Feasibility of graphic determination of stress from fault/slip data

The equation describing 2D sections through an ellipsoid is similar in formulation to the equation describing fault/slip directions in relation to the stress tensor, thus enabling the conversion between them. So, the existing graphic method for determining the optical indicatrix or fabric ellipsoid can be used to infer stress from fault/slip data if they are converted to sectional measurements. After conversion, fault/slip data are displayed on a stereogram, and then are directly used to determine the poles to the circular sections of the stress ellipsoid, from which the ellipsoid is readily reconstructed. This is of importance for visual appreciation in stress inversion. However, the graphic method is only applicable to cozonal sectional measurements, and is unable to discriminate spurious data. In order to make up for this deficiency, a computer-aided method has been developed in this paper, and its feasibility illustrated by using an example.