Abstract
Geological faults are fractures in the Earth's crust along which there has been some displacement, and are thus zones of weakness which are of importance in planning civil engineering projects, constructing underground caverns and conducting earthquake research. To assess the potential for future displacements and fluid circulation along faults it is helpful to establish the age of the latest episode of mineral growth in fault zones; however, there have been few attempts to date recrystallized and newly grown minerals developed in fault zones at low temperature1–4. Here we report K–Ar and Rb–Sr ages for clay fractions from two fault zones in the Eastern Alps, and compare them with ages of the same fine fractions from the undeformed host rock. The results suggest that the bulk of the clays along these faults were formed during early Cretaceous and Tertiary times, respectively. No major displacements seem to have taken place in recent times.
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References
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Kralik, M., Klima, K. & Riedmüller, G. Dating fault gouges. Nature 327, 315–317 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1038/327315a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/327315a0
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