Kinematic Models of Extensional Structures: Seismic Implications

by Richard H. Groshong, Jr., Univ of Alabama, United States,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: High Level Radioactive Waste Management 1990

Abstract:

Kinematic models can relate faults of different types and different positions within a single dynamic system and thereby offer the potential to explain the disparate seismic activity characteristic of extensional terrains. The major styles are full grabens, half grabens, domino blocks, and glide-block systems. Half grabens, the most likely models for Basin and Range structure, are formed above a master fault of decreasing dip with depth and a hangingwall that deforms as it passes over the curved fault. Second-order normal faults, typically domino style, accommodate the requried hangingwall deformation. Low-angle detachment faults are consistent with the evidence of seismicity only on high-angle faults if the hangingwall of the detachment is broken by multiple half-graben systems.

Subject Headings: Geological faults | Seismic tests | Seismic effects | Kinematics | Geology | Structural models | Radioactive wastes

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