Determination of stress from slip data: Faults and folds

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Abstract
A new technique is derived to invert slickenside data for the stress field that caused the faulting episode. This inversion is simplified by the assumption that the magnitude of the tangential traction on the various fault planes, at the time of rupture, is similar. Study of three normal faulting regimes shows that the inversion derived with this assumption yields results that closely match older inversions that did not include the assumption. Hence the assumption may be valid and is shown to be justified by analyzing a simple fracture criterion. Application of slip data inversions is extended from faulting regimes to the slip on bedding plane faults in folding regimes. Comparison of the inversion results with the geometry of the folds shows this application to be successful, greatly increasing the number of data sets that can be used to find the paleostress field.