Faulting and fluid flow in porous rocks and sediments: implications for mineralisation and other processes

摘要: Faults in sedimentary rocks can act as fluid pathways or barriers to flow and display a range of deformation styles. These features be explained by behaviours observed experiments on that reveal transition from dilatant brittle faulting permeability enhancement cataclasis reduction, with increasing porosity, grain size confining pressure. This implies faults are unlikely shallower than ~3 km, unless the sediments have undergone early cementation, been exposed following burial uplift. has important implications for many geological processes, including circulation geothermal systems, formation sediment-hosted mineral deposits earthquakes subduction zones. Stratiform Zn–Pb interpreted syngenetic, seafloor could instead epigenetic representing depth at which change barriers.