The Fault Analysis Group (FAG) is a semi-autonomous research group within the School of Earth Sciences at University College Dublin and the Irish Centre for Research in Applied Geosciences. The group was founded in 1985 within the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Liverpool and relocated to Dublin in June 2000. The group is currently staffed by 4 faculty, 10 post-doctoral researchers and 3 postgraduate students. Research projects are externally funded from a broad range of public funding bodies (e.g. EU, GSI, iCRAG, IRC, SFI, UCD) and industry partners.

The function of the group is to carry out basic and applied research on all aspects of faults and other types of fracture including the following: (i) Analysis and modelling of the geometry and growth of faults and related structures. (ii) Investigation of the earthquake behaviour of normal fault systems. (iii) Examination of the impact of faults and fractures on fluid flow. (iv) Application of discrete element modelling techniques to a variety of fault-related topics, including fault systems, fault zones, fault reactivation, joint systems, caldera collapse and landslides. (v) Quantification and modelling of deep-water sedimentary architecture and connectivity. (vi) Development of fault-related analytical and modelling tools for industry (e.g. FAPS/TrapTester, Triangle and TransGen, jointly developed with Badley Geosciences Ltd). (vii) Application of our research findings to practical problems, principally in the following sectors: carbon capture and storage, geotechnical, geothermal, hazards, hydrocarbon, hydrogeology, minerals and radioactive waste disposal. Our research is disseminated in the form of published articles and conference presentations and by incorporation into in-house and commercial software.

The group places great emphasis on the collation and analysis of high quality data sets on a range of scales. We are heavily reliant on industry data, mostly in the form of 3D subsurface datasets (e.g. geophysics, mine, production, seismic and well, mine and production data) from the full range of application areas, satellite imagery and a continuing programme of outcrop studies. We have more than 60 seismic surveys available for use in research projects. FAG facilities include the Petrel and Kingdom seismic interpretation workstations and software systems for 3-D mapping (Petrel, RMS, ERMapper), fault analysis (Traptester/T7), flow modelling (ECLIPSE, MORE and 3DSL), mechanical modelling (PFC2D, PFC3D and RSQSim), mineral deposit modelling (GoCAD Mining Suite, Leapfrog, Vulcan), and property modelling (TransGen, RMS), in addition to a broad range of in-house analytical and modelling software systems.