Integrated Framework for Structural Geology - Kinematics, Dynamics, and Rheology of Deformed Rocks

Written for advanced undergraduates with a level of familiarity with geological structures, this text examines the core principles of rock deformation in ways that provide a quantitative foundation for the three-dimensional geometry, their kinematic evolution, deformation dynamics and the rheology of geological materials.Following a general introduction, the geometry and general characteristics of rock structures are reviewed in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 describes the geometry and characteristics of deformation microstructures. Chapters 4 and 5 address what structural geologists observe and measure - displacements and velocities, displacement and velocity fields, and gradients of displacement and velocity fields in deformed rocks, and they enumerate what rock structures and microstructures tell us about how masses of rock have moved relative to each other. Chapter 6 examines the forces, pressures, and stresses within Earth that cause movements. Chapter 7 addresses rock rheology, the study of how displacements and/or strains relate to stresses. Chapter 8 considers the various mechanisms by which minerals and rocks deform and how variations in physical conditions impact which mechanisms predominate in accommodating deformation. A final chapter uses selected case studies to illustrate situations where geologists have been able to derive displacement fields and strains from rock structures, infer rock rheology by using laboratory and theoretical analyses of fabrics and deformation mechanisms, and draw inferences on the mechanical behavior of rock masses.Throughout, the book is organized to separate observations (that scientists make on rocks) from inferences (that they derive from those observations), following the scientific methodology used by practitioners of structural geology.