Quantitative determination of fault slip magnitude: a review

Abstract

In geology, a fault is a rock fracture with perceptible relative displacement of the opposite sides of the fracture. Quantitatively obtaining the activity history of faults depends mainly on the estimation of fault slip and the study of markers, which can be used to understand and analyze the tectonic evolution of the faulted regions. Fault slip is calculated by restoring points that were originally adjacent before the deformation, those points are named piercing points. In this paper, we review some published methods to determine fault slip, using: (1) the offset of contours on structural contour maps; (2) offset on seismic reflection sections; (3) a known slip vector (fault striae) and one marker; (4) two known markers. Cases (3) and (4) are commonly applied to field work and geological maps.