Diaclasa

Ruptura de un estrato rocoso debido a un esfuerzo, y en la que no hay un desplazamiento. Determinadas rocas, como el granito o algunas calizas, presentan redes de diaclasas que favorecen su fragmentacin y meteorizacin.
DIACLASAS: Fundamentales en el Basalto, son "grietas" que se producen en la roca, se diferencia de las fallas pues no existe movimiento entre uno y otro lado de la roca. En el basalto las diaclasas son el resultado de la contraccin de la roca al enfriarse, recordemos que las sustancias a las que sometemos a un aumento de temperatura (sin llegar a cambiar de estado: slido, liquido y gaseoso), aumentan su volumen, y al enfriarse lo disminuyen. si este enfriamiento es relativamente violento se producen "grietas" por donde alivia sus tensiones internas el material, por ejemplo: si tenemos un recipiente con cera de abejas, liquida (a ms de 600 C) y lo colocamos en el refrigerador, pocos minutos despus lo encontraremos en estado slido, pero con grietas concntricas.

Introduccin:
En las rocas slidas existen varios tipos de planos. Planos de origen sedimentario, magmtico (enfriamiento) o planos de origen tectnico. Este ltimo tipo de plano se puede definir como testigo de las fuerzas tectnicas. Es decir, que antes de la litificacin se forman las foliaciones primarias. Las fuerzas tectnicas afectan las rocas despus de la litificacin. Adems en varios sectores del mundo se encuentran ms de una fase tectnica. Significa que los planos secundarios (Diaclasas, Fallas, esquistosidad) tienen su origen despus de la litificacin, pero puede ser que eso ocurri en distintas pocas. (vase cronologa).

2.1 Tipos de Foliaciones:

Foliaciones primarias: se han formado antes de la litificacin de las rocas: Estratificacin,
flujo laminar de magma.

Foliaciones secundarias: producido despus de la litificacin de las rocas: por ejemplo

diaclasas, fallas, esquistosidad (vase).

Otras foliaciones de origen no-tectnico: Grietas de enfriamiento, Estructuras sedimentarias como grietas de de- o resecacin (foto). Para estudios en la geologa estructural es muy importante diferenciar entre foliaciones primarias y estructuras generadas por fuerzas tectnicas (foliaciones secundarias). Estratificacin:

Estratificacin:
Capas de diferentes materiales hechas por procesos de deposicin. Generalmente los estratos inferiores muestran una edad mayor como los estratos superiores. vase: Apuntes Geologa General

Foliaciones secundarias:
1) Diaclasas (juntas; ingls: joints): Fracturas sin desplazamiento transversal detectable, solo con poco movimiento extensional. Son las fracturas ms frecuentes en todos los tipos de rocas. En la superficie son ms frecuentes como en altas profundidades. Tienen una extensin de milmetros, centmetros hasta pocos metros. Normalmente existen en una masa rocosa grupos de diaclasas y/o sistemas de diaclasas. Los grupos de diaclasas son estructuras paralelas o subparalelas. Los sistemas de diaclasas se cortan entre s en ngulos definidos y tienen una

cierta simetra. Algunas diaclasas muestran un relleno (secundario) de calcita, cuarzo, yeso u otros minerales. Aparte de diaclasas tectnicas existen diaclasas de origen no-tectnico: a) Fisuras de enfriamiento: Tienen su origen durante el enfriamiento de una roca magmtica (Materiales o rocas calientes que ocupan ms espacio con la misma cantidad de materia fra). foto; vase retrato histrico)

Algunas veces el enfriamiento rpido en las rocas volcnicas - extrusivas genera columnas de seis caras. Normalmente se encuentra este fenmeno en basaltos. Las columnas tienen un dimetro entre 20 hasta 30 centmetros y estn orientadas perpendicular a la paleosuperficie. Foto: Columnas de enfriamiento en rocas volcnicas de la Formacin Monardes en el sector "El Patn", Regin Atacama, Chile. Foto W. Griem (2005; K4452)

Grietas de desecacin: Durante la desecacin de un barro o lodo bajo condiciones atmosfricas hay una disminucin del espacio ocupado y la superficie se rompe en polgonos. > foto

Foto cuando es suelo

Foto cuando es roca (grites de desecacon)

c) Fisuras de tensin gravitacional: Sobre estratos inclinados se puede observar bajo algunas condiciones un deslizamiento de las masas rocosas hacia abajo. Al comienzo de este fenmeno se abren grietas paralelas al talud. vase Ejemplos histricos

Perfil de un deslizamiento (1872):

Lyell describe un deslizamiento gravitacional . Los estratos superiores, relativamente solubles y porosos perdieron su estabilidad y conexin con la lutita lisica (Las) de abajo. La inclinacin general de los estratos del las provocan un movimiento hacia abajo (la izquierda).

Una diaclasa (del griego dia, a travs de, y klasis, rotura) es una fractura en las rocas que no va acompaada de deslizamiento de los bloques que determina, no siendo el desplazamiento ms que una mnima separacin transversal. Se distinguen as de las fallas, fracturas en las que s hay deslizamiento de los bloques. Son estructuras muy abundantes.

Contenido
[ocultar]

1 Caractersticas de una diaclasa 2 Asociaciones de diaclasas 3 Mecanismos 4 Bibliografa

[editar] Caractersticas de una diaclasa

La orientacin de una diaclasa, como la de otras estructuras geolgicas, se describe mediante dos parmetros:

Direccin: ngulo que forma una lnea horizontal contenida en el plano de la diaclasa con el eje norte - sur. Buzamiento: ngulo formado por la diaclasa y un plano horizontal imaginario.

Las diaclasas no tienen por que ser en general planas, ni responder a ninguna geomtrica regular, as que los parmetros indicados pueden variar de un punto a otro.

[editar] Asociaciones de diaclasas

Las diaclasas no suelen aparecer aisladas, sino asociadas a fallas y a pliegues. Cuando, como suele ocurrir, existen dos o ms conjuntos de diaclasas, se habla de un sistema de diaclasas o "joint system". Los ms sencillos son:

Sistema de diaclasas paralelas: todas las diaclasas tienen igual direccin y buzamiento. Sistema de diaclasas que se cortan: las diaclasas tienen distintas direcciones y buzamientos y, por lo tanto, se cortan en determinados puntos. El caso ms comn suele ser el de familias de diaclasas conjugadas, con dos o tres direcciones predominantes de diaclasas producidas por el mismo fenmeno tectnico (distensin o compresin).

Para poder discriminar entre diaclasas de compresin y de distensin hay que estudiar los ejes principales de la deformacin local o regional, pues las diaclasas en s mismas no aportan informacin suficiente (estras o desplazamiento). En el caso de diaclasas de extensin la direccin de la familia ms notoria suele ser perpendicular a la direccin de

la extensin y en las de compresin la bisectriz del ngulo agudo de la interseccin de diaclasas la direccin de la misma.

[editar] Mecanismos
La formacin de las diaclasas obedece a muy diversas causas, incluyendo fuerzas dirigidas como las que provocan el fallamiento o plegamiento del terreno.

Los rganos (La Gomera, disyuncin columnar en basalto, un tipo de diaclasa producida por enfriamiento.

Una de las causas ms frecuentes de diaclasamiento es la disminucin del volumen del material (aumento de la densidad), que a su vez se puede producir por distintos motivos:

Deshidratacin, como ocurre en sedimentos que quedan al aire despus de haber estado sumergidos. Enfriamiento, como en el caso de las columnatas baslticas. Se forman por coladas baslticas, las cuales, una vez solidificada la lava, por el posterior enfriamiento, se dividen en columnas prismticas (disyuncin columnar). La Calzada de los Gigantes de Irlanda, o Los rganos de La Gomera son alguno de los muchos ejemplos conocidos de este caso. Recristalizacin. El paso del tiempo favorece, en los materiales geolgicos, un reordenamiento de las molculas que en conjunto ampla la extensin de las redes cristalinas, aumentando la densidad del material, lo que se compensa, como en los casos anteriores, con la formacin de grietas.

Otra causa importante de diaclasamiento es la descompresin, como la que afecta a un plutn grantico que la erosin va dejando al descubierto. Es as como se originan las formaciones que en el Centro de Espaa se llaman berruecos o berrocales.

Joints and fractures The most common type of structure (at least at and near the surface) Try to find an outcrop without fractures A break in the rock along which little or no movement has occurred Result of brittle failure due to compressional and/or tensional stress Usually come in "sets" Caused by regional directed stress Common to all rocks exposed at the surface Indicates that the causes are many and varied Tectonic activity Mountain building (orogenics), plate interactions Non-tectonic stresses Shrinkage due to cooling or drying Columnar basalt Expansion due to release of pressure - very common at surface Exfoliation

Joints
Joints are fracture surfaces along which there has been no displacement. Joints can form from compressional, tensional and shear stress, and can range in size from microscopic to kilometers in length. Joint sets and jointing has a major influence on landform development. Erosion is able to occur at a faster rate along joints.

In geology the term joint refers to a fracture in rock where the displacement associated with the opening of the fracture is greater than the displacement due to lateral movement in the plane of the fracture (up, down or sideways) of one side relative to the other. Typically, there is little to no lateral movement across joints. This makes joints different from a fault which is defined as a fracture in rock in which one side slides laterally past the other with a displacement that is greater than the separation between the blocks on either side of the fracture. Joints normally have a regular spacing related to either the mechanical properties of the individual rock or the thickness of the layer involved. Joints generally occur as sets, with each set consisting of joints sub-parallel to each other.

Contents
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1 Formation 2 Types of joints o 2.1 Types with respect to formation 2.1.1 Tectonic joints 2.1.2 Unloading joints (Release joints) 2.1.3 Cooling joints o 2.2 Types with respect to attitude and geometry 3 Fractography 4 Importance to soil and rock mass strength 5 Importance in the production of geofluids 6 See also 7 References

[edit] Formation
Joints form in solid, hard rock that is stretched such that its brittle strength is exceeded (the point at which it breaks). When this happens the rock fractures in a plane parallel to the maximum principal stress and perpendicular to the minimum principal stress (the direction in which the rock is being stretched). This leads to the development of a single sub-parallel joint set. Continued deformation may lead to development of one or more additional joint sets. The presence of the first set strongly affects the stress orientation in the rock layer, often causing subsequent sets to form at a high angle to the first set.

Joint sets are commonly observed to have relatively constant spacing, which is roughly proportional to the thickness of the layer.[1]

[edit] Types of joints

Joints are classified by the processes responsible for their formation, or their geometry.

[edit] Types with respect to formation

[edit] Tectonic joints

Tectonic joints are formed during deformation episodes whenever the differential stress is high enough to induce tensile failure of the rock, irrespective of the tectonic regime. They will often form at the same time as faults. Measurement of tectonic joint patterns can be useful in analyzing the tectonic history of an area because they give information on stress orientations at the time of formation.[2]

[edit] Unloading joints (Release joints)

Joints are most commonly formed when uplift and erosion removes the overlying rocks thereby reducing the compressive load and allowing the rock to expand laterally. Joints related to uplift and erosional unloading have orientations reflecting the principal stresses during the uplift. Care needs to be taken when attempting to understand past tectonic stresses to discriminate, if possible, between tectonic and unloading joints. Exfoliation joints are special cases of unloading joints formed at, and parallel to, the current land surface in rocks of high compressive strength.

[edit] Cooling joints

Joints can also form via cooling of hot rock masses, particularly lava, forming cooling joints, most commonly expressed as vertical columnar jointing. The joint systems associated with cooling typically are polygonal because the cooling introducing stresses that are isotropic in the plane of the layer.

[edit] Types with respect to attitude and geometry

Joints can be classified into three groups depending on their geometrical relationship with the country rock:
Strike joints Joints which run parallel to the direction of strike of country rocks are called "strike joints" Dip joints Joints which run parallel to the direction of dip of country rocks are called "dip joints" Oblique joints Joints which run oblique to the dip and strike directions of the country rocks are called "oblique joints".

[edit] Fractography

Plumose structure on a fracture surface in sandstone

Joint propagation can be studied using the techniques of fractography in which characteristic marks such as hackles and plumose structures can be used to determine propagation directions and, in some cases, the principal stress orientations.[3]

[edit] Importance to soil and rock mass strength

In geotechnical engineering a joint forms a discontinuity that may have a large influence on the mechanical behavior (strength, deformation, etc.) of soil and rock masses in, for example, tunnel, foundation, or slope construction.

[edit] Importance in the production of geofluids

It is long been recognized that joints (fractures) play a major role in the subsurface fluid flow of water in aquifers and petroleum in oil fields. Major industry research projects have been dedicated during the last decades to the study of faulted and fractured reservoirs.[4][5]

Exfoliation joint
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Exfoliation joints wrapping around Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, California.

Exfoliation joints in granite at Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, Texas, USA. Detached blocks have slidden along the steeply-dipping joint plane.

Exfoliation joints or sheet joints are surface-parallel fracture systems in rock often leading to erosion of concentric slabs.

Contents
[hide]

1 General characteristics of exfoliation joints 2 Formation of exfoliation joints o 2.1 Removal of overburden and rebound o 2.2 Thermoelastic strain o 2.3 Chemical weathering o 2.4 Compressive stress and extensional fracture 3 Engineering geology significance 4 References 5 External links

[edit] General characteristics of exfoliation joints

Commonly follow topography (Gilbert, 1904; Matthes, 1930; Goodman, 1993). Divide the rock into sub-planar slabs (Goodman, 1993). Joint spacing increases with depth from a few centimeters near the surface to a few meters (Dale, 1923; Jahns, 1943; Goodman, 1993). Maximum depth of observed occurrence is around 100 meters (Dale, 1923; Jahns, 1943; Holzhausen, 1989; Goodman, 1993). Deeper joints have a larger radius of curvature, which tends to round the corners of the landscape as material is eroded (Gilbert, 1904; Dale, 1923; Matthes, 1930; Jahns, 1943; Goodman, 1993). Fracture mode is tensile (Bahat et al., 1999; Mandl, 2005). Occur in many different lithologies and climate zones, not unique to glaciated landscapes (Bradley 1963; Twidale, 1973; Goodman, 1993). Host rock is generally sparsely jointed, fairly isotropic, and has high compressive strength (Gilbert, 1904; Jahns, 1943; Twidale, 1973). Can have concave and convex upwards curvatures (Gilbert, 1904; Matthes, 1930; Romani and Twidale, 1999). Often associated with secondary compressive forms such as arching, buckling, and A-tents (buckled slabs) (Romani and Twidale, 1999).

[edit] Formation of exfoliation joints

Despite their common occurrence in many different landscapes, geologists have yet to reach an agreement on a general theory of exfoliation joint formation. Many different theories have been suggested, below is a short overview of the most common.

[edit] Removal of overburden and rebound

Exfolation joints exposed in a road cut in Yosemite National Park, California.

This theory was originally proposed by the pioneering geomorphologist Grove Karl Gilbert in 1904 and is widely found in introductory geology texts. The basis of this theory is that erosion of overburden and exhumation of deeply buried rock to the ground surface allows previously compressed rock to expand radially, creating tensile stress and fracturing the rock in layers parallel to the ground surface. The description of this mechanism has led to alternate terms for exfoliation joints, including pressure release or offloading joints. Though the logic of this theory is appealing, there are many inconsistencies with field and laboratory observations suggesting that it may be incomplete, such as (Wolters, 1969; Twidale, 1973; Holzhausen, 1989):

Exfoliation joints can be found in rocks that have never been deeply buried. Laboratory studies show that simple compression and relaxation of rock samples under realistic conditions does not cause fracturing. Exfoliation joints are most commonly found in regions of surfaceparallel compressive stress, whereas this theory calls for them to occur in zones of extension.

One possible extension of this theory to match with the compressive stress theory (outlined below) is as follows (Goodman, 1989; 1993): The exhumation of deeply buried rocks relieves vertical stress, but horizontal stresses can remain in a competent rock mass since the medium is laterally confined. Horizontal stresses become aligned with the current ground surface as the vertical stress drops to zero at this boundary. Thus large surface-parallel compressive stresses can be generated through exhumation that may lead to tensile rock fracture as described below.

[edit] Thermoelastic strain

Rock expands upon heating and contracts upon cooling and different rock-forming minerals have variable rates of thermal expansion / contraction. Daily rock surface temperature variations can be quite large, and many have suggested that stresses created during heating cause the near-surface zone of rock to expand and detach in thin slabs (e.g. Wolters, 1969). Large diurnal or fire-induced temperature fluctuations have been observed to create thin lamination and flaking at the surface of rocks, sometimes labeled exfoliation (Blackwelder, 1927). However, since diurnal temperature fluctuations only reach a few centimeters depth in rock (due to rocks low thermal conductivity), this theory cannot account for the observed depth of exfoliation jointing that may reach 100 meters (Gilbert, 1904; Twidale, 1973; Holzhausen, 1989; Goodman, 1993).

[edit] Chemical weathering

Mineral weathering by penetrating water can cause flaking of thin shells of rock since the volume of some minerals increases upon hydration (Twidale, 1973). However, not all mineral hydration results in increased volume, while field observations of exfoliation joints show that the joint surfaces have not experienced significant chemical alteration, so this theory can be rejected for explaining the origin of large-scale, deeper exfoliation joints described in this article.

[edit] Compressive stress and extensional fracture

Large compressive stresses parallel to the land (or a free) surface can create tensile mode fractures in rock, where the direction of fracture propagation is parallel to the greatest principle compressive stress and the direction of fracture opening is perpendicular to the free surface (Bradley, 1963; Brunner and Scheidegger, 1973; Twidale, 1973; Holzhausen, 1989; Goodman, 1993; Bahat, 1999; Mandl, 2005). This type of fracturing has been observed in the laboratory since at least 1900 (in both uniaxial and biaxial unconfined compressive loading; see Gramberg, 1989). Tensile cracks can form in a compressive stress field due to the influence of pervasive microcracks in the rock lattice and extension of so-called wing cracks from near the tips of preferentially oriented microcracks, which then curve and align with the direction of the principle compressive stress (Hoek and Bieniawski, 1965; Fairhurst and Cook, 1966). Fractures formed in this way are sometimes called axial cleavage, longitudinal splitting, or extensional fractures, and are commonly observed in the laboratory during uniaxial compression tests. High horizontal or surfaceparallel compressive stress can result from regional tectonic or topographic stresses, or by erosion or excavation of overburden. With consideration of the field evidence and observations of occurrence, fracture mode, and secondary forms, high surface-parallel compressive stresses and extensional fracturing (axial cleavage) seems to be the most plausible theory explaining the formation of exfoliation joints.

[edit] Engineering geology significance

Recognizing the presence of exfoliation joints can have important implications in geological engineering. Most notable may be their influence on slope stability. Exfoliation joints following the topography of inclined valley walls, bedrock hill slopes, and cliffs can create rock blocks that are particularly prone to sliding. Especially when the toe of the slope is undercut (naturally or by human activity), sliding along exfoliation joint planes is likely if the joint dip exceeds the joints frictional angle. Foundation work may also be affected by the presence of exfoliation joints, for example in the case of dams (Terzaghi, 1962). Exfoliation joints underlying a dam foundation can create a significant leakage hazard, while increased water pressure in joints may result in lifting or sliding of the dam. Finally, exfoliation joints can exert strong directional control on groundwater flow and contaminant transport.

INTERESANTE VIDEO DE JOINTS AND VENS YOUTUBE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agJ4mN6ZsLg