Particle tracking in ideal faulted blocks using 3D co-ordinate geometry

Abstract

This article performs particle (/material point) tracking for ideal brittle faults with translational and rotational slip components. The fault planes are considered to be planar and step-like in separate cases. In the latter case the hangingwall block is considered to behave ductilely. For a specific choice of the three Cartesian co-ordinate axes, dip-slip fault will change two out of the three ordinates of any point in the faulted block that moves. A strike slip faulting can change one out of the three ordinates. On the other hand, whatever be the orientation of the orthogonal co-ordinate axes, an oblique slip fault of any dip amount and a purely rotational fault with dip ≠ 0, 90° alter all the three ordinates, except the pivot point in the latter case. As expected, oblique-slip faulting modifies the co-ordinates of the shifted material points depending on both (i) the pitch of stretching lineation, and (ii) the dip of the fault plane.