FaultKin 5 Manual

FaultKin 5.2
For Mac OS X and Windows 7/XP

Richard W. Allmendinger 2011

FaultKin 5 Manual

Table of Contents

Disclaimer!........................................................................................................................3
Referencing this Program!..............................................................................................3
Credits!.............................................................................................................................3
Introduction!.....................................................................................................................3
Differences with Previous Versions of FaultKin (and FaultKinWin)!..........................5
Using FaultKin 5!.............................................................................................................6
Entering data!.............................................................................................................6
Editing Already Entered data!...................................................................................7
Saving Data to a disk file!..........................................................................................7
Opening files on disk!................................................................................................8
Choosing which data to plot or analyze!.................................................................9
Calculations and Data Analysis!.............................................................................10
Plotting your results!...............................................................................................11
Customizing your Plot with the Inspector!............................................................13
Copying, saving and printing your plot!................................................................13
Interactive Features!................................................................................................14
Version History!.............................................................................................................14
Version 5.2.3 2011.07.03!.....................................................................................14
Version 5.1.1!............................................................................................................15
Version 5.1!...............................................................................................................15
Version 5.0!...............................................................................................................15
References!....................................................................................................................15

FaultKin 5 Manual

Disclaimer
FaultKin is distributed on an "as is" basis without any warranty, explicit or implicit. The author will not be liable for direct, indirect, incidental, or consequential
damages resulting from any defect in this software or this user's manual, even if he has
been previously been made aware of the defect. Furthermore, I make no systematic effort to inform all users of either bug fixes or upgrades. This program may not be sold or
offered as an inducement to buy any other product.

Referencing this Program

The science behind the algorithms in FaultKin can be found in the following references:
Marrett, R. A., and Allmendinger, R. W., 1990, Kinematic analysis of fault-slip data:
Journal of Structural Geology, v. 12, p. 973-986.

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Allmendinger, R. W., Cardozo, N., and Fisher, D., in press, Structural geology algorithms: Vectors and tensors in structural geology: Cambridge University Press
(book to be published in early 2012).
Please refer to these publications in any study or presentation that result from the use of
this program.

Credits

FaultKin 5 was written by Richard W. Allmendinger. The algorithm for calculating P and T axes has been completely rewritten from one originally written by Randy
Marrett. The PDF classes included in this program are from pdfFile by Toby W. Rush
Copyright 2004. I am particularly grateful to comments and advice from Nstor Cardozo during the development of this program and for sharing many other programming adventures.

Introduction

FaultKin 5 is a complete rewrite of my venerable, but aging, fault slip analysis

programs for Mac and Windows. The program has a revamped, and vastly improved,
user interface, includes most of the scientific functionality of the older versions, and will
work just fine on modern operating systems such as Mac OS X (Lion) and Windows 7.
The functionality of the program on the two platforms is identical. The only difference
is that the Mac OS X version uses an interface with a main window and two drawer
windows that can be opened and closed at will, whereas the Windows 7 version uses a
single window with several different panes for different interface elements (Fig. 1).

Main Window

Data drawer

(shows the plot

or data details
depending on
the tabs at the
top)

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Inspector

Analysis drawer

Data pane

Plot/Data details pane

Inspector
Analysis pane

Figure 1. The FaultKin 5 interface in the Mac OS X (top) and Windows XP (bottom).

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Differences with Previous Versions of FaultKin (and FaultKinWin)

There are several significant changes in how FaultKin 5 works relative to how
older versions worked.

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When FaultKin was first written more than 20 years ago, personal computers were so slow that you could literally watch them drawing individual great circles! So older versions of FaultKin drew the layers of graphical
elements in the order that the user specified and went to great pains to
avoid redrawing previous elements. With modern systems, the graphics
can be delivered all at once. So, FaultKin 5 always layers different elements in the same order, regardless of what order the user specified. It is
now possible to turn on or off different graphical elements without redrawing everything else. So, you wont see the dreaded new plot or old
plot dialog box any more. Want to turn off the faults and striae that you
plotted six steps ago? Just uncheck them in the Plot menu and they will
disappear while everything else that you drew afterwards remain intact.
All plots that you save from FaultKin are in now as PDF files. Some programs that claim to be able to read pdfs might claim that the file is damaged or otherwise be unable to read the file. If that happens, just open the
file in Preview (Mac OS X) or in Acrobat Reader (either platform) and then
save it.

Interaction with your data has been much improved in this version of
FaultKin. You can click on a fault and have the corresponding row in the
data table highlighted or vice versa.
By using the tab at the top of the
main window, you can either have it
show the plot or show more detail
about an individual fault slip datum
which you can edit directly.
Sorting of your data into subsets is
now accomplished by clicking on the
heading of the column in the data table that corresponds to the parameter
you want to sort by. The data table
supports multiple selections, and you
can then toggle on or off the faults
(i.e., check or uncheck them) based
on whether or not they are selected in
the data table.
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Figure 2. Example of plotting capabilities of

FaultKin 5.

 You now set all plot elements in the Inspector Window. In general, you
have much greater control over the appearance of your plot than previously (see Fig. 2)
FaultKin 5 can read in FaultKin 4 database files, but it writes to disk
new or modified data sets as tab-delimited spreadsheet style text files
that can be opened in Excel or other spreadsheets. Of course, FaultKin 5
can also read in files in the FaultKin 5 spreadsheet format. However, it
cannot read in files in FaultKin 4 spreadsheet format.

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In FaultKin 5, numerical analyses are written to the Analyses drawer/

pane. This is an editable text field. Not only can you copy and paste to that
field, but you can write your own notes and annotations there. Just click
where you want to start writing. This field is not saved with the plot so, to
capture its contents when you close the program, be sure to copy them to
the system clipboard and then paste them wherever you want.
This beta version of FaultKin 5 is (still) not document based. Thus, its
behavior is like that of previous versions. There is a single window into
which you read your data sets. When you read in a new data set whatever
was there previously is wiped out. Be sure to save any changes!!

Using FaultKin 5
Entering data

You begin to enter a new data set into the program by selecting New from the
file menu This will open the Data tab of the main window (Fig. 3) and set N=1 at the
bottom of the menu. Only the entires in the Orientations group box are necessary to
calculate P & T axes. Everything else is there for your record keeping or for assessing
magnitude of strain from faulting. I highly recommend that you record your striae as
rakes on the fault plane; it is actually remarkably difficult to record a trend and plunge
that is guaranteed to fall on the fault plane as it should. If you do record trend and
plunge instead of rake, FaultKin 5 will check to see whether the line is on the plane with
four possible outcomes: (1) the measurement is correct(!) and no change is necessary, (2)
the measurement is impossible in which case FaultKin will not allow you to record the
datum, (3) if the dip of the plane is 45 or less, FaultIn will assume that the striae plunge
is in error and will correct it, or (4) if the plane dips more than 45*, the program will assume that the trend is in error and correct it. You probably dont want to leave these decisions in the hands of a computer program which is why I recommend that you use the
rake instead.
The fault slip datum is not calculated until you click the button Calculate &
Save; only then will the datum appear in the Data Table drawer/pane to the right. You
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Figure 3. Fault slip data entry in the Data Tab of the main window.

can only see the P&T axes after clicking Calculate & Save because they are calculated
values. There will be no change in the Data tab after clicking the button you can continue to edit the datum, correcting errors or adding additional information. To record
more info permanently, you must click Calculate & Save again. To enter the next fault,
you must click the Add New button or press N. That new fault is not recorded
until Calculate and Save is pressed. At any time during the process, you can go to the
plot view and plot features of interest; just select them in the Plot menu. You can run
analyses on the faults already entered and plot and save the results. At any time, you
can return to the Data tab and click Add New to continue adding info to the data set.
Editing Already Entered data

To edit data that has already been entered, either from a disk file or that you have
entered within the program, select the row of data in the Data drawer/pane and then
click on the Data Tab in the main window. The complete information will be displayed
for you to examine and, if you want edit. Make whatever changes you want and then
click Calculate & Save. Your changes will be reflected immediately in any plots that
you have constructed.
Saving Data to a disk file
FaultKin 5 reads and writes plain text files that can be opened and modified outside of the program. The current native output is as a tab-delimited text file that can be
most easily viewed in any modern spreadsheet program. The first line of the text file is a
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series of headers which FaultKin uses on input to make sure the file is in the correct
format. To save your data, choose Save Data (S) from the File Menu.
You can even construct your data file in a spreadsheet program and then read it
in to FaultKin 5. If you choose to do this, the first line headers much match exactly those
that FaultKin 5 writes. When you save the file, chose Tab-delimited text.
Opening files on disk
FaultKin 5 can read plain text files in two different formats. It can, of course, read
the tab-delimited text files that have been saved from within FaultKin 5, but it can also
read in FaultKin 4 data files that were saved in the so-called database format. The first
few lines of the FaultKin 4 format look something like:

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FaultKin_4.0
Cladouhos
6 7 90
447
Cerrillos (th)
0 0.000000 0 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
Oa 335 46 W
Tm 167 64 E
TL X
7 57 137 50
227 68 114 9
999
99

You can see the first line of the file contains the characters: FaultKin_4.0 followed by
the Geologists name, etc. A complete fault slip datum in this format consists of 10 lines
with individual numbers or words separated by spaces. The first line (FaultKin_4.0)
occurs only in the first line of the file. The easiest way of getting your older data ready
for use in FaultKin 5 is to open a database format file in FaultKin 4 and then save the file
as a database format
Currently, data files of either format are opened with Open under the File
Menu, or Import Text File also under File. FaultKin 5 may eventually evolve to writing its own binary files rather than text files. If that happens, then Open will only
open the binary files whereas Import Text will still open the text files as described
here. If you already have a data set entered and try to open a second data set, you will
be asked whether or not you want to append the second data set to the first or replace
the first. Note that this does not happen until after you have selected the second data
set. However, if you choose Cancel the second data set will not be read in and the first
will remain unscathed.

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Figure 4 (top). Selection halo and selected row in the Table of the Data drawer/pane. Note that contextual
popup menu that allows you to make selections from the Data menu. (bottom) Single fault isolated by
toggling off all faults that were not selected in the table.

Choosing which data to plot or analyze

FaultKin 5 will only plot or analyze faults that are checked in the Data drawer/
pane to the right of the plot. The program makes it easy to link faults in the plot to the
table in the data drawer by highlighting selected points and planes in yellow, an effect I
call the selection halo (Fig. 4 top). If you click on a point in the plot, the row will be
selected in the table, and clicking on a row provides a selection halo in the Plot Window.
You can multiple, non-contiguous selections in the table of the Data Drawer by command clicking the rows of interest. From the Data Menu, or equivalent popup menu in
the Data Drawer, you can toggle on or off faults. By making the choice shown in Figure
4 top, you will get the plot showing in Figure 4 bottom.
The Toggle On and Off commands in the Data Menu can be very powerful when
combined the ability to sort rows by clicking on a column in the table of the data
drawer. The first time you click a column heading all the rows will sort ascending, the

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next click will sort descending. To return to the original sorting, click the No. heading
of the column farthest to the left. Once sorted by whatever criteria you want, you can
then select the range of rows that fits your criteria and Toggle Off the rest of the data set.
Calculations and Data Analysis

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You can carry out a suite of operations on your data from the Calculations Menu.
With Rotate Data you can rotate all of the data (including unchecked data) about a
single rotation axis, specified in the Rotate Data dialog box (Fig. 5). If you have entered
bedding at the site of the observation in the
Data Entry tab, then you can also Unfold
data by rotating your observations back to
horizontal. This last operation is a counterclockwise rotation about a right-hand rule
strike by a magnitude equivalent to the dip.
Fault observations lacking bedding data are
unaffected by Unfold Data. After choosing
Unfold data, the menu item name automatically changes to Refold Data allowing you
to return your data to their entered values.
Figure 5. The Rotate Data dialog box.
Unfold/Refold data allows you to carry out
a fold test on your fault slip data.

The Kinematic Tensors submenu

will allow you to perform either a linked
Bingham or a Moment tensor analysis and
have the results automatically recorded in
the Analysis Drawer/Pane. This option does
not plot the axes to the Plot Window. The parameters for the Moment Tensor calculation
are entered in the Inspector Window (see below). In general, if yo have not entered any
weighting information for your faults, you
will want to calculate the linked Bingham
axes.
Stress on Plane is a forward model
calculation where you enter the principal
stress orientations, as well as the orientation
of the plane you are interested in, in a dialog
box (Fig. 6) and FaultKin 5 will calculate the
traction, normal, and shear stresses on that

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Figure 6. The Stress on Plane dialog box.

plane. The calculate button just runs the

analysis, which you can repeat as often as
you like. When you click done, the dialog
box disappears and the results of the last
analysis are recorded in the Analysis
Drawer/pane. If you have selected to
plot the stress on plane analyses (in the Figure 7. The Angle between Lines dialog box.
Plot Menu), the analysis showing when
you click Done will be plotted.
Finally, Angle between Lines allows you to click with the mouse on any two
lines in the plot window and determine the angle between them. The user is given the
option of pasting the results into the Analysis drawer (Fig. 7).

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Note that the Analysis drawer is editable: you can record notes and annotations
there as well as erasing the information that you are not interested in. You edit it just
like a normal text edit window. The contents of the Analysis Drawer/Window are not
saved when you exit the program! If you want to capture this information for further
use, you must copy it to the clipboard for pasting into another application.
Plotting your results

The features that appear in the Plot Tab of

the main window are determined by what
8
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menu items are checked in the Plot
10 11 13
Menu. Figure 8 is a plot of everything 7 12 15 16
for our sample data set of 58 faults,
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which is probably more than you 7 10 15 19 25
want! Which of these options you 7 13 18 22 29
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choose to display at any one time
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will depend on the purpose of
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your analysis, quality of data,
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etc.
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The items under Faults
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allow you to plot the fault planes,
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striae, and arrows that show the
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movement of the hanging wall.
Movement Planes are the planes that
contain the slip vector and the pole to the
plane and are thus perpendicular to the
fault plane; they are essentially the plane
of plane strain for an individual fault.
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Figure 8. Lots of different things to plot!

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Tangent Lineations are arrows plotted in the movement plane, plotted at the pole to the
fault, showing the movement of the hanging wall block (Twiss and Gefell, 1990; Twiss
and others, 1991).
The Scatter submenu is where you will find commands to plot P and T axes as
points. Kinematic axes submenu allows you to plot either linked Bingham or Moment
tensor axes for the entire population that is currently showing on the stereonet. These
are average axes, either weighted or unweighted for the entire population. The Fault
plane solution allows you to visualize easily your data set as a classic beach ball diagram commonly used to visualize earthquake focal mechanisms.

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PT-dihedra allow you to carry out and plot the P or T dihedra following the
method of Angelier and Mechler (1977). In the resulting diagram, the number at each
point on a grid shows the number of P or T quadrants with which that point coincides.
You can also get the number of P and T dihedra at any point simply by holding down
the Shift Key while moving the mouse over the stereonet. The P and T dihedra show up
just above where the trend and plunge at the mouse is displayed.

There may be times when you want to plot a quick fault plane/focal mechanism
solution. For example, you may want to plot up a quick focal mechanism for a recent
earthquake, etc. For those times, you can use
Plot:Fault Plane Solution:From ad hoc P & T
axes. This choice will give you the dialog box
to the right (Fig. 9), which allows you to
specify an arbitrary P and T axis from which
the nodal planes will be calculated. The easiest way to use this is to leave the plunge of
either the P or the T axis blank. FaultKin will
calculate the correct plunge, ensuring that
the two axes are perpendicular to each other.
When you click Okay, the fault plane solution will be plotted. To remove the ad hoc
fault plane solution from your plot, simply Figure 9. Dialog used to specify ad hoc P and T
axes, from which a fault plane solution will be
select the same menu option and when the plotted.
dialog box in Figure 9 appears, click Cancel.
Finally, you can plot the results of any Stress on Plane analyses you have carried
out. FaultKin keeps track of all stress on plane analyses and when you ask it to plot
Stress on Plane, it will plot all of the analyses. To clear out the old analyses, choose Reset Stress on Plane from the Calculations Menu.

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Figure 10. Three different view of the Inspector, where you determine the appearance of your plot.

Customizing your Plot with the Inspector

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You customize your plot via the Inspector

Window, which is accessed from the View menu or
with I (capital i). Changes in the Inspector
are immediately reflected in the plot. The first
(leftmost) tab of the Inspector controls the stereographic projection, grid spacing and selection aspects. The second and third tabs control the size
and color of the different features that you can plot
from the plot menu. The final (rightmost) tab is
where you enter the parameters for the Moment
tensor summation. Describing these is beyond the
scope of these notes; see Marrett and Allmendinger
(1990) for details.

You can change the view direction from the

View Menu. This allows you to rotate the stereonet
so that the primitive circle does not represent the
horizon but instead represents any other plane you
might want as a reference point. The most common
reason why you might want to do this is to display
your results oriented correctly for the plane of a
cross section.

Finally, if you need to ensure that several

plots are all the same size, you can do so by choosing Set stereonet radius from the view menu. The
window will be resized to accommodate the new
stereonet size.
Copying, saving and printing your plot

Once you have the plot just as you like it,

you can save it as a PDF file for import into other
programs. The PDFs produced should be of publication quality and should appear identical to, but
higher resolution than, the plot window itself. The
size of the pdf is controlled by the size of the Plot
tab in the Main window.
Alternatively, you can save your plot in an
older vector format by choosing Save Plot as
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PICT/EMF which will save the plot as a .pict file on the Mac and an enhanced metafile
format in Windows.
FaultKin also supports the clipboard. If any text is selected in either the Data or
theAnalysis Window/Pane, that editable text will be copied to the clipboard. Otherwise
the Graphic in the Main Window will be copied as vector objects to the clipboard for
pasting into another application. The application into which you paste the graphic will
determine the format in which it appears. In Mac OS X, Cocoa applications, it will usually appear as a Tiff image, whereas Carbon apps will recognize the vectors.

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FaultKin has a very basic printing routine which will print the graphics in the
Main Windows/plot pane. At present, the graphic is printed at the size it appears on the
screen unless it is larger than 7 inches, in which case it is shrunk to fit the screen. The
default size of the graphics window produces a stereonet that just fits on one page. The
text in the Analysis Window/Pane is automatically added beneath the stereonet. On the
Mac OS X, you can print to PDF as you can in other programs, however, the pdf that is
produced by the save plot as pdf command is higher quality than that saved from the
print window.
Interactive Features

Whenever the mouse moves over the stereonet, the trend and plunge at
the tip of the cursor is displayed in the lower left corner
Clicking and dragging the mouse inside the stereonet temporarily displays a great circle whose pole coincides with the tip of the cursor.
Holding down the shift key while moving the mouse will display the
number of P and T dihedra at the cursor tip

Clicking on a data point in the stereonet selects the corresponding row in

the data table and vice versa. Multiple, noncontiguous selections are possible
Changes made in the Inspector are instantly reflected in the plot

Version History

Version 5.2.3 2011.07.03

Added ability to set the view direction as in earlier versions of the program. Now you can rotate your results in the plane of a cross section or
whatever.
Added ability to specify the exact radius of the stereonet. The window is
resized automatically to accommodate the new size. You can still change
the size by resizing the window as well.
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 Added the ability to plot nodal planes for ad hoc P & T axes. You enter
whatever P- and T-axis you want in a dialog box and the program will
plot a beach ball fault plane solution for you. This is useful if you are using FaultKin to plot, say, a focal mechanism for a recent earthquake.
Added a basic printing ability. Printing automatically includes the text
from the Analysis Window/Pane. In Mac OS X, you can save pdfs from
the print window though pdfs saved directly from the file menu are
higher resolution.
Copying to the clipboard now works in all windows/panes. You can now
copy the graphics as vectors to the clipboard.
Stress on plane analyses are now saved when saving PICT/EMF files

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If you have a data set open and try to open another data set, you are asked
where you want the new data set to append to, or replace, the old data set
Minor bug fixes, including one where fault plane solutions were drawn
incorrectly
Version 5.1.1

Corrected errors in the stress on plane calculation

Added ability to plot the stress on plane calculation

Added ability to click and drag mouse inside the stereonet to plot interactively a great circle. Note that the great circle only shows while you are
clicking and dragging the mouse. It does not get added to the permanent
plot.

Version 5.1

Added ability to save the plot in older vector format as a .pict file (Mac) or
a .emf (enhanced metafile, Windows).
Various bug fixes
Version 5.0
Initial public release of completely rewritten program.

References
Angelier, J., and Mechler, P., 1977, Sur une methode graphique de recherche des contraintes principales egalment utilisable en tectonique et en seismologie: La methode des diedres droits: Bulletin de Societie Geologique de France Bulletin de Societie Geologique de France, v. 19, p. 1309-1318.
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Marrett, R. A., and Allmendinger, R. W., 1990, Kinematic analysis of fault-slip data:
Journal of Structural Geology, v. 12, p. 973-986.
Twiss, R. J., and Gefell, M. J., 1990, Curved slickenfibers: a new brittle shear sense indicator with application to a sheared serpentine: Journal of Structural Geology, v.
12, p. 471-482.

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Twiss, R. J., Protzman, G. M., and Hurst, S. D., 1991, Theory of slickenline patterns
based on the velocity gradient tensor and microrotation: Tectonophysics, v. 186,
p. 215-239.

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