Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: . Structural restoration is commonly used to assess the deformation of geological structures and to reconstruct past basin geometries. For this, most methods use numerical simulations to compute the deformation of geological models from a chosen deformation mechanism for each geological layer, and conditions applied on the boundaries depending on geological knowledge. For example, geomechanical restoration classically uses elastic motion, considers faults as frictionless contact surfaces, and imposes boundary conditions such as interface flattening to estimate the paleo-deformation. To bring more physical behavior and better handle large deformations, we use a reverse time Stokes-based method with negative time step advection. In order to test the method on complex models including various rheology and faults, we apply it to an analogue experiment model. We first show that reasonable restored geometries can be obtained using classical kinematic boundary conditions. We then show that it is possible to relax the imposed kinematic conditions and replace them by more physical boundary conditions. These conditions, however, imply a larger impact of the material properties on the restoration results. Finally, we show that relaxing the boundary conditions and using the previous imposed conditions as choice criteria allows both the assessment of the value of the effective material properties, and the improvement of the restoration results.
Source: Solid Earth
Language: English
Subfield: Geochemistry and Petrology
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,811
Funder: University of Cambridge
OpenAlex ID: W4401463444