Some consequences of a proposed fractal nature of continental faulting

Abstract

A KEY question in the study of continental deformation concerns the preservation of undeformed regions, sometimes quite large, in the midst of otherwise penetrative deformation. Some authors¹ have interpreted such regions as being relatively strong, but we argue here that the existence of large undeformed regions might instead arise naturally from a fractal style of continental faulting. A scaling analysis derived from laboratory simulations of the India–Asia collision^2–5 yields a predicted distribution of undeformed regions, which can be tested in the field. We also show that, if continental faulting is fractal in nature, this will limit the validity of 'homogenization' approaches to the modelling of continental deformation, in which the rheology of the lithosphere is assumed to be homogeneous at scales larger than a threshold value.