Fault growth by linkage: observations and implications from analogue models

Abstract Using time sequence analyses of extensional fault models we demonstrate the pivotal role played by fault segmentation in the accumulation of displacement and length during the growth of faults. Experiments are described in which incremental steps during the development of individual faults have been reconstructed from time-lapse photographs taken during model deformation. These records confirm the composite segment hierarchy of fault structure, a pattern that is frequently recognised in many natural arrays. They reveal the progressive enlargement of individual faults to be the product of a repetitive cycle of tip-line propagation, overlap and linkage between nearest neighbours. By contrasting the displacement patterns of successive increments during growth convincing evidence is also presented to suggest that individual segments of faults may remain kinematically independent once they are physically linked. This behaviour is shown to be responsible for the characteristic saw-tooth patterns often recognised in strike-parallel fault displacement profiles. Such patterns are believed to arise where relict segment boundaries remain preserved as asperities to slip, so that displacement is confined to discrete parts of a fault plane surface. Growth in this way also causes the maximum displacement (D) and surface length (L) of faults to continually change by different proportions. Incremental displacement records presented here corroborate field evidence which shows that linkage between fault segments during growth is responsible for a significant component of the spread of values often recorded in D versus L compilations. Finally, we speculate that linkage between fault segments also accounts for transient irregularities recorded in the frequency distribution of the fault length populations of each model.