Structural geology

Structural Geology presents a unified and integrated approach to the description and interpretation of deformation in the earth's crust, ranging from the microscopic scale, through mesoscopic structures, and up to the largest scale plate tectonic and orogenic structures. Throughout the book there is a strong emphasis both on the description of geologic structures, as well as on their kinematic and mechanical interpretation. A careful distinction is maintained throughout between obsenation and interpretation, and interpretations are presented in terms of the development and evaluation of models. Features: organized for flexible arrangement of course material strong on descriptive structural geolo gy strong on interpretation using principles of mechanics thorough introduction to plate tectonics unified discussion of orogeny, plate tectonics, and structures international scope of examples cited model-deductive approach discussion of scientific method progressive introduction to continuum mechanics discussion of strain theory of scale models applications of geophysics discussion of the terrestrial planets