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ExploringtheFormationofGeologicStructures,Module1:Elasticity andtheMechanismsofDikeEmplacementInstructorsNotes

I use this module and the accompanying module on strike-slip faults in my undergraduate Structural Geology course at Pomona College. Students in this course are usually Geology majors in their junior or senior year, and typically will have completed courses in Tectonics and calculus prior to the start of the course. Notes on the Background section: I usually discuss this material during the lecture portion of the class, and ask the students to relate Equations 1 to our previous discussion of Mohr Circle diagrams. I usually have students complete homework problems 1 and 2 as in-class exercises, rather than on their own. Conceptual Model: Students should finish this section with an understanding of the two competing factors controlling the thickness of a dike: the driving pressure working to open the dike and the elastic response of the host rock resisting the dike opening. Numerical Solution: This is the primary component of the module; I have the students work through this during one of our weekly 3-hour laboratory sessions. I find it very helpful to have the students work through the prediction sheet (page 14 of the module) before actually running the model. I want the students to develop an intuitive feel for what should happen, rather than just rely on the black box solution. I also have physical demonstrations with me for students to manipulate to help with their predictions (e.g., a sheet of paper with a slit in it to mimic the crack in 2D they can pull on the edges of the sheet to get the crack to open and see how the paper responds). Implementation: The data for segment 16, as well as for the other segments of the northeastern dike, are found on the web page for the Pollard and Fletcher textbook Fundamentals of Structural Geology: http://pangea.stanford.edu/projects/structural_geology/chapters/chapter08/chap08_exercis es.html There are many options to the implementation. In this version, students model a single simple segment. You can have students model multiple segments, explore the effect of overlapping segments, Homework Problems: Problems 1 and 2: I usually have the students do in-class and discuss their answers as a group. Problem 3: you may want to have students propose a testable hypothesis for why these values may differ. Propose (and execute) a new model to test the variation you described (e.g., if its because its not planar, then a longer crack should yield a less curved edge

ExploringtheFormationofGeologicStructures,Module1:Elasticity andtheMechanismsofDikeEmplacementInstructorsNotes

(and thus a value closer to a tabular crack); a finer mesh may give an answer closer to calculated). Problem 4: Get students thinking about what type of failure they would expect with an opening crack (joints, rather than shear fractures) and that sigma3 would help them identify the most likely region for jointing failure. Problem 5: The amount the dike opens is inversely related to the Youngs modulus of the surrounding host rock. As can be seen in the results in Table 3, increasing Youngs modulus by a factor of two yields one-half the displacement, while a two order of magnitude increase in E yields 1/100 the displacement. Thus, the thickness of the dike is inversely proportional to the Youngs modulus of the host rock. E (Pa) 2.20E+09 E 4.40E+09 2.20E+10 2.20E+11 E/E(2.2E9) 1 2 10 100 Umax/Umax(2.2E9) 1.00 0.50 0.10 0.01

Table 3. Sensitivity of the amount of dike opening to the Youngs modulus of the host rock. Columns contain: Youngs modulus, the change in E relative to a solution with E=2.2E9 Pa, and the change in opening relative to the opening for the E=2.2E9 Pa solution. A similar approach can be used to investigate the relationship between dike opening and the magnitudes of P and C: Internal Magma Pressure, P: P (Pa) 3.00E+06 P 9.00E+06 1.20E+07 3.00 4.00 2.98 3.97 P/P(3E6) 1.00 Umax/Umax(3E6) 1.00

Table 4. Sensitivity of the amount of dike opening to the internal magma pressure P. Columns contain: P in Pascals, the change in P relative to a

ExploringtheFormationofGeologicStructures,Module1:Elasticity andtheMechanismsofDikeEmplacementInstructorsNotes

solution with P=3E6 Pa, and the change in opening relative to the opening for the P=3E6 Pa solution. C (Pa) 0 C 3.00E+06 -3.00E+06 -6.00E+06 -1.00E+07 Table 5. Sensitivity of the amount of dike opening to the regional compressive stress C. Columns contain: C in Pascals, the change in C relative to a solution with C=-3E6 Pa, and the change in half-thickness (Uy) relative to the half-thickness for the C=-3E6 Pa solution. Alternate/additional assignment for testing parameter sensitivity: a. Run simulations to complete Table 5. b. According to the results listed in Tables 4 and 5, how does the dike opening depend on P and C? Support your answer. c. Given the relationships between dike opening and the parameters evaluated above, write an equation describing the relationship between dike opening and these parameters, where the opening is proportional to ... what? Umax/Umax(C/C(-3e6) 0.00 -1.00 1.00
3e6)

0.50 0.00 1.00

U max
Is this equation consistent with what you expected? Explain. Problem 6: A finer mesh will yield results closer to the predicted values. You can also have the students save the Poly3D data to load into Excel and plot the displacement of the mesh (and compare with analytical solution); this is shown in the answer key. Problem 7: Implementation see the different solutions given in the answer key. One answer assumes the dike reached the free surface at the time of emplacement; another explores a model with the dike not having reached the free surface.

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