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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 67 (1983)

Issue: 8. (August)

First Page: 1337

Last Page: 1337

Title: Differential Vertical Tectonics: Insights from Models Composed of Sandstone and Limestone Deformed at Confining Pressure: ABSTRACT

Author(s): Mel Friedman

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

Rock models (12 × 3 × 3 cm, 4 × 1 × 1 in.) composed of a precut forcing block of sandstone beneath a 1-cm thick, multilithologic layered veneer of sandstone and limestone or of uncemented sand, have been deformed room-dry, at 100-MPa confining pressure, room temperature, and a strain rate of 10-4 sec-1. Upon frictional sliding along the lubricated precut (inclined at 30° to 90° to the intact veneer) the forcing blocks deform the layered veneer into a faulted drape fold. Thin sections cut parallel to the dip and to the strike of the precut and major fault in the veneer are studied to provide detailed maps of the induced deformation (microfractures, faults, intragranular strains, "bedding" thickness changes, brittle versus ductile behavior, and nature of the folding and hinge formation). In addition, dynamic fabric analyses of faults, microfractures, and calcite twin lamellae yield stress trajectory diagrams that serve to test the applicability of corresponding numerical or analytical solutions.

Insights gained from the models primarily deal with (a) brittle or ductile behavior of the limestone depending upon location within the faulted drape fold; (b) nature of the deformation concentrated in the leading edge of the "upthrown" forcing block; (c) configuration and sequence of faulting associated with the major "upthrust" in the veneer; (d) location and significance of associated precursive microfracturing; (e) cataclastic thinning of veneers to the point where discrete layers are "tectonically eliminated" in the major fault zones; (f) hinge formation within the veneer; and (g) the role of "bedding-plane slip" in the folding process.

Deformation features in these models are used to interpret the geometry and genesis of the large scale structures at the Clark's Fork Corner of the Beartooth Block and at Rattlesnake Mountain near Cody, Wyoming; at Colorado National Monument near Grand Junction, Colorado; at the Yampa drape fold, Dinosaur National Monument; and in the subsurface along the Oak Ridge fault, Ventura basin, California. Collectively, these features are criteria for, and hence help define, the differential-vertical-tectonic style.

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