2.

Geological structures
Sedimentary rocks occupy the greater part of the Earth's land surface; they occur essentially as
layers or strata and are parts of the stratigraphical sequence of rocks. A single stratum may be of
any thickness from a few millimeters to a meter or more, and the surfaces which separate it from
the next stratum above or below are called bedding planes. In this session, we are concerned with
the arrangements of sedimentary rocks as structural units in the Earth's outer crust.

2.1. Dip and strike

Consider a flat uniform stratum which is tilted out of the horizontal (Figure 1). On its sloping
surface there is one direction in which a horizontal line can be drawn, called the strike. It is a
direction that can be measured on beds that are exposed to view and recorded with a compass. At
right angles to the strike is the direction of maximum slope, or dip. The angle of inclination
which a line drawn on the stratum in the dip direction makes with the horizontal is the angle of
dip (or true dip), and can be measured with clinometers and recorded to the nearest degree.

Figure 1. Strike and dip of a strata.

2.2. Unconformity
In many places one series of strata is seen to lie upon an older series with a surface of separation
between them. Junctions of this kind are called unconformities, some are of local extent, and
others extend over large areas. The older strata were originally deposited in horizontal layers but
often they are now seen to be tilted and covered by beds that lie across them (Figure 2). The
upper beds are said to be unconformable on the lower, and there is often a discordance in dip
between the younger and older strata. The unconformity represents an interval of time when
deposition ceased and denudation took place during an uplift of the area. This sequence of events

therefore records a regression of the sea prior to uplift and erosion, and the later transgression of
the sea over the eroded land surface.

Figure 2. Section through lngleborough, N.Yorkshire, showing unconformity between

Carboniferous and folded older rocks (1). (2) Carboniferous Limestone. (3) Yoredale Series, (4).
(5) Millstone Grit. Length of section about 8 km.

2.3. Fold
It is frequently seen that strata in many parts of the Earths crust have been bent or buckled into
folds; dipping beds, mentioned above, are often parts of such structures. An arched fold in which
the two limbs dip away from one another is called an anticline when the rocks that form its
central part or core are older than the outer strata. A fold in which the limbs dip towards one
another is a syncline when the strata forming the core of the fold are younger than those below
them.
The formation of folds has in many cases been due to the operation of forces tangential to the
Earths surface; the rocks have responded to crustal compression by bending or buckling, to form
a fold-system whose pattern is related to the controlling forces. Some simple fold forms are
shown in Figure 3, and we now consider their geometry. In the cross-section of an upright fold
the highest point on the anticline is the crest and the lowest point of the syncline the trough; the
length of the fold extends parallel to the strike of the beds, i.e. in a direction at right angles to the
section. The line along a particular bed where the curvature is greatest is called the hinge or
hinge-line of the fold; and the part of a folded surface between one hinge and the next is a fold
limb. The surface which bisects the angle between the fold limbs is the axial surface, and is
defined as the locus of the hinges of all beds forming the fold. This definition allows for the
curvature which is frequently found in an axial surface. The intersection of an axial surface with

the surface of the ground can be called the axial trace of the fold; in some instances it is marked
on a geological map as 'axis of folding'. Two other terms for describing folds, especially useful
where dissimilar rocks are involved, are core and envelope, Figure 3 shows that the core is the
inner part of the fold and the envelope the outer part.

Figure 3. Anticline and syncline in upright open folding, the degrees of acuteness in folding, and
the hinge of folding.

3.3. Faults
The state of stress in the outer part of the Earths crust is complex. Fractures are formed in relief
of stress which has accumulated in rocks, either independently of folds or associated with them.
The fractures include faults and joints: faults are fractures on which relative displacement of the
two sides of the break has taken place; joints are those where no displacement has occurred.
Three main kinds of faults are formed, namely thrust faults, normal faults, and strike slip faults.
Where the dominant compression was horizontal and the vertical load was small, the shear
fractures formed intersect as shown in Figure 4, the acute angle between them facing the
maximum principal stress; faults having this kind of orientation are the thrusts or reverse faults.
Where the greatest stress was vertical and the shear planes are steeply inclined to the horizontal,
faults formed under such stress conditions are normal faults. Thirdly, when both the maximum
and minimum stresses were horizontal and the intermediate stress was vertical, the resulting
fractures are vertical surfaces and correspond to strike slip faults. The two strike slip faults of a
pair are often inclined to one another at an angle between 50 and 70.

Figure 4. Relationship of faults (shear planes) to axes of principal stress; (a) thrusts, (b) normal
faults, (c) strike slip faults. Maximum stress, large arrows; minimum stress, small arrows,
intermediate stress omitted, but its direction is that of the line along which the shear planes
intersect.

2.4. Joints
Parting-planes known as joints are ubiquitous in almost all kinds of rocks and are the most
common structure to affect the behavior of soil and rock in engineering works. The 'fissures' of
many over-consolidated sediments are joints. They are fractures on which there has been no
movement, or no discernible movement, of one side (or wall) relative to the other. In this way
joints differ from faults. Groups of parallel joints are called joint sets, and for two or more sets
which intersect the term joint system is used. Many joints are developed in the relief of tensional
or shearing stresses acting on a rock mass. The cause of the stresses has been variously ascribed
to shrinkage or contraction, compression, unequal uplift or subsidence, and other phenomena; all
are a relief of in situ stress.
Commonly two sets of joints intersecting at right angles or nearly so are found in many
sedimentary rocks, and are often perpendicular to the bedding planes (Figure 5). In dipping or
folded sediments the direction of one of these sets frequently corresponds to the strike of the
beds, and the other to the dip direction; they are therefore referred to as strike joints and dipjoints respectively (Figure 5, s and d). Others parallel the axis of the fold and are concentrated in
the fold hinge where tension is greatest during folding; they are called tension joints (Figure 5, t).
Two other joint sets may lie in the planes of maximum shear stress during folding (Figure 5, o).

Figure 5. Jointing in a folded stratum. t = tension joints at hinge of fold, s = strike joints, d = dip
joints, o = oblique joints (shear joints). Large arrows give direction of maximum compressive
stress.

Choose the best choice:

1. Strata, separating each other with ......., are part of stratigraphical sequence of rocks.
A. Their thickness

B. layers

C. Bedding planes

D. Sedimentary rocks

2. Angle between strike and true dip is a .

A. Acute angle

B. Right angle

C. 45 angle

D. 0-90 angle

3. . is used to measure strike and dip angle of a layer.

A. Compass

B. Gravimeter

C. Clinometer

D. Altimeter

C. Deposition

D. Erosion

4. Denudation means .
A. Crystallization

B. Lithification

5. In an anticline, core is . than the outer strata.

A. Younger

B. Older

C. Dipper

D. Deeper

6. The line with greatest curvature in a fold is .

A. Crest

B. Through

C. Axis

D. Hinge

7. Difference between fault and joint is that in . relative displacement of two sides of
the break is zero.
A. Fault

B. Joint

C. Both of them

D. None of them

8. Maximum principal stress is . in a normal fault.

A. Vertical

B. Horizontal

C. Tilted

D. Between 50 and 70

9. A joint system consists of .

A. Joint sets B. Parallel joints

C. Joint, fissure and fractures

D. Dip joints

10. Which case is not a joint type?

A. Strike joints

B. Dip joints C. Normal joints

D. Oblique joints

Close test (Analysis of structures)

Structural geologists use microscopic analysis of oriented thin sections of geologic samples to
observe the 1 within the rocks which gives information about strain within the crystalline
structure of the rocks. They also plot and combine 2 of geological structures in order to
better understand the orientations of faults and folds in order to reconstruct the history of rock
deformation in the area. In addition, they perform analog and numerical experiments of rock
3 in large and small settings. The analysis of structures is often accomplished by plotting the
orientations of various features onto 4 which is a stereographic projection of a sphere onto a
plane, in which planes are projected as lines and 5 are projected as points. These can be
used to find the locations of fold axes, relationships between faults, and relationships between
other geologic structures.

1. A. Minerals

B. Fabric

C. Colors

2. A. Analyses

B. Studies

C. Measurements

3. A. Deformation

D. Fractures
D. Pictures

B. Formation C. Deposition

4. A. Map

B. Stereonet

C. Section

D. Plot

5. A. Circle

B. Arc

C. Point

D. Line

D. Mineralizarion

Technical words:
Acute angle
Altimeter
Anticline
Axial surface
Axial trace
Axis of folding
Bed
Bedding
Bending
Bent
Bisect(~or)
Buckled
Buckling
Clinometer
Compression
Contraction
Crest
Cross-section
Crustal compression
Curvature
Deformation
Denudation
Dip
Dip joint
Discordance
Envelope
Expose
Fabric
Fault
Fold
Fracture
Hinge
In situ stress

Locus
Normal fault
Oriented
Over-consolidated
Parting
Projection
Reconstruct
Regression
Right angle
Sequence
) (Shearing stress
Shrinkage
- Slope
Strain
Strata
- Stratigraphical
Stress
Strike
Strike joint
Strike slip fault
Subsidence
- Syncline
Tangential
Tension joint
- Tensional
Thin section

) 90(

- Thrust fault
) (Tilted

Transgression
- Trough

Ubiquitous
) ( Unconformable
Unconformity

- -

-

Inclination
Inclined strata
Joint
Joint set

Uplift
) (Upright fold

Limb
Locus

Limb

Answer sheet:
1
C
1
B

2
B
2
C

3
A
3
A

4
D
4
B

5
B
5
D

6
D

7
B

8
A

9
A

10
C