Palinspatic Restoration

In structural geology, section restoration or palinspastic restoration is a technique used to

progressively undeform a geological section in an attempt to validate the interpretation used to

build the section. It is also used to provide insights into the geometry of earlier stages of the

geological development of an area. A section that can be successfully undeformed to a

geologically reasonable geometry, without change in area, is known as a balanced section.

Comparably a palinspastic map is a map view of geological features, often also including

present-day coastlines to aid the reader in recognising the area, representing the state before

deformation.

2D Restoration

1. Development of technique

The earliest attempts to produce restored sections were on foreland fold and thrust

belts. This technique assumed a stratigraphic template with unit thicknesses either

constant or smoothly varying across the section. Line lengths were measured on the

present-day deformed section and transferred to the template, to rebuild the section as it

was before deformation started. This method does not guarantee that area is conserved,

only line length. The technique was applied to areas of extensional tectonics initially

using vertical simple shear. Over the next decade several types of commercial restoration

software became available, allowing the technique to be routinely applied.

2. Deformation algorithms
 In order to calculate the change in shape of an element within the section, various

deformation algorithms are used. Initially many of these were applied manually, but are

now available in specialist software packages. It is worth mentioning that these

deformation algorithms are approximations and idealizations of actual strain paths and

deviate from reality (Ramsey and Huber, 1987). Geologic media are typically not

continuum materials; that is, they are not isotopic media as is implicitly assumed in all

strain algorithms used for cross-section balancing. That said, balanced cross sections

maintain material balance, which is important for conceptualizing kinematic histories of

deformed regions.

3. Vertical/inclined shear

This mechanism deforms an element to accommodate a change in shape by

movement on closely spaced parallel planes of slip. The commonest assumption is

vertical shear although comparisons with well understood examples suggest that

antithetic inclined shear (i.e. in the opposite sense of dip to the controlling fault) at about
 60°–70° is the best approximation to the behaviour of real rocks under extension. These

algorithms preserve area but do not, in general, preserve line length. Restoration using

this type of algorithm can be carried out by hand, but is normally done using specialist

software. This algorithm is not generally thought to represent the actual mechanism by

which deformation occurs, just to represent a reasonable approximation.

4. Flexural slip

In a flexural slip algorithm deformation occurs by unfolding the deformed fault

bounded horse by slip along bedding planes. This modelling mechanism does represent a

real geological mechanism, as shown by slickensides along folded bedding planes. The

shape of the unfolded horse is further constrained either by using the restored fault

boundary to the previous horse in the restored section of by using an internal pin within

the block itself, assuming this was unsheared during the deformation. This algorithm is

normally only used in software based restoration. It preserves both area and line length.

5. Trishear

A trishear algorithm is used to model and restore fault-propagation folds as other

algorithms fail to explain thickness changes and strain variations associate with such

folds. The deformation within the tip-zone of the propagating fault is idealised to

heterogeneous shear within a triangular zone starting at the fault tip.

6. Compaction
 In most section restorations there is an element of backstripping and

decompaction. This is necessary to adjust the geometry of the section for

the compactional effects of later sediment loading.

3D Restoration

A basic assumption of 2D restoration is that the displacement on all faults is within the plane of

the section. It also assumes that no material enters or leaves the section plane. In areas of

complex multi-phase or strike slip deformation or where salt is present, this is rarely the case. 3D

restoration can only be carried out using specialist software. The results of such restoration can

be used to study the migration of hydrocarbons at an earlier stage.