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The initiation and development of fractures in rocks is the key part of manyproblems from academic to industrial, such as faulting, folding, rock massengineering, reservoir characterization, etc. Conventional ways of evaluatingthe fracture historical deformations depend on the geologists' visualinterpretation of indicating structures such as fault striations, fault steps,plumose structures, etc. on the fracture surface produced by previousdeformations, and hence suffer from problems like subjectivity and the absenceof obvious indicating structures. In this study, we propose a quantitativemethod to derive historical shear deformations of rock fractures from digitaloutcrop models (DOMs) based on the analysis of effects of fault striations andfault steps on the shear strength parameter of the fracture surface. Atheoretical model that combines effects of fault striations, fault steps andisotropic base shear strength is fitted to the shear strength parameter. Theamount of fault striations and fault steps and their occurrences are estimated,and the historical shear deformations can be inferred. The validity and theeffectiveness of the proposed method was proved by testing it on a constructedfracture surface with idealized striations and a fracture surface with clearfault steps. The application of this method on an example outcrop shows anintuitive idea of how the rock mass was deformed and that the distribution,occurrence and mode of new fractures are strictly controlled by preexistingfractures, and hence emphasizes the importance of preexisting fractures inmodeling the development of fracture systems.

Historical shear deformation of rock fractures derived from digital outcrop models and its implications on the development of fracture systems