The future of failure: stress or strain?

Strains in rocks can be observed but ancient stresses can only be inferred. We should re-examine the potential of strain geometry as the key to understanding and interpreting common shear structures ranging from faults to plastic shear zones. The concept of failure along zero extension directions can be applied to natural structures in rocks and is predicated on strain compatibility between differently strained volumes. Zero extension directions are considered for two strain configurations, plane strain (k=1) and uniaxial shortening (k=0). The crucial difference between shear fractures, or faults, and plastic yield zones is that the former are preceded by dilatation while the latter are isovolumetric. Volume changes during deformation affect the orientations of zero extension directions and hence of the resulting structures. With isovolumetric strain, yield occurs on planes at 45° to the principal shortening direction in plane strain and at 54.7° to this axis in uniaxial shortening. Uniaxial shortening experiments on rock samples allow estimation of the relative volumetric strains when yield zones initiate. When this volumetric strain is used to estimate the orientation of shear fractures in plane strain, ca 70° dips are predicted for normal faults at high crustal levels, decreasing downwards to 45°.