Slickenside

In geology, a slickenside is a smoothly polished surface caused by frictional movement between rocks along a fault. This surface is typically striated with linear features, called slickenlines, in the direction of movement. A slickenside can occur as a single surface at a fault between two hard surfaces. Alternatively, the gouge between the fault surfaces may contain many anastamosing slip surfaces that host slickensides. These slip surfaces are on the order of 100 micrometers thick, and the size of the grains that constitute the surface are ultra-fine (0.01-1 micrometers in diameter). These grains are unlike typical grains of fault rock in that they have irregular grain boundaries and few crystal lattice defects (termed dislocations). Slickensides have conspicuous shapes that can be used to determine the direction of movement along the fault. Straight slickenlines indicate linear-translational fault motion. They are parallel to the direction of fault motion and serve as a kinematic indicator. Curved slickenlines have recently been studied for their potential to preserve the direction of earthquake rupture propagation. Slickenside formation results in unique roughness on a slip surface. Fault surface roughness (or topography) is characterized by the aspect ratio of asperity height to scale of observation, and this roughness is a key parameter in the study of fault slip. In general, a fault surface appears rougher at smaller scales (i.e. rough and bumpy at approximately millimetre scales and smaller, and increasingly smooth with larger fields of view). This smoothing with larger observation scales is more pronounced in the slip-parallel direction than the slip-perpendicular direction and is commonly a result of slickenside formation. The unique geometry of a slickenside can be created in a variety of ways, but the precise mechanisms that create them is not well understood. The grinding between two rocks produces granular material, and there is a change in the behaviour of wear material when the particle size is reduced to nanometers.