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A fracture is any separation in a geologic formation, such as a joint or a fault that divides the rock into two or more pieces. A fracture will sometimes form a deep fissure or crevice in the rock. Fractures are commonly caused by stress exceeding the rock strength, causing the rock to lose cohesion along its weakest plane. [ 1 ]
Fracture differs from cleavage in that the latter involves clean splitting along the cleavage planes of the mineral's crystal structure, as opposed to more general breakage. All minerals exhibit fracture, but when very strong cleavage is present, it can be difficult to see.
Major active fractures zones worldwide are in the orange shaded areas perpendicular to the black lines of the mid-ocean ridges of the major oceanic plates. Fracture zones are common features in the geology of oceanic basins.
Such fractures occur in planar parallel sets at an angle of 60 degrees and can be of the same size and scale as joints. As a result, some "conjugate joint sets" might actually be shear fractures. Shear fractures are distinguished from joints by the presence of slickensides, the products of shearing movement parallel to the fracture surface. The ...
Fractures propagate along a fault zone in direction responding to the stress applied. [5] The enhancement of permeability is controlled by the density, orientation, length distribution, aperture, and connectivity of fractures. [4] Even fracture with aperture of a 100-250 μm can still greatly influence fluid movement (Figure 6). [1]
In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth 's crust result from the action of plate tectonic forces, with the largest forming the boundaries between the plates, such as the megathrust faults of ...
Fracture is the appearance of a crack or complete separation of an object or material into two or more ... (geology) Fracture (mineralogy) Gilbert tessellation;
In geology, a dike or dyke is a sheet of rock that is formed in a fracture of a pre-existing rock body. Dikes can be either magmatic or sedimentary in origin. Magmatic dikes form when magma flows into a crack then solidifies as a sheet intrusion, either cutting across layers of rock or through a contiguous mass of rock.