Abstract
The zone of weakness concept implies that there exist within the earth’s crust relatively weak zones which when differentially stressed will fail more readily than will the surrounding rock. Such zones are often inferred to determine the extent, orientation and style of younger deformation. Although the concept has been around a long time and is intuitively attractive, our ability to predict and explain younger deformation patterns based upon knowledge of older fabrics is poor. The concept is not rooted in adequate knowledge of specific strain mechanisms.
Basement fabric elements which have been inferred to produce weak zones include faults, joints, foliation, cleavages, folds, shear zones, plate sutures, lithologic discontinuities, and basement terrane boundaries. Within this array of fabric elements one must consider a multiplicity of potential operating mechanisms: shear and extension fractures, crystal gliding, cataclastic flow, crystal dislocations, recrystallization, pressure solution. Each is conditioned by one or more environmental factors: temperature, confining pressure, stress fields, pore pressures, strain rates. Experimental deformation of basement rocks reveals complex relationships and mechanisms. Mechanisms indigenous to the ductile realm do not operate so well, if at all, in the brittle realm. Thus inferences of syntectonic basement mechanisms being reactiviated to propagate structures at higher levels may be unwarranted.
Reactiviation of some structures is well-established by field studies, but control of younger structures by older fabric anisotropies is not. The complexity of tectonic histories, and of the dynamic systems which determine them, limits our ability to predict younger deformation patterns based upon knowledge of older fabrics.
Plate tectonics offers a conceptual framework within which confirmed dynamic principles provide a basis for inferring younger strain patterns and mechanisms within the upper crust. In spite of many complicating factors, the ability to predict strain patterns and structural assemblages of a given generation, and to extrapolate accurately from limited data, is more readily achievable within the context of plate tectonics modeling than it is by calling upon the tenuous zone of weakness concept.
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Prucha, J.J. (1992). Zone of weakness concept: A review and evaluation. In: Bartholomew, M.J., Hyndman, D.W., Mogk, D.W., Mason, R. (eds) Basement Tectonics 8. Proceedings of the International Conferences on Basement Tectonics, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1614-5_7
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