Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 March 2010
Summary
Faults have been identified beyond the Earth on many other planets, satellites, and asteroids in the solar system, with normal and thrust faults being most common. Faults on these bodies exhibit the same attributes of fault geometry, displacement–length scaling, interaction and linkage, topography, and strain accommodation as terrestrial faults, indicating common processes despite differences in environmental conditions, such as planetary gravity, surface temperature, and tectonic driving mechanism. Widespread extensional strain on planetary bodies is manifested as arrays and populations of normal faults and grabens having soft-linked and hard-linked segments and relay structures that are virtually indistinguishable from their Earth-based counterparts. Strike-slip faults on Mars and Europa exhibit classic and diagnostic elements such as rhombohedral push-up ranges in their echelon stepovers and contractional and extensional structures located in their near-tip quadrants. Planetary thrust faults associated with regional contractional strains occur as surface-breaking structures, known as lobate scarps, or as blind faults beneath an anticlinal fold at the surface, known as a wrinkle ridge. Analysis of faults and fault populations can reveal insight into the evolution of planetary surfaces that cannot be gained from other techniques. For example, measurements of fault-plane dip angles provide information on the frictional strength of the faulted lithosphere. The depth of faulting, and potentially, paleogeothermal gradients and seismic moments, can be obtained by analysis of the topographic changes associated with faulting.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.