The mechanics of shear failure is a key to understanding a wide range of geological processes, from landslides on the surface to faulting in the Earth's interior. It is now a well-established fact that ductile materials yield under a threshold stress condition, forming shear bands of finite length, which eventually influence the paths of their bulk failure. Compression test experiments show mechanically homogeneous isotropic solids undergo shear failure to produce a conjugate set of shear bands or fractures symmetrically oriented to the applied compression direction (Anand & Spitzig, 1980;Bowden & Raha, 1970;Hutchinson & Tvergaard, 1981;Tvergaard et al., 1981). Employing various yield criteria, many workers have provided theoretical solutions to predict the band orientation as a function of material parameters, such as coefficient of internal friction, dilatancy factor, and strain hardening and softening properties (Anand & Spitzig,

DOI = 10.3126/hjs.v5i7.1228 Himalayan Journal of Sciences Vol.5(7) (Special Issue) 2008 p.16-17

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Ductile yielding of rocks and similar solids localize shear zones, which often show complex internal structures due to the networking of their secondary shear bands. Combining observations from naturally deformed rocks and numerical modelling, this study addresses the following crucial question: What dictates the internal shear bands to network during the evolution of an initially homogeneous ductile shear zone? Natural shear zones, observed in the Chotonagpur Granite Gneiss Complex of the Precambrian craton of Eastern India, show characteristic patterns of their internal shear band structures, classified broadly into three categories: type I (network of antithetic low-angle Riedel (R) and synthetic P-bands), type II (network of shear-parallel C and P/R bands) and type III (distributed shear domains containing isolated undeformed masses). Considering strain-softening rheology, our two-dimensional viscoplastic models reproduce these three types, allowing us to predict the condition of shear band growth with a specific network pattern as a function of the following parameters: normalized shear zone thickness, bulk shear rate and bulk viscosity. This study suggests that complex anastomosing shear-band structures can evolve under simple shear kinematics in the absence of any pure shear component.

<p>Crustal deformations generally undergo a brittle-ductile transition with depth, producing fault-dominated structures at shallow depths, replaced by ductile shear zones at middle and lower crustal levels. One of the keys to shear zone modelling concerns the choice of rheological approximations that can successfully reproduce the characteristic features of natural ductile shear zones in the models.  With the help of 2D FE (finite element) simulations, this study shows viscoplastic rheology as a suitable rheological approximation to predict the competing growth and orientations of multiple sets of secondary shear bands in a ductile shear zone. The viscoplastic rheology is modelled by combining bulk viscous weakening of the shear zone material and plastic yielding (Drucker-Prager criterion) to replicate strain-softening behaviour, where the instantaneous viscosity decreases nonlinearly with increasing strain. The cohesive strength of the material is also assumed to reduce with progressive plastic strain. This rheological combination allows us to replicate the various shear band networks found in crustal-level ductile shear zones. It also addresses the conditions for fluid flow into ductile shear zones, which leads to metamorphic reactions, mineralisation, etc. We validate our model results with field observations of similar shear band structures from the Eastern Indian Precambrian craton. The present study finally leads us to conclude that a pressure-dependent viscoplastic rheology is an ideal rheological approximation to model ductile shear zones extensively found in this craton.</p>

We have used sandbox experiments to explore the mechanics of the frontal prism structures documented by seismic reflection data and new borehole from IODP Expedition 343 (JFAST). This study investigated the effects of down-dip (normal to trench axis) variations in frictional resistance along a decollement on the structural development of the frontal wedges near subduction zones. Interpretation of seismic reflection images indicates that the wedge has been effected by trench-parallel horst-and-graben structures in the subducting plate. We performed sandbox experiments with down-dip patches of relatively high and low friction on the basal decollement to simulate the effect of variable coupling over subducting oceanic plate topography. Our experiments verify that high frictional resistance on the basal fault can produce the internal deformation and fault-and-fold structures observed in the frontal wedge by the JFAST expedition. Subduction of patches of varying friction caused a temporal change in the style of internal deformation within the wedge and gave rise to two distinctive structural domains, separated by a break in the surface slope of the wedge: (i) complexly deformed inner wedge with steep surface slope and (ii) shallow taper outer wedge, with a sequence of imbricate thrusts. Our experiments further demonstrate that the topographic slope-break in the wedge develops when the hinterland part of the wedge essentially stops deforming internally, leading to in-sequence thrusting with the formation of an outer wedge with low taper angle. For a series of alternate high and low frictional conditions on the basal fault the slope of the wedge varies temporally between a topographic slope-break and uniformly sloping wedge. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

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