Structural geology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    By evaluating model predictions with multiple geological data, the study shows that Tibetan tectonism is most consistent with the initial indentation of a cratonic terrane, followed by subduction of a buoyant tectonic plate resembling a continental margin.

    • Liang Liu
    • , Lijun Liu
    •  & Ling Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanisms responsible for clustering of surface fault earthquakes are often unclear. Here the authors find that differential stress fluctuates during fault/shear-zone interactions which can produce changes in strain-rate and slip-rate changes leading to earthquake clustering.

    • Zoë K. Mildon
    • , Gerald P. Roberts
    •  & Eutizio Vittori

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Testing feedbacks between climatic and geological processes are challenging. Here, the authors show that geomorphological features of the southern Red Sea margin are best interpreted by a feedback cycle between orographic precipitation, mid-ocean spreading and coastal magmatism, and that the feedback is enhanced by the trade wind.

    • Kurt Stüwe
    • , Jörg Robl
    •  & Finlay M. Stuart

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mantle rocks can efficiently bind carbon by reaction with CO2 if fluid pathways remain open. This study of samples from Oman demonstrates that coupling of synchronous reaction and deformation facilitates fluid flow and massive carbon sequestration.

    • Manuel D. Menzel
    • , Janos L. Urai
    •  & Peter B. Kelemen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cryptic faults concern earthquake scientists, since they pose a hidden seismic potential which is hard to identify. To address this, the authors here study off-fault deformed geomorphic markers such as marine terraces using high-resolution LiDAR topography, optical dating of sediments and space geodetic observations.

    • J. Jara-Muñoz
    • , D. Melnick
    •  & M. R. Strecker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Subduction plate boundaries have enigmatic seismic tremor that is often associated with surges in creep across these boundaries. Here, the authors use multiple approaches to show how blocks of weak rocks in a stronger matrix can explain both the occurrence and characteristics of tremor events.

    • Paola Vannucchi
    • , Alexander Clarke
    •  & Jason P. Morgan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is thought that Atlantic style passive margins have experienced episodes of uplift and volcanism in response to changes in mantle circulation. The authors here employ U-Pb dating of calcite in faults and fractures along the eastern North American margin and find a 40 Myr long period of fracturing and faulting from 115 to 75 Ma.

    • William H. Amidon
    • , Andrew R. C. Kylander-Clark
    •  & David P. West Jr.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This paper shows that faults comprised of heterogeneously distributed materials, as is typical for tectonic faults in nature, are weaker and more unstable than equivalent faults where the materials are homogeneously mixed together.

    • John D. Bedford
    • , Daniel R. Faulkner
    •  & Nadia Lapusta

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lunar impact basins formed during the magma ocean solidification should have formed almost unidentifiable topographic and crustal thickness signatures, thus may escape detection. This result allows for a higher impact flux in the earliest epoch of Earth-Moon evolution.

    • K. Miljković
    • , M. A. Wieczorek
    •  & M. T. Zuber

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Laboratory experiments reproducing earthquake slip in non cohesive fault rocks under fluid pressurised conditions are challenging. Thanks to these experiments, the authors show that earthquake slip occurring in tsunamigenic subduction zone faults is controlled by dilatancy and pressurisation processes.

    • S. Aretusini
    • , F. Meneghini
    •  & G. Di Toro

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, based on earthquake data, vertical gravity gradient data and high-resolution bathymetry, the authors show that the Red Sea is not in transition from rifting to spreading as previously proposed. They instead suggest it to be a mature ocean basin in which continuous seafloor spreading began quasi-instantaneously along its entire length around 13 Ma ago.

    • Nico Augustin
    • , Froukje M. van der Zwan
    •  & Bryndís Brandsdóttir

  • Article
    | Open Access

    One of the largest continental microplates on Earth is situated in the center of the East African Rift System, and oddly, the Victoria microplate rotates counterclockwise with respect to the neighboring African tectonic plate. Here, the authors' modelling results suggest that Victoria microplate rotation is caused by edge-driven lithospheric processes related to the specific geometry of rheologically weak and strong regions.

    • Anne Glerum
    • , Sascha Brune
    •  & Manfred R. Strecker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Semail ophiolite provides evidence for geological processes that form oceanic crust, however, its deep structure remains debated. Here, the authors use geophysical imaging to determine that the ophiolite is bound by a thrust fault in the west, and a normal fault in the east, bounding a rapidly subsiding basin, implying the ophiolite may not be rooted in the Gulf of Oman crust.

    • M. Y. Ali
    • , A. B. Watts
    •  & T. Ambrose

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study investigates deep intracontinental earthquakes. Based on field data from exhumed lower crustal pseudotachylytes and mylonites from Lofoten, northern Norway, the authors describe a novel model of earthquake nucleation in the lower crust as a transient consequence of ongoing localised aseismic creep.

    • L. R. Campbell
    • , L. Menegon
    •  & G. Pennacchioni

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Phyllosilicate minerals are critical components of seismogenic fault, shear and subduction zones. Here, the authors provide a new deformation mechanism for phyllosilicates, based on newly discovered crystallographic defects in biotite (ripplocations), affecting our understanding of fault zone processes.

    • Joe Aslin
    • , Elisabetta Mariani
    •  & Michel W. Barsoum

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tectonic faults weaken during slip in order to accelerate and produce earthquakes. Here the authors show a mechanism for weakening faults through the transformation of quartz to amorphous nanoparticulate wear powders that lubricate friction experiments, and transform back to quartz under geologic conditions.

    • Christie D. Rowe
    • , Kelsey Lamothe
    •  & Stefano Aretusini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanisms behind deformation of multiphase solids are elusive. Here, the authors use X-rays and simulations to show that the same mechanisms causing rocks to fold occur at the micrometer scale in dual-metal lamellas of Ag/Cu and Al/Cu under high-pressure torsion, leading to vortices formation.

    • Mohsen Pouryazdan
    • , Boris J. P. Kaus
    •  & Horst Hahn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Water plays a key role in many geological processes, including weakening crystals in the crust and mantle. Here, using amphibole distribution and olivine dislocation slip-systems, the authors show that ductile flow also has a dynamic control on water-rich fluid circulation in mantle shear zones.

    • Jacques Précigout
    • , Cécile Prigent
    •  & Anthony Pochon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How flat slabs at subduction zones are created remains unclear. Here, the authors show that the Nazca slab has retreated at ∼2 cm per year since 50 Ma but no rollback has occurred in the last ∼12 Myr in the flat slab, implying that an overpressured sub-slab mantle can impede rollback and maintain a flat slab.

    • Gerben Schepers
    • , Douwe J. J. van Hinsbergen
    •  & Nadine McQuarrie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microstructural features of deformed rocks are used to reveal deformation stresses and temperatures. Here, the authors conduct experiments showing that misleading microstructures form during fluid-mediated mineral reactions under static conditions, and propose new criteria for microstructure identification.

    • Liene Spruzeniece
    • , Sandra Piazolo
    •  & Helen E. Maynard-Casely

  • Article
    | Open Access

    As shale and tight gas basins are increasingly used to extract natural gas, understanding how gas migrates is important. Wood and Sanei find that secondary migration in a tight-gas basin leads to up-dip transmission of enriched methane into surficial strata which may leak into groundwater and the atmosphere.

    • James M. Wood
    •  & Hamed Sanei

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding when brittle rock faulting took place can help unravel the history of deformation in the Earth’s crust. The authors here develop a new approach to date faults using a combination of K-Ar isotopic dating of illite and structural analysis to provide high resolution dates of the faults.

    • G. Viola
    • , T. Scheiber
    •  & J. Knies

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Studying craters on atmosphere-less bodies can unlock information about planetesimal histories. Here, Marchi et al. present results from the NASA Dawn mission to Ceres showing that craters >100–150 km in size are largely absent, and find that Ceres’ internal evolution is responsible for their absence.

    • S. Marchi
    • , A. I. Ermakov
    •  & C. T. Russell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The causes of intraplate deformation remain poorly constrained. Heron et al. use numerical models to show that ancient plate tectonic processes produce mantle lithosphere structures that may be reactivated to generate intraplate deformation.

    • Philip J. Heron
    • , Russell N. Pysklywec
    •  & Randell Stephenson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Friction commonly involves different material types (bimaterials) at their sliding interface. Here, in laboratory experiments Shlomai and Fineberg reveal effects uniquely due to biomaterial coupling, with slip-pulses and crack-like supershear fronts dominating opposing propagation directions.

    • Hadar Shlomai
    •  & Jay Fineberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The absence of in situand long-term meteorological data hampers our understanding of wind movement on Mars. Here, the authors use 3D airflow modelling to investigate small scale ripple migration and suggest that local dune topography exerts a strong influence on wind speed and direction.

    • Derek W. T. Jackson
    • , Mary C Bourke
    •  & Thomas A. G. Smyth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Seismic anisotropy has been widely observed in the crust and mantle due to the crystal preferred orientation (CPO) of highly anisotropic minerals such as amphibole, though it is poorly constrained. Here, the authors present an experimental study showing that three CPOs exist depending on temperature and stress.

    • Byeongkwan Ko
    •  & Haemyeong Jung

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