Shear zones & Types.

The nature of shear zones:

• Shear zone is a zone composed of rocks
that are more highly strained than rocks
adjacent to the zone.
• The intensity which rock can be deformed
in shear zones is astonishing (e.g. granites
that seems schist).
• Shear zone can be formed under three
main conditions:
 Brittle conditions: Generates a fault
zone.
 Ductile conditions: (deformation +
metamorphism) Foliation, lineations,
folds….
 Intermediate conditions. Fault in brittle
conditions. Vadiello (Huesca).

• Shear zones provide a detailed record of

the history of deformation and permit us to
determine the amount of strain, and the
sense and amount of displacement.

General characteristics.
• The distribution of strain in shear zones is
mainly heterogeneous.
• There are a spatial gradient in the amount
of strain. The strain is higher in the center of
the zone.
• There are two types of shear zones in order
to their continuity:
 Continuous: Gradual increase of strain,
within break, ductile conditions.
 Discontinuous: Abrupt increase of strain,
sharp physical breaks, brittle conditions.

• The scale of length and displacement can

be very different magnitude (mm-km).

• Usually shear zones are much longer than

thicker.
• Whether a shear zone appears continuous
or discontinuous depends on the scale at
which we observe the structures too.
Geometries.
• Subparallel margins
• Retain its thickness (over much of their
length) but:
 Where the margins diverge, widening
occurs, (specially in the ends of a shear
zone).
 Where the margins converge, increases
deformation and thinning takes place.
• Commonly arranged in sets that may:
Deflect toward one another and link up or
crosscut and displace one other.
• Normally planar to gently curved. Some
can have complex geometries.
The curviplanar geometry may be:
 An original planar shear zone that was
folded.
 An original curviplanar geometry,
encompassing around more rigid, less
deformed object (e.g. pluton on a reginal
scale, or pebbles of a strong rock in a small
scale)

Offset and Deflection of Markers.

• They are generated when a shear zone cuts
across a preexisting feature (A
compositional layering, a dike…)
• A marker cut by:
 A continuos shear zone -> Deflection in
its orientation and change in thickness.
 A discontinuos shear zone -> Offset
across the zone.
• Shear zones types according with the
relative displacement of rocks on opposite
sides.
 Strike-slip (dextral or sinistral)
 Specifing which way the  Normal
hanging wall moved.
 Reverse (e.g. top to the west)
 Thrust  Vertical shear zones ->
 Oblique-slip (strike-slip + dip slip) e.g.
west-side up.
Tectonic setting.
Shear zones form in plate boundaries of
all types.
• Strike-slip zones as the San Andreas
fault of California.
• Plate convergence and crustal
shortening commonly have thrust and
reverse shear zones as Alpine-Zagros-
Himalayan belt. Some zones represent
the deep-level and others form beneath
basement-cored uplifts.
• Plate divergence and crustal extension.
Specially in regions of continental
rifting, such as the African rift.
Types of shear zones
We can subdivide shear zones in four
mainly types, based on the characteristic
type of deformation of each one:
1. A brittle shear zone contains fractures and
other features formed by brittle deformation.
2. A ductile shear zone displays structures
that have been formed shearing by ductile
flow.
3. Semibrittle shear zones involves
mechanisms such as pressure solution and
cataclastic flow.
4. The last one, brittle-ductile shear zones,
shows evidence for both brittle and ductile
deformation.
1. Brittle shear zones
• Brittle shear zones form in the upper
part of the crust, where the brittle
deformation dominates.
• Shear zones formed in this conditions
are characterized by closely spaced
 faults, numerous joints and shear
fractures.
• These zones of intensely fractured and
crushed rocks associated with faults vary
in thickness from less than a mm to a km
or more.
• The wall rocks outside a brittle shear
zone may be unaffected by the faulting,
or may show a zone of drag folding
flanking the zone.
2. Ductile shear zones
• Ductile shear zones are formed by
shearing under ductile conditions, in this
case it produces at the middle-lower part
of the crust. Accordingly, we generally see
ductile shear zones with rocks we would
expect to find in the middle crust and
deeper like gneiss, schist, marble,
migmatite, pegmatite…
• The principal feature of a ductile shear
zone is that it doesn’t display any physical
 break. Instead, differential translation of
rock bodies is achieved entirely by ductile
flow.
• Some rock types that form in ductile
shear zones are different from the normal
metamorphic rocks. Such rocks are called
tectonites (we must indicate the type of
rock, e.g., marble tectonite).
3. Semibrittle shear zones
• These zones are dominated by brittle
deformation mechanisms but contain some
ductile aspects as well.
• Shear zones defined by en echelon folds
can be either semibrittle or ductile,
depending of the conditions under which
they form. Many zones of en echelon folds
are associated with faults and are probably
best classified as semibrittle shear zones.
The faults are brittle features, but the
folding may occur by ductile mechanisms,
 such as pressure solution, without loss of
cohesion of the rocks.
Note: the term “en echelon” refers to
closely-spaced, parallel or subparallel
minor structural features in rock that are
oblique to the overall structural trend.
4. Brittle-Ductile shear zones
• Brittle-ductile shear zones contain
evidence of deformation by both brittle
and ductile mechanisms.
• Brittle-ductile shear zones can be formed
when:
1. the physical conditions permit brittle
and ductile deformation to occur at the
same time
2. different parts of a rock have different
mechanical properties
3. a shear zone strains harden
4. physical conditions change
systematically during deformations
5. a shear zone is reactivated under
physical conditions different from those in
which the shear zone originally formed.
Determining sense of shear
• One of the main goals in studying shear
zones is to determine the sense of shear
(the direction one side of a shear zone is
displaced laterally relative to the other
side).
• Shear-sense indicators are those features
that show the sense of shear for a
deformation.
• Offset Markers.
• Foliation Patterns.
• Shear Bands, S-C Fabrics, Oblique
Micorscopic Foliation. • Mica Fish.
• Inclusions.
• Pressure Shadows.
• Porphyroclasts and Porphyroblasts.
• Foliation Fish.
• Fractured and Offset Grains.
 • Veins.
• Folds.
Offset Markers
• We can determine both the amount and
sense of displacement if we realize the
similar-appearing features on opposite side
of the shear zone were originally
continuous.
Foliation Patterns
• Systematic variations in the orientation
of foliation are common in ductile shear
zones and provide one of the most useful
shear-sense indicators.
• Foliation will be rotated towards
parellelism with the shear zones where the
rocks are more strongly deformed, and the
strain is higher.
Shear Bands, S-C Fabrics, and Oblique
Microscopic Foliation.
• Shear bands are thin zones of very high
shear strain within the main shear zone. A
shear band is synthetic if it is inclined in
the same direction as the overall sense of
shear, and antithetic if it is inclined in the
opposite direction.
• S-C fabrics. They consist of two sets of
planes: foliation planes (S- surfaces) and
shear bands (C- surfaces). The clearest
examples are in mylonitic granitic and
gneissic rock.
• The oblique microscopic foliation is
defined by aligned subgrains oblique to the
long axis of larger individual grains and
ribbons. The oblique foliation leans over in
the direction of shear relative to the main
foliation defined by the larger grains.
Mica Fish
Inclusions
• They are commonly aligned
• Inclusions provide sense- with S-surfaces
in S-C of-shear information by fabrics, and
lean over in the way they the sense of
shear. rotate, deform, recrystalliz e, and
interact with their matrix.
Pressure Shadows
• When inclusions are strong compared to
the matrix, they help shielding the matrix
on the flanks of the inclusion from strain.
These shielded areas (pressure shadows)
are composed of less deformed matrix or
of minerals that grew or recrystallized
during deformation.
Porphyroclasts and Porphyroblasts
• Rigid grains of one mineral within a
more strongly deformed matrix having a
different mineralogy. Knowing the shape
due to noncoaxial deformation, we can
define the sense of shear.
Fractured and Offset Grains
• Porphyroclasts and other rigid inclusions
may accommodate deformation by
becoming sliced up by small-scale or
grain-scale faults.
• The sense of displacement on such faults
can be a shear-sense indicator, but not a
totally reliable one.
Veins
• Most shear zone-related veins contain
quartz and calcite. These minerals are
deposited from the fluids that filled the
opened fractures.
• Most veins form “perpendicular” to the
axis of maximum extension, because this
is the direction in which tension fractures
form.