The dynamics of faulting

TLDR

Faults naturally arrange into distinct classes that originate under varying pressure conditions in the rock mass. The paper aims to clarify the link between fault systems and the forces that generate them, and to investigate the positions of the planes involved. Mathematically, any equilibrium force system in rock resolves into three orthogonal pressures or tensions across three planes, with no tangential stress on those planes but tangential stress on any other plane; by defining the three orthogonal directions OX, OY, OZ and their associated pressures P, Q, R, the authors analyze the positions of these planes. The analysis shows that planes with maximum tangential stress determine fault orientations, linking stress maxima to fault directions.

Abstract

It has been known for long that faults arrange themselves naturally into different classes, which have originated under different conditions of pressure in the rock mass. The object of the present paper is to show a little more clearly the connection between any system of faults and the system of forces which gave rise to it. It can be shown mathematically that any system of forces, acting within a rock which for the time being is in equilibrium, resolves itself at any particular point into three pressures or tensions (or both combined), acting across three planes which are at right angles to one another. Across these particular planes there is no tangential stress, but there will be tangential stress at that point across any other plane which may be drawn through it. There will evidently be positions of this hypothetical plane for which the tangential stress will be a maximum. It is evident that these maximum positions of the plane will have much to do with determining the directions of faults in the rock. We will therefore take the general case and investigate what the positions are. Suppose O to be any point in a rock, and let the three directions along which the pressures or tensions act (the directions perpendicular to the three planes mentioned above) be OX, OY, OZ. Let the pressures, or tensions, acting along these three directions be P, Q, R, which we will suppose positive when they denote pressures, and negative when they denote tensions.