Rock analogs for structural geology

This is a compilation of the properties of different analog materials used to simulate deformational processes in structural geology. Such experiments are often called analog or analogue models. The organization of this page follows the review of rock analog materials in structural geology and tectonics of Reber et al. 2020.[1]

. . . Rock analogs for structural geology . . .

This a sample of light colored, fine grained sand that has been used in analog experiments. This is just one example of sand that can used because it can have various grain sizes, colors and compositions.

These materials need to exhibit brittle deformation upon failure as well as elastic and viscous deformation before failure.

Material	Applications	Studies
Plexiglas and glass	Plexiglas and glass is useful for many applications. Some of which are: stress analysis of grains[2][3] fracturing[4][5][6] earthquake dynamics[7][8]	Erdogan & Sih 1963;[4] Thomas and Pollard 1993;[5] Cooke & Pollard,1996;[6] Daniels & Hayman, 2008;[2] Lu, Lapusta & Rosakis,2007;[7] Owens & Daniels, 2011;[3] Rubino, Rosakis, & Lapusta, 2019[8]
Gelatin	Gelatin has been used to simulate: tensile fracturing[9][10][11] thrust faults[12][13] dyke and sill emplacement[14][15][16][17][18][19][20]	Bot, vanAmerongon, Groot, Hoekstra, & Agterof, 1996;[21] Brizzi, Funiciello, Corbi, Di Giuseppe, & Mojoli, 2016;[22] Canon-Tapia and Merle, 2006;[14] Corbi et al., 2011;[12] Corbi et al., 2013;[13] Di Giuseppe et al., 2009;[23] Hyndman & Alt, 1987;[15] Kavanagh, Menand, & Daniels, 2013;[24] Kavanagh, Menand, & Sparks, 2006;[16] Kervyn, Ernst, de Vires, Mathieu, & Jacobs, 2009;[17] Kobchenko et al., 2014;[9] Lee, Reber, Hayman, & Wheeler, 2016;[10] Menand & Tait, 2002;[18] Pollard, 1973;[19] Rivalta, Bottinger, & Dahm, 2005;[20] Touvet, Balmforth, Craster, & Sutherland, 2011;[11] van Otterloo & Cruden, 2016[25]
Foam	Foam is mostly used as an analog simulating elastic loading on the crust between earthquake events.[26][27][28][29] If the foam used has a low stiffness, it can be dynamically scaled to preexisting fault surfaces’ and earthquake cycles[30]	Anooshehpoor & Brune,1999;[26] Anooshehpoor, Heaton, Shi & Brune, 1999;[27] Brune,1973;[28] Caniven et al., 2015;[29] Rosenau et al., 2017;[30] Rosenau, Lohrmann, & Oncken, 2009;[31] Rosenau & Oncken, 2009[32]
Clays	Clay is used to simulate deformation in the upper crust through distributed deformation and localized failure. The properties of clay depend on the mineralogy, grain size distribution and water content.	Bonanno, et al., 2017;[33] Bonini et al., 2016;[34] Cooke and van der Elst, 2012;[35] DeGroot & Lunne, 2007;[36] Eisenstadt & Sims, 2005;[37] Hatem, Cooke, & Toeneboehn, 2017;[38] Henza, Withjack, & Schlische, 2010;[39] Kenny, 1967;[40] Mitra & Paul, 2011;[41] Paul & Mitra, 2013;[42] Toeneboehn, 2017;[43] Toeneboehn, 2018;[44] White, 1949;[45] Withjack, Henza, & Schlische, 2017[46]