, we can
reconstruct the fold geometry by the method we have shown.

781
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture 30
Faults and Faulting -II
(Refer Slide Time: 00:40)

Hello everyone welcome back again to this online NPTEL structural geology course. We are
going to start a new week, week 11 and the topic of this week as decided was ductile shear zones
but as I said in the last lecture will spill few of our materials of the faults to this week and in

782
order to do that we will start this lecture which is a lecture number 30 and we will learn a little
bit more on faults and faulting particularly we will focus on reverse faults.

So in this lecture we mostly cover a typical characteristics of reverse faults as I was talking about
and then will look with a particular slide that how to identify faults in the field because it is you
not necessarily you see the fault scarp or fault plane exposed but there are few other criteria from
very small scale to very large scale by which you can identify the faults in the field. We will very
briefly discuss this part as well.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:30)

So we learnt about reverse faults in the in the last lecture and we know that reverse faults also
known as contractional faults it shortens the crust and reverse faults are generally those which
have dominant deep sleep components with a relative upward movement of the hanging wall and
reverse faults which has a relatively low deep angle less than 30 degrees are known as thrust
faults.

So as you can see in this fantastic image by foison that this is the trace of the fault this one and
we can see that this particular white layer this one and this one they were once upon a time
together but due to the faulting thrust faulting or reverse faulting this has moved and therefore
the entire crust got shortened and this you see in every scale from very micro scale to regional
organic belts and also in subduction zones as we have understood from our previous lectures that

783
most of the rocks in the earth are generally under compression so reverse faults are extremely
common particularly in subduction zones and contractional orogenic belts.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:35)

So here are a few characteristics of the reverse faults as I was talking about reverse faults with a
low angle deep less than 30 degrees are generally called thrusts or thrust faults and the term
thrust fault is usually restricted to large-scale structures and in this restricted sense a thrust fault
is generally defined as a map scale contractional fault or a fault which shortens an arbitrary
datum line or lithology in general.

Now thrust faults may show large horizontal displacements in the scale of a few kilometers of
tens of kilometers if the foot wall stays in the position and the hanging wall is transported that
means the hanging wall is moving over the foot wall then the thrust is called and over thrust and
if the opposite happens that means the footwall moves instead of the hanging wall so hanging
wall stays in a fixed position but the foot wall below is moving then this is called under thrust
trust now the hanging wall rocks which traveled long distance over a very low angle thrust fault
is generally called thrust sheet.

784
(Refer Slide Time: 04:01)

Now this over thrust under thrust these are some tectonic terms that people generally use so we
will not go into that part in detail but we mostly look at some other features of that we have
already learned now if a tectonic unit has moved for example far over the rocks in front of it that
means it does not stay in its original position so it is mostly due over thrust then we will have
learnt it previously you have also seen this illustration then this is known as allocthonous unit.

Now a rock mass which has not moved over other rocks described as autochthonous so for
example here this is an autochthon because it stays it is original position in its deposition site but
this blue rock that is your blue unit that is see here it has moved far from this side and it is now
staying here.

Now there are also some erosional features and there is also another term that we would like to
introduce here that we did not learn before that is Parautochthonous so Parautochthonous rocks
are those which have moved over the rocks with a small extent so it did not move a large extent
but a small extent and this large and small these are generally relative terms with respect to the
autogenic setting.

Now we also have learnt 2 terms windows and klippe these are erosion related exposures so a
closed outcrop of a thrust shape isolated from the main mass by erosion is called klippe which
you see here and in contrary you can you can say that I mean if you have an allocthonous
material which is the blue one and if that gets eroded like here and it exposes within it the

785
autochthonous rock then this is known as window or sometimes people call it also tectonic
window.

(Refer Slide Time: 05:46)

Now in this context there is also one more term that I would like to introduce here to you this is
called is nappe so generally it is called nappe or thrust nappe, trusts nappe is an allocthonous
tectonic sheet which has moved over a thrust fault now this can happen in 2 different ways what
I mean by this that it can involve a thrusting or it may not involve a thrusting but generally it is
associated with folding.

So a fold nappe is an allocthonous litho-unit which exhibits large scale stratigraphic inversion
and may have initiated from a large recumbent folds so for example you see here if you
remember recumbent fold or something like a fold which has its axial plane horizontal and now
if this side it gets a significant movement then you end up with a structure what we see here and
it does not involve any thrust.

So this part was initially probably somewhere here and it moved a long distance and in that case
this is known as fold nappe without thrusting so the underlying limbs of this fold sometimes may
be sheared out into the thrust faults as you can see here so this is a sheared unit so along this the
thrust has happened so if I can consider that while this is happening this got thin enough and then
it just broke and then the travel becomes much easier in that case this is also known as fold
nappe or thrust nappe due to thrusting.

786
(Refer Slide Time: 07:26)

Now these kind of structures you see in Alpine orogeny fantastic so here I show you two
examples rather one example one photograph taken from panoramic view but let us let us look at
the first one so we have seen this, this is a moracle nappe in one of our first lectures so you see
that the trace of the fold here is going like this and this got folded and it coming here and like
this and the other layer is something like that and if we see it here in this panoramic view the fold
is something going something like that.

So you see it has moved a long distance and this can only happen if you have a thrust somewhere
below and this sheet here is actually going above, this is thrust sheet and this is moving due to
tectonic movements above the thrust fault it is in a different position and therefore this is also
allocthonous.

787
(Refer Slide Time: 08:52)

Now when we learnt this allocthonous, autochthonous, klippe, window these are mostly related
to a thrust fault it is also important to understand right now that how does a thrust fault initiate.
Now when the fault is nucleated with the volume of rocks it initially forms if I can draw it here
so a very very little penny Shaped a crack and this crack has a closed boundary and the top part
of this boundary when it starts propagating if it propagates in this direction then this is known as
tipped line or you can say this one in this illustration that this is tip line.

Now one point is very important to remember here that displacement at the tip line is 0 so
therefore this is also a definition of tip line so here the displacement is maximum and slowly

788
along this the displacement slowly terminates to 0 so the blocks on either side of this fault line
slips past each other like this way relatively and this sleep has to decrease to 0 at the tip line now
beyond the tip line the material here.

So what is happening here now you form a zone here which is known as a process zone and
sometimes it also involves a little bit of ductile deformation as well now as the trust propagates
the tip line this tip line here let me clean this place.

The tip line here also starts migrating now as long as the tip line of the thrust fault does not reach
the ground surface so it stays below the surface then this is known as blind fault and blind faults
are extremely dangerous in terms of producing earthquake because you do not see sometimes
any surface expressions of the fault and it just stays blindly inside and if there is any movement
then it just appears on the surface and make some devastating earthquakes there are many
examples for example the Christchurch earthquake in 2011 and 2012 these are examples of
earthquakes from the blind faults people had no clue that there are some faults below the surface.

Now many thrusts sometimes because of this migration upwards sometimes have their upward
carving shape as you can see here and this can happen only well there are many reasons it can
happen but in this case it can happen because this thrust is propagating so the material here it is
getting pushed upward and therefore you see this kind of topography and these are sometimes
are known as also this kind of faults also known as list rick thrust faults so that at the base the
deep is extremely low or sub horizontal let me again clean this space so here you see the deep is
very low but here the deep slowly increases towards tip line or at the higher level.

Now a thrust sheet emerging on the surface may have traveled on the erosion surface so for
example this one or on the surface itself sometimes riding over on its own debris is in the front
and this is then called erosion thrust or relief thrust so sometimes you do not see them on the
surface but this elevation tells you that there could be a fault and this not necessarily can happen
due to thrusting it can also happen due to folding therefore a detailed geological survey is
essential to understand whether this surface elevation is just topography, duty erosion or you
have some sort of folds down there or a propagating thrust fault which is blind.

Now sometimes this is also the wage that makes up the frontal portion and the thrust sheet is also
known as toe so this side is known as toe now many thrusts as blind thrust and propagate to

789
reach the surface and they are not necessarily let me clean again here propagate as a single fault
what I mean by this that may be another thrust fault has initiated here and this thrust fault can
also propagate separately or in the course of their journey they can meet each other. They can
this fault also can split to another fault and so on.

So we always have a master thrust and then out of this master thrust we have the subsidiary
thrusts so which can emerge from this master thrust or some other subsidiary thrusts that can
come and join this master thrust and these all are known as splay faults or simply splay.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:47)

So while propagating the thrusts may branch or coalesce with another propagating thrust and
these subsidiary thrusts are known as splay, so here are 4 possibilities I have given here and these
are somehow important so 2 faults meet along a branch line so where they meet I will show you
later in this illustration that what is branch line in this case and a tip line and a branch line meet
at the ground surface at the tip point at a branch point for ancient faults of the ground surface that
we see at present has formed by erosion after the fault movements and has seized in contrast the
ground surface at the time of development of the fault is the see orogenic ground surface.

So, there is always an interaction between the previous fault and the latest fault. Now a
subsidiary thrust as I use talking about may branch out of as splay from the main thrust now this
is an example of an isolated splay so isolated splay is characterized by the 2 tip points of the
splay are exposed while the trace of the fault is isolated from the main fault stress, so this is you

790
can consider as master thrust and this is isolated so this has nucleated from here but it did not
touch the master fault it propagated independently and both of them reached the surface.

So this is splay fault and this is an isolated splay fault to be very specific now sometimes while
this is propagating so this is again the master fault then you can have a diverging splay so this
fault is touching the master fault here and it branches to generate another splay fault and
therefore this is diverged or this got diverged from the master fault so this is known as diverging
splay as it is written here sometimes you may have 2 faults so maybe 2 Master faults one this one
so MF one and this one MF 2 and then you may have a splay fault which is connecting the 2
faults and this is known as connecting splay.

And then there is rejoining splay fault which is this one in this case again you have a master fault
and then it diverges from here say it was like this and then while it is propagating it finds it better
to meet again the master fault so it rejoins the master fault and therefore maybe it can look like
this so these are the branch lines from the master fault to the subsidiary fault inside this fault and
this is known as rejoining splay faults.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:23)

Now this is one kind of architecture that the thrust during its propagation can form but within
this propagating part as we have learnt about that these things can move in a different way so
from the cross section if we try to look at sometimes these are known as ramp flat model and we
learn in this slide what is ramp flat model? So thrust in some regions follow ramp and flat or a

791
staircase like trajectory, the thrusts cut up section along a ramp and then follows a horizontal
zone of flat as you can see here that these surfaces are flat so these are flat and then you have
some ramp like features which is at an angle to this flat plane and these are known as ramp and
then it achieves another flat here, so it can the ramps can happen in different ways and we will
learn about it and this is also written here.

So let me explain it in different ways, now when the thrust develops in a previously undeformed
sedimentary sequence the flat is parallel to the bedding, so you see it is originating here it is
parallel to the bedding so initial we saw it the trust starts the deep angle of this fault is very low
or almost sub horizontal.

Now if the staircase trajectory develops in a crystalline basement or in a previously folded

sedimentary sequence the flats need not to be bedding parallel and therefore you generate some
sort of ramps and then it propagates in this way because it just makes its trajectory changed and
then it turns to another ramp and the ramps as I was talking about these are classified according
to their orientation with respect to the transport direction.

So this is the transport direction of the thrust and if the ramps are oriented differently with
respect to the transport direction then we can classify the ramps in a different way so as I was
talking about a frontal ramp which is this one strikes roughly perpendicular to the transport
direction and has a dominantly reverse slip.

So this is the transport direction and this is striking almost perpendicular to the propagation
direction so this we call frontal ramp then you can have a lateral ramp which is this one I am
sorry this would be ramp so there should be a lateral ramp that strikes more or less parallel to the
propagation direction so this is the propagation direction and the orientation the strike of this
lateral ramp is almost parallel to the propagation direction and this is known as lateral ramp and
the movement along the lateral ramp is interestingly not a thrust but it is mostly strikeslip faults.

Then you can have something in between a the frontal ramp and lateral ramp and these are
known as oblique ramp so an oblique ramp strikes obliquely to the transport direction and has
both strike and reverse nip-slip so for example here so this is this propagation direction again so
it the strike is at an angle to the propagation direction and it involves both deep sleep and strike-
slip components along its displacement and therefore this is mostly an oblique ramp.

792
(Refer Slide Time: 21:12)

Now the writing of the thrust sheet over a ramp causes the development of reverse faults and
these are very very interesting so flat-topped anticlines so you can see that you are actually
generating a fold like feature here and these are very very interesting in the sense that while the
thrust do propagate they generate an excellent structure which are sometimes very important or
tectonic or kinematic analysis and at the same time these are also important for hydrocarbon
reservoir mechanics and so on.

So we will learn more about it later but the concept of a staircase trajectory and the consequent
development of hanging wall anticline with the kink like geometry were later incorporated in a
generalized geometric kinematic model of thrust faulting so therefore these are very very
important.

Now according to this model the foot wall of the thrust remains essentially undeformed and if
that happens then you have some hanging walls above the foot wall of the thrust fault that can be
thick or extremely thin and that gave rise to very important terms what we see here in this slide
one is thin-skinned tectonics and another is thick-skinned tectonics.

So two styles are commonly invoked to describe the thrust tectonics in the context of the ramp
flat geometry as I was talking about one is thin-skinned and another is thick-skinned tectonics
they mostly refer to the degree of basement involvement in the considered thrust system, so the

793
descriptions are given here what is thin-skinned and what is thick-skinned in many fold and
thrust belts the sedimentary cover is detached from the basement.

So you have the basement that is and then you have metamorphic or igneous complex and then
you have sedimentary layers now if the thrust initiates in between the basement and the
sedimentary layers then typically along the fault planes then it shows the ramp flat geometries
now the soul thrust will learn about it soon.

Thrust that is generating at the bottom is known as soul thrust they remain above the strong
crystalline basement and the crystalline basement is remain virtually undeformed now this style
of deformation is known as thin-skinned tectonics then bedding plays a controlling factor so the
composition the rheological and so on these are very important parameters in generating the
staircase or ramp flat systems.

In contrary the thick skin tectonics in metamorphic regions thrusting is commonly associated
with intense and distributed ductile deformations so where the deformation is happening at
relatively high pressure and temperature in that case the staircase flat and ramp geometry is
generally not expected so major soul thrust extends steeply down the basement so it involves the
basement either metamorphic or igneous although the thrust Jones tend to follow staircase of
rheological contrast they involve the basement the style is termed as thick-skinned tectonics.

So in these following slides we mostly we will not separate what is thick skin and thin skid in
illustrating the diagrams and the processes but you can think of that mostly sedimentary layers
are being involved in this processes so in a way you can think that these are mostly thin skins,

794
(Refer Slide Time: 24:50)

Now let us talk about how do these thrusts propagate they do work in a single fault or there
multiple faults we learn that it involves multiple faults which are known as plays but we would
look these things now in a different way which is relevant for the large-scale tectonics and we
start with the term called thrust implications.

Now thrusts in mountain chains generally occur in groups so you do not have a single thrust now
you can just quickly think of the thrusts in Himalaya the major thrusts this MBT MCTS TDM
and so on so they are in a group not necessarily they occur at the same time and this is exactly
what we are going to learn in this slide so the geometrical inter relations among the members of
such thrust systems have been intensively studied and this is a topic of research in most of the
cases and people do experiments numerical modeling and also intends a field survey to
understand the thrust mechanisms and how do this group of thrust do evolves.

A prominent low angle thrust occurs been it some thrust systems this is called floor thrust or soul
thrust let us explain this one after another. So this is your initial setting tectonic setting where
everything is in peace nothing has happened and then there was a push from this side and this
material started moving in this side now when that happens due to contraction it may generate a
thrust in this way, this red line is the active thrust here now if this deformation continues then
interestingly it generates another thrust in the front of the previous trust so this is my first trust
and this is the second trust the second trust interestingly this thrust line here is become passive so

795
there is no displacement along this line so this becomes passive or inactive, but it does rotate
backwards and while it rotates it slightly achieves a topographic high while the second thrust is
moving with an active thrusting along its boundary.

If the deformation continues further it generates another thrust which is thrust number 3 so this
was the 1 this was the 1 then it takes the deformation most of the deformation this was already
inactive and this becomes also inactive now everything is happening and they are merging on a
horizontal or sub horizontal surface which is also slipping and this is known as sole or floor
thrust and the subsidiary thrusts which are emerging from the sole or floor thrusts are known as
imbricate thrusts.

Interestingly these previous thrusts previous imbricated thrusts 1 and 2 in this case they again
rotate back so these rotates the first one rotates further towards this side and sometimes to
accommodate the rotation it produces a fault this is also a thrust fault which is verging oppositely
and this is known as back thrust I think I give the sense oppositely the drawing should be
something like that so you do not worry about this part yeah the drawing is a little bit wrong it
should be something like that as I try to correct it.

So and while doing this this back rotation and also the combination with the back thrusts the
topographic elevation is achieved so you see that this is here and this much height we have
achieved to this process now this is, this process is known as thrust imprecations the series of
thrust that we see here these are known as imbricated thrusts so to describe this process in a
different way.

Let me explain in details so the sole thrust is the lowest regional thrust surface in some cases
subsidiary faults may splay upward from the floor thrust and may cause a tile like piling of the
subsidiary thrust rates this is exactly what we have seen here this arrangement of the subsidiary
thrust is known as imbricate structure as we have named it, it is also known as (())(29:32)
structure, now this imbricate faults they meet on the floor thrust asymptotically as you can see
here they meet the floor thrust and carve upward with increasing dips at higher levels and this is
the characteristics of thrust faults we have learnt.

So in a trailing imbricate fan the thrusts so they actually produce something which is called fan
also thrust Fanning so they just moved this way like a fan and these trusts fannings or sometimes

796
their rear shows the maximum sleep and imbricate zone or an imbricate stack may be confined
between a floor and loop trust we will learn about it, so what I mean by that that here the top part
is at least in this drawing is somehow empty but you can have another thrust at the top and then it
is known as a roof thrust and it is known as duplex structure we learn about it soon.

(Refer Slide Time: 30:34)

So for an example you can think about the faults in Himalaya that we have series of thrust faults
starting from the North we have STD MCT MBT and in this case JMT and MFT now from your
stratigraphy or Tectonics lecture you may have learned that MFT is the youngest fault then and
STD is the oldest one so this is where things started and then initially first we form these then
these then this and now this one so this is exactly what we have seen in the previous illustration
that one after another this imbrication thrust is propagating and in this case the floor or soul
thrust is MHT the Main Himalayan Thrust.

797
(Refer Slide Time: 31:32)

People generally study this kind of things with sandbox models and here I have given an
example from one of my juniors Pushpendu he performed these experiments and that got
published in a paper, so here you can see that first of all these are the imbrications the floor thrust
is somewhere here which is moving this way and in his experiment he has generated a series of
thrust faults and you can also see the back thrusts here these are formed and interestingly you see
while doing this the topographic elevations are achieved the angle of this frontest imbrications is
less compared to the imbrication at the backside the first imbrication that we have formed in this
experiment.

So by experiments people also study a lot and these are functions that what will be the spacing of
these faults, how much they will rotate and so on is essentially there are many parameters that
control this so one is this friction along this sole thrust then the materials you are involving the
height you are achieving and so on. So all these things do play an very interesting role and
people are still studying this that what causes this implications and the elevation of the
mountains because these are one of the most important mountain building processes.

798
(Refer Slide Time: 32:56)

Now we will go to what I was talking about this duplex structure so when imbrications do
happen and it has a soul or floor thrust and it also has a roof thrust at the top so if a roof thrust
bounce the imbricated zone upward then the complete structure is called a duplex structure in it
generally develops in sequence so duplexes consists of horses that are arranged piggy back so let
us try to understand this.

So, we have this sequence may be one, one before and then we have developed this ramp flat
model this is a flat then we have the ramp and then we have again a flat now this is the sole
thrust or the floor thrust and then if we have a significant amount of sedimentary cover at the top
it may not involve the entire sequence.

So we can have also a thrust at the roof in the next segment and this is known as roof thrust and
these individual segments while doing it, it would also produce imbricate thrusts and these
individual segments this one or in this case may not be but in the next sequence we will see that
these are known as horses or an or a single imprecation that we see is horse so this is a horse you
can see confined here this is another horse so it continues this way we will see an animation in
the next slide how do this form so you have your sole thrusts which is marked by this thick black
line then you have imbricate thrusts and you also have roof thrust going here.

So if an imprecation zone is restricted between sole or floor thrust and roof thrust then this is
known as duplex structure so the horses typically have an S or Z Shaped geometry so here it is

799
like Z but if you see it in other way around if the movement was from this direction then it would
form something like that and then so this is your roof thrust is your floor thrust and then these
would produce something horses like SS, S Shaped structure and then they tend to deep towards
the hinterland.

So in this case this is your hinterland and the horses can be also folded faulted and rotated during
the thrusting history and they produce some fantastic structures we learn about it soon so that
their primary geometries and the orientations become modified so you may see that at this is the
hinterland side, in this hinterland side you may see that the imbrication closest towards the
hinterland may have a higher angle compared to the angle which is furthest from the hinterland

(Refer Slide Time: 36:27)

But let us see an animation, how do these forms, so this is an animation I collected from the
internet so you see this is how, this duplex structure do form. This is your sole thrust these are
your imbrications this red lines here and you have your roof thrust there, now do we say in the
field of this kind of structures yes we see them in many different scales so here is an excellent
example from the same page from where I took this animation.

800
(Refer Slide Time: 36:44)

So looking at it you can clearly now identify from this illustration that we have seen that this is
certainly a thrust plane and this is your floor thrust and there is also one more here going like this
and this is your roof thrust and between the floor and roof thrust you have the imbrications like
this do not mix it with cross-bedding this is tectonic process.

So you see this this complex structure here so this individual blocks here this one it has moved
this way so this is the orientation of the thrust here and these are known as your that we have just
learned horse so individual horses and each of them slipped this way this is an excellent example
of this duplex structure so you have roof thrust, you have floor thrust in between you have series
of imbrications defining the horses and so on.

801
(Refer Slide Time: 38:46)

We have one more example from the book of a professor Fossen, so here again you have roof
thrust you have this one you have floor thrusts here and in between he already have marked you
have the horse individual horse and you see they are dipping this side all these horses so this
must be your hinterland side and this entire structure is known as duplex structure so you have
now very clear idea what is imbrication what is sole thrust what or floor thrust what is roof thrust
what is duplex what is piggyback and so on.

(Refer Slide Time: 39:28)

802
Now this kind of structure so in these imbrication do happen during thrusting they produce 2
very interesting kinds of folds one is known as Fault Bend fold and another one is known as fault
propagation fold when I was a student I was extremely confused that which one is what later it
got clear to me but I believe with this lecture you will never confuse what is Fault Bend fold and
what is fault propagation fold a two very commonly used terms in structural geology sometimes
people also ask in the interviews and so on.

Now Fault Bend Fold is essentially a structure that you see in the ramp flat model so the moment
a ramp is established and the hanging wall starts climbing above it the hanging wall layers are
deformed into a fault Bend fold as you can see here this is your this is the flat this is the ramp
and this is getting another flat and the movement along this ramp flat is this way.

Now this hanging wall materials sedimentary layers it has to write over this ramp flat so when it
does it because we have a ramp here it has to produce a fold like structure so the layers over the
ramp when it rides it has to bend to accommodate the space and therefore this is known as Fault
Bend Fold when the layers the hanging wall layers got bended along a fault plane is Fault Bend
Fold this term along is very important.

The geometry of the fold reflects the geometry of the ramp angular ramps produce angular folds
kink like folds while more gently curve ramps which you see here this is not as sharp as the
illustration we have above so also the folds we form these are very gentle and curvy folds. So
you can have this you can have this and these are known as Fault Bend Fold.

803
(Refer Slide Time: 41:57)

Now this is how do they occur in sequence so this is your first stage so t1, then t2,then t3, then t4
and then t5 so this is the initiation of this ramp flat model so again this is a flat this is the ramp
and this is again a flat, now when that happens when this hanging wall materials are trying to
ride over this ramp flat then it has to produce a kink like feature at the forelimb and this is known
as growth of the forelimb.

And then it also has to adjust at the backside so this is known as back limb and then with time it
propagates the forelimb expands back limb also develops it achieves a topographic elevation and
so on and finally it appears fold like feature and this is the process we form the fault Bend fold.
Now interestingly you see in this entire illustration this the foot well rocks, they are virtually
undeformed, so everything is moving on the top side the hanging wall is taking all the
deformation.

804
(Refer Slide Time: 43:30)

Now this is an example of a Fault Bend Fold you see here that this is the thrust propagating like
this so this one is your foot wall and this part is the hanging wall and you see due to riding it is
producing a structure it has to produce you also have some back thrusts here and it is going like
this and this is Fault Bend Fold a classic example of Fault Bend Fold.

(Refer Slide Time: 44:15)

And you can have another thing which is Fault propagation Fold, now many rivers and thrust
faults form a ductile fold zone around their tips and they form to propagate, this is very important

805
Fault Bend Fold is along the fault the geometry of the Fault Bend Fold is defined by the ramp
flat of this thrust involved in this process.

But fault propagation fold is essentially controlled and also nucleated from the tip of a
propagating fault so these are the basic difference between fault propagation fold and fault Bend
fold we will see how do these things occur with this illustration but the tip fold zone is
particularly well developed with thrust fault effect non and low metamorphic sedimentary rocks.

The fold associated with the fault tip is Fault Propagation Fold again the tip is very important
and for Fault Bend Fold it is along so let us see how does it work in contrast to what we have
learned with the Fault Bend Fold, so we have a series of sedimentary layers and say we have
initiated due to some compression here or thrust and this is the tip of the fault.

So it is moving straight this part is getting contracted fine now because it is a thrust fault it has a
tendency to move upward with a higher deep now when it does when it starts moving upward it
first-string it does that at the back side it develops a back limb and the front side it also develops
a forelimb and with time when it propagates it is also grows or accentuates the growth of the
back limb and the forelimb and this is how it works and finally one stays with a structure a fold
like structure like this.

Now geometrically it may appear very very similar to what we have seen with the Fault Bend
Fold, but a Fault Propagation Fold it may have a very similar geometrical disposition but the
mechanism of development is essentially different sometimes you also develop so in this case if
you have a fault where you have movement both on hanging and footwall.

So here we see things are happening only on the hanging wall but the foot wall is virtually
undeformed. You can also have a thrust like this where you can have something like that in this
side and then something like this in the other side. So both you can have Fault Propagation Fold
on the hanging wall side and also on the foot wall side so these are also kind of Fault
Propagation Fold that has grown due to the movement of the fault tip line let us see some
examples.

806
(Refer Slide Time: 47:43)

So this is one which I have taken from the book of a professor Fossen so you see this is the fault
plane going and you have an excellent Fault Propagation Fold here in this structure.

(Refer Slide Time: 48:00)

We can also see here that that example I gave you, you have this is the thrust claim so it is
moving this way and then what we see here that we have Fault Propagation Fold in this side and
we also do have Fault Propagation Fold in this side. So this is how you define the Fault
Propagation Fold in two three different ways but I am sure with this presentation or with this

807
illustrations it is now very clear to you the difference between Fault Bend Fold and Fault
Propagation Fold.

(Refer Slide Time: 48:42)

Now what we are going to do that last topic of this lecture that how do you identify faults in the
field, now there are several criteria in recognizing the faults particularly in the field or also from
a map so even when the fault line is mapped the dip of the fault plane may not be miserable the
dip can be measured in certain circumstances for example you can think of an fault trace is
exposed in areas of high reliefs that means a fault surface itself is exposed and so on.

I mean if someone does some drilling work and other things so by this you can measure but the
challenge is to identify the faults in the field so there are several criterias which I have listed
here, the first one is the geological mapping so faults are sometimes recognized by abrupt
terminations of beds against a line on the map.

You can also think that abrupt termination of beds along a line of sharply defined structural
discontinuity if that you see in your map you also can figure out as a Fault in the field but you
have to be very sure that this is not some sort of angular discontinuity so you have to separate or
rule out the possibility of angular discontinuity with respect to the sharply-defined structural
discontinuity.

Now you can also identify the faults if you have seen repetition or omission of beds now we did
not learn what is repetition of omission of beds but we learnt it with respect to the fold so in fault

808
you can have repetitive layers or some layers are missing, now it is also important that repetition
of beds you also can find or it can result also due to folding. However in the case of repetition in
fold it is symmetrical so repetition of beds caused by fault is essentially asymmetric and that can
help you to figure out that you are somewhere near the fault zones.

Now faults can often be located by the occurrence of fault breccias if you see highly crossed
rocks we have seen before in the deformation mechanism lectures along a continuous or
discontinuous line so that tells you there must be some sort of faults around you, some fault
planes also contain a pulverized clay like materials or which we call fault gouge and you can also
figure out that if you see some slickensides like features or polished striated surfaces some
parallel to the fault plane that also tells you that you are in a fault zone.

Now in certain places a fault plane is directly exposed as a fault scarp a cliff with a more or less
planar slope that can also tell you that you are in a fault zone and finally if you think about the
thrust faults which are large orogenic scales then because the thrust faults they move they travel
a long distance that may bring together rocks of quite dissimilar sedimentary or metamorphic
faces or the rocks of very different ages they can stay together that can also happen due to
folding but in thrusts it is more common and finally for the subsurface if you do some seismic
imaging seismic reflection survey and so on you can also figure out the faults from those images
if you know how to interpret that. So these are the different ways that you identify faults in the
field and with this I conclude the lectures on Fault.

809
(Refer Slide Time: 52:27)

In the next lecture we will start the actual topic of this week which is a ductile shear zone and we
will first learn its characteristics and then we will classify and there a series of new things and
new terminologies to learn and understand, so stay tuned I will meet you in the next lecture thank
you very much.

810
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Lecture – 31
Ductile Shear Zones – I
(Refer Slide Time: 0:28)

Hello everyone, hope you are doing well. Welcome back again to this online structural geology
NPTEL course. We are in all week number 11 and we are learning faults, ductile shear zones etc.
So today we will start our first lecture on ductile shear zone and this is lecture number 31.

811
(Refer Slide Time: 0:42)

So, in this course we will initially, very briefly, review what we have learned so far. The faults
and from the faults we will slowly switch to a ductile shear zones, so most of the slides or
comments that we will hear, these are said before, but I would like to repeat them again for a
review. Then, will define a ductile shear zones and look at their different characteristics. After
that, we will see two very important features of ductile shear zones. One is foliations and another
is kinematics.

And, in the next lecture we will figure out what are the different microstructures and at the same
time the kinematic indicators of ductile shear zones. So, what I mean by this that how to know
that which way the shear zones moved past one another with respect to the rocks, which are
undeformed. But we will learn all these things in this lecture and then in the next lecture we will
learn further.

812
(Refer Slide Time: 1:40)

So, what are you going to do first as I said that we will review, so, these illustrations we have
seen before. We know that in the low pressure and temperature we generate a mode 1 or mode 2
fracture so rocks generally do show brittle deformation and these are attributed to fractures,
joints, and faults.

These are essentially the homogeneous deformation at high pressure and temperature and this
part which we are going to learn in this lecture and in the next lecture are the heterogeneous
deformation or in other ways localized deformation.

So, at high pressure temperature when deformation does not happen this way, that means,
deformation is not distributed in the entire rock mass or in this case in the entire sample. But it is
restricted allow a narrow zone. Then we have localization of deformation and this is in a way is
the concept of ductile shear zone and we will see this soon in theory and also with many of
photographs.

813
(Refer Slide Time: 3:20)

We have also learnt that the brittle domain we have within the fault range and then we have
ductile domain where rocks deform in ductile manner and in between we have brittle ductile
deformation where rocks do show both brittle and ductile signatures in deforming the rocks.

(Refer Slide Time: 3:37)

So we also have learnt it that initially we classify any localized type of deformation in terms of
faults and then we call it brittle faults if the cohesion is not maintained, the continuity is not
maintained during the deformation and on the other hand we have ductile faults that means
where the cohesion is maintained or the continuity is maintained and whatever we have in

814
between is brittle ductile faults. We learnt about brittle faults in the last few lectures and in this
lecture we will talk about ductile faults or which are commonly known as shear zones or ductile
shear zones.

So initially there are two terms faults and shear zones. You may aware of this fact, so one part is
fault which are the faults the way we understand brittle fault where 2 blocks moved past each
other producing some fractures in between. Now whatever are not faults, they are categorized as
shear zones or something like that. But Ramsey in 1980, he came out with this kind of
classifications that everything that we can imagine in terms of localized deformation these are
faults and then you have brittle faults, brittle ductile faults and ductile faults.

(Refer Slide Time: 5:04)

So the ductile faults are known as also shear zones or ductile shear zones and this is exactly what
we are going to learn today. And also in terms of the geological context, so at the surface we
generally see faults, the brittle faults in other ways and at depth we see the shear zones and this
we have also seen with the first illustration of this lecture. That at high pressure temperature you
only can have localization without producing fractures and these are shear zones. So here you
have fractures but here you do not have fractures.

The grains do deform in the manner of intra-crystalline plasticity. You have learnt about it in a
neology and reformation mechanism lectures. So this is the mechanism by which the grains

815
deform and they are localized the deformation. So we are going to focus on this part in todays
lecture.

(Refer Slide Time: 5:56)

Let us define what is a shear zone or what is a ductile shear zone in specifically. A ductile shear
zone as it is written here is a long narrow zone within which dominantly ductile deformation has
caused a localization of significant magnitude of strain compared to the surrounding regions.
There are many important phrases here, which are important in defining the ductile shear zone or
important in characterizing ductile shear zones. And the first one is long narrow zone, so that
means the zone which ease a ductile shear zone has to be long enough compared to its width. So
it is a narrow lenticular zone.

Within this zone you should not have significant fractures or no fractures. The deformation must
be dominantly ductile deformation and this ductile deformation has to cause by localization of
large strain or ductile deformation has to accommodate the maximum strain of this region and
therefore it remains localized deformation compared to the surrounding region.

The formation of a ductile shear zone is commonly associated with drastic reduction of grain
size. We will see some slides or photographs later that the grain size in the surrounding regions
are much higher compared to your localized domain and this is a mechanism how the grains
actually accommodate the deformation and the mechanism we learnt about it is intra-crystalline
plasticity.

816
And while doing this the rock within the ductile shear zone produce extremely fine foliation. So
the characteristic of ductile shear zones also include the rock has to be extremely foliated and at
the same time lineated. Now one may be absent but the lineation may or may not be present, but
foliation is a must in defining a ductile shear zone.

Of course, this is a secondary foliation we are talking about. The rock type that we see in a
typical ductile sear zone is known as mylonite. Now mylonite is not a composition of the rocks.
So it is not like gabbro or anorthosite or granite and so on. These terms define a typical
composition. But mylonite generally defines, or it designates a texture, a character of the rock
not the composition of the rock.

A similar type of rock so when we see in brittle shear zones then we call it breccia, so mylonite
is the rock that you should find in ductile shear zones and breccia is the type of rock that you
should find in brittle shear zones. Mylonite should be characterized by extreme grain size
reduction, so the breccias.

But in mylonites the mechanism of grain size reduction is crystal plastic deformation or intra-
crystalline plasticity. Whether in breccias it is mostly cataclastic deformation. Mylonites also do
possess a lot of fabrics, breccia also does but not as prominent as mylonites do have fabrics
within themselves.

Now ductile shear zones as many of the geological structures can range from very very micro
scale to mega scale so as it is written here that it ranges in scales from the microscopic or grain
scale to the scale of a few hundreds of kilometers in length and a few mille meters to few tens of
kilometers in width. We will see some examples in one of the next slides that how big a ductile
shear zone could be.

817
(Refer Slide Time: 10:12)

Now this is exactly what I was talking about. This is an example of ductile shear zones, what we
see here this is South Island of New Zealand. The Christ Church is somewhere here and the
North Island is somewhere there. Now we know that New Zealand the South southern part of
New Zealand is characterized by a fault which is known as alpine fault which is this one.

Now we can see the rock types here in this part, the way they occur they tend to occur in a very
similar way here. And you may figure out the fact that if I considered this green horizon. So this
green horizon probably went like this and then it is again appearing here the same with the red
horizon, the pink horizon.

Now of course on the surface it is a fault because it is a low-pressure temperature feature but at
depth it is essentially ductile, and this is a very large scale shear zone. Tectonically we can see
what is happening here. So, on this side we have Australian plate on the western side of New
Zealand and on the eastern side we have Pacific plate.

And this Pacific plate subducts here along the Hikurangi subduction zone, which has a velocity
of 4-to-5-centimeter per year and then we have another subduction zone, which is Australian
plate is subs duct sub ducting below the southern Island of New Zealand. There we have velocity
3.5-centimeter per year.

818
So these two subduction zones they actually collide and meet each other and they produce this
excellent alpine fault or in a way at depth a ductile shear zone. A lot of structures and other
features are there to see and look at, but we are not going into this. But take a message of this
slide that I would like to convey that the scale is almost covering an entire country from one end
to another end. And you can see the scale this is 300 kilometers.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:18)

Let us look the ductile shear zones in the field scale or out crop scale. Now first of all how to
know that these are ductile shear zones, it is very very easy once you know this. So, what we see
in this side in in this illustration or in this photograph that this is a granitic rock or granite nise
and if I concentrate on this corner this are nisic foliations.

So in normal way the nisic foliations should go like this. But here I find a region where this nisic
foliation is deflected. The region is essentially narrow, and the deflection is mostly restricted in
this narrow band. So this is the narrow band that we are talking about.

So, if I consider it is going very much well but when it touches the boundary it goes like this and
where it comes out from the boundary it follows more or less the same terrain as it has before. So
this and this, so these two were probably together and now they got deflected and this deflection
has happened due to extreme localization, shear localization along this.

819
So this we can designate as a ductile shear zone. If you look at in the next image again you can
figure out that we have something a very narrow zone and this does not have exactly similar
appearance as we see here in the other image. So, this is again your narrow band and what
interestingly we see here that it is going like this again these are nisic foliation and we do not see
anything here.

The trace of the foliations we do not we do not find it here the way we are finding here. So it is
missing and let us assume that it is coming out of here. But essentially the fact we can figure out
that it is this this foliation or this layer if I consider is not continuing this way. So this is not
exactly what is happening here.

This foliation enters here got dragged and say for example it is coming out from here. So same
situation we see here. But here we see some large crystals and we just defined that ductile shear
zones must be defined by extreme grained size reduction. And here something very interesting
things do happen in the ductile shear zones.

What we see here this is nothing but a pigmatitic vein. And how did it happen? These ductile
shear zones are excellent for carrying the fluids because you have extreme grain size reduction in
the ductile shear zone. At the same time, it is happening at high pressure temperature. So the few
minerals that have water in their structure, they release the water during deformation and at the
same time during metamorphism. Now these waters sometimes find the best place to reside ease
within the ductile shear zones and it has a significant implication in our life. I will show you
later.

So when these fluids they do reside within the ductile shear zones, sometimes they occur as veins
and this is one of the examples pegmatite veins. And these ductile shear zones not necessarily
always in a simple shear mode it can have a dilatational mode and if that happens then it
becomes much easier to fluid to flow to these dilatational zones because this is a low-pressure
zones, Fluids generally do flow from high pressure to low pressure. We will see the importance
or what is a role of fluid here and so on and why it is important in our life in one of the next
slides.

820
(Refer Slide Time: 17:00)

We saw the ductile shear zones in very large scale now we saw it in field scale but let us have a
look what happens in micro scale. It is a very similar thing that we are looking at. We see that we
have again a narrow zone here, which is essentially different. So this is the same image, this one
and this one. So this is plain polarized light and this is cross polarized light.

What we see here that we can identify the grains here individual grains you can figure out but
here these are very fine and again it is occurring along a narrow zone. And it is a same
composition. So and if we see here as well, the same narrow zone of course at the same piece of
slide we see it here.

So here the grain size is drastically reduced compared to the grain size here and this rock piece is
a granite. Now what is important to observe here that it actually has a very very sharp boundary
from the high grain size to the low grain size. Now this grains that we see here they actually did
not undergo any fracturing or so on.

So if we zoom this part which I am not showing you here but we can see that the grains
underwent some sort of crystal plastic deformations that we have learnt in the other cases. So the
movement of dislocations and so on the reduction of grain size has happened through

821
dynamically crystallization and so on. So these are the mechanisms that only you can see in thin
sections.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:39)

And you can go even farther down to the scale and this is a scanning electron microscope image.
This darker thing you see here, these are quartz grains and these white things that you see here
these are Biotits grains. I deform them experimentally in the laboratory to see something else but
it produces as you can see the initial foliation was straight like this but here it has produced again
a long narrow zone something like that.

Where these foliations got deflected, and you can also see if I wipe this one out that within this
narrow zone the character of the biotites they are not as white as we see in the outside. They are
little diffused fussy and something like that and exactly some reactions are going on.

The biotite started releasing their waters in this condition and they are forfeiture formation is
going on and all these processes do happen inside the ductile shear zone. So people still do
research on this and they continue working in this direction to understand the localization
phenomenon and ductile shear zones and these are very very important.

822
(Refer Slide Time: 20:02)

So exactly why studying ductile shear zone is important? Now if you look at the global map and
we particularly see that where earthquakes and volcanisms do happen. Interestingly we will see
that these essentially coincide with the plate boundaries. So it could be convergent, divergent or
sliding plate boundaries but most of the earthquakes and volcanisms do happen along the plate
boundaries.

And what happens at the plate boundaries? Plate boundaries are essentially high strain zones
because we see large number of mountain chain there, you can think of Himalaya. It is also a
fossil of the earthquakes and explosive volcanisms you know the ring of fire here along this
pacific, so this one and here this one.

So these are the places which are most dynamic places in the earth and we see extreme stair
localization because the plates do collide past each other, they move away from each other, they
slide past each other and so on. So these are the places at depth if you follow this you will see
extreme localization at very large scale. The displacements here are extremely large but that
happens in a very slow way. We know that it happens, and these are also avenues to release the
earth interal energy and therefore we have earthquakes and volcanoes and so on along the plate
boundaries.

823
(Refer Slide Time: 21:34)

So I will take you to another aspect of ductile shear zones. You must have seen, or you must
know the fact that if you go to the eastern part of India and if I ask you the question, of course it
is written here that which one is the most rich zone in terms of mineralization. And we all know
that this is the copper mines, the iron mines, the uranium mines these are mostly along
Shingbhum region along the chota Nagpur nisic complex.

And this Singbhum region is characterized by a shear zones which is known as Shingbhum shear
zone. And if you travel from ghat shiela to Tata nagar and so on you will see series of mines of
mines where people extract appetite, copper, molybdenite, nickel, uranium and so on.

Now all these things why they deposited along the shear zone boundary? Now again I answered
this question partly that these things do occur along that shear zones, simply because shear zones
have extremely different dynamics compared to where strengths are not localizing. So
mineralization is essentially a process which is extremely dependent on the deformation
phenomenon. So this is the Shingbhum shear zone and along with you have series of mines
which extract important economic deposits.

824
(Refer Slide Time: 23:17)

If you go to the north western part of India, in Rajasthan this is also a state where we have lot of
mineralizations and I tell you this is a map of geological survey of India. And all along this these
are the shear zones together with (())(23:33) fold belt and you see these places are the places
where you have series of economic mineral deposits you can find. So ductile shear zones not
only important to understand the dynamics of the earth but it is also important to understand the
mineralization processes and also to mine them and work up on them and explore a further for
economic mineral deposits.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:02)

825
Let us look at what are the characteristics of ductile shear zones. We will learn more but here I
have summarized a few points. So ductile shear zones as you have learned that this is strongly
foliated and lineated rock that has undergone intense ductile deformation or in other ways, we
call it mylonitization or mylonitization with accompanying reduction in grain size.

This we have learnt, it contains fabric elements of monoclinic symmetry. Grains, mostly
flattened, are much smaller than the wall rock. This we have also learnt. The deformation is
dominantly crystal plastic or intra-crystalline deformation. We learnt the mechanism in the
deformation mechanism lectures with or without presence of porphyroclasts.

Now if there are porphyroclasts or porphyroblast, we have some type of classifications. We will
learn it soon. It contains planar or linear shape fabric. So it has foliation and lineation. The
matured mylonites generally show more than one flanar fabric. So 3 sub foliations mostly
inclined to each other with certain angles.

We see them and they are very important kinematic indicators. We will learn about it in the next
lecture. At the same time in the ductile shear zones, we see most of the times tight to isoclinals
folding, reclined folding and also a very special type of fold we did not learn yet is sheath fold.
So these are the characteristics of ductile shear zones or in other ways you can say this is the
characteristics of mylonites.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:47)

826
So this is how we can now classify knowing everything the entire shear zone rocks including
faulted rocks. So in this line along this line, everything happen in this side is brittle and what is
happening in this side is ductile. In the brittle domain we mostly see random fabric, in the ductile
domain we mostly see foliated fabric.

Now within this brittle domain we can classify the rocks as non-cohesive which is mostly at the
very very near surface area and cohesive it is near the sub surface area. Now within the non-
cohesive domain we can have two types of fabrics or two types of rocks. One is fault breccia
where the visible percentage of fragments should be greater than 30 percent. And if it is less than
30 percent then we call it fault gouge.

Within the cohesive domain we have crush breccia where the fragments should be greater than
0.5 centimeter. If we have fragments in between 0.1 to 0.5 centimeter then we call it fine crush
breccia and if the fragments are less than 0.1 centimeter then we call it crush micro breccia. And
if we have grain size even smaller than 0.1 centimeter then we call it protocataclasite, cataclasite
and ultracataclasite. So proto is going to be cataclasite and ultracataclasite is more deformation
or more grain size crashing has happened after cataclasite phase. So the stages are something like
that.

In the foliated fabric we have protomylonite, mylonite and ultramylonite. We are going to learn
it soon. These mylonites are sometimes also call orthomylonite in older literature. And this
classification this protoclataclasite, cataclasite or ultracataclasite and at the same time
protomylonite, mylonite and ultramylonite is mostly function of the proportion of the matrix that
how much bigger brains you have and how much smaller grains you have.

So if we go to the cohesive domain, the matrix should be 0 to 10 percent. So it is mostly large

clasts you have. And in the protocataclasite or protomylonite you should have matrix 15 to 20
percent in mylonite 50 to 90 percent and in ultracataclasite or in ultramylonite the matrix should
be almost 90 to 100 percent. So the rock is mostly full of matrix, so you do not have any visible
grains there. And this is how this entire process can happen if the deformation increases from
here to here.

827
(Refer Slide Time: 29:10)

Let us have a look now, the different characteristics of protomylonite, mylonite and
ultramylonite. So the first column of images that we see these are hand specimen scale and the
second column this column that we see these are photographs from thin section in cross
polarized light.

So protomylonite as we have learnt, the grain size has to be greater than 50 microns. Percentage
of matrix less than 50 percent, small, recrystallized grains surrounded by large relict grains or it
is known as mortar texture. So you see here the black stuff in this hand specimen are actually
your matrix which is very less in terms of the total volume of the rock or total area of the rock
that you are seeing in this image. And this brown is things along with these large clasts are your
porphiroclasts or some other features.

With further deformation, we arrive to the rock which is known as mylonite or orthomylonite
where grain size is less than 50 microns, percentage of matrix is 50 to 90 percent and it is
strongly foliated with porphiroblasts in fine-grained matrix. So what we see here you can clearly
see that matrix area has significantly increased compared to the, this figure.

So here we have more matrix, but we have few porphiroclasts or blasts floating within the
matrix. Also in the thin section we see, these are porphiro well these are experiments I have done
it so I know that these are porphiroclasts but outside you have muscovite and these are matrix
material.

828
In ultramylonite the grain size is extremely fine less than 10 microns. You cannot identify them
through optical microscope. The percentage of matrix is extremely high greater than 90 percent
and thoroughly deformed fine grain rock. What we see here this region in this image, this is our
ultramylonite.

You see only a few clasts here but otherwise it is extremely fine grain and even if you see this
kind of rocks under thin sections still you do not see any visible rock fragments here or any
visible grain size. They are so fine even you cannot look at or even you cannot see them under
optical microscope. Maybe you need SCM or some other high resolution photography technique.

So we have protomylonite, we have mylonite or orthomylonite and we have ultramylonite. We

have defined this term. In this context I would like to use another term or introduce another term
which is known as, let me write it here, it is pseudotachylite. Now pseudotachylites are
something that you generally find in faulted rocks or in ductile shear zones.

Pseudotachylites you can consider them a kind of ultramylonite in a way, but the mechanism of
formation of pseudotachylite is little bit different. The deformation has to be extremely fast and
when you have extremely fast deformation, because of the frictional movements between the two
blocks.

It produces significant amount of heat along the contact zones. And when you have significant
amount of heat along a very localized zones, this heat or this high temperature which is produced
by this frictional heating it melts the surrounding rocks. And when that happens then it stays as a
melt or very fine grain rock along a very narrow zone.

So apparently it appears like ultramylonite, but this is not exactly ultramylonite. But this is the
mechanism you form pseudotachylite where you have two blocks moving past each other and
because of the slip, very first slip. In this zone enormous amount of temperature generates and
here it melts and what stays here is a very very glassy material, dark glassy material and that is
known as pseudotachylite.

829
(Refer Slide Time: 34:10)

Now how the grain size reductions do happen? We learnt about it but let us let us have a look
again. So this is an experiment by and we see here this is initial sample where this is Carrera
marble and the crystals we see in this very colorful image these are calcites. Now if you start
deforming it shearing it, they initially undergo to produce some kind of fabric here like this.

And later at this stage where (())(34:42) is 3 it is almost kind of protomylonite that we have
learnt, that we have large crystals and fine grain matrix but which is less than 50 percent or even
less. But when we have a significant amount of deformation, the grain size reduced to very very
fine scale. So this is also similar size, similar scale here, same magnification we have taken so
this is 500 micron again.

And what you see here the grain size is extremely small compared to this. So just increasing
shear strain from 0 to 11 we can see the drastic grain size reduction. And this is the mechanism
how the shear zones, ductile shear zones do accommodate the deformation and now you know
why it has very very fine grains compared to the surrounding rocks.

830
(Refer Slide Time: 35:40)

And we also have seen this, this how the different deformation mechanisms do operate in
accommodating the strain, within the ductile shear zones. So you have dynamic recrystallization
process. So initially it starts with bulging, the new grains appear at the grain boundary, sub
grains and then you have the sub grains they rotate while this parent grains are still here.

But finally, when you have grain boundary migrations at even higher pressure and temperature,
the parent grains are completely gone. They produce new smaller grains through the process of
dynamic recrystallization. So essentially again as I was talking about in the very beginning of
our deformation mechanism lecture that does not matter how big is the structure, it has to initiate
from a very very small scale. And this is also true for ductile shear zones.

831
(Refer Slide Time: 36:36)

Now let us have look of how do we describe a ductile shear zone or in other way other words the
anatomy of a ductile shear zone. So if this is the undeformed rock, whether all these are passive
markers as you can see here or active markers, then there are two possibilities. Possibility one is
that if I shear it like this then one possibility is that the entire piece of the rock or entire rock
mass is deformed homogeneous manner.

So in that case we produce some deformation features like this where the rock accommodated
the deformation in homogeneous manner. If that does not happen, if it happens in localized
manner then it should take a shape like this where the deformation got localized along this
narrow zone. And this is nothing but your ductile shear zone as we are talking about.

Now if it was like this, say this block this block as you are looking at here, this is a red line and
this is again a red line that we see here and all this other lines. So it can happen in a very similar
way, but this is essentially a brittle shear zone. So there is no breakage of cohesion, there is no
discontinuity. So this layer is continuing here without any visible fracture in this scale and
therefore we call it ductile shear zone. And this is a localized heterogeneous deformation.

832
(Refer Slide Time: 38:21)

Now there are some terminologies involved. So clearly we can see that from here which will call
actually the wall rock. The strain increases towards the ductile shear zone which we have just
defined is this zone. Now you can argue that why I have plotted this line along this way, why I
did not put it like this or why I did not put it much closer.

Now yes you have a very valid question. There is not always a very sharp boundary between the
ductile shear zone and the wall rock. This boundary most of the time is extremely diffused.
However, there are some ductile shear zones where it just goes like this. Where you have very
sharp shear zone boundary. But these are functions of the rheology, the viscosity of the rock and
so on. We are not going into that part right now.

But for the timing yes I have drawn it arbitrarily but with some logic. And the logic is visually I
inspected that this must be the boundary. Now you can plot it a few millimeters up or down but
that would not be anything wrong. So clearly this region has 0 strain or very insignificant strain
this area.

So entire area they did not suffer any deformation. Now these marks are if I think of, so this
marker was initially here along a straight line and because of the shearing, now it got deflected to
here. So this is known as marker offset. We will later figure it out as D or displacement, and we
see how to calculate that. But these are the basic anatomy of a shear zone.

833
So you know what is, you define the ductile shear zone, you define the wall rock and therefore
you define the high strain zone and no strain zone. And strain generally increases from no strain
zone to high strain zone to shear zone. And this increase is mostly nonlinear, we will see that
soon. So this is how we generally construct or we generally identify or name the different parts
of a ductile shear zone.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:52)

Now as this third part of this lecture we suppose to talk about the foliations in ductile shear zone.
So far, we talked about most of the ductile shear zones are characterized by development of
foliations and it also is a fantastic kinematic indicator as it is written here, it tracks the XY plane
of the strain ellipsoid.

We will learn about it soon, let us not concentrate too much on that. Now orientation of the
foliations depends on the geometry nature and strain of the shear zone. Now if you consider a
fairly isotropic rock, a faint foliation will appear at low shear strains but with more and more and
more ductile shearing, the foliation would be intense and so on.

And this is exactly I collected 3 photographs is showing the similar feature. So what we see here,
this is a piece of rock and you see here we have this very narrow thin incipient shear zone. And
you see this outside this rock actually it does not have any foliation. But here when you see this,
you probably can see a faint fabric is being developed here along this very very incipient
magnitude of shear strain.

834
If the strain increases clearly you see again the outside the rock is very much isotropic. But along
this narrow zone which is your ductile shear zone that we have identified, we see that fabric is
intense and it is just along a narrow zone. Is not it fascinating? And just to ask how do how does
it happen?

And if we continue then we see that this fabric inside this excellent photograph is like this and it
is extremely intense. Now for a simple shear zone, you can actually calculate the relationship
with the strain and this foliation angle by this formula. Where Beta prime is you can consider as
this angle. We will not go into the detail part of this, but this is how people do calculate in the
field or also from the experiments the relationship between strain and the foliation orientation.

(Refer Slide Time: 43:27)

Now let us see in a different way with the help of the illustrations that how does it work. So
shear zones generally they are related to the foliation as we talked about. The foliation initially
makes a 45-degree angle with the shear zone along the margins. And this angle is reduced as a
strain increases towards the center of the zone.

So if we assume this block here to be sheared this way, and this little whitish band here is a
marker band and then we can the very beginning of the deformation, we can figure out that these
are the foliations, this red dotted or dashed lines are appearing here as the fabric of the shear
zone. This marker bed got also deflected and the deflection the disposition of this marker bed

835
may or may not coincide with the orientation of the shear zone fabrics which are the red ones
here.

So you see the red ones has, red one here in this case it has an orientation like this and this has an
orientation like this. So they may or may not coincide like this. Now I can calculate the shear
strain by through the deflection of these markers. Or I can also calculate through the orientation
of this newly developed fabric with respect to the direction of bulk shear.

Which is in this case this horizontal lines. So if you can continuously measure, you draw tangent
and you measure along a profile A to B then you can plot you can calculate it and you can plot it
and it clearly shows the profile, strain profile of the shear zone and in this case it is like this.

If the strain continues then you see that these foliations was restricted the foliation planes was
restricted here and now, they have increased. So the shear is also increasing along their width
and if you again do the same practice of profiling the shear strain along the shear zone, so again
you do measure shear strain at different points and then you see that strain has increased
compared to the previous one.

And this is how in a shear zone you can actually measure the strain profile. You can also if you
do not know, if you do not see the deflections of the markers with this you can calculate the
deflection of the markers with this equation. So you know from A to B, you can integrate the
shear strain with respect to the turn Y direction. So perpendicular direction that you can talk
about.

836
(Refer Slide Time: 46:35)

Now we see this in the field very very commonly. So you see this was a marker probably and
this is going into the shear zone. So continuously this angle, so now it is here like this, here it is
this. If you come here it is little reduced, if you come here this is further reduced, if you come
here this is here. So this is how you enter in the shear zone and this is your ductile shear zone.
You can see the similar thing here and you can figure out this strain along this along this and you
see it is always getting reduced and finally when you come here, it is almost horizontal.

(Refer Slide Time: 47:27)

837
Now, the final topic of this lecture the kinematics of a ductile shear zone. So far, we understood
the foliation part, how does it develop and so on. And as we talked before that strain in the
ductile shear zone is extremely heterogeneous. And this if you have some circles here initially
and then the circles would probably deform in this way.

So the middle of the shear zone the circle is you can see it is forming an ellipse which ease
suffering the maximum deformation and slowly diffusing away from this part. Now considering
this, if I have to fit it atleast in 2 dimensions with respect to the strain ellipsoid, we know we call
it X, Y and Z where X is the maximum stretching direction, Z is the minimum and Y is
intermediate.

In this case we are not going to consider Y because we are looking at in 2D. So we can clearly
figure out if this was the deformation direction or shear direction. The flow direction is
approximately like this. So shear zones are mostly parallel to the X direction of the strain
ellipsoid and Z is the other direction.

And we have seen that foliations also do form parallel to the shear zone in a mature ductile shear
zone. So foliations generally do track the X direction and the other direction if we considered the
3 dimensional then this is the Y direction. So this is X, this is Y and this vertical direction is Z,
so foliation has to always form along the XY direction.

And if this is the X direction, so the lineations must follow the X direction because that is a
maximum stretching direction. So kinematically the foliations in the shear zone, the new
foliations in the shear zone are along the XY plane of the strain ellipsoid. And lineations are
along the X direction of the principal axis of strain of the strain ellipsoid.

838
(Refer Slide Time: 49:51)

Now we can look at in 3D, so in a strongly deform domain, so we see here that this is
undeformed protolite. This is also undeformed protolite and this where you have your maximum
shear. So you see the foliations here are like this and this is the XY plane. So foliations or in
other ways I can figure out these are your XY plane and these are the foliation plane.

The lineations also do form along the X direction as you can see the stretching is slowly rotating
to this side. So XY plane is also the shear plane and X is also direction of the shear. In this case
A and this vertical plane is your displacement plane of the shear zone and this is the kinematic
framework.

Now this is some kind of monoclinic symmetry. We will we talked about it before but the way it
appears this complex 3-dimensional feature, it is important at this time to understand that how
we can observe the shear zone or what is the best section to understand the kinematics of the
shear zone.

And this is very very important because we see here that here the orientation of the principal axis
of strains and here the orientation of principle axis of strain are different, so it is rotating. So it is
that is why this is simple shear and simple shear we learnt about it that this is a rotational
deformation. So here X is like this and here X almost getting parallel to the direction of the
shear. So in this context it is important to understand that what is a best section to look at ductile
shear zones.

839
(Refer Slide Time: 51:57)

And this next slide summarizes this. Most of the mylonites contain structures that show
monoclinic a low symmetry simply referred to as asymmetric structures. So this is essentially
asymmetric, this is not symmetric. The asymmetry is related to the rotational component or non-
coaxuality of the deformation, or the fact that objects rotate in a preferred direction.

The asymmetry of mylonite structures can be used to evaluate the sense of shear and sometimes
also to the degree of coaxiality of a mylonite zone. And to do that the thumb rule is or also this is
kinematically very important that we generally see or observe the XZ section of the strain
ellipsoid or in other ways this section.

No one is stopping you to see here or see here but this is the best section to figure out the
asymmetry of the shear zone. Because the flow is happening in this direction and at the same
time this is the perpendicular plane of your symmetry plane which is the foliation XY plane. So
we can say that this is XZ section of the strain ellipsoid but not necessarily in the field you
always recognize it.

So in other ways we generally say it is perpendicular to the foliation and parallel to the lineation.
This one is important because this section is also perpendicular to the foliation. But this section
is perpendicular to the lineation and then it is not the section you are looking for. You should
look parallel to the flow direction. So it has to be parallel to the lineation. So whenever you
prepare a thin section from a sheared rock or you observe a sheared rock make sure that you are

840
looking at the XZ section or a plane which is perpendicular to the foliation and parallel to the
lineation of that particular shear zone.

(Refer Slide Time: 54:49)

With this note I finish this lecture; I conclude this lecture. In the next lecture we will actually see,
or we will take over from this slide that how to see or how to recognize with different micro
structures. How to recognize or understand the direction of shear or in other ways we will see the
different kinematic indicator of ductile shear zones. Thank you very much, stay well I will see
you in the next lecture.

841
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Lecture 32
Ductile Shear Zones 2

Hello everyone, welcome back again to this online Structural Geology NPTEL course. You
are in lecture number 32 and week 11. In this week we are learning Ductile Shear Zones. In
the previous lecture we learned the different aspects of ductile shear zones and this lecture
will particularly focus on the kinematic indicators of ductile shear zones.

In the previous lecture we mostly dealt with the mechanics, how do the shear zones forms,
their different characteristics and so on and concluded the lecture with the fact that the shear
zones do produce significant foliations and lineation and at the same time because it is a
mono-clinic symmetry that means it has a rotational feature within it, the strain is rotational
strain. this is why it is a shear strain. And therefore, objects within the shear zones they have
some special characteristics, they have some special features that they produce during
shearing and when you see them frozen in the rock within mylonite, we see some
characteristic features of these objects and by which we can identify the sense or direction of
shears.

842
(Refer Slide Time: 1:43)

And these are known as kinematic or shear sense indicators or shear direction indicators. And
this is the topic of this lecture. To review the fact that where to look at I would like to
highlight the fact again that we have to look at the XZ section of the strain ellipsoid. And if
you cannot figure out what is X, what is Y, what is Z of the strain ellipsoid of the shear zone
that you are particularly looking at, then it is much easier you figure out what is the foliation
plane and where is the lineation directed.

Now once you figure out orientation of the foliation plane and the lineation then you have to
look at approximately along a plane where it is perpendicular to the foliation plane and
parallel to the lineation.

843
(Refer Slide Time: 2:32)

So either way they are very same and unless you look for shear sense indicators along this
plane, XZ section or a plane which is a particular to the foliation and parallel to the lineation
which is in this case, this plane in particular. Then your interpretation of shear sense would be
essentially wrong. So make sure first that you are looking at on XZ plane or a plane which is
perpendicular to the foliation and parallel to the lineation.

Once you ensure that then there are series of kinematic indicators within ductile shear zone
which could help you to understand what is the direction of shear? And knowing direction of
shear is very-very important in the sense that this gives you the essential kinematic features
of that particular shear zone and at the same time local and regional deformation and
tectonics in general.

844
(Refer Slide Time: 3:38)

Let us start the first one that what is shear sense indicators? In literature we generally refer
the shear senses either by arrows like this or by arrows like this, these are half arrows. And
they indicate that this is the shear plane or trace of the plane which is perpendicular to the
foliation and parallel to the lineation, so lineation is in this direction.

Now this means this arrow which is heading in this direction means if you stand in this side
here then materials are moving towards the right side of you. Similarly, if you stand here it
means that materials are moving towards the left side from you and vice versa, if you stand
then you would again see facing this shear zone you will see that materials are moving
towards your right because this would be right if you stand here facing this.

And very similarly if you stand here and facing this shear zone then you would see material is
moving towards your left. The first case this one has several names, sometimes we refer it as
dextral shear, if I draw like this and ask you what is the sense of shear? Then you can say this
is the dextral sense of shear. Sometimes we call it top to the right the way I explained because
the material is flowing towards the right side or moving towards the right side from the
observer.

And we also learned that this is known as negative shear but we hardly use this, mostly
dextral shear and top to the right, these two terminologies are assigned for this kind of
kinematic. On the other hand, if it is this way as it is depicted here it could be sinistral shear,
so it is opposite to dextral and also we referred it as top to the left that defines or this phrase
actually defines the kinematics in better way.

845
If you do not understand what is sinistral and what is dextral. Now most of the shear zones
they are either dextral or sinistral but there are few zones that may be initially started with
dextral sense of movement and then switched with later tectonics or later structural events
with a sinistral shear. These things are little complex and that requires a special skill, we will
not go into that part at least in this lecture series.

But the sense of shear identification in the field and representing them in doing subsequent
analysis is very-very important as I was talking about. And you have to be extremely careful
just looking at one particular signature or one particular shear sense indicator unless it is very
much convincing, it is better to look for some other evidences to conclude your observation
that yes this is dextral, yes this is sinistral.

So in this lecture what I have decided that I will switch from dextral to sinistral, I will switch
the scales, we will see some photographs which were taken under optical microscopes,
sometimes with scanning electron microscopes, we will have some field photographs and so
on and they not necessarily do represent a single sense of shear, so we have a bunch of
dextral shear examples and we have examples from sinistral shear as well.

I have given a few images for your brainstorming so you can look at these images and think
that or and try to analyse that what could be the sense of shear of this particular image which
were deformed at a particular direction.

846
(Refer Slide Time: 07:54)

So the first and foremost important shear sense indicator is deflected markers. You have a
straight line which is this one this marker and if I deform it in the dextral manner, I had to do
it because this is how it is done in this illustration then it would deflect and we know that this
distance we know how to measure it, this is d.

So this clearly tells you if you do not have this sequence, if you do not have this image or do
not have this image just you look at it you can clearly figure out that this is moving in this
direction, this is moving in this direction, is not it? And therefore, we can clearly say that
sense of shear in this system is dextral. If you look at this other image here, this marker got
deflected towards this side and this one to this side, so in this case this is sinistral.

Now this appears in a very simpler way, but there are several examples and I particularly see
that students do a series of mistakes in concluding the shear sense particularly from looking
at images or objects. So once we identify this but there is one particular trick that I will also
let you know that how does it work. So this is in a very simple way you can identify but let us
try to look at some complex situations.

847
(Refer Slide Time: 9:45)

For example, this one where we can see that this is the shear zone and this is the wall rock,
but this is the trace of the marker plane on the section, and this is your XZ section. Okay, this
is the plane XZ section. Now again it appears little bit easier for you that you can figure out
that this is something like that and it is going within the shear zone, got extreme ductile
deformation, did not lose the continuity anyway and then it is here in this side.

So you can say that okay this is moving this side, this is moving this side from our previous
example and then sense of shear here is dextral no problem.

848
(Refer Slide Time: 10:28)

But if we see this image, if you forget about the older images that you do not see the other
counterparts of this marker line then the common mistake that we generally do here, what we
try to figure out that okay so this is like this, so it must be initially like that and now this part
is getting dragged in this side. So therefore, we have a shape like this now, so the shear sense
is this way, and you conclude that here the shear sense is sinistral.

And when I check exam papers, I figure out that students generally reply it this way or in
some conferences and other places, but this is wrong, why? Because when we talk about
shear sense or shear direction, we generally talk about the movement of the wall rocks, not
the movement within the shear zones. So in that sense we can clearly understand that it was
not like this, but it was like this.

The marker line was initially here, and it got deflected to this side because of the movement
within the shear zone which is happening in this way. So the wall rock is moving this way
and therefore this marker which has undergone in the shear zone, we certainly can figure out
that here if I draw like this or conclude like this, this is wrong, this is actually a dextral sense
of shear.

849
(Refer Slide Time: 12:27)

Finally, I have another example where I figure out that people do confuse if I have a situation
like this, that we have two marker lines, this is again your XZ plane, this is the shear zone and
these two are your markers within the shear zone. Now again looking at it one can
immediately conclude oh so this one is going this side, this one is going to this side, fantastic
this is sinistral.

But again your interpretation is wrong, the first thing to look at when you see the marker
lines from one wall rock to another wall rock, make sure that you are looking at the same
marker line. What I mean by that, this marker line has to be the same of this marker line. Not
to confuse with this, I made it little thicker and little thinner. So that clearly tells you that this
marker line is not the same marker line here so this is a different marker line.

850
(Refer Slide Time: 13:36)

And maybe if I extend it, if I extend the shear zone somewhere here, then maybe it is
appearing somewhere like this which is not in my frame. And this one if I extend it here
maybe it was somewhere like this again is not in my frame. But what I see within the frame,
it is important to first figure out that what I see here and what I see here, they are same or not.

Whether they were once upon a time continuous or not, in this case they are not. So if they
are not then this interpretation is essentially wrong. So we have to think in a different way.
And again, if this is not like this and then what we have learned in the previous slide so
essentially this is moving in this side and this is moving in this side so therefore, the sense of
shear here is again dextral. Now I said that there is a little trick that you can use to identify
the sense of shear when you have deflected marker.

851
(Refer Slide Time: 14:46)

And the trick is you identify the curvature, it does not matter what is the sense of shear the
deflected marker has to produce a kind of curvature when it is entering towards the shear
zone, this curvature could be sharp, could be very gentle and something like that. So if you
have a shear zone like this and you can have a curvature like this, you can have a curvature
like this or you can have a curvature even gentler like this.

Whatever be the case, you look for the closing of the curvature that which direction the
curvature is closing, and the direction is closing, your sense of shear is towards that side. So
in each case this is dextral, if it is sinistral for example if I take this one, this example in
sinistral form it has to be like this.

So this is where it is closing so it is this side, it is in this side and this is how you finally
conclude it but do not do it mechanically, you understand the mechanics, you understand the
kinematics and out of that you conclude it. But if you really do not have any clue then this is
something that you can use for your shear sense indicators from deflected markers.

852
(Refer Slide Time: 16:21)

Let us have a look at some examples, these are optical micro photographs that you can see
that how does it work, so these are deformed samples and these are experimental deformed
samples. So you can clearly see that these black things are quartz grains and these white
flakes that you see are biotite flakes. And you see that this biotite flake is deflecting this way,
maybe this is not the same biotite flake, but it is deflecting this way, this one is this way, this
one is this way and so on.

And this is essentially the shear zone. So at least in this frame we can figure out the sense of
shear is this way, so this is sinistral sense of shear. In a similar way you can look at here as
well, you see that this is your you can now your eyes must be set to figure out what is shear
zone, how do they look like and then again you can say that these markers are going like that,
here it is like this.

So they are coming out this way, this is entering slowly here, this was entering slowly within
the shear zone and so on. So again, this is similar experiment or same experiment I do not
remember exactly but the sense of shear in both cases is sinistral, right so this is how you
work. Now in this example we have the marker lines on both sides of the shear zone, but we
may not have this case always.

853
(Refer Slide Time: 18:03)

We have seen this photograph in the last lecture, so again this is the ductile shear zone and
this part is the wall rock, here we have a marker, maybe a little grain here which is getting
deflected towards the shear zone this way and the sense of shear in this wall is like this, so
this is again a sinistral sense of displacement from this marker zone.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:45)

We will go to another image; we have seen the schematic illustration of such kind of features.
Now again, I have a large mica biotite grain here, it might be an optical illusion, but you may
figure out that this grain and this grain these 2 are together once upon a time such they got

854
shifted this way, so the sense of shear is this way right and you conclude that this is sinistral
but it is not.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:21)

First of all there is no evidence that these 2 grains were once upon a time together, these 2
grains were actually 2 separate grains, I did not see it but you can figure it out from other
evidences. What do we see here? This is the shear zone of course as you can figure out and
these are the wall rock. This particular grain here if you consider this as a marker, it is
deflecting this way and you can see very nicely how this grain is breaking here while it is
undergoing the shear, and very similarly you can figure out that this grain is also deflecting
this way.

And what we have learned from our trick that the direction it closes curvature it has to be this
way, so it is actually suggesting me dextral. Do I have other evidence? Yes, so this one is
entering in this way here. So these are a few interesting things that you can use to summarize
that what is the sense of shear in ductile shear zone using deflected markers. It may appear
very easy, and it may appear as confusing as this image, so be very careful, you look for
some other evidences and see what is the actual sense of shear, not necessarily you have to
conclude from this particular image.

You have enough exposure you have enough rocks, so if you can figure out in a particular
area if you are observing a thin section that what is the sense of shear you do not have to, no
one forced you. You go to the other places of thin section and try to figure out, if there is a
shear it is not that there is only one evidence or only one object to give you the sense of

855
shear, there could be many other possibilities, so look for them, search for them, not
necessarily you have to conclude from only one feature.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:33)

To speak about the feature let us say this image, so this is a large-scale image of what we are
looking at of the similar experiments quartz biotite aggregate. What do we see here is a series
of shear zones, 1, 2, 3, 4 someone did not match here did not come out here but these are
essentially the ductile shear zones and they are oriented at least in this image, here is one
weak like this, like this and so on.

We will also see some fractures here we will talk about this later, so you can see that this
series of shear zones here, they are producing a new foliation, they are producing a new
fabric system. You also see that we have another fabric which is going like this which is your
primary fabric, they are getting deflected this way, they are undergoing shear right, so the
shear is like this here.

Now this is not an individual shear zone and to think of these consequences as we talked
about in one of our previous lectures that shear zones are not only characterized by a single
set of foliation. During deformation it produces at least 3 sets of foliations, their disposition
that means their orientation and their angular relationship with the other foliation are fantastic
kinematic indicators. So in the following slide we are going to learn that and you may come
back to this slide again and see what is happening here.

856
(Refer Slide Time: 23:44)

So the sense of rotation of the foliation from the margin into the shear zone is generally a
very safe kinematic indicator. When the strain increases, this text I took from the book of
(())(23:58) it is very nicely explained. A set of slip surfaces of shear bands commonly forms
parallel to the walls of the shear zones and known as c-fabric or Cisaillement in french.

And this word cisaillement means that if you are cutting the movement of scissor, so when
you cut it like this that is the movement and this is known as C-fabric, we will see a lot of
images on this. And the foliation verging towards the shear direction is known as S-fabric or
schistocite or schistocity as we talked about. With further deformation, sometimes this c and s
they become almost parallel to each other, even in that case we call it CS fabric or SC fabric
or even they are at an angle we also call them SC fabric.

This SC fabric essentially will produce a structure which looks very similar to the crenulation
cleavage and we call it sometimes asymmetric crenulation cleavage, we will see this later.
Now if the deformation continues then a new set of shear bands or shear localizations do
appear within the shear zone involving the previously formed either C fabric or S fabric or
both CS fabric. These newly formed shear bands diverge opposite and oblige to the shear
zone margins and these are known as C prime or C dash fabric.

And these are particularly common in mylonite rich in platy minerals. So if you have too
much mica or so on, then this kind of C prime fabric is very common to observe, C fabrics
are analogous we have learned in our fractures class that R1 low angle Riedel shears fractures
so in ductile domain this R1 is replaced by C prime fabric, R1 is a fracture and C prime is a

857
tiny incipient shear band produces in series and these are very analogous to the R1 shear
fracture.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:22)

So let us have a look how does it form, we have seen these black lines before right. So you
have series of thin and then you can deflect it this way looking at a shear zone or you have
anisotropic rock and you are forming new foliation there. So these black lines here could be
either initial set or foliations that developed during the shear movement, but in this case we
will consider that these are foliations that develop during the shear movement.

858
(Refer Slide Time: 27:13)

If this is the shear zone boundary then we know that these newly developed foliations I need
to change the colour I think that is better for you, they make an angle with the shear zone
boundary and they remain at an angle to this boundary. However, you have a displacement in
this case yes from the marker deflection you can figure out that this is dextral sense of shear
and what do we see here within the shear zone because there is a movement sometimes
instead of further rotating the foliations shear zone foliations, the shear zones do develop
some tiny shear fractures.

So if I zoom here, you see inside this circle these red lines here are some tiny shear fractures
along which these initially developed fabrics are getting deflected. So it enters here and then
it isemerging here, it enters here it is going here, it enters here and it is coming out here. So
these initial fabrics which are at an angle with respect to the shear zone boundary, these are
known as S-fabric as you can see here. And this little slip that you see within the shear zones
these are C-fabric and together the fabric is known as SC fabric.

Now, two very important things, S-fabric is a foliation and C-fabric is tiny slip plane, so do
not confuse, C is not a typical foliation plane, C is tiny slip planes which are aligned parallel
to the bulk shear direction. So S fabric is at an angle with respect to the shear zone boundary
such and C is parallel to the shear boundary. Now we can clearly figure out that is the second
point I would like to highlight that how do we understand then what is the sense of shear.

Now if you see here that this interaction between c and s would essentially produce a rhombic
shape like this, as you can see here okay. Or in other words with mature deformation if you

859
do not follow the geometry very honestly, they produce something like this, where this
orientation is the orientation of S fabric and this orientation is the orientation of C fabric.

So S is at an angle with shear zone boundary and C is parallel to the shear zone boundary.
Now once we form this kind of sigmoidal shape essentially, so you see that S is somehow
deflected and going like that and this deflection is happening by little shear along the c plane.
And S always verges towards the shear direction. So once we see this kind of features, this
within the shear zone fabric we will see few of them soon.

Then the verging of S fabric defines the sense of shear. So in this case it is verging in this
side so the shear sense is essentially dextral. With further shearing this C and S fabrics within
the shear zone particularly at the core of the shear zone when you tend to form almost ultra
mylonite, it is not possible to distinguish them separately.

(Refer Slide Time: 32:04)

In that case, this C and S they are essentially parallel to each other, so as you can see here in
this area or the zoom part here, this CS fabric they are very much parallel to each other and
you cannot figure out which one is C and which one is S. However, maybe you can check this
scanning electron microscope then maybe you can say something but in general you do not
see it, this is ultra mylonitized so this is known as CS fabric also when they are parallel to
each other and this is known as CS fabric and sometimes these are known as asymmetric
crenulation cleavage, this is analogous to CS fabric. But here we do not see that at least in the
scale we are observing here.

860
(Refer Slide Time: 33:17)

If the deformation continues further then they form a new fabric as we learned from the text
this C prime fabric. So here from this marker deflection we clearly figure out that this is
dextral sense of shear but if we do not know this, if we just observing somewhere here then
how do we know that this is dextral or sinistral, their c prime fabrics are going to help you.

So C prime fabric these are sheared planes, they do develop at an angle and with verging
opposite to the sense of shear. As we can see here that the fabric is developing here like this
and this is opposite to the verging of these lines or this fabric is opposite to the sense of shear.
And if you zoom it then you will see that this fabric initial CS fabric or C fabric or S fabric
which was sub-parallel or parallel to the shear zones, shear zone boundaries or bulk sense of
shear then these things got also deflected like this.

So the sense of shear is very similar as we have figured it out, so these are the sense of shear
within the shear zone. So within the shear zone these micro-shear zones which are producing
C prime fabrics, these are at an angle with the master shear displacement which is this one.
And if you remember in fracture lectures, we also understood that at low angles you form
Riedel shear fractures, a low angle Riedel shear fractures with the synthetic sense or same
sense of shear movement with the bulk shear direction.

So this is why this is analogous to this, so if you see that this kind of displacements so which
is at an angle to the bulk foliation and you also figure out that where it is verging and once
you identify these two then the sense of shear, the bulk sense of shear should be opposite
direction. So it is verging this way, so bulk sense direction should be in this direction.

861
Sometimes in the field if you do not identify all these things in separately then again I repeat
you do not have to conclude from looking at C, C prime or CS fabric if you are not convinced
that yes this is C prime, this is not S fabric. So therefore, you look for other features because
we have plenty of things, we just learned only two, we have learned deflected markers and
mylonitic foliations but there are many others that you can use. We have now some examples
of mylonitic foliations we will see one after another.

(Refer Slide Time: 36:26)

So what we see in these 2 interesting photographs that this is almost a proto-mylonite and we
can clearly see that there is a fabric going like this, the fabric is very weak but it is there and
we also have another fabric here which is characteristically different from this one. Now, if I
consider that this is the fabrics, the initial fabric or somehow the fabric which is developing
during shearing then I can clearly figure out that this is verging towards the sense of shear
and along this plane or along this fabric there is no shear displacement or something like that,
this is just secondary foliation fabric.

But if I try to see here this horizontal fabric here, I can figure out that there is a faint sense of
displacement. So it is moving in this way. If I look at here, I can see a faint sense of
displacement here such. If that happens then I actually can conclude that this might be the CS
fabric. Let us look at the second image as well, the foliation here is more prominent though
this is again proto-mylonite, it did not become the ultra-mylonite and then we have another
set of fabric like this.

862
And again you can figure out that there is a sense of movement along this, so these are your
micro-shear planes. So this also appearing to be the CS fabric, so if we try to conclude it so it
appear like this that this yellow lines in this both images these are the S fabric and the red
lines in both images these are the CS fabric.

And if that happens from the study we have just finished with the illustration, the sense of
shear must be something like that where the shear plane should be or the bulk shear direction
should be parallel to the C fabric that is why I have aligned it slightly not to the frame of this
image. So if you can identify clearly that this is your C fabric, the shear direction should be
parallel to the C fabric.

(Refer Slide Time: 39:18)

Now you see this also in micro-scale, so this is a quartz mylonite and you can clearly see that
we have one fabric which is C and then we have another fabric which is confined between
two sets of C fabrics. So this is C fabric and then you have S fabric which is at an angle
developing like this right, so in this case S is verging towards like this and C is like this, so
sense of shear in this case must be sinistral.

863
(Refer Slide Time: 40:09)

Now in the development of CS fabric we also produce because CS fabrics also do involve
lots of phyllosilicates, mica and so on and an interesting structure is being produced which is
known as mica fish, and these are your mica fish, let us have a look at this excellent image
from (())(40:34). So you can clearly see that these mica grains they are defining this S fabric
and these are C fabric okay.

So the sense of shear in this case is also sinistral, it should be parallel something like that. So
micas in mylonitic rocks tends to have tails that systematically curve away from the general
orientation of the 001 plane of the, this is the crystallographic plane of mica, such
microstructures are known as mica fish and the resulting asymmetry indicates the sense of
shear. Mica fish are commonly seem to be confined by the shear bands or in other ways c
shear bands and can be regarded as the type of SC structure, so this is S and this is C and
therefore the sense of displacement at least in this image is sinistral.

864
(Refer Slide Time: 41:51)

Now here I give you one photograph which are not going to demonstrate what it is, you can
identify the foliation and whether this is C or S, which one is C, which one is S and you try to
figure out that what is this or this is at all something from which we can conclude this is CS
fabric or not.

(Refer Slide Time: 42:15)

So C prime fabric we see here excellently, here the characters are little bit different so this
horizontal fabric that you see with the general horizontal strain this could be either C or S or
CS fabric together, but we clearly see that if I try to connect that these are not straight but
these are little bit wavy, ofcourse we have something here but we look about it later.

865
So we have a sense of displacement along this line, so we have a different fabric. And again
if we think of our marker deflection for example, if I try to focus it here, the curvature is
going like that and it is coming out somewhere like this, so the sense of shear within this
displacement is like this and this is consistent everywhere, wherever you look.

If you look at here, you will also see that this is going like this and if you clear here this is
going like this, so the sense of shear is at least on these bands are sinistral. So we can figure
out that these things are previous CS fabrics which was sub-parallel with the large strain, but
with continuous deformation they got sheared again successively stepwise to produce a series
of slip surfaces which are the C-prime fabric and altogether they are developing C, C prime
or CS, C prime or SC prime fabric.

And in this case because these are verging towards this side they are like this and we also
identified the sense of shear within this, a sense with the shear of the C prime fabric is
sinistral so bulk shear is also sinistral. You see that these are looking like a crenulation
cleavage, so you have this cleavage domain which is c prime, let me clean this.

866
(Refer Slide Time: 44:48)

So you have your crenulation domain which is c prime and then you have in between this
microlithons which have fabrics, so these are therefore known as also a special type of
crenulation cleavage and this is known as extensional crenulation cleavage or ECC, there are
few structural geologist or even few texts you can figure out it is like this.

(Refer Slide Time: 45:17)

Now we switch to the next type of kinematic indicators in the ductile shear zone and these are
porphyroclasts or sometimes you can use porphyroblasts as well but we will restrict to the
porphyroclasts terminology but it can include porphyroblasts as well as I talked about. So
porphyroclasts of fieldspar, quartz, mica or other minerals can develop a mantle or

867
recrystallized material that also forms tails and the deflection of the tails which are excellent
shear sense indicators and are excellent for figuring out what is the sense of shear.

And there are 3 types of porphyroclasts in the sense of identifying the shear direction. One is
sigma type, one is delta type and another is phi type. What we see here, we will see in this
detail in the illustration for individual, so this is the initial porphyroclasts which may be in a
circular pattern or spherical pattern in 3 dimension and then they form tails in different ways.

So here it is like this and if you rotate it, it actually looks like the Greek letter sigma, half
sigma okay or if you add it here then it forms something very similar to this. This is known as
delta because Greek letter delta looks like this and this simply you can add another wing and
it forms like this and this is phi because the Greek letter phi is something like that, so you can
draw it like this and then it becomes phi structure. So this is the names, so this is the way
these are named from the Greek letters.

(Refer Slide Time: 47:25)

So sigma type porphyroclasts have tails that do not cross the reference line. What do we see
here is this one is the reference line so some sort of median line that you can draw from the
middle of the clast. So this is the reference line and if the tails do not cross the reference
lines, so here it is like this, it did not comeback like this right. So if that happens then these
are known as sigma type clasts, the built type clasts they are characterised with the fact that
they cross the reference line, phi type clasts are symmetric about the reference line and these
are mostly produced in coaxial deformation.

868
We are not going to look at it at least in this class because these are not good shear strain
indicators, only sigma and delta type clasts. So from this we will take now the sigma type and
delta type of structures and how they are useful in figuring out kinematic sense of the shear
zones we will see one after another.

(Refer Slide Time: 48:45)

First the sigma type structure, so the tails of the sigma clasts they do extend parallel to the S
fabric and wage out from each side of the grain. The tails are essentially on opposite sides of
the reference line and the stepping up direction of the median line defines the sense of the
shear.

Now before we take look at this illustration, let us first have a very brief understanding what
is tail or what is a mantle structure that we talked about in the previous slide. So if you have a
large mineral clast something like that which is a porphyroclast or porphyroblast and you can
deform it by for example simple shear then the foliations would develop like this
perpendicular to the principle axis of stress and around this the foliations would wrap right,
we have seen this kind of illustration before.

So if I try to figure this one out, you particularly have seen this in the lineation lecture and
this place is known as the zone of pressure shadow. Now this pressure shadow zone is a low-
pressure zone so the fluids from this area they migrate here and they rest reside here and they
also contain a lots of minerals dissolved within these fluids and they slowly start depositing
around this place.

869
Now this is fantastic when it happens in the static condition, so these are known as mantle
structures and these are the tails that is forming this way. Now imagine, if we change the
mode of displacement or kinematics of this place, if we apply a shear here then this grain
would tend to rotate and while it is rotating it would also drag this tail or mantle structure.
and when this is happening, then this eventually would form some very interesting structures
and that may not remain symmetric with respect to the reference line.

And if it is not symmetric then we can have two possibilities, one is sigma type which we are
learning in this slide, and after a few slides we will learn another type of asymmetric tail
structure which is delta, so this is how it happens. Now coming back to this sigma structure,
we figured out that sigma structures are asymmetric structures and the tails generally do
orient themselves along the S fabric.

(Refer Slide Time: 53:15)

So what do we see here if this hexagon that is drawn here these illustrations are from lecture
(())(52:19). So then you have the hexagon here which is the minerals grain and then the tail
structure would form if the shear sense is dextral as it is given here with the black
arrowheads, so the S fabric would form in this manner and therefore the tail structure would
develop something like that and these are the strain shadow or pressure shadow zones.

And if we look at in that case, this is the reference line. So if we follow this it goes like this
and then it makes a step and works this way so we can figure things this way to figure out
what is the step or you can also think of this way that you can take the tip and then follow the
reference line, parallel to the reference line you also take a tip and follow the reference line

870
parallel to the reference line and then you connect these two and you see the step is
something like that.

And that tells you the sense of shear towards this side and in this case this is dextral sense of
shear at least form this illustration.

(Refer Slide Time: 53:42)

Now let us have some examples, so what do we see in this image illustration that this one is
the mineral grain, the rigid minerals grain and this is the strange shadow that we are looking
at, the sketch is given here on the other side this one and this is the scale. Now what do we
see here that this must be the reference line of this and if we try to figure out the step then I
find the tip and then I draw a parallel line with respect to the reference line.

Here is the tip, I again draw a parallel line with respect to the reference line, I connect these
two and therefore once I do that, step is moving upwards towards the left so the sense of
shear is sinistral in this case. Now these are the things that you should practice initially when
you see these kinds of structures but slowly your eyes will be trained and you will see you do
not have to do this, you will automatically figure out what is the sense of movement or sense
of displacement shear displacement when you see a sigma type clast.

871
(Refer Slide Time: 55:02)

Now here a series of examples that I have provided to you, so I am doing just here so you see
this is a clast here again and that line parallel to this and then you see that it is moving up so
the sense of shear is this way. This is another brilliant one, so the tail is something like this
here and tail is here and the reference line would be in this case something like that and again
you can draw a line parallel to the reference line such, you can draw a line parallel to the
reference line from the tip you come at the middle, you see the step is happening in this
direction, so this is a sense of shear, in this case it is also dextral.

Now this is little bit complex the third image, if I see for example there are many clasts, so if
I see this one here, it is referring to this side but if I see this one here this typical clast that I
am seeing here then it is suggesting this side. So when this happens it is little confusing so
you can take as many as you want, so you see different things and then statistically you say
okay the maximum clasts are showing say C displacement in this manner.

872
(Refer Slide Time: 56:33)

So this is the sense of shear, but that may not be always the true idea of doing it particularly
when you see something like this in your field. And you see there are many clasts and they
are producing alternate sense of shear in many-many cases. For example, if you look at this
you have phi structures, you have also sigma structures and so on all together. When you
have lots of clasts and they are highly concentrated, it is advised that you do not interpret the
shear sense from this kind of exposures.

The reason is, in this case this clasts are not independent, so the tail and the rotation of the
clasts itself is not governed essentially or exclusively by the sense of shear. Sometimes the
clast for example, if I consider this one this clast and this clast, the rotation of this clast or the
tail structure of this clast would be highly damaged or altered by rotation of this clast so
because they are interacting each other.

And this is a subject of study in structure geology, subject of research that when you have
multiple clast how do they interact and sometimes the clasts are also deformable, so all these
to take into account, it is advisable at the very beginning stage that you do not interpret shear
sense for this kind of exposures unless you are convinced from some other places. The
bottom line of this slide is that try to see an independent isolated clast which did not get any
interference from the other clast the deformation of which is solely or exclusively by the bulk
shear direction.

873
(Refer Slide Time: 58:25)

Delta structure is also very interesting, so the clast entrains and coils the tails in a sense
consistent with the bulk shear to produce an embed shape. And consequently the folded
wings wrap around the clast and cross the reference line in the clast. So in this case what
happens, you see this is again the minerals grain that we are talking about, the rigid mineral
grain. And because this grain is rotating significantly, so the tail it also gets dragged in this
way when the bulk sense of shear is in this case dextral.

And then you see in this side you develop a concave embayment which is this one, and in this
side you develop a convex embayment. This is the reference line again and the tails
essentially cross the reference line due to the rotation of the grain and at the same time
dragging of the tail of the upper tail and the lower tail.

In this case, you can figure out what is the sense of rotation and once you figure out what is
the sense of rotation then you also see the embayment, so the direction of embayment
actually also suggests the sense of shear. So if I have the direction of embayment convex
embayment here and the concave embayment here then the rotation is happening in this way
and that clearly tells you with respect to the matrix foliation the sense of shear in this case is
dextral.

We have seen this first image before and you can clearly say it is very similar that this is the
clast and approximately this is the reference line. You have the embayment here, the convex
embayment and the concave embayment, so if you draw arrows this way this gives you the
sense of rotation first, and second thing also tells you with respect to the foliation outside

874
which is not disturbed by the rotation of this, the sense of shear in this case is dextral. Not
necessarily you will see fantastic images like this, for example here this is the clast again the
second one, here it is going like this and here it is going like this.

So it is moving in this way, it is moving in this way, this is the sense of rotation and sense of
shear therefore would be something like that.

(Refer Slide Time: 61:16)

875
People have done lots of work in understanding this delta structure and here I would like to
show you analog experiment and see how it happens. So what do we see here? This is the
clast thing and this black thing is a mantle or the fluid that would be dragged so you see here.
So you see it is rotating rotating and then you eventually form a structure like this where this
was your clast.

This is the tail structure that we see it here, this is the reference line, this is embayment, this is
another embayment and we know, we have seen that it was rotating in this manner so the
sense of shear here is something like that. And in the field you see in a very similar way the
structures like this and this is little complex but it is producing something as we see here, so
this was a clast, the tail one is like this and another tail is going like that, so again this is the
direction, this is the direction, it was rotating like this, sense of shear is again dextral.

876
(Refer Slide Time: 62:56)

You can also see some very nice images, this one we also have seen and I let you decide that
what is the sense of shear. First you figure out the clast then tail structure, you figure out the
embayment and then you see the sense of rotation and after that you can also see the step over
with respect to the reference line and then you figure out what is the sense of shear. You have
two examples here, one is this one and another is this one.

(Refer Slide Time: 63:28)

Let us talk about another kind of kinematic indicators and these are known as bookshelf
structures or fractured objects. Now sometimes in a ductile shear zone you have clasts which
are highly cleaved or the minerals itself are characterised by their own cleavage for example,

877
mica and feldspar. And while the shearing is happening these grains may not undergo ductile
deformation but they prefer to sleep along their cleavage planes or crystallographic planes.

And therefore, in the sense of shear or with respect to the sense of shear these cleavage planes
act as some minor slip planes and they produce some typical structures, we have learned
about it in detail in our boudinage lecture.

So what is written here, mica and feldspar, they tend to shear on discrete fractures or
crystallographic planes to accommodate ductile deformation in the surrounding matrix. The
individual crystal fragments rotate in the sense of the shear direction and these micro
fractures is could be either synthetic or antithetic to the general sense of shear which makes
them litigious sense of shear indicators and these are known as also bookshelf structure as I
told you.

So if a series of books kept on the bookshelf and if you just tilt them or shear them they
would slip on each other for example, here this book is slipping in this way, book is moving
in this way, this way and this way and therefore each book is rotating in this manner. Now we
will see this in the field as well or in the thin section particularly in ductile shear zone rich
with feldspar and mica.

(Refer Slide Time: 65:23)

So first we take over the synthetic fracture objects, if the fractures or minerals cleavage
initially make a relatively low angle with a sense of shear or with respect to the shear plane
then the shear sense on these fractures is the same as it is on the matrix, implying some back

878
rotation of the fragment. Further shearing motion can lead to the separation of this individual
fragment and displaced crystal show displacement consistent with the bulk sense of the shear.

So again you can imagine this is a mineral grain this one which is harder and these are the
crystallographic planes or some fracture planes, you can imagine this is a feldspar and then
the bulk shear in this case again dextral as it is given by these arrows, so what happens the
crystals then tend to sleep in the similar sense of shear displacement because low angle and
you can figure out these are actually defining the R1 shear fractures.

So with continued deformation these grains actually would try to rotate backwards therefore
this back rotation is important and then you develop a step like features and you generate an
antithetic rotation of this grain, but the sense of displacement is very much synthetic. If you
see this then the sense of shear is essentially dextral, let us see some images.

(Refer Slide Time: 67:13)

And for the antithetic displacement there, the initial slip on the antithetic fractures is opposite
to the bulk sense of shear and that is why we have the antithetic term. This is possible if the
fracture or mineral cleavage initially make a high angle with the shear plane, as we see here
so this is again the shear direction say for example, here we have given it as dextral and this
initial fracture planes or cleavage planes are oriented with respect to the shear plane at an
high angle.

If that happens then the sense of shear changes along this fracture planes, they rotate or they
slip this way. And what do we see here? So the mineral fragments between these micro
fractures are thus rotating consistently with the rotation of the surrounding matrix. So the

879
rotation of these minerals say they rotate this way, so the rotation is synthetic with respect to
the bulk shear direction but the sense of shear is antithetic and these are known as antithetic
shear fractures and with this it is possible for us to touch identify the sense of shear.

(Refer Slide Time: 68:36)

So here are two examples as we see here, so this is the fractured object this one you see these
are the fracture planes and they slipped in this manner we can figure out from the steps and
the sense of shear is in this case dextral and here as well you see that they rotated in this
manner, these are the fractures, we have seen this image before, these are the fracture planes
and they are rotating the slipping in this manner which is opposite to the sense of shear and
the bulk sense of shear is again in this case dextral, so this is synthetic and this is antithetic.

880
(Refer Slide Time: 69:17)

Now I have an excellent image for you to do some brainstorming, again it is from the same
experiment and what we see here in this image, scanning electronic microscopy image that
this grain overall apparently showing sigma clast when we look at this way, but they are
producing lots of fracture, So we can do a kinematic analysis and figure out just looking at it
what is the sense of shear. You see I just give you clue that you see two fractures going like
this and some incipient fractures are producing here in this case like this, you have some
fractures here and here.

First you do a geometric model that means you first try to identify what are the fractures and
so on then try to figure out what is the sense of displacement along these individual tiny
fractures and finally figure out what would be your bulk sense of shear, it is dextral or it is
sinistral, or it is at an angle to this or it is not at an angle to the reference frame or maybe
something like that or something like this or it is something like this or something like that.

So this is how you can figure it out, so this is a problem for you to think, you first deal your
geometric model then you try to build the kinematic model and figure out what is the sense of
shear in this illustration.

881
(Refer Slide Time: 70:54)

Now we will go to another kind of kinematic indicators which are fibrous and veins. The
orientation of extensional veins indicate the sense of shear in mylonites. Now veins forming
under non-coaxial deformation will rotate from the moment they initially generate and this
results in a sigmoidal geometry that can be used to determine the sense of shear. So here are
two illustrations, what we see here that once I have initiated the shear in the sinistral manner
as we see here, then the bulk strain ellipsoid could be like this instantaneously ISA, I am just
exaggerating it from the original one.

So once I have an ellipse like that in response to the sense of sinistral shear then clearly this is
the long axis and this is the short axis. In other ways we can figure out that this is the
compression direction and this is the extension direction, if that happens then it is obvious
that fractures would produce like this. So they would have this orientation, again we have
learned this in our fracture lecture okay.

So we can produce a series of fractures, let us take one of them as an example like this, so
this is the fracture which generally tend to form at an angle of 45 degrees with respect to the
long axis of the instantaneous strain ellipse. Now the shear continues and this initial fracture
which got generated would rotate back this way, is not it? So it would tend to rotate like this.

So if that happens then it would take a shape like this but the second instantaneous strain
ellipse which is coming in the next stage with the progressive deformation would still form
fractures at 45 degrees because this is the orientation of the instantaneous strain ellipse. So
the new fractures or the growth would happen along this direction, so essentially you will

882
produce shape which is sigmoidal like this and this can continue-continue-continue and then
you eventually can have a shape like this where (my god) where this is the latest orientation
which is about 45 degrees and this was once upon a time 45 degrees but now it got rotated
significantly.

But at the same time you see that once this got significant rotation then instead of continuing
from its steep it may produce new fracture along this way and then it again continues rotation
in a very similar way and so on which is illustrated here. Now if that happens then you see
that once the sense of shear is sinistral then you form sigmoidal shape which is like English
letter S.

And if this happens in dextral manner then the strain ellipse, instantaneous strain ellipse
would be like this, this is the long axis so this is the stretching direction, the fractures would
tend to form like this and then it would rotate and eventually would form something like this
which is like English letter Z and that may have another fracture like this.

So if you see fibres or veins or extensional shear fractures within the shear zone with a shape
of S then this must be sinistral. And if you see in a similar way the shape of Z then this must
be dextral, but these are instantaneous references, it is important that while concluding that
whether it is S or Z and then you conclude whether this is sinistral or dextral, it is important
that you make some sketches, you understand the processes and then go further with your
conclusion.

883
(Refer Slide Time: 76:23)

So here are some examples as you can see here, these are excellent tensile fractures, it has a
shape of sigmoidal, the shape here and here as well, and you can figure out that what is the
sense of shear from the slide we just learned.

And here you see that we have one set of initial thing which is sigmoidal and then you see a
series of other fracture planes are coming out this way, these are secondary or latter fractures
of later stage, and this is how these fibres and veins, the tensile fibres and veins in particular
they help you to figure out what is the sense of shear and in both cases at least in this example
we see these are in the Z form, so the shear sense is dextral.

884
(Refer Slide Time: 77:21)

Now finally we will see the folds in the shear zone when we are speaking about or talking
about the characteristics of shear zone we said or we spell it out that shear zones are
characterised by a symmetric folds and sheath fold and reclined folds. Now sheath fold is one
of the very interesting folds which once upon a time was termed as I fold and sometimes
people used to confuse it with the dome and basin structures, but later researchers figured out
that mechanism of formation of this kind of folds because it was only restricted in the shear
zones.

So people researched on it, they performed some analog experiments and they figured out it
is essentially a product of shear zone and we see this only within the shear zone and these are
known as sheath folds. So in mylonite zones, folds form and grow continuously during
shearing. At high strains, the foliation in a shear zone will in theory be almost parallel to the
shear plane as we have learned.

It will still be in the extensional field but so closed to the shear plane that just a modest
perturbation of the layering can make it enter in the contractional field, layer parallel
compression to make the fold. And what is this modest little perturbation or how folds do
form in the shear zone is something a topic of research. So the result is a family of folds that
verge in accordance with respect to the shear.

So what we see in this illustration that this is the foliation shear is going on which is given in
this purple arrow head, so little small perturbation would produce a tiny undulation here that
you see here with this little shade. And if things continue then these tiny undulations would

885
accentuate to produce something like that, any further actuates these 2 sides are pinned and
this would continue to propagate.

So eventually forms something which is like a flat cone right and this you see in this image
excellent field photograph here and these are known as sheath folds. And you know what is
sheath? Sheath is a container where warriors used to rest their swords or the shape is like this
as you can see here. So sheath is something like that, so where warriors they used to keep
their swords in their thing and the sword is inside this, so this is known as sheath and the fold
is very much similar to this kind of sheath and therefore this is known as sheath fold. A cross
section of this if I make a cross-section then it will look like this as you see here.

(Refer Slide Time: 80:30)

Now people have seen them in the field so this is the initiation of the sheath fold as you can
see here, they move like wave and with further deformation you can generate sheath folds
like this. So if you go to mylonitic zone and keep your eyes open, you know the theory what
is sheath fold, you know how does it look like, it is essential or it is obvious that you must
find a sheath fold in the shear zone.

886
(Refer Slide Time: 80:55)

And here are some excellent examples, I took it from Yun’s paper and Yun alsop and then
you see that these are extreme beautiful examples of sheath folds. You can also if you are
interested, you can go and read this excellent paper in 2007 published in journal of structural
geology.

(Refer Slide Time: 81:15)

And finally the asymmetric folds, so the sense of the versions of this foliation plane of the
fold, they generally define the shear sense. So for example you see here, this is the general
shear zone foliation going like that but few foliations would tend to develop some kind of
folds as we can see such here, as we can see such here and in many other places, this also
rotated this way and so on.

887
So if that happens then the versions of the axial plane of this asymmetric folds would give
you the sense of shear which is in this case dextral. You can see also you here there are many
minor folds and then a large fold and so on, so this is essentially an asymmetric fold the way
we learnt in our fold lecture, we see also one here and it is verging in this side so therefore
again sense of shear here is like this.

(Refer Slide Time: 82:13)

And I have the final picture here what we see here, this is how the mylonite look like
extremely foliated rock as we can see here and you see some folds going like this. And the
versions is like this, so in this case the sense of shear is sinistral so in this lecture we have
learned a number of kinematic indicators of ductile shear zones that can help you to identify
the sense of shear.

I said during the lecture but I would like to repeat it again, do not conclude just observing
only one feature on the sense of shear, you look for some other evidences, at least collect
good number of evidences, you be convinced by yourself and then you conclude that yes this
is the sense of shear. So I conclude this lecture and with this I we all finish the basic
understandings of the structural geology. We covered all topics which are relevant for
structural geology but we learned them only on the slides or with some field photograph.

888
(Refer Slide Time: 83:27)

The primary job or what is expected from structural geologist is that he or she should be an
expert of reading and performing Litho-structural mapping and this is one of the most
important aspects of structural geology, and this is what we are going to learn in the next
lecture or the last week which is the basics of structural mapping is the topic of the next
week. Thank you very much, have a nice time, I will see you in the next week.

889
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture -33
Basic of Litho-Structural Mapping
(Refer Slide Time: 00:28)

Hello everyone, I hope you are doing well. Welcome back again to this online structural
geology NPTEL course. This is our last week. That is week number 12 and we are in our
lecture Number 33. As we have concluded in the last lecture of the previous week that we
more or less have learnt the basics of structural geology.

So it is a very beginning we understood the different processes. Then we understood stress,

strain. We learnt how to measure dip and strike different structural elements out of that we
moved to the rheology the deformation mechanism and after that we learnt a series of
important structures their characteristics, geometries, how to interpret them and these
included folds, fault, joints, buddinajs and so on.

In this lecture will particularly focus on the basics of Litho-structural mapping. As a geologist
it is very very important that he or she knows the basics or the methods of geological
mapping. Nowadays there are many techniques which are digitized or there are many
equipments which are essentially helpful or reduces time and also you do not have to go to
the field always.

Some you can use some satellite images and you can use several techniques or modeling
techniques to interpret some very interesting geological feature that sometimes we cannot

890
interpret going to the field. But as an undergraduate student it is important that you
understand the basics of structural geology and its mapping techniques.

This lecture will particularly focus on that having said this I must say that structural mapping
or geological mapping is something that one has to learn in the field and because this is an
online course it is not possible to demonstrate all these techniques. What I have included in
this lecture is mostly some very basics in the sense that so far we have learnt about the
structures their geometries and so on. These we mostly considered about their geometries
there dispositions and so on and we restricted them inside a block diagram either in three
dimensions or two dimensions.

Now we have not considered that how they would look like in the field. Well we have seen
some outcrop patterns of superposed folds and so on also it we learnt about them in the fault
lectures. But again and the surfaces that we constructed that this would be the map view was
essentially a flat surfaces is not it.

But you know that earth surface is not flat even within 10 or 15 meters it can be extremely
unrelated and therefore the interaction of the structures with the earth surface is something
very important to consider and understand to particularly figure out the local and regional
structures.

In this lecture will mostly focus on that and we will figure out the processes that one can have
some ideas about litho-structural mapping. We will learn some very basics will not go into
the complex structures we even do not go even deformed structures for example will not
going to include fold, fault and so on but we mostly restrict our self on a flat bed which is
dipping differently and we will see how and why we can interpret different structural features
out of it.

891
(Refer Slide Time: 04:28)

Continuing this we will learn in this lecture some very basic formats and composition of a
geological map. Then will try to understand what is topography and its interaction with the
lithology and mostly bedding planes or any planer fabrics that how they interact with each
other.

After that we will see when you are discussing this topography and lithology will discover
that there is something very interesting which is rule of V and finally will figure out that even
if a bed or a feature is not exposed on the surface that where you cannot measure dip and
strike but you can have the line which is connecting the two different lithologys on the
surface of the Earth which is contoured which is which has a topography then how to
calculate the strike and dip with the help of structural contour.

So, let us start with the very first Idea and the books I have suggested you at the very
beginning of this lectures may not be very very helpful in understanding this lecture or
feature analysis related to structural maps and so on.

892
(Refer Slide Time: 05:40)

So here are 3 books that I personally like and I also would like to recommend this books for
this particular class and also a for your future reference. The first one is geological structures
and maps written by Professor Richard lisle this is a published from Elsevier 3rd edition
2004.

The second book is structural analysis and synthesis it is written by Rowland Etel published
in 2007 from Blackwell and the third one is one of the latest once it talks about geological
field techniques Angela Coe edited this book along with 4 or 3 coauthors I exactly do not
remember but this is published in 2010 and it is from Wiley and Blackwell.

Now, I personally would recommend the first book a must to have if you would like to
continue with geological mapping and to be very specific with the structural geology. The
second and third book interestingly deal with many many techniques that you should learn in
the field it gives you the very basic ideas what is dip? What is strike? How to measure it?
How to hold the compass? How to take the reading? How to take the reading On the
Notebook? How to interpret them? How to construct things in the field directly and so on.

These are very handful but again these are not the scope of this lecture I hope in future I can
come up with another course I have to design it differently on geological mapping and so on
particular with Emphasis of structural elements. But these 3 books are very very important
and in this lecture whatever I am going to show you is mostly derived from the book of
Professor Lisle the illustrations and diagrams I have redrawn it but it is essentially from his
book.

893
(Refer Slide Time: 07:29)

So what is the geological map? You know all this what is but this is how more or less you can
define it a geological map a describe it in way it you do not have to define everything. A
geological map shows the distribution of various types of Bedrock in an area. The map is
usually prepared over a topographic map which takes into account the various forms and
elevation depression of the Earth surface.

In the map the different lithologies are generally shaded or coloured or symbolled with or
without structural data and may other data to show where different Rock units occur at or just
below the ground surface.

So many things are written here let us take the highlights of these statements. So for this first
of all a geological map essentially gives you the surficial data maybe few meters or few tens
of meters and so on. So what you see on the surface is essentially included in the geological
map looking at a geological map you may not conclude what is happening at 10 or 15
kilometers down or even 1 kilometer down it may be completely different.

And then therefore a geological map essentially represents the various features various Rock
types that you see in the field and you compose them together with the different Rock type
that we have seen their contacts and so on. And generally, the map if it is very large scale
map it is done over a topographic map which you can consider that this is a reference of your
area and the topographic map is very very useful we have a couple of slides and topography
and it is a topographic map and its usefulness and so on.

894
So generally large-scale maps are drawn over topography topographic maps but you can also
considered a plane paper mapping and so on. If we have to do a very detailed mapping in say
a 10 meters by 10 meters area then topographic map is not that much useful because
topographic maps are generally very large scale. Again, these are different techniques but
there are large scale mapping and plain paper mapping in large-scale mapping you need the
help of topographic map but in plain paper mapping no.

The primary thing in a geological map is mostly the lithological contacts and their disposition
on the surface but if say a lithological contact is faulted then you can use some symbols and
therefore you start introducing the structural elements on your map or maybe you have series
of lithologies planar lithologies and their deep into a certain direction so you can include the
strike and dip in the map and therefore you again introduced the different structural features.

For example, you see that in the field this is synform so I can use the symbol of synform you
can use a symbol of anti form and so on and by this slowly add many many many information
as much as you can based on you need to the geological map. People also add many other
features say geophysical measurements say you can add density you can add many other
features conductivity in the corresponding to particular lithology of particular feature of your
map.

So geological map is essentially very very important not only for geologists not only for
interpreting the structure original tectonics or know what is there but it is essentially
important also for engineers for constructing dams or buildings or roads and so on. So yes
this is very very important we have to learn how to read and how to interpret and how to
prepare it is a geologist that is a primary job of us.

895
(Refer Slide Time: 11:34)

So here is an example of a geological map I took it from geological survey of India and this is
what you see the map of Sikkim is a state in the North Eastern part of India. So the state is
like this this part is the Whitish part that you see this snow-covered and people could not
figure out the lithology and so on but you see that this map shows very nicely the different
lithologies with different colours.

So this pink has a different lithology, this purple has a different lithology, this red has a
different lithology, this grey has a different lithology and they are disposed in a different way
in a map and you can see many other maps just type geological map and you will see many
different features in this map.

Also you can see that here these the structural data are included there the dip and strike are
included here and so on, so this also tells you a very very important information about this
area and a geological map essentially comes with something called Legend. So you have to
explain what are the different colours or what the different symbols are you have to explain
what are the different features that you are using the line drawings and so on.

These are also very important and finally what is most important in any geological map is
that you provide the scale this is very important will learn about it that what scale I am
looking at that if I measure 2 centimeters in this map that means how much I am measuring in
the real scale is it hundred meters is it 1 kilometer or is it 4 kilometer or even more and this is

896
also very important that you indicate what is the direction of North sometimes people indicate
the direction of North at the same time the indicate also the latitudes and longitudes in the
map that also tells you where exactly in the earth you have mapped or the map is located.

So these are the very important aspects of this map apart from the different colours indicating
different lithologies the different symbols of structural data and so on. You have to have a
legend, you have to have a scale in your map. You have to assign what is a north direction
and if possible, in the map you also if it is large scale map is suggest what is the latitude and
longitude your mapping area is.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:54)

Now how this map is constructed again I am not going into the detail, but I tell you it is not a
very easy task. So there are series of processes geologist in the field first has to go and then
he has to record the nature of rock where it is visible at the surface and it is not visible
everywhere that is quite common.

Then Rock outcrops and characteristics such as Rock composition, distribution, and
relationship of structural elements fossil contents etc, the geologists to do record in his
notebook and so on and nowadays maybe in the mobile phone, a laptop or with some digital
mapping softwares.

Now using all these details, the geologist then distinguishes different units in the field at he
has she has seen and then he tries to plot them separately in the map or on the base of the
topographic map. Now the geologist can include some additional information for example of

897
geophysical data is taken into account when the geologist decides to add other parameters
like density, strength, seismic velocity and so on the map. Nevertheless there are always parts
of the map where more uncertainty exist about the nature of the Bedrock and it is important
for the reader of the map to realize that a good deal of interpretation is used in the map
making processes.

What I mean by this that it comes actually from this place that where it is visible at the
surface. I do not see rocks everywhere but you map it and then you use your intelligence to
interpret that if I see this rock here and if I see the same rock here how they are connected
maybe your interpretation is wrong but based on your experience based on your intelligence
based on your theoretical background you conclude this is how it should be someone can
challenge it but this is how we always work.

But once you look at a geological map you be sure that a lot of uncertainties are involved in
this map so do not take any map as granted unless I mean particularly if it is really required
for some very special jobs so better you go to the field match it that is this is what is
happening otherwise you take it if it is from a good source.

And final part is of course the interpretation that once you have a geological map this is a job
done but after the map is ready then it is very important that you interpret the structure you
interpret the feature you interpret the lithology and so on but this is something else that you
would learn in a different class a different lectures.

So, as I was talking about their many modern techniques which are very very useful, but it is
also important as a student you go to the field with your field instructor structure with your
teacher and learn how to hold a compass learn how to take back bearing learn how to take
front bearing. You take your steps with a measuring tape and then do Different techniques
because not always everywhere you will you can use all this modern techniques.

898
(Refer Slide Time: 17:11)

So let us talk about the topographic map for a while you know that what is a topo map we
generally called it topo map or topo sheet, so a topographic maps represent numerically the
complex curves and elevations of earth surface with the contour lines. Now a control line is a
line joining the points of equal elevation on a surface and the contour lines I represent the
intersection of those curves with imaginary horizontal surface at regular intervals.

We will see topographic map and other things with some good illustrations later but a contour
line or a series of contour lines should have some very special characters because the contour
lines indicate equal elevation on a surface. Every point along a control line is the exact same
elevation.

899
Contour lines therefore can never cross each other if you see a Contour map going like this
going like that and then another country map like this then this is something very very strange
and you discard the map immediately. So this is not something you should look at.

A contour line must close on itself. So that is also something that you need to see maybe it is
not closing in your map area but it has to close somewhere and the lowest closing point is of
course sea level will see that. The map distance between two adjacent contour lines may vary
but there elevation difference should remain constant. What I mean by that that say you have
a contour line going like this and you write this is say 80 meters then you have the next
control line something like that this is 70 meters and this is your saying on a map say this is
you have a scale for that.

See the map scale this distance and this distance is essentially different but the change of
elevation from here to here is 10 meters and here to here is as well 10 meters so does not
matter how far the contour lines are. But two adjacent contour lines always should represent a
very similar elevation and that gives you an another idea when the 2 adjacent contour lines
are closely spaced that means this is steeper compared to when they are spaced far from each
other that means they have a gentle slope will see the soon.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:30)

So the use of topographic map is very significant and topographic map also do contains
significant information. It tells you about the roads, buildings, urban development, railways,
airports, names of the places and geological features, geographical features, then
administrative boundaries, state and international boundaries, reserves and so on. It also tells

900
you about the water bodies of this area like lakes, rivers, streams, swamps, a coastal flats
excreta. It also tells you because it is a topographic map about the relief of this region say
mountains, valleys, contour and cliffs, depressions, basins and so on.

It also tells you about the vegetation of this area so whether this area is a jungle, wooded area,
reserved forest, vineyards lands or orchards and so on. All these things all this information
you get from topographic maps. So a topographic map it is not necessarily we geologists use
it is used in every community particularly those who deal with the nature. In addition to that
geological structures such as bidding contacts faults and folds also do interact and intersect
the topography along some lines and this is exactly what you are going to learn in this lecture
after a while.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:48)

So topographic map generally come with different scales and the scales are given generally in
this for that what topographic map you have and I said 1 to 50,000 what does it mean it
means that 500 meters is equal to 1 cm so this is how is it is given. So if I tell that I have a
map of 1 to 50,000 that means in the map if I measure 1 centimeter by my scale or ruler that
distance represents 500 meters in the actual area. So similarly you can have 1 to 20,000 that
means 200 meters, 1 to 24,000 that means 240 meters and so on. And then finally 1 to 20
Lakh ratio that means 1 centimeter in the map is equivalent to 20 kilometers in the region.

So this column represents this things in centimeters or meter scale and their it is inch and
miles scale. So very similarly 20 kilometers in 1 to 20 Lakh map scaled map it should be 1
inch in the map if you can measure that represents about 32 miles in the actual area.

901
(Refer Slide Time: 22:07)

There are some terminologies that involved in the topographic map so we learnt few of them
but let us have a look in in this list. So contour lines contour lines are isolines that show equal
elevation on a map at defined intervals this you have learnt. Then magnetic North not
according to the Earths magnetic poles rather than its Geographic poles therefore if you have
magnetic pole then you must have declination, so declination from the true North is given in
mils 1 mils is equal to 1 divided by 6400 of 360 degrees.

The true North is the Geographic north and this is what we all understand when you talk
about North declination have learnt so a measurement of the degree to which a grid or
magnetic North varies from the true North. Then grid is a network of uniformly spaced lines
on the face of a map intersecting at right angles and usually running north south and east
west.

Grids are often numbered and can be used to define position by rectangular coordinates and
grids generally does not care about the contour lines so does not matter how steep the slope is
or how gentle the slope is or whether it is flat or not grids ignore everything and generally run
either north-south or east-west or if you have define them in a different way. And then you
have Meridian. Meridian is a starting point or line usually line of longitude for a numbering
system if the numbers continued to the section of the earth into grid.

902
(Refer Slide Time: 23:48)

Now this is how the topographic maps are indexed. So this is our India. So India is generally
gridded with this numbers for example we can have this 45 here or 63 and so on. Then this is
a single grid now within this grid you actually divide this grid in 16 sub grids and then you
define them as it is written here A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H up to P and then each of these grids A
for example here it is given here then again you sub divided by 16 grids and then you again
numbered them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and so and so this process continuous.

So for example if I want map of D here then I have to say that I need 55 D and if you need a
map of 55D3 that means you have this grid 55 then you have this D and then D is divided
again in 16 segments and then you are looking for something here. So more numbers and
alphabets you add to your topo map more high resolution you go with the mapping process
and the topo map as well has legends so these are the different things that you see in the
topographic maps.

So, it is important when you look at it for the first time you actually read this and see what is
what that is that is also important so that once you read it will remember so you do not have
to look back every time unless you forget. But it is important ones you read a map you see
what it is and not necessarily in each and every map you see this Legend is attached maybe
you scan something for you crop something and then the scanner thought that ok legends are
not important so he cut it out or cropped it out and you do not have it so it is better you
remember what is what.

903
(Refer Slide Time: 25:54)

Now this is how a topographic map looks like. So this is something digitally constructed so
you see the colours are varying. So the highest elevation is marked by red and slowly it is
going to the cooler colours to the blue and you see that these black lines these are actually
making your equal elevations in this region. But this image here is representing in a much
better way.

So what you see here we have a valley, a river is flowing through this valley and we have 2
little elevations here. We also see that in this elevation the slope is going down here the slope
is going down here it is going down this side. This is one of the maximum elevations we see.
We also see that slope is here very gentle here the slope is extremely high. We also see some
little rivers or whatever channels are flowing along these valleys and so on.

And this is where you have the sea and on the sea you have also some cliffs where the slope
is almost perpendicular. Now if I have to represent in the topographic map then it looks like
this. So here you see that it is contoured and by this you can actually figure out though it is
map view but you can figure out towards which direction the slope is changing.

For example this is 260 this is 200 this is 100 so you can clearly figure out that this is how the
slope is decreasing and once you know that then you can also figure out that this is how it is
decreasing here but here you see the spacing is much much higher compared to the spacing
here. So this is a steep slope and this is exactly what we have seen here.

904
Now this is the river is flowing and we also see that here we have the highest elevation and at
highest elevation if you see a concentric circle that is the highest elevation of this region and
that must be closed by a circle and then the other contours must should follow it in different
ways, but this is how it is.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:57)

Now it is also important that you train your eyes so when you look a topographic map you try
to visualize that what is the elevation of that region, so I have given 4 example here 2 are in
this slide so the first column is outcrop map or plan view and you see here from 50 that is the
lowest elevation in meters to 300 it is going. So 300 is the highest peak here and here is the
highest point and it is marked by a concentric circle.

905
If we have to make a cross section from A to B of this region then I should get something like
this. So if I see something like that and values are given then it should be like this. Now if the
values are opposite way for example this one is 300 and this one is 50 then A to B in this case
should be something like that. So these are actually depressions but here the values are
increasing towards core of this contour so this is you have 2 hillocks here 1 hillock this one
another hillock this one this one and this one.

Very similarly you see here as I talked about so here we start again at 50 and end up 350
meters. In this side the contours are closely spaced in this side contours are not that closely
spaced. So here the slope is very gentle here slope is extremely steep. So just you look at this
contour pattern and you can figure out what is the section or how it should look like when
you actually see them in the field.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:27)

This is another one so you see we have 2 concentric circles but this concentric circle closes at
200 meters and this closes at 350 meters. So therefore this must be of higher elevation
compared to this and if you make a section you actually can see that this is your 350 and this
is somewhere is your 200. So this is how you actually visualize and this is another one we
have a single peak and we get a single peak here will see in one of the next slide that how to
construct this elevation map profile map from this contour maps and this is exactly where it
is.

906
(Refer Slide Time: 30:06)

So we will have a lab demonstration on this but I explain you briefly. So whenever you see a
topographic map and if you have to draw the profile the first thing you have to decide that
from which section you would like to draw the profile. For example here the profile should
be drawn along this line, so this is X and this is Y.

Now we have series of contour lines so for example this contour line is 75 meters and then
this contour line is closing here and then we have 150 meters here which is this one and if
this is 150 this is 75 then this one should be even lower. But if we do this then we can figure
out that it is cutting across this XY line the number of contours.

So what you do you take a strip of paper which is this one and align the age of this paper
along XY line and once you aline it then you mark this places or points where it is
intersecting the contour lines. So here for example number the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and so on. Once
you are done then it is important that you draw a Cartesian co-ordinate system where your
horizontal axis should be the distance XY and this should be your elevations.

And this distance you can fix by yourself depending on the scale you would like to see but
make sure that these are all equal. Say for example you can figure out that this is 75 meter
this is 150 meters and so on.

Now you arrange your strip here this paper strip that you have where you have marked this 1
then 2 then 3 then 4 and then 5 intersections of the strip of the papers so this comes here. And
you see that 1 your value is almost at the sea level so because this is sea so this close to 0 so

907
at 1 you have somewhere here. Then at point 2 here the value is 75 meter, so you have to plot
a point here at 75 meter.

At 3 your value is 150 meters the value of the point 3 so you come here and the value is 150
meters. At 4 again this contour is coming back and we are at 150 meters so we come here and
plot it like this and then at 5 again we are touching this 75 contour so it is like this, of course
you can grid your map first so that you do not have to do it but once you are expert you can
do it just by putting your scale accordingly the way you need. But these are the points that we
got and simply you can connect these points like this. Now here you can make it flat or you
can make it little curved there is no harm. So this is the elevation or profile along XY line of
this.

So does not matter how is your topography and so on you can cross section say A to B say
this is 20 this is 30 this is 40 this is 50 and this is 60. So if you draw a profile along this again
we have to put a strip paper, paper strip here. So you mark this point, this point, this point,
this point, this point, this point and so on we go on and then you again may make your grid
and then you know the values you plot it you will get series of points and then you are done.
But we will have little lab demonstration on this that how to construct the profile from a
topographic map.

(Refer Slide Time: 34:45)

Now let us come to a very important part that so far we have figured out what is topographic
map? How to get the profile and so on. But you may have different lithologies which are
intersecting or interacting with the topography. For example if you have a flat horizontal bed

908
and if you have a flat topography then you do not see the other beds which is below the flat
bed because it is only single bed you will see because bed is flat topography is flat.

Now if your bed is again flat but your topography is in a particular slope in a very gentle
slope then topography would go down and at one point of time it would cut the contact
between one bed to another bed. So other bed will be exposed on the topography. And this
can be a valley topography, a mountain in topography and so on.

So there are 3 possibility that you have horizontal beds with one is flat topography, slope
topography and Valley topography. Then you can have uniformly dipping beds and again you
can have flat topography, slope topography and valley topography. And this is exactly what
rule of V is we learn about it soon. But let us try to understand this process in a better way.

(Refer Slide Time: 36:21)

Say for example you have a bed here like this which is a green one which is sloping and this
is some other rocks. So we have a bed which is sloping in this way and then you have some
other rocks around this. Now with time what can happen it can erode uniformly. So you see
that this got eroded and because this bed is sloping then you can clearly see that this is a
horizontal surface. So you see that you have say lithology A then lithology B and again
lithology A. So you have A then B then A and they are absolutely fine no problem.

Now if the erosion happens and you get a sloppy topography so the topography is uniformly
sloping here as you can see here so this is the slope. Then you of course generate some
contour lines, these is white dotted lines are your contour lines and again there is no variation

909
here except bed thickness changed on the exposed surface area. But now if there is a river
flowing here as we see here so it would cut a gorge or make a Canyon or whatever.

Then the question is how on this river valley this bed would look like? Because it would have
also contours like this. So would it look like this or would it be a straight line straight bed or
it would be like this and so on. You may guess how it should look like but there is a rule and
this rule is known as rule of Vs. We will see this soon but before that let us see some other
interesting features.

(Refer Slide Time: 38:18)

What do you see here in the first image or first illustration that is the surface of the Earth for
example which has a flat sloping surface and then you have to 2 different lithologies say this
is A the green one and this light cream one is B and their contact is somewhere here. So when
it intersects like this and this is a topography, so this is the lowest elevation that you can see
here 20 meters and it goes up to 90 meters towards this direction and this is the line it is
cutting or intersecting the topography the boundary between A and B. So in this side you
have A and in the side you have B.

You can also see that if this topography is not as flat as we have seen or maybe river is
flowing along this then you have very similar thing A and B the beds are dipping exactly
similar way. So to strike and dip of these two contact lithological contacts are very very
similar but if I change the topography in this case if I have an undulatory topography,

910
Then the interaction of this topography with this uniformly dipping bed would be along this
lines, so here you have A and here you have B. So if I try to see them this is a block diagram
if I see them in a topographic map their appearance would be something like this if I have to
plot it.

So here because the topography is flat we clearly see that the flatbed interacting uniformly
dipping bed which has no deformation it is not folded or something like that this is very much
straight line. But same flatbed if the topography is undulating then which is given by this
little red dashed lines then it is not anymore a straight line.

So there must be happening something and I would like to also a emphasize the fact that we
have already talked about that you see here this appears like V or in this case this is like V
with a mirror image. So we will learn about it later.

So we see here that same bed but in one case we have flat topography another place we have
undulatory topography and we may have 2 different intersections on the topographic map.
But if we have same topography but the bed is dipping differently then what should be the
condition?

(Refer Slide Time: 41:22)

Here at the examples the first one again we have A and B the bed is dipping very gently.
Okay you can see that this is the deep of the bed this is the lithological boundary and this is
the topography where you have some river network and the interaction would be something
like this if the bed is moderately dipping in this case the interaction is something like this

911
with the topography on the surface. And if the bed is highly dipping then the interaction is
something like this.

So in the topographic map we see them differently. So same topography but bed is dipping in
different ways the appearance or exposers of these topographic maps would be completely
different. So this is the take home message from this slide and the previous slide and based on
that a geologist have constructed the rule of V. Again you see that this is a V this is again
going to be a V and this is a V of different shape and so on. Let us see how does it look like.

Now will look up the V rules and will look after one and then the next one and then we have
6 illustrations to demonstrate what is the V rule. But before we go to the actual V rule let us
talk about what does it say to us.

(Refer Slide Time: 43:00)

So the first illustration in all figures will see that on the left hand side that means this one is
like a V block that used in lathe machine something like that. But this has a slope say for
example this contour me have 100 meters this is say 10 meters spacing so 110 then 120 then
130 and then 140.

So from here to here we have changed of elevation of about 40 meters and then the countries
are running like this inside the valley and you can imagine that a river is flowing in this
direction. So this is the downstream and essentially then this would be upstream. So river
itself as a slope and this is also maintain a slope the walls of the valley and this is horizontal.

912
So this concept will first look what happens if we have a horizontal bed in this condition. So
horizontal bed means that this dip is 0 here and we see if the bed is horizontal then the V rule
suggest and this is the a top view on the topographical map, so this is a topo map.

So the way horizontal Bed would intersect the valley or it is something like this. So it would
the V that would be created it would point upstream. So this is exactly what to see here and
the angle of V is very similar to the angle of the contours or contour lines you can think of. If
this is alpha then this has to be also alpha. What happen if the bed is a vertical? Is given in the
next slide.

(Refer Slide Time: 44:55)

If we have a vertical bed that means this is 90 degree and again this is the downstream that is
the upstream and the vertical bed interestingly would not produce any V in this section in the
top view on the topo map view. So it would not be influenced by any of the contour lines and
it would run straight as it was.

913
(Refer Slide Time: 45:21)

Now if we have the beds which are dipping along the slope of the stream. That means the
stream has a slope along which it is flowing and the bed also has a very similar slope of the
stream. So this is the deep of the bed and this is also the stream the way it is flowing.

So, if this is a horizontal line if I can reproduce it here so this angle and this angle are very
similar. In that case the V rule suggests that you would not produce any V shape. However
the 2 projections of the beds on this V they would slowly try to intersect towards the
downstream.

(Refer Slide Time: 46:10)

914
If the bed is gently dipping towards the downstream, so this dip is very very low, low angle
dipping bed. This is again the downstream then the V would be something like that and in the
plan view it would be very interesting that when it was horizontal we saw that this angle of
the V and this angle of the V were equal.

But in this case if the bed is gently dipping towards the downstream then the angle made by
the bed inside the valley the V angle if this is alpha and if this is alpha 1 then Alpha is less
than Alpha 1. So V points also upstream in this case and it is also sharper than the contour
lines.

(Refer Slide Time: 47:00)

Now if we have steeply dipping bed towards the downstream. So bed the dip of the bed is
very high in that case we will see that V is pointing downstream in this manner.

915
(Refer Slide Time: 47:18)

Now we look at something very interesting that how we can figure out the strike and then the
dip of the bedding plane which is uniformly dipping inside the surface and it is intersecting
with different topographies. And if we remember the definition of the strike then you can
figure out the fact that strike was nothing but the intersection of an inclined plane with the
horizontal plane and horizontal plane is imaginary so they would producer a line.

The azimuth of the line is the strike, so from that idea of the definition of strike we actually
can construct on the topographic map even if we do not go to the field. If we have this
intersection line on the topographic map of a bedding plane then we can construct something
what is known as structural contour. So if a dipping surface crosses valleys and ridges we can
construct strike lines which are known as structural contour to precisely determine the strike.

Now a map showing outcrops of a surface together with topographic contours can be used to
construct structure of contours for that surface. And when we construct these structural
contours it has 2 underlying principles. The first principle is where a surface crops out the
height of the surface equals the height of the topography.

So that means if I have an intersection point between the contour line of a particular value
and also the intersection line of the two surfaces on the earth surface then if I find a similar
point somewhere and if I connect these 2 points so these 2 points would have also very
similar elevation value and is the height of a planer surface is known at a minimum of 3
places the structure contours for that surface can be constructed.

916
(Refer Slide Time: 49:43)

Let us see how does it work I think instead of reading the text let us do this directly. We have
seen this illustration before this was an uniformly dipping bed. So what is important to draw
the contour lines structural contour lines that you have to figure out the intersection between
a fixed value contour line for example this 20 meters which the intersection of the 2
lithologies which is coming up on the surface.

So in this case this is one point and this is one point. So these two points are relevant for 20
meter contour lines. Now interestingly if this point is A and this point is B as both point A
and B are falling on the contour line so the elevation of A and B should be same. At the same
time this point A and B also showing you the fact that the elevation of underlying bed or the
intersection between these two layers is green and creamy layer also has same elevation
values at these two points. So I can actually construct a line like this and this line indicates
that this bed has or this litho boundary has an elevation of 20 meters.

Let us go to the next contour which is 30 meters. Now again in a similar principle we can
figure out that where this contour is intersecting the boundaries between the 2 lithologies in
this case it is here and this is coming around and in this case this is also here. So, similarly if I
considered this A1 and B1 then point A1 and point B1 has similar elevation and because
these 2 points are sitting at the intersection between the 2 lithologies.

So the lithology itself has also similar elevation. So I can draw another line here suggesting
that this is 20 meters this is 30 meters. These 2 lines indicate that the boundary between the 2
litho units have similar elevation along these lines.

917
Similarly, we can construct for the 40, so 40 meters contour so it goes like this comes back
here again to draw a line like this. We can figure out the 50 meters here and then it goes and
it comes here again interesting these 50 meters also crosses another point here and that is
actually the perfect one because now we have 3 points. So we can construct a line of same
elevation of this plane and this is of 50 meter this was of 40 meter.

We can similarly do for 60 meters here and it is coming here and again it is possible that we
can. What is interesting you see that these lines are parallel to each other. Dotted lines that we
have drawn these 20 meters, 30 meters, 40 meters, 50 meters and 60 meter suggesting the
elevation of the bed or of the lithogical contact. These are parallel so first hand they are
telling you that the bed is uniformly dipping and the next one is 80 meters and it is also
running parallel.

Now these lines what this lines actually do signify this signify as I talked about that the same
elevation of the bedding plane. The contour lines that you have seen here these, these do
indicate same elevation on undulatory surface and these lines indicate the same elevation of
contact or lithological boundaries or a bedding plane or an uniformly dipping plane and these
are known as structural contour.

And we see that these lines actually are horizontal lines at different elevations. So the bed is
inclined and I have their intersection line on the horizontal plane, which are all these lines. So
these lines the orientation of this line if this is the strike line as well. So in this case the strike
line is oriented east west.

918
(Refer Slide Time: 55:01)

So this is how you construct the strike lines and if we have to see it in a different form it is
something like that. So you can construct series of structural contours and structural contours
are essentially different to that of the topographic contour unless I let you decide what it is.
There should be a specific conditions, say for example I tell you if the bed is horizontal then
the structural contour should be exactly similar to that of your topographic contour.

919
(Refer Slide Time: 55:32)

Now this is how we have constructed the strike and now will learn how to figure out the dip
angle of the bedding plane or the litho contact from the structural contour. So the first thing
you have to do you have to draw the structural contours. So in this case this figure this is
figure A, show the set of structural contours for the surface defined by the base of a sandstone
bed. This example I took from the book of lisle.

This is the north direction, so if this is a structural contour then the strike is 120 degrees. So
this is the strike line. So from North if you count it would be 120 degrees. Now to find the
angle of dip we must calculate the inclination of a line on the surface at right angles to the
strike. So the dip we have to calculate at a right angle of the strike line that is the definition
the true dip.

Now one can be confused here that which way the dip direction is it is on this side or it is on
this side. Now that is not very tough job because you see that structural contour is increasing
the side here it is 160 here it is 210 so that means the bed must be dipping in this side not in
this side. So Dip direction is towards this side.

Now, to figure out the dip angle what you have to do, so this is the section that will be
working on you simply have to draw a line like this say AB and also scale is given you can
have this distance and in a very similar way the way we walked on the paper strip and so on.
You can actually figure out this thing so it first cuts 180 then 190 then 200 and then 210. At
this point it cuts here say it cuts hear say this 1, 2, 3, 4. So this is 1 this is 2 this is 3 and this is
4.

920
So it is possible that you can get a line like this and the slope of this line is actually the dip.
Now how to calculate the slope of course you know the distance and you know this distance
as well from the scale. So dip angle as it is written here is related to the spacing of the
countries that is tangent or angle of dip is contour interval.

So in this case this is 10 meters divided by spacing on map between the contours and this is
exactly what you can figure out. So once you know the dip and strike from the topographical
map this kind of basics actually help you to understand the problems like 3 point problems
and so on.

Particularly when people do bore hole in an area that do not see the actual Rock. So what I
mean by this lets to a very simple block diagram. See you have a dipping plane at the
subsurface and this is of your interest and what are you doing you doing some boreholes say
you have done one borehole here you get something here you get something here and maybe
one here you get something here.

So every time you touch your desired bed at different points. So here on the plan you actually
have 3 points where are you touch the desired bed at 3 different values of X Y and Z and if
you sure that this is an uniformly dipping bed then using this basic of finding dip and strike
you can figure out that what is the dip and strike of this bed which you actually do not see.

So this is something very interesting of this kind of problems there should be some problems
associated with this and the demonstrations of this lab works would be given along with this
this weeks lecture series.

So with this I conclude this weeks lecture because we will have a hand full of demonstrations
which are very useful and would be uploaded in this week by the teaching assistants. So I
request you to check them and practice. I not only conclude the lecture of this week as your
instructor but I also sign off from this course because this is last lecture.

I thank you very much for joining this course and I particularly enjoyed a lot in teaching this
course. I learnt a lot as well, I hope this course was useful for you and I still remain at your
(())(60:54) distance if you have any ideas that you would like to discuss with me your more
than welcome to write me through my email. So, thank you very much stay well. I hope I will
see you again with another series of lectures. Thank you.

921
(Refer Slide Time: 61:10)

922
 Structural Geology
Professor. Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences,
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
Lab Session
Paleostress Analysis from Fault Data

Hello all welcome to online NPTEL structural geology course. Today we will have a lab
session on Stereographic problems related to faults. So, in this session we will determine the
stress orientation when we have a fault plane.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:36)

So, before going to the fault problems we will have a brief overview on the Anderson theory
of faulting. Anderson classify the faults in 3 types, normal faults, strike slip fault and reverse
fault. So, the assumption what he made to classify the fault is he argue that since there is no
shear stress in the air, so air and earth surface interface can be considered as a principal plane
of stress. Since the earth surface is principal plane of stress.

So, there will be one vertical stress that will be perpendicular to the earth surface and the
other 2 will be horizontal. So, based on the stress orientation (())(01:12) axis of stress in
space he classify the fault in 3 types. In normal fault we can see that the sigma 1 is vertical
and in sigma 2 and sigma 3 is horizontal, so in that the maximum stresses is vertical which
causes this hanging wall to move down word.

And when the hanging wall moves down word relative to the footwall it classify them as a
normal fault. And when sigma 1 is horizontal and sigma 3 is vertical and the hanging wall

923
moves up word relative to the footwall, so he called it as reverse fault. And when sigma 1 and
sigma 3 is horizontal while sigma 2 is vertical and the blocks slide pass each other he called it
as strikes slip fault.

So, what we see that in all 3 faults that sigma 2 is always lie on the fault plane, you can see
that this is a fault plane and in that also sigma 2 is lying within the fault plane which is
vertical. And also in normal fault and reverse faults sigma 2 is within in the plane. So, this is
the Anderson theory of faulting.

And what we always see? When a fault forms there is always a striation that develop within
the fault plane which is in this little fault it will be like this, while in the strike slip fault we
will get striation like this. So, with the help of this striation in fault plane we determine the
principal axis of stress in space. So, how we do this on the stereonet? We have some
assumptions.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:45)

So, this is the illustration given by J B Burg, so in that we can see this is the fault plane, this
one is the fault plane. And this is the striations this one. So, first what we will do? We will
plot the fault plane in the stereonet and then we will draw a movement plane, this is the
movement this light blue colour.

So, this we will also plot on this unit. How we will plot this movement plane on this
stereonet? This movement planed is usually perpendicular to the fault plane and it includes
the striation so suppose this is the stereonet and this is north and this is the fault plane. So,

924
what we will do? We will take the pole to this fault plane and also if we have some striation
on the fault plane, so we will bring this 2 striation and pole to the fault plane on the same
great cycle and draw a line through this, then we will get a movement plane.

And also then we will consider a theta, theta is basically the angle between this fault plane
and the sigma 1. So, this is 30 degree, this is theta and then we have seen that sigma 2 lie on
the fault plane, so on stereonet we will plot sigma 2 at 90 degree from this slicken line on the
fault plane, because we have seen in the previous illustration that sigma 2 always lie on the
fault plane.

And sigma 1, sigma 3 is perpendicular to the sigma 2. So, we will then plot sigma 1 and
sigma 3 on the movement plane at an angel theta and theta plus 90 degree from the slicken
line and theta is 30 degree for sigma 1. Then for normal fault how we will calculate theta, for
the normal fault? Since we know that the normal fault, so sigma 1 should be at high angle.
So, what we will do? We will calculate theta opposite to the dip direction, on the movement
plane at 30 degree from the slicken line.

And for the reverse fault we will count theta towards the dip direction from the slicken line
on the M plane. And for the dextral or right lateral strike slip fault theta has to be counted
clockwise form the slicken line on the M plane. And for sinistral or left lateral strike slip fault
theta has to be counted counter-clockwise from slicken line on the M plane.

(Refer Slide Time: 05:29)

925
So, we will go to the question? So, the question is a normal fault plane as a strike of 336
degree and dipping 48 degree north east. A slicken line on the fault plane has a trend and
plunge of 44 degree and 46 degree. Determine the stress orientation of the fault plane using
stereonet. So, what we know? That the fault is normal, and the strike of the fault is 336
degree and it dips 48 degree towards north east.

And the slicken line or slicken slide on the fault plane as a trend of 44 degree and a plunge of
46 degree. So, we will use the stereonet to determine the stress orientation, basically the
sigma 1, sigma 2 and sigma 3.

(Refer Slide Time: 06:19)

So, we will go to the stereonet and solved the problem. So, we know that the fault is normal
fault, and the strike is 336 degree and dipping 48 degree north east, so first we will mark the
strike. So, we know that this is 90 degree, this is 180 degree this is 270 degree, then 280, 290,
300, 10, 20, 30, 330, then 332, 334, 336, so this is 336.

So, we will bring this strike on the north and count the dip from the east, so the dip is 48
degree 10, 20, 30, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, so this is 48, so now I will draw a great circle through
this, so this represent the fault plane. And also, I will plot the pole to the fault plane. So, it
will be 10, 20, 30, 40 and this is 48, so it represents the pole to the fault plane.

So, I can write this as 4 to the fault plane and this is the fault plane. Now, I will rotate this
tracing paper and bring back to it is original position, so this is the fault plane. So, now I will

926
mark the trend and plunge of this slicken line which is exposed on this fault plane on the
stereonet.

Since it is on the fault plane, so it should lie within this great circle of this fault plane, so the
trend is 44 degree of the slicken slide, so 10, 20, 30, 40, 42, 44, so this is 44 and now I will
rotate this tracing paper and bring this trend on the east to west line. So, the plunge is 46
degree, so 10, 20, 30, 40, 42, 44, 46, so this so see this is lying on the fault plane.

So, this is the slicken, slicken line on the fault plane. And now what I will do for making the
movement plane we have to bring this slicken line and pole to the fault plane on the common
great circuit, so now I will rotate this tracing paper and bring these 2 points on the common
great circuit.

Now, they are lying on the common great circle, so I will draw a great circle passing through
these 2 points. And now I will rotate this tracing paper and bring back to its original position.
So, this represent the M plane moving plane, so I will write it as M plane. So, now we have
the fault plane which is this one and we have the moving plane, which is perpendicular to the
fault plane, passing through the slicken line.

So, for the normal fault you draw the sigma 1, what we have the assumption that theta should
be opposite to the dip direction of the fault plane at 30 degree from the slicken line. So, this is
the fault plane, and it is dipping towards this side since this is in normal fault, so movement is
towards the dip direction. So, for normal fault what we do?

We mark and arrow showing that movement is towards the dip direction. And to determine
the stress axis principal stress axis the assumption is that sigma 1 is 30-degree opposite to the
dip direction on the moving plane. So, we will determine the sigma 1, so sigma 1 is opposite
to the dip direction, so we will count 30-degree opposite to the dip direction of the fault.

So, here this is 4 degree, then it is 14, then 24, this is 24 and 26, 28, 30, so this point will
represent the sigma 1 and 90 degree from this sigma 1 will represent the sigma 3, so 90
degree we will count from the sigma 1, now this is 4, then 14, then 24, 34, 44, 54, 64, 74, 84
and 84 plus 6 will be the 90, then 86, 88, 90, so this point will represent the sigma 3, which I
will mark as a open triangle.

927
Since sigma 2 has to be on the fault plane and the assumption is that you should be at 90
degree from the slicken line. So, we will count 90 degree from the slicken line, so this is
again 4, then 14, 24, 34, 44, 54, 64, 74, 84, 84 and 86, 88, 90, so this will be the sigma 3
which I will mark as a open box.

So, again what I will do? I will again rotate this tracing paper to its original position and this
open circle represent the sigma 1 and this triangle represent the sigma 3 and this open box
represent the sigma 2. And what are the values of these sigma 1, sigma 2, sigma 3 and
moving plane?

We know the values of faults plane slicken slide, so we will determine the values of M plane
sigma 1, sigma 2 and sigma 3. So, first to determine the attitude of M plane we will mark this
is so, so this strike is, this is 180, 90, 200, 210, 20, 30, 236, so this is 236 and the dip is, we
will rotate this strike to the north and determine the dip and the dip is 80 degree.

So, the values of M plane is, 236, 80 degree. And what are the values of sigma 1, sigma 2 and
sigma 3? Since this is the normal fault, so in normal fault we know that sigma 1 is vertical
and sigma 2 and sigma 3 will be horizontal. So, it should be at higher angle, the plunge of the
sigma 1 should be at higher angle and the plunge of sigma 2 and sigma 3 should be at should
be lower.

So, in this plot we see that sigma 1 is at higher angle and sigma 2 and sigma 3 as a lower
angle or most it is horizontal, so we will count its trend and plunge of this sigma 1, sigma 2
and sigma 3, so the trend is, we will bring this sigma 1 on the east west line and mark it trend
and count the plunge trend 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 70, 72, 73, so plunge is 73 degree, plunge is
73 degree and trend is 10, 20, 21 degree.

So, sigma 1 I represent is as a open circle, so this open circle represent this sigma 1 and its
plunge is 73 degree towards 21 degree. And now I will count the trend and plunge of sigma 2
which I represent it by the open box, sigma 2, so again I will bring this sigma 2 on the east
west line and mark the trend and count the plunge to its 10 an 11 degree.

So, the plunge is 11 degree and the trend is and the trend is 100, 110, 130, 140, 42, 44, 46,
146 degree, 146 degree, so the plunge is 11 degree and trend is 146 degree. And for sigma 3
again I will bring this sigma 3 on the east west line and mark the trend and count the plunge,

928
so plunge is 10, 12, 13 degree so it is 13 degree and so these traces represented by open
triangle sigma 3 is 13 degree towards 180, 90, 200, 10, 20, 30, 230, 236, 238 sorry 238.

So, this is the complete solution of this fault plane and the stress orientation, which causes
this normal fault plane to occur, so this is a normal fault, so the movement of fault plane
should be in towards the dip direction and sigma 1 should be counted opposite to the dip
direction at 30 degree from the fault plane and sigma 2 should be 90 degree, sigma 3 should
be 90 degree from the sigma 1 on the M moving plane and sigma 2 should be 90 degree from
this slicken line, this is slicken line or slicken slide, on the fault plane it should be 90 degree
from slicken line the sigma 2.

So, through this process we can determine the paleostress of the fault plane. So, in field to
determine the paleostress we take n number of data and plot it on the stereonet and in the
field also we have to categories the fault plane based on our observation and the movement of
this fault whether this normal fault, Reverse fault or strike slip fault and group them into
different in categories and then determine this paleostress through this PT axis this method is
called PT axis method or we have online software free available software through that also
we can determine the paleostress.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:36)

Now, we will go to the second question. The question is a dextral strike slip fault plane has a
strike of 24 degree and dipping 70 degree east. A slicken line on the fault plane has a trend
and plunge of 199 degree and 12 degree. Determine the stress orientation of the fault plane
using stereonet.

929
So, we know that the fault is dextral strike slip fault and the strike is 24 degree, dipping 70
degree and the slicken line on the fault plane has a trend of 199 degree and plunge 12 degree.
So, we will use stereonet to determine the stress orientation of this fault.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:09)

So, the strike of the fault is 24 degrees and dipping 70 degree, so we will mark the strike, the
strike is 10, 20 and 24, now we will rotate this tracing paper and bring this strike on the north
and count the dip, dip is 70 degree so 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, so this is 70 degree, so I will
draw a great circuit through this point.

Now, I will plot the pull to the fault plane, so it should be, this is 20 then I will add 70, so just
I will add 70 degree, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, so this is pole to the fault plane. And the trend
and plunge of the slicken line on the fault plane is given which is trend is 199 degree and
plunge is 12 degree.

So, I will mark the trend, so this is 180, 190, this is 199, now I will rotate this trancing paper
and bring this trend on the east west line, so this is 10 or 12 degree, so this represent this
point represent the slicken line on the fault plane. Since this is the strike slip fault, so the
slickens movement will be in this direction along the strike and that is why this the value
plunge of this slicken line is low.

And now I will draw a moving plane for which I will bring these 2 points on a common great
circuit. So, now they are on the common great circuit, so I will draw a great circuit passing

930
through these 2 points. So, now I will bring this tracing paper back to its original position, so
this is the fault plane, and this is the M plane.

This is the slicken line in the fault, since this is the dextral fault, so it will be like this and to
determine the 3 principal stress axis sigma1, sigma 2 and sigma 3, so for the dextral fault the
assumption is that theta would be counted clockwise from the sheet out we counted clockwise
from the slicken slide.

So, now we will count these 30 degrees from the slicken slide clockwise, so this is the
clockwise direction and this will be the anti-clockwise direction. So, sigma 1 will be this is
10, 20 and 30, this point will represent the sigma 1 and 90 degree from the sigma 1 will
represent the sigma 3.

So, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, so this point will represent the sigma 3, this open circle.
And to determine the sigma 2 we will count 90 degree from this slicken line on the fault
plane. So, for the sigma 2 this is 8, 2, 4, 6, 8, then 18, 28, 38, 48, 58, 68, 78, 88 and 90, so
this point will represent sigma 2.

Now, again I will bring this tracing paper back to its original position. So, this one is sigma 1
this sigma 3 and this is sigma 2. And what is the value of, so this strike and sip of this moving
plane is dip is 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, to 64 to 67 degree and the strike is strike is 172 degree,
so M plane strike is 172 degree, dipping 67 degree.

And what are the value of sigma 1, sigma 2 and sigma 3? So, sigma 1 is represented by open
circle, sigma 1 and the trend and the plunge of the sigma 1 is, I will bring this sigma 1 on the
east west line and mark the trend and count the plunge, so plunge is 20 degree and the trend is
trend is 200, 10, 20, 230, 230, so plunge is 20 degree towards 230 degree and for sigma 2, I
will bring this again on the east west line and mark the trend on the plunge 10, 20, 30, 40, 50,
60, 62, 64, 66, 67, 67, so the plunge is 67 degree towards 82 degree.

And sigma 3, sigma 3 I will bring it to the east west line this sigma 3 mark the trend, this
trend plunges 10, 12, 12-degree 12 degree and trend is 270, 80, 90, 300, 310, 320, 22, 24,
324, so this we can determine the stress orientation or the principal axis of stress which
causes this fault plane.

931
Since this is the strike slip, this is the dextral strike slip fault, so we will count theta, we will
count theta 30 degree clockwise. So, this is the complete plot, so this is the dextral strike, this
is the dextral strike slip fault which was given in the question, the strike and dip has been
given as well as this slicken slide the wealth trend and the slicken slide. So, what we did?

We them plot a M plane perpendicular to this fault plane passing through this slicken line and
then for dextral strike slip fault we have to count theta which theta is the angle between this
maximum stress sigma 1 and the slicken lines.

So, basically the fault lines the 30 degree between the sigma 1 and the fault plane, so which
we take it from slickens line, which is 30 degree clockwise, so this is 30 degree clockwise for
dextral strike slip fault, if the fault plane is sinistral so we will count a counter clockwise
form this slicken slide, so it will come here some 30 degree for the sinistral strike slip faults.

Since this is extra so we count counter clockwise and this is 30 degree. And from sigma 1 we
took 90 degree and plot sigma 3 on the moving plane and then for the sigma 2 we take 90
degree from the slicken line on the fault plane and plot sigma 2. So, these are these stress
principal stress directions for this fault plane. So, in filed we take n number of data and plot it
on the stereonet and take a best take the best one which represent for these faults.

And through that we can determine the paleostress for the faults. Also, there are online
software through that also we can calculate the failure stress directions. Thank you again we
will come with the lab session.

932
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Lab Session
Graphical Problem
Lecture No 45
Hello everyone, welcome once again to online course of structural geology in NPTEL. This is
the last week and you already are familiar with the concept of strike line, stratum contour, plan
views. So with help of those we will start a new series of problems, experimental problems and
that would be graphical problems.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:54)

So in the first problem, we have a orientation of bed and without the use of stereo net or
stereographic projection techniques just in a plain paper using our conventional biaxial diagram
that we have learnt through 11 and 12 and also in graduate studies, we will find out the plunge of
two lineations on a bed whose orientation is known. The question reads as follows, a bed of sand
stone strike 50 degree east of north and for dips 48 degree northwesterly. What will be the
plunges of two lineation lying on the bed and trending due north and due west respectively, the
scale of the problem is 1 centimeter is to 100 meter.

933
(Refer Slide Time: 01:25)

So now we have a blank paper and in this blank paper the first thing we will do is that we will fix
the coordinate system. So our coordinate system will be conventional as we draw biaxial XY
diagram. So this is our coordinate system, fixed coordinate system and suppose we name the
origin as O. Now we know that the bed dips 50 degree from north towards east, clearly, we have
to fix the north. Conventionally we fix the north as the top of this line.

Now we will calculate 50 degree from north towards east. We obtain a point and then we join
this point with the origin. So we will consider this line, suppose I name this line AB passing
through the origin as the 0 meter strike line or stratum contour of the bed.

Now if this is a 0-meter strike or line or stratum contour of the bed, we draw the direction
perpendicular to this line AB and suppose I name this line OP. So clearly OP is my direction of
true deep. Now I know the scale of the problem is 1-centimeter equals to 100 meters and I also
know the deep of my bed is 48 degrees. So clearly if I have to now find a point in the line OP
and then even, I find the point I have to draw a line parallel to AB which will be another strike
line or the stratum contour and so from 2 strike lines or stratum contour, clearly, we will get the
orientation of the bed.

934
Now to find out the point corresponding to the 100 meters strike line or stratum contour we
know that the deep of the bed is 48 degrees. So what we do is that we first draw a line over here.
We now construct a subsidiary diagram where I draw this line. Now I mark the 48 degrees. So in
this diagram I join these 2.

I also know that the vertical separation is 100 meters if I want to draw the 100-meter strike line.
So now the 100 meters according to scale is basically 1 centimeter. So what we do is that I rotate
this thing entirely to draw this, so clearly this corresponds to 100 meters. Now if I draw a line
parallel to this line horizontal line from these 100 meters, it will clearly intersect the deep line,
which I have drawn.

And then if I project the point, I obtained in the deep line perpendicular to the horizontal line and
parallel to the vertical line, I will obtain a point in the horizontal line. So clearly, the distance
between this and the point I obtain will be my horizontal separation in plain view. So we will do
the task right now. So what we will do is that we will first project the vertical 100 meters
distance to the deep line.

Now what we will do is that I again rotate this thing for my convenience. Now I again rotate to
bring it to the original position. So suppose, this is my OP line and clearly this point which I can
call A dash so OA dash is the distance in the OP line to construct our 100 meters strike line or
the stratum contour because OA dash is the horizontal plan spacing of the 100 meter strike line.

So it is better to use a divider as we do not have a divider in this case we are taking the distance
with the scale. So now I will draw a line parallel to AB and passing through the point I obtained.
Clearly this N dash I name these two points, N dash and W dash. So, ON dash will be any
lineation that is trending towards north and OW dash will be any lineation that is trending
towards west.

Now ON Dash is the plan separation of that lineation and we know that the distance between ON
dash is 100 meters originally. Because this line if I represent it as CD, CD is the 100-meter strike
line. So now in order to find out the plunge of lineation that is trending north and containing in
this bed. So what we will do is that we will again construct a subsidiary diagram that I am doing
below.

935
And in that I will take the horizontal distance or the horizontal separation of ON dash and that is
around 1 point. Now similarly I construct the biaxial diagram I know the vertical separation is
100 meters. So, ON dash is the plan spacing of any lineation content in the concerned plane and
trending due north. Now to find out the deep angle we do a similar proceeding. For my
convenience I rotate this paper to draw the lines and similarly I draw a line parallel to ON dash
from the 100-meter point.

Now if I join the origin and the intersection of these 2 lines, then I will obtain another straight
line which makes an angle with the horizontal and clearly this angle will represent the plunge of
the lineation content in this concerned bed and trending due north because this is our plan
separation and this is our vertical separation.

So when we project the plan and vertical separation and come to a point where the horizontal and
the vertical separation meet, so when we join that point with the origin the angle it makes will
clearly be the plunge. So this is our plunge angle trending due north and I measure it with a
protector and the angle comes out to be around 36 degrees.

In the similar process, we will do find out the plunge of any lineation that trends due west. We
will first take its horizontal separation or the plan separation to be precise and then construct a
subsidiary diagram. The plan separation is this, this is O this is W dash and then again, we rotate
the paper for our drawing convenience and mark the vertical separation according to scale which
is 100 meters strike line.

Now, we do the similar case, we just project the other way round. Now clearly, I join O with our
obtained point and then again measure the angle with a conventional protractor. The angle comes
out to be 34 degrees. So for this problem the plunge of lineation trending north contained in this
concerned plane is 36 degree and plunge of lineation trending west is 34 degrees.

So, now we know that if we do not have a stereo net and have the orientation of a plane and 2
lineations contained within the plan how to determine their plunge when we know their trends.
And this process without constructing the geometrical attributes of a plane without help of a
stereo net is called graphical problems.

936
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Lab Session
Three Point Problem.
Lecture No 46
Welcome, once again to this NPTEL online lecture series on structural geology. So in this final
week we have once again come up with another problem that is called the three point problem.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:28)

In three-point problem we have three points from which we try to construct the orientation of a
bed. So in this particular problem, we have bed whose orientation we need to determine that is an
ore body and we have 3 vertical boreholes whose disposition in space we know and from that
information we have to calculate the orientation of the old body.

937
(Refer Slide Time: 00:58)

The question reads as follows 3 vertical boreholes A, B and C are driven on level ground to
intersect ore body at depths of 50 meters, 130 meters and 220 meters, respectively. A is situated
200 meters north west of B and 300 meters north of C. Find out the complete orientation of the
ore body. The scale of the problem is 2 centimeter is to 100 meters. So again, for this problem
without the help of stereo net we will try to find out the orientation of the ore body.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:32)

938
So again in a blank A4 paper first, we draw a biaxial diagram to fix the coordinate system. Now,
we plot the spatial disposition of the boreholes. So first we fix a bore hole in the origin. In this
problem we fix the borehole B, suppose this is the borehole B. Now we know that the borehole A
is situated 200-meter northwest of B. So we conventionally take this as north and then North
West is basically 45 degrees west of north.

So I plot the 45 degrees North West. So in this line, which is joining the origin with North West
direction if we go along the scale 4 centimeters that is 200 meters we will find out the position of
the borehole A. So we go 4 centimeters and this is the position of borehole A.

Now from borehole A if we go 300 meters south, we should find position of borehole C. So we
do that we go. Now, this is our North South direction. If we go 6 centimeters, we should find
position of C, so this is the position of C. So now I rotate again and join this.

Now we know that the ore body height from the level ground underground in the position BC
and AR this is minus 130 meters minus because it is going down, we are going down. This is
minus 220 meters and this is minus 50 meters because A, B, C are the positions where the
boreholes hit the ore body and we know the depth.

So clearly, we could find in the AC line a 130 meter point. Then we can construct a strike line of
minus 130 meter of the ore body. So for that we do a subsidiary drawing in which we first take
the horizontal separation of A and C. Now we know their vertical separation as well. So A is
minus 50 meters so this that corresponds to 1 centimeter according to our scale and C
corresponds to 4 is to 100 so this is 225, so this point.

So now I join the vertical separation of A and C. So clearly along this line there would be a point
where the height would be minus 130 meters. So from here, we know that 130 meters will
corresponds to this is 125, this is 130. So now if we project this point in the horizontal plane
spacing, we will clearly find out a point in the AC line whose height corresponds to 130 meters.
So for that we do the projections, I just rotate this paper for convenience of my drawing.

Now clearly if I name this as B dash, so I find out a position A to B dash where in the AC line
which corresponds to minus 130-meter depth. So I take the distance from A to B dash and I plot
it in the AC line. So clearly now if I join B with this point B’, I would get the minus 130 meters

939
strike line. And then if I construct a parallel line, any parallel line to the corresponding 130 meter
strike line from the point A or from the point C we will get another strike line from point A if we
construct we will get a strike line of minus 50 meters, if from point C we construct we will get a
strike line of minus 220 meters. First, I construct the minus 130 meter strike line, which is this.

Now in this problem, I construct a strike line parallel to the minus 130-meter strike line from the
point A which will corresponds to the minus 50 meter strike line so I name it AA dash. So now
basically what we have is that we have the strike lines of two depths of the ore body. One AA
dash which is the strike line of the ore body corresponding to minus 50 meters depth and another
is BB dash which is the strike line of the ore body corresponding to minus 130 meter depth.
Clearly minus 130 meter is below minus 50 meters so the bed is dipping towards this direction.

So now what I do is that I completely reorient the page and draw a perpendicular from A to BB
dash. Now this perpendicular line which I have drawn from A will intersect the BB dash line,
which I call suppose P or P dash. So this AP dash is basically our direction, the direction towards
which the bed dips and this is basically the vertical distance between these two lines the minus
50 meter and the minus 130 meter line in the plane.

In order to find out the dip, we will first construct another subsidiary diagram in which along the
X axis we will plot the distance of AP dash and now we know the vertical spacing between the
AP dash which is basically 80 meters. So I go to the 80 meters according to the scale.

Now to find out the dip we will construct 2 parallel lines, one parallel to X, one parallel to Y and
where the 2 lines intersect if we join it with the origin we will find out the deep of the ore body.
So for that process we start and join these 2 points and measure the angle which will be the deep
angle of the ore body. So, the angle is 26 degrees and I measure the strike of the ore body and it
corresponds to north of 82-degree East. So the complete orientation of the ore body is north of 82
degree East and 26 degree.

So basically, the strikes 82 degree and the deep of the ore body is 26 degree. So from 3 vertical
positions of boreholes that intersect our ore body we have constructed the orientation of the ore
body and this kind of problem is known as three point problems. So, thank you all for this
session and stay tuned for further upcoming sessions.

940
941
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Lab Session
Construction of Topographic Profile
Hello everyone, welcome once again to this online course of structural geology on NPTEL
platform. So in this lecture demonstration we will learn how to construct a profile section from
an topographic contour map.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:30)

942
So this is an topographic map we will draw a profile section along with the profile line of x, y in
order to draw a profile section in the topographic map, we will first make a strip of paper, this
strip of paper we will place along the x y line and the contours that intersect along the x y line,
we will mark them.

So, I rotate this map for my convenience of drawing, and this is the point x and I subsequently
mark all the contour lines that meet along the x y line and I mark them. Then I below write their
subsequent heights of the contour lines, if we do this in all the contour lines in the x y lines. We
will obtain a thing which is similar to this, so now we have a paper strip ready where we have
marked the x and y points and all the contours that intersect long the x y point along with their
respective heights.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:12)

943
Now to draw the profile section, what we will do is that we will plot a x yy diagram, so I first.
Now basically I have to choose a scale, so the scale I will choose is to represent all the contours,
in the strip we see that the lowest contour is of 700 meter and the highest contour is of 17000
meters.

So the gap is thousand meters, so what I will do, I will preferably choose a scale that represents 1
centimetre is to 200 meters. So basically 0.5 centimetre or 5 mille meter will give me a hundred
of spacing, so now I will write this as x and this as y and from here I will place the strip again
and mark all the intersection points.

Now what I will do is that I will, in the vertical axis will mark the corresponding heights as I
have taken the scale of 1 centimetre equivalent to 200 meters. The 3.5 centimetre will represent
the seven hundred meters contours and from that on every 0.5-centimetre interval will represent
another contours of hundred meters interval. So I mark all the contours in the vertical axis, their
equivalent height.

Now I rotate the paper just for my convenience and right the corresponding heights of the
contour is given me 700 meters and every 0.5 centimetre will give me a hundred meter spacing.
Now what I will do is that, I will draw certain parallel lines allow a parallel to the our section
line which is the x y line.

944
So I will need help of a setsquare, along with the scale to draw all the parallel lines, parallel to x
and y, so I will put the setsquare and from here I will construct all the parallel lines but I will
construct them very rightly. So now I have obtained all the lines that are necessary for me. Now I
will project all the points that have been intersected along the x y line to their respective heights.

So first I mark the heights 15, 16 represents, 1500 metres, 1600 meters, 1700 hundred meters,
and so on, it is just for my convenience as there is not enough space to write all the values, all the
digits to be specific.

Now I again rotate the paper for convenience of the drawing and then what I do, I will draw
some points which corresponds to the particular contour height. This is our first point, and this is
our second point. So basically 15 corresponds to 1500 metres 16 corresponds to 1600 metres on
the vertical scale and so on. So I move this way and construct all the necessary points.

Now the contours are very steep in this part as we see the spacing between the contours is very
raise and the vertical height is getting increased with very little horizontal spacing along the x y
line. So I will reconstruct these points again, I think I have made a mistake somewhere. The
steep points, so I do it from here again.

This is 1500 metres; this again represents 1400 metres. This is 1300 metres, this is 1200 metres,
this is 1100 metres, and this is thousand metres. So what I will do now is to obtain the profile, I
will join the dotted points I have obtained. So, I see that nearer to the x, the height is increasing,
so I will just start the point below 1500 metres and then join each point with a straight line, with
certain curved designs.

Now the slope is gradually decreasing. So here it is almost constant now again it decreased
decreased, decreased now it is increasing at very steep rate. Now again it becomes constant and
then decreases as we move and reach towards y. Now what I will do I will erase all the little
traces of lines that I have drawn.

Now when we erase all the lines which have been drawn for our convenience, we come up with
the profile section of the contours, of the topography contour map that has been provided, this
section is drawn along the line x, y as it is seen in the map and this is how you reconstruct a
section from the contour map. So, thank you all.

945
 Structural Geology
Professor Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Lab Session
Construction of Geological Cross-Section
Lecture 48
Hello all, welcome to online NPTEL structural geology course, in this lab session we will learn
how to draw a cross section from a geological map.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:21)

So this a geological map in which we have four sedimentary units, silt stones, shells, sand stone
and dolomite, this is silt stone, this is shell, this grey one is sand stone and this circular one is
dolomite. So in this, this dip of a litho context is given and this is the true dip so this present the
strip and now we will draw a cross section along A and A’, perpendicular to the strike of the bed.

If we make section other than the perpendicular to the strike, then we have to calculate the
apparent dip along that section. Suppose if we will want to draw a cross section diagonally
suppose from this end to this end, then along this section we will, we will determine the apparent
dip of each context and then draw a cross section, for this session we will construct a cross
section perpendicular to this strike. So we will use the true dip for that purpose.

946
(Refer Slide Time: 1:30)

So first what we will do, we will, we will turn the paper and then and then, we will take a sheet,
put this map on the this sheet and mark A and A’ and we will also mark the context of the either
units.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:11)

We will draw a line through this point and this end represent the A and this one will represent the
A dash and we know the dip of the context, so we will use the protector and draw a dip, before
that we will draw a one line, so this context represent 50 degree, so I will draw 50 degree and it
is dipping towards west so I will come 50 degree, so this is 10, 20, 30, 40, this is 50.

947
Then I will draw a dotted line form this point. The same way I will draw the dip of each context
subsequently and other one is 55, so this is 50, this is 55 and now this context, the dip of this
context is 50 degree, but it is dipping to the other which we have drawn. So it is dipping towards
east, so I will draw 50 degree, dip 50 degree from the east, so this is fifty degree, this is 48
degree, then 45 degree then again it is dipping to the west.

So I will take 60 degree, this is 60 degree and 58 degree, then 54 degree then 40 degree dipping
towards east. So from the map what we see that some bed are dipping towards east and some
beds are dipping towards west, so after constructing the dip, what we see that they are
intersecting so which means that the beds are folded.

So now what we will do we will try to smooth this and make a fold, so this is dipping 60 degree
and this is dipping 45 degree and the same bed when they are dipping opposite so they make
same fold. So now I will construct, so this is the complete section of this map when we see along
A and A’, means the cross section the in-depth view of the map.

So we will try to fill it with these legends so we know that this is silt stone and this one is sand
stone so this is grey in colour and this one is dolomite, so from the map we see that this one is
here and this one is sand stone, so this grey one, this one is dolomite, this one, this one is again
sand stone, so for this one, this and this one is shell, this one is silt stone, again this shell again
sand stone and then dolomite and in the end we again see this one is sand stone.

So in then cross section it will look as it is folded and if we want to visualise this section before
erosion we have to deconstruct above the section line A, A’ by connecting the corresponding
litho boundaries and after connecting the litho boundaries we see that the first fold nearer to A in
this section line is anti firm and the fold in the middle is sin form and the fold nearer to the A’ is
again anti firm. And if we see the map, we can see that the litho boundaries between then
dolomite and the sandstone is dipping to the west, if we move from A to A’ again they contact
between the dolomite and the sandstone is dipping to the east.

So these two litho boundaries is dipping away from each other which means that it represents
and anti firm while the boundaries between this silt stone and shell they are dipping towards each
other which means it is sin form and again this dolomite and dolomite and sandstone contact is
dipping away from each other which represents it is anti firm, so the fold axis will pass through

948
this. So it represents this anti firm where the dolomite is exposed and here the silt stone is
exposed and again the dolomite is exposed.

If we fill this sandstone grey and this dolo this dolomite with this index and then it will look like
this, the complete pattern. So this is the cross section of this geological map along A and A’.

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