Talk:Strike-slip tectonics

Is strike-slip the same as stick-slip? Lobarrie 22:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Strike-slip movement on a fault means that the displacement along the fault surface is near horizontal, that is along the strike of the structure. Such faults are also known as transcurrent or wrench faults. Stick-slip refers to the tendency for the sides of a fault (or other surfaces in frictional contact) to slip past each other not smoothly, but by periods of no displacement, during which the stress builds up and short periods of rapid displacement. This is thought to be due to the presence of irregularities on the fault surface, sometimes call asperities, that need increased stress levels to allow sliding. Once the asperity is overcome the accumulated elastic strain is released, causing, in the case of large faults, earthquakes. A common analogy is with the effect of dragging a piece of chalk across a blackboard (chalkboard) or the effect of a violin bow on a string. Mikenorton 10:36, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Expansion

I've expanded this page some but it still needs some good diagrams, which I intend to create; more references would be good too. Mikenorton (talk) 23:36, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

P-shears

I was looking for information about P-shears. Hopefully it will be in this article someday! :) Hamsterlopithecus (talk) 22:42, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I've added a bit on P-shears with a ref to the 1970 Tchalenko paper that brought riedel shears to a wider audience. Mikenorton (talk) 09:01, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Reidel shears and their conjugates seem pretty intuitive based on the directions of maximum and minimum stress, but I never quite understood how these P-shears form. If you have more info, it would be greatly appreciated! Hamsterlopithecus (talk) 21:39, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

They're more observational than theoretical - my speculation (pure OR) is that the R-R' network is unable to match the applied simple shear strain without further faulting in the P direction, they form late in the sequence. Mikenorton (talk) 00:14, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

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More user-friendly

Hi Mikenorton. Thank you very much for your tremendous work here. I would like to suggest if I may, that you try to adapt the wording, especially in the lead, which is the only part which many non-specialist users would read, to a more general readership. Several of the most general terms used do not speak for themselves, are made by specialists for specialists, and Wikipedia addresses everybody. Jpvandijk, hi, you wrote much of the plate tectonics article and might want to be part of a concerted effort here.

I am not completely unfamiliar with the topic, but I still couldn't figure out the meaning of parts of the lead. To remember what I had once learned, I had to search outside Wikipedia (which is not good for the project) and I was perfectly satisfied with the US NOAA Ocean Exploration website's overview here. It offers a clear and simple presentation of the 3 different types of plate tectonic boundaries, with symmetrical 6-to-10-word definitions, and one well known example for each, aided by one good and concise visual:

• divergent plate boundary - formed when two tectonic plates move away from each other - see the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
• convergent plate boundary - formed when two plates come together - see the Pacific Ring of Fire
• transform plate boundary - formed by two plates sliding past each other - see the San Andreas fault zone.

The bulleted form also is very useful at this level. To the scheme above we should add the name of the process creating the respective boundary (extensional tectonics, thrust tectonics, and... what's actually the name of the type creating transform faults?!). So in the end one gets 4 elements: process type - boundary type - definition - example.

Now I discovered that Plate_tectonics#Types_of_plate_boundaries is already very much following such a scheme. The leads of the individual articles for each type should be modelled on that for simplification - and wikilinked to it. (It also mentions mixed forms, which made me curious.) I find that section to be the core go-to spot of the whole plate tectonics domain, the more concise it is kept and the more it's linked everywhere else, the better for the user.

"Strike-slip", in itself, says nothing to me, at least as a non-native speaker. I find "lateral displacement" less transparent a wording than "two plates sliding past each other". "Transform boundaries" is also not self-explanatory (all boundaries get to be transformed), and "horizontal motion" is also unhelpful, as the plates are by definition moving horizontally, only the contact zones move (are deformed) in both horizontal and vertical ways.

My point: non-specialist users, many if not most of them non-native English speakers, are the target. Students and active geologists will either know most of what the article says, or will know the terminology and read it with some ease. Regular users though have a very hard time.

Thanks again for your efforts! Arminden (talk) 08:44, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Confusing: there seem to be two levels, the type of boundary in a general sense, with that type of boundary when it relates specifically to a plate as a sub-class. OK. This should be stated at a prominent place. For the novice a tectonic unit limited by boundaries is a plate, why not? The contrary is not self-evident. The NOAA website only deals with the plate boundaries. EnWiki is more general - in intention, but then come the redirects, who mess that up:

• divergent plate boundary redirects to divergent boundary
• convergent plate boundary redirects to convergent boundary
• transform plate boundary redirects to transform boundary.

So no distinction made. Bad, as it is inconsistent & misleading.

EnWiki uses the terms strike-slip fault as the general term, and strike-slip boundary aka transform fault as a "special class of strike-slip fault...when it forms a plate boundary." It can get non-geologists dizzy: strike-slip boundary aka transform fault a special case of strike-slip fault? With no mention of the word "plate" for the lower category/special class! Mixing & permutating the very same words to get different levels in the terminology hierarchy - very confusing.

Either there is always a distinction made for the term which contains "plate" from where it doesn't - or the user can make no such distinction. EnWiki works as a closed system, the terminology must be consistent, AND a note must be added that outside enWiki literature can be less consistent, as a warning. That's how I see it. I of course have the advantage of looking at already written articles, so it's easy for me to find such issues. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 09:02, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

I've no doubt that it is confusing, some sources are very poor at making any kind of distinction between plate boundaries and other areas of localised deformation of the same style. Also I note that some of the text in the lede dates back to 2006 when I created the article with my 11th ever edit, so some reworking is undoubtedly necessary and long overdue. Thanks for raising this issue, I will try to address this, although I don't expect that this will happen quickly. Mikenorton (talk) 20:32, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Arminden I've rewritten the lede section. Let me known if that clarifies things. Cheers, Mikenorton (talk) 15:34, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Hi Mikenorton, and thanks. It does look somewhat more comprehensible for a non-specialist now, but I'm getting the feeling that it's out of my league anyway, so I'll leave it at that. I'll take from this discussion what I've learned from Plate tectonics#Types of plate boundaries and leave aside what goes beyond that. Thanks again, Arminden (talk) 11:39, 27 September 2022 (UTC)