UMass Geomechanics

Michele Cooke
Professor

230 Morrill Science Center
Department of Geosciences
University of Massachusetts
611 North Pleasant Street
Amherst, MA 01003-9297
USA

email: cooke<at>geo.umass.edu <-- preferred
voice: 413-577-3142
video phone (ip): 128:119:45:50
video phone (direct dial up): 413-461-3286
video phone (interpreter relay) 413-461-3286
FAX: 413-545-1200


News from the Geomechanics research group

Ayla Heinze Fry and Karl Grette present their undergraduate theses

Congratulations!
ayla with poster

    karl iwth poster

(photos by J Brigham-Grette)

New paper in Journal of Structural Geology

laser scan of restraining bend We dcument fault propagation around restraining bendswithin wet kaolin and demonstrate that the fault evolve to increase efficiency.
    Cooke, M. L., M. T. Schottenfeld and S. W. Buchanan (2013), Evolution of Fault Efficiency at Restraining Bends within Wet Kaolin, Journal of Structural Geology, doi:10.1016/j.jsg.2013.01.010.

Quicktime animation of strike-slip fault growth in our restraining bend analog experiments

The bright pink highlight regions of high shear strain. The image at right shows a snapshot towards the end of the experiment. On the left side of the restraining bend, two echelon faults are active. The inner fault is dying out while the outer fault picks up activity. shear strain

The geomechanics group will have several presenations at the upcoming AGU meeting

New paper in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America

tectonic loading

Justin shows that slip distribution along faults changes with rather small changes in fault geometry. In the figure above, Justin shows that variations in tectonic loading may favor either strike-slip along the San Andreas fault or the Eastern California Shear Zone.

Herbert, Justin and Michele L. Cooke, 2012. Sensitivity of the southern San Andreas fault system to tectonic boundary conditions, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, vol. 105, 2046-2062, doi: 10.1785/0120110316

2012 Southern California Earthquake Center meeting Sept 9-12

on gondola

    Justin Herbert, Laura Fattaruso and Ohilda Difo did an awesome job presenting their posters at the meeting.

    In this photo they are enjoying a gondola ride up Mt San Jacinto before the meeting

Over the summer, the Physical Modeling Lab got a bit of a makeover

lab

More light, more space and more storage for the win.
The uniaxial rig moved in.

uniaxial

comp

We upgraded some furniture and we are readyto run more analog experiments.