JOINTS

N.RAMAKANTH
N140444
JOINTS OF ROCKS
GENERAL OUTLINE OF THIS PRESENTATION:
 BASIC IDEA ABOUT JOINTS
 ORIENTATION,SPACING,ROUGHNESS OF JOINTS
 CLASSIFICATION OF JOINTS BASED ON GEOMETRY
 CLASSIFICATION OF JOINTS BASED ON FORMATION
 TYPES OF JOINTS IN DIFFERENT ROCK TYPES
 IMPORTANCE OF JOINTS
 WHAT IS A JOINT
 A joint is a break (fracture) of natural origin in the
continuity of either a layer or body of rock that lacks any
visible or measurable movement parallel to the surface
(plane) of the fracture. Although they can occur singly, they
most frequently occur as joint sets and systems.
 Joints form in solid and hard rock that is stretched such that
its brittle strength is exceeded. When this happens rock
fractures in a plane parallel to the maximum principal
stresses and perpendicular to the minimum principal
stresses.
CLASSIFICATION OF ROCKS BASED ON GEOMETRY

 In terms of geometry, three major types of joints,

 nonsystematic joints
 systematic joints and
 columnar jointing are recognized.
NON-SYSTEMATIC JOINTS

 Nonsystematic joints are joints that are so irregular in form, spacing, and orientation that
they cannot be readily grouped into distinctive, through-going joint sets
SYSTEMATIC JOINTS

 Systematic joints are planar, parallel, joints that can be traced for some distance,
and occur at regularly, evenly spaced distances on the order centimeters, meters,
tens of meters, or even hundreds of meters
 As a result, they occur as a family of joints that form as joint sets.
 Based upon the angle at which joint sets of systematic joints intersect to form a joint
system, systematic joints can be subdivided into conjugate and orthogonal joint sets.
 The angles at which joint sets within a joint system commonly intersect is called by
structural geologists as the dihedral angles.
CONTD …..

 ORTHOGONAL JOINT SETS:

When the dihedral angles are nearly 90°
within a joint system, the joint sets are known as
orthogonal joint sets.

 CONJUGATE JOINT SETS:

When the dihedral angles are from
30 to 60° within a joint system, the joint sets are
known as conjugate joint sets
 Types of systematic joints

Based upon their orientation to the axial planes and axes of folds, the
types of systematic joints are
Longitudinal joints – Joints which are roughly parallel to fold axes and
often fan around the fold.
Cross-joints – Joints which are approximately perpendicular to fold axes.
Diagonal joints – Joints which typically occur as conjugate joint sets that
trend oblique to the fold axes.
Strike joints – Joints which trend parallel to the strike of the axial plane
of a fold.
Cross-strike joints – Joints which cut across the axial plane of a fold.
COLUMNAR JOINTING
Columnar jointing is a distinctive type of joints that join together at triple
junctions either at or about 120° angles.
These joints split a rock body into long, prisms or columns. Typically, such
columns are hexangonal, although 3-, 4-, 5- and 7-sided columns are relatively
common.
The diameter of these prismatic columns range from a few centimeters to several
metres.
They are often oriented perpendicular to either the upper surface and base of
lava flows and the contact of the tabular igneous bodies with the surrounding
rock. This type of jointing is typical of thick lava flows and shallow dikes and sills.
Columnar jointing is also known as either columnar structure, prismatic joints, or
prismatic jointing.
Columnar joints
CLASSIFICATION OF ROCKS BASED ON
FORMATION
 On the basis of genesis i.e., formation, the rocks are classified into 4 main
types. They are:

1)TECTONIC JOINTS
2)UPLOADING JOINTS
3)EXFOLIATION JOINTS
4)COOLING JOINTS
TECTONIS JOINTS

 These are formed during deformation episodes

whenever the differential stress is high enough to
induce tensile failure of the rocks
 Form by crustal tectonic stresses as opposed to
stresses induced by topography. Typically, tectonic
joints are vertical.
 They will generally form at the time of faults.
 These are helpful for analyzing the tectonic history of
an area
 UNLOADING JOINTS:
These are formed when
erosion removes overlying rocks, there by reducing
the compressive loads and allowing rock to expand
laterally
 EXFOLIATION JOINTS :
these are special case of uploading
joints formed parallel to present land surface in
rocks of high compressive strength.
=
COOLING JOINTS:
 These are formed by cooling of hot masses of rock bodies particularly lava
and are commonly expressed as. vertical columnar joints
ORIENTATION OF JOINTS:

 JOIINTS ARE PLANES OF DISCONTINUES OF ROCKS. JOINTS HAVE A FIXED

ORIENTATION AND ALTITUDE SCH AS STRIKE AND DIP.
 These strike and dip provide the orientation of joints.
 It is expressed as E-W,400 S, means the strike of joint is in the direction of east-west and its dips
is at an angle of 40 to south.
FIXING THE alignments of engineering structures such as canals, dams the orientation of
-- IN

rocks should be studied carefully.

SPACING OF JOINTS

 Spacing is the perpendicular distance between two adjacent joints.

 This spacing may vary from few centimeters to few meters depending on the rock
type.
 They is a relation between joint spacing and bed thickness.
 Joint sets are commonly observed to have a constant spacing roughly proportional
to the thickness of the bed.
 ROUGHNESS OF JOINTS

 It is the waviness of the joint. A joint surface may possess a series of small steps showing that the
surface is rough unless there is a slip.
 The presence of minute steps or waviness is called striations, provides evidence that a displacement of
slip has taken along the joint surface.
FREQUENCY OF JOINTS

 The number of joints per meter is estimated as the frequency of the joint.
 The measurement is done from rock outcorps in the field and also cores of drill
holes.
 The measured frequency of the joints from drill holes when correlated with water
percolation test data provides information on the seepage or leakage problem of
dam projects.
Types of joints different rocks and their origin

 The origin of rocks is associated with the type of rock and later with the tectonic
movements
 The joints associated with tectonic movements are very prolific in all the rock groups.
 The failure of the brittle body under compression takes place by shearing along two
directions of least strain, which are nearly at right angles or at acute angles to each other.
 These are shear joints.
 In ductile substances, the angles between the shear planes is obtuse.
 In addition to shearing forces, tensile forces also create joints, which are known as tension
joints
JOINTS IN SEDIMENTARY ROCKS

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