Structural geology articles within Nature Geoscience

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  • All Minerals Considered |

    Nephrite jade is a semi-precious gemstone composed of tiny crystals and needles of amphibole. Here, Matthew Tarling and Steven Smith describe how its origins lead to inner toughness and beauty.

    • Matthew S. Tarling
    •  & Steven A. F. Smith

  • All Minerals Considered |

    While it may feel cold to the touch, Sheng Fan and David Prior explain that ice on Earth is relatively hot. Understanding ‘hot’ ice physics during deformation is critical in determining future sea-level rise.

    • Sheng Fan
    •  & David J. Prior

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The widespread occurrence of young grabens associated with larger compressional structures on Mercury’s surface suggests contractional tectonism has continued on the planet into geologically recent times.

    • Benjamin Man
    • , David A. Rothery
    •  & Jack Wright

  • Article |

    Frequent and dispersed small earthquakes may contribute substantially to uplift of subduction margins, according to an analysis of such seismicity in the Peru–Chile and Japan margins.

    • Andrea Madella
    •  & Todd A. Ehlers

  • Article |

    Viscous deformation is a potentially prevalent mechanism of fault lubrication during earthquakes, according to laboratory experiments that simulate seismic faulting of various rock-forming minerals.

    • Giacomo Pozzi
    • , Nicola De Paola
    •  & Sylvie Demouchy

  • News & Views |

    Near-surface stress patterns, influenced by topography, control the size and location of the largest landslides — but not necessarily smaller ones — according to a study of mountains at the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau.

    • Peter van der Beek

  • Article |

    Stress from tectonics and topography may be the primary control on the size of bedrock landslides, according to a comparison of a stress model with landslide inventories for a mountainous area in eastern Tibet.

    • Gen K. Li
    •  & Seulgi Moon

  • Article |

    The lower oceanic crust beneath Iceland is flowing and internally deforming, according to constraints on seismic anisotropy in the Icelandic crust from an analysis of seismic surface waves.

    • Omry Volk
    • , Robert S. White
    •  & Nicholas Rawlinson

  • News & Views |

    Permanent surface deformation caused by the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes has been directly measured, constraining the mechanics of surface damage in earthquakes.

    • Wanpeng Feng
    •  & Rafael V. Almeida

  • News & Views |

    Tectonic tremor may ultimately be caused by in situ fluid overpressure generated by chemical reactions between a subducting slab and the mantle, according to field and microstructural observations of a shear zone.

    • Kohtaro Ujiie

  • Article |

    Seismicity induced by wastewater injections is widespread in Oklahoma, probably because its basement is susceptible to the reactivation of basement-rooted faults, according to three-dimensional seismic analyses, rock-mechanics experiments and field surveys.

    • F. Kolawole
    • , C. S. Johnston
    •  & B. M. Carpenter

  • Article |

    Mature parts of the shallow megathrust beneath Costa Rica are characterized by striking corrugations that may channel fluids, according to seismic images. Nascent sections of the subduction zone plate boundary appear only weakly corrugated.

    • Joel H. Edwards
    • , Jared W. Kluesner
    •  & Kristina Okamoto

  • Article |

    Subduction zones consume seafloor carbonates. Laboratory experiments on carbonate fault gouge from the Costa Rican subduction zone show that carbonates weaken with increasing temperature and pore-fluid pressure, and may nucleate earthquakes.

    • Robert M. Kurzawski
    • , Michael Stipp
    •  & Jan H. Behrmann

  • Letter |

    Earth’s crust diverges and extends along mid-ocean ridges. Analyses of gravity and seismic data from the equatorial Atlantic show that propagation of ridge segments can compress the crust and create sufficient uplift to create small islands.

    • Marcia Maia
    • , Susanna Sichel
    •  & Pedro Oliveira

  • News & Views |

    Rockfall often seems to occur spontaneously without an obvious cause. Monitoring of a granitic cliff reveals that cyclical temperature variations can subtly act to slowly and incrementally damage hard rock until failure is inevitable.

    • Valentin S. Gischig

  • Perspective |

    The moon Phobos will eventually either disintegrate to form a ring or crash into Mars. Observational constraints and geotechnical considerations suggest that Phobos will partially break apart into a ring, with stronger fragments impacting Mars.

    • Benjamin A. Black
    •  & Tushar Mittal

  • News & Views |

    Jupiter's icy moon Europa is criss-crossed by extensional features. A tectonic reconstruction suggests that Europa's extension is balanced by subduction — if so, Earth may not be the only planetary body with a plate tectonic system.

    • Michelle M. Selvans

  • Article |

    Despite widespread evidence for extension, there have been few signs of contraction on the icy surface of Jupiter’s Europa. Evidence for a subduction-like convergent boundary suggests that Europa may have active plate tectonics.

    • Simon A. Kattenhorn
    •  & Louise M. Prockter

  • News & Views |

    Water at the base of ice sheets can lead to faster ice flow. Radar sounding of the Greenland ice sheet reveals that refreezing of this water can also induce large changes in ice flow and structure.

    • Joseph A. MacGregor

  • Article |

    Observations of compressional structures on Mercury have fallen short of accommodating the global contraction that is required owing to cooling of the planet's interior. Mapping of folds and faults across Mercury's surface using MESSENGER spacecraft images reveals deformation consistent with a planet that has contracted radially as much as seven kilometres over its history.

    • Paul K. Byrne
    • , Christian Klimczak
    •  & Steven A. Hauck, II

  • Letter |

    Great earthquakes in the Himalaya are thought to occur mostly along the range front. Field mapping and radiocarbon dating reveal earthquake rupture on a previously unrecognized fault in the interior of the western Himalaya, which forms part of a key structural component of the mountain range, implying that seismic risk evaluations should be revised.

    • M. A. Murphy
    • , M. H. Taylor
    •  & C. Beaumont

  • Letter |

    The flow of ductile rocks in the deep crust and uppermost mantle is thought to add stress to faults in the shallow crust, potentially bringing the faults closer to rupture. Measurements of fault offsets in the Italian Apennines show that earthquake recurrence is largely controlled by viscous flow of deeper rocks in localized zones.

    • P. A. Cowie
    • , C. H. Scholz
    •  & P. Steer

  • Letter |

    Volcanic tremor can be caused by small earthquakes occurring within the volcano. Mechanical modelling of volcanic tremor generated at Redoubt Volcano, Alaska, suggests that high-frequency tremor is the result of stick–slip motion in faults within the volcano conduit.

    • Ksenia Dmitrieva
    • , Alicia J. Hotovec-Ellis
    •  & Eric M. Dunham

  • Letter |

    Stable fault slip, or creep, is thought to occur in unconsolidated sediments that form shallow parts of continental strike-slip faults. Numerical simulations show that creep events observed on faults in California also require the presence of a shallow, unstable layer of rock, the thickness of which influences the duration of the creep event.

    • Meng Wei
    • , Yoshihiro Kaneko
    •  & Jeffrey J. McGuire

  • Article |

    Earth’s crust is thought to eventually rebound following an earthquake so that deformation is not permanent. Field analysis in the Atacama Desert, northern Chile, however, identifies numerous large cracks in the crust, implying that the crust here has been permanently deformed by thousands of earthquakes that have occurred over the past million years.

    • A. Baker
    • , R. W. Allmendinger
    •  & J. A. Rech

  • Article |

    The sea floor at the easternmost Southwest Indian mid-ocean ridge is smooth, unlike that at other mid-ocean ridges. Sonar imaging and analysis of rock samples show that the sea floor here is composed almost entirely of sea-water-altered mantle rocks that have been brought to the surface by large faults on both sides of the ridge axis over the past 11 million years.

    • Daniel Sauter
    • , Mathilde Cannat
    •  & Roger Searle

  • News & Views |

    Tracking diffuse, shearing deformation of continents is difficult. Numerical modelling of drainage evolution in the Southern Alps, New Zealand, suggests that rivers can act as dynamic markers of tectonic deformation over geological timescales.

    • Eric Kirby

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