Duration - 01/02/2001 - 31/01/2004
Funding - Embark Post-Doctoral Fellowship
PhD student - Martin Schöpfer
Research Partners
Objectives
Fault zones play a crucial role in the deformation of the earth’s crust on a broad range of scales (cms to kms) and have considerable economic significance for the groundwater, mineral and petroleum industries. Our knowledge of their structure and content on macroscopic (cm-km) scales is however limited and existing models for their growth are conceptual. This project will examine the structure and content of fault zones within heterogeneous layered sequences and develop models for fault zone growth that are beyond the existing conceptual framework. Using a combined outcrop analysis and numerical modelling approach, mechanical models for fault zones will be developed and tested. Fieldwork will be conducted in Ireland, the UK and the US. Discrete element modelling methods will permit the modelling of fault propagation and fault zone growth within heterogeneous layered sequences and will allow examination of a variety of related processes, such as fault propagation and bifurcation and the progressive erosion of host rock asperities.