Analogue and numerical modeling of normal fault patterns produced due to slip along a detachment zone

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate normal fault patterns produced by the sliding motion along a gently dipping normal fault by using analogue model tests and numerical modeling. The motivation for this study was offered by microseismic test data that indicate the existence of an active low-angle shear zone at a depth of 9–11 km in the extensional region of high seismic activity of the Gulf of Corinth (Greece). Both modeling techniques seem to support the hypothesis that the system of high-angle normal faults that are responsible for the final asymmetrical graben formation initiate at the tip of the active basal detachment nearest to the free surface. The normal faults propagate upwards with progressive sliding of the inclined basal plane, resulting in a first phase of symmetrical graben configuration that is delimited by a main synthetic fault and an antithetic fault forming a Rankine zone. Subsequent sliding on the inclined base induces a family of secondary antithetic normal faults, which are responsible for the asymmetry of the failure pattern and the diffusive character of deformation in that area. Shear deformation is more intense and localized along the synthetic normal fault than along the antithetic faults. Elaboration on the analogue test results has led to the phenomenological relations among four main parameters that describe the geometry of grabens, namely, (i) the width and (ii) the maximum subsidence of the graben, (iii) the dip angles of the conjugate normal faults, and (iv) the amount of sliding along the low-angle normal fault. However, analogue models do not produce the system of synthetic faults that is observed in the Gulf of Corinth. The effects of both friction angle variation along the detachment base and of the constitutive behavior of the model material on the configuration of the final structural pattern were also studied with a series of numerical continuum models. It was found that (a) the fault pattern of the Gulf of Corinth may be reproduced with either a strain-softening material with low elastic modulus or a constant strength material, and (b) two consecutive grabens, such as those of Gulfs of Corinth and Evia, may also be reproduced by an appropriate combination of variation of dip and frictional properties along the hypothesized detachment zone.