Controls on fault damage zone width, structure, and symmetry in the Bandelier Tuff, New Mexico

We studied welded and glassy nonwelded ignimbrites of the Bandelier Tuff cut by the Pajarito fault system to examine the influence of primary lithology and structure on fault damage-zone characteristics. Our work supports previous studies that indicate welding and resulting rock strength are first-order controls on the type of fault-zone structure that forms in high porosity ignimbrites. However, inherited mechanical anisotropy is the most significant control on spatial variations in fault-zone width and orientation of structures for a given throw. Cooling joints in welded ignimbrite localize strain, producing a narrower damage zone than that in glassy nonwelded ignimbrite. The joints also control the orientations of discrete fractures formed during faulting, so fractures show the same patterns inside and outside damage zones, which we attribute to local reorientation of stresses adjacent to joints. In contrast, deformation bands formed in relatively isotropic, glassy nonwelded ignimbrite exhibit conjugate sets oblique to the Pajarito fault, consistent with left-lateral extension across a pre-existing structure. Where footwall and hanging wall damage-zone widths can be compared in welded ignimbrite, they reflect greater hanging wall deformation, consistent with near-surface faulting. These observations collectively record 3D strain of a physically heterogeneous system.