Testing the influence of a sand mica mixture on basin fill in extension and inversion experiments

Abstract

We compare the deformation patterns produced by sand and a sand mica mixture (14:1 ratio of sand to mica by weight) while simulating basin fill in extension and inversion models to analyze the potential of the sand mica mixture for applications that require a strong elasto-frictional plastic analogue material in physical models. Sand and the sand mica mixture have nearly equal angles of internal friction, but the sand mica mixture deforms at a significantly lower level of peak shear stress. In extension, the sand mica mixture basin fill experiments show fewer normal faults. During inversion, the most striking difference between the sand and the sand mica mixture basin fill experiments is related to the internal deformation in faultpropagation folds, which increases with an increase in the basal friction. We conclude that our strongly elasto-frictional plastic sand mica mixture may be used to simulate folds in experiments that focus on mild inversion in the brittle crust.

Glass Microbeads in Analog Models of Thrust Wedges

“…Gomes (2013) and Gomes et al (2015) described fault partitioning that resulted from distributed deformation in analog experiments that were performed with a sand-mica mixture (14:1 by weight). This mixture had a similar angle of internal friction to sand but failed at a lower peak shear stress because its strength was lower.…”