Computers & Geosciences 28 (2002) 775–781

DIPSLIP: a QuickBasic stress inversion program for analysing

sets of faults without slip lineations$
Tobore Orife*, Luis Arlegui, Richard J. Lisle
Laboratory for Strain Analysis, Department of Earth Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales CF10 3YE, UK
Received 10 May 2000; received in revised form 30 June 2001; accepted 5 July 2001

Abstract

A simple computer program is described for estimating palaeostress tensors from orientation data from a set of
fault planes. The computation is based on a novel technique that allows the tensor to be estimated in situations
where directions of slip on the faults cannot be determined, but where the senses of the dip-slip component of slip
on the faults are known. The new technique greatly broadens the scope of palaeostress analysis, permitting the
analysis of faults lacking slickenlines but exhibiting offsets of horizontal marker beds. r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All
rights reserved.

Keywords: Structural geology; Palaeostresses; Stress quadric; Slip sense; Stress tensor

1. Introduction original fracture of the fault surface. It is known,

Faulting is the brittle response of rocks to tectonic
stresses. The geometrical properties of faults and
their movements are thought to be controlled by the
nature of the active stresses. Half a century ago
Anderson (1951), using the Navier–Coulomb theory of
brittle fracturing, suggested how the orientation of faults
are controlled by the directions of the principal stress
axes. Geologists realised that if faults are governed by
stresses, then the orientation information collected from
faults in the field could be used to characterise the
palaeostress tensor. This process has become known as
stress inversion.
Stress inversion based on Anderson’s theory is limited
to a consideration of stresses responsible for forming the
$
Code available from server at http://www.iamg.org/
CGEditor/index.htm.
*Corresponding author.
E-mail address: orife@cardiff.ac.uk (T. Orife).
however, that fault slip often takes place along
favourably oriented pre-existing planes of weakness
rather than always on newly formed fracture surfaces.
Wallace (1951) and Bott (1959) developed a theory
relating the direction of slip on reactivated faults to the
imposed stress state. Their theory assumes that the fault-
slip vector is parallel to the direction of resolved shear
stress on the plane of weakness. They demonstrate that
on a given plane of weakness the direction of slip
depends on four variables; three of these describe the
orientations of the principal stress axes and the fourth is
f; the ratio of the principal stress differences
(f ¼ ½s2  s3 =½s1  s3 ). The Wallace–Bott hypothesis
forms the theoretical basis of most methods of stress
inversion in current use (see Angelier, 1994, for a
comprehensive review of methods).
The advantage of Bott–Wallace methods of stress
inversion is that they offer the potential of computing
four of the six components of the full stress tensor. On
the other hand, these methods require data on the
orientations of the slip directions as well as the attitude
of the fault surfaces. These requirements can be often
fulfilled in faults exposed at the surface, where lineations

0098-3004/02/$ - see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 0 9 8 - 3 0 0 4 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 9 9 - 1
776 T. Orife et al. / Computers & Geosciences 28 (2002) 775–781

on the fault plane can be used as indicators of the slip
direction. In numerous other cases, however, the slip
direction can be difficult or impossible to determine.
These include situations where
(1) faults cut poorly indurated sediments and have not
produced well-defined slip lineations,
(2) faults identified in geophysical logs from boreholes
where the slip direction cannot be deduced, and
(3) faults identified by seismic mapping where only the
fault plane orientation can be estimated.
much as 901 from that direction. In general, this could
mean that the sense of dip separation could contradict
the sense of dip slip (Fig. 1a). However, in the specific
case where horizontal beds are faulted (Fig. 1b), or at
least where the cut-off lines are horizontal, the sense of
dip separation always accords with the sense of the dip-
slip component. This fact means that, although slip
lineations may be lacking, the observed separation can
sometimes be used to provide vital information on the
dip-slip component of faults. This in turn provides data
for stress inversion.

The standard methods of stress inversion cannot be

undertaken with incomplete data of this kind. To
address this problem, Lisle et al. (2001) describe a
method of stress inversion that can be carried out in
such situations where slip lineations are lacking, but
where the sense of the fault’s dip-slip component is
known. This paper describes a computer implementa-
tion of the new method.
2. Determination of fault slip sense from separation
The intersection of a fault surface with a planar
marker produces a cut-off line. Slip along the fault
usually results in the separation of the cut-off lines in the
foot and hanging walls of the fault (Fig. 1a). Many
natural faults allow the measurement of separation;
either in a vertical section at right angles to the strike of
the fault (dip separation) or in a horizontal section
(strike separation). Unfortunately, the recording of
separation alone allows only very broad limits to be
placed on the direction of net slip vector; the latter need
not be perpendicular to the cut-off lines but can be as
3. Dip-slip sense and the stress tensor
Lisle et al. (2001) employed the concept of the
representation quadric for the stress tensor to derive
the theoretical relationship between the stress tensor and
the sense of dip slip on fault planes. They show that the
sense of dip slip relates to the way the normal stress (sn )
on a fault varies as the dip angle changes (Fig. 2). For
normal faults, the normal stress decreases as the dip gets
steeper whereas for reverse faults the normal stress
increases as the dip (d) increases, i.e. for normal faults
qsn =qdo0; whereas for reverse faults qsn =qd > 0:
4. Stress inversion using DIPSLIP.BAS
The calculation of the stress tensor from data
consisting of a number of faults with known dip-slip
senses is performed by program DIPSLIP.BAS.
This program carries out a search to find the stress
tensor that best explains the recorded senses of the

3 F
F H
slip? 3
2 inclined slip?
1 2 H
1 marker
sense of horizontal
plane
sense of dip separation marker
dip separation plane

(a) (b)

Fig. 1. Faults cutting planar marker beds to produce cut-off lines in foot wall, F; and in hanging wall, H: Their separation is
compatible with many possible net slip vectors, of which three are shown. (a) Where cut-off lines are not horizontal, sense of dip
separation (normal) need not agree with dip-slip sense. For example, possible slip vector 3 has dip-slip component of reverse sense.
(b) Where cut-off lines are horizontal, sense of dip-slip component is always same as sense of dip separation.
 T. Orife et al. / Computers & Geosciences 28 (2002) 775–781
H (8) Repeat the steps 3–7 until a full range of trial stress
REVERSE
NORMAL
1
NORMAL
dip increases
R= σ
n 5. Data and results files
R increases
σn decreases
6 σn REVERSE
is negative
6 dip
Fig. 2. Determination of sense from normal stress variation
with dip of fault plane. Orientation of normal to fault plane is
represented by radius of representation quadric (ellipse),
whereas orientation of corresponding stress vector acting on
fault is indicated by line normal to the ellipse. Length of radius
is proportional to 1/O(normal stress). Normal faults are
characterised by decrease in normal stress with increase in
dip. Opposite is true for reverse faults.
measured faults. The computation involves the follow-
ing stages:
(1) Input the data consisting of the dip azimuth, dip
angle and observed sense of each fault.
(2) Calculate the direction cosines of the fault normals,
and of the normal of the ‘‘shadow’’ of each fault
(faults with a slightly steeper angle of dip than the
measured one). We recommend from our experi-
ence that this shadow fault be about 0.051 steeper
than the measured one.
(3) Define a trial stress tensor by incrementing,
according to stereographic grid pattern, the follow-
ing four variables:
(a) the plunge for s1 (the axis of maximum
compression)
(b) the plunge direction of s1
(c) the pitch of s2 within the s2 s3 plane, and
(d) the stress ratio, f:
(4) Calculate the direction cosines of the principal
stress axes, s1 ; s2 ; s3 :
(5) Calculate the direction cosines, with respect to axes
parallel to s1 ; s2 and s3 ; of the normals of the fault
planes and their shadows.
(6) Determine the normal stress values on the
fault planes and their shadows using Eq. 2–34 in
Ramsay (1967, p. 35) and, by comparing their
magnitudes, determine the expected sense of dip slip
(normal or reverse) on each fault (see previous
section).
(7) Determine the proportion of faults for which the
expected sense matches the observed sense. If this
777
proportion equals or exceeds some prescribed
value, store the trial stress tensor attributes. This
trial stress tensor represents a possible solution to
the stress inversion problem.
tensors has been considered and all potential
solutions have been found.
The program reads the data on fault orientations and
senses from a text file. This file should be given the
extension .TXT. Each line of the file specifies three
parameters for a single fault: the dip direction, the angle
of dip, the sense of dip slip (1 or 1 depending on
whether normal or reverse sense). These three items of
data are each separated by spaces or commas.
DIPSLIP.BAS creates four results files. They contain
different attributes of all the palaeostress tensors that
successfully predict the senses on the measured faults.
The files having extension .S1, .S2, and .S3 contain the
trends and plunges of s1 ; s2 ; and s3 axes, respectively.
The file with extension .PHI stores the corresponding
stress ratios (f).
A VisualBASIC version of the computer program is
obtainable on request from the authors.
6. An assessment of the solution percentage using
DIPSLIP.BAS: is it a fair and stable description
of the inversion results?
Lisle et al. (2001) propose the solution percentage as a
possible measure for determining the precision (or
spread) of the results produced. They define the solution
percentage as the proportion of obtained solutions to
the total number of tensors tested. This measure was
employed in their publication to investigate a variety
of issues affecting the analyses including: the effects
of a preferred orientation of the fault data, varying
sample sizes of fault datasets and poor data quality.
However, they do not discuss the presumed stability or
fairness of such a measure. We have conducted an
experiment using DIPSLIP.BAS to test the presumed
fairness and stability of the proposed solution percen-
tage measure.
The grid search parameters determine the number of
trial stress tensors that are tested in the inversion.
Firstly, tests were undertaken to ensure that irrespective
of the mesh size for the grid search selected, there is no
apparent bias in the stress axes orientations generated by
the algorithm that is implemented in DIPSLIP.BAS.
The fairness of the solution percentage measure was
then assessed by observing the number of solutions
produced by an inversion of two test datasets (listed in
778 T. Orife et al. / Computers & Geosciences 28 (2002) 775–781

Table 1 Table 1) with varying grid search parameters. The

Test fault-slip dataa results of this exercise (Table 2) show that the solution
A B C percentage is a stable measure over a relatively wide
range of grid search parameters. A statistical assessment
Dataset A of the results indicated that the correlation coefficients
051 10 1 (i.e. for the number of solutions against the number of
049 19 1 tested tensors) are strongly significant at the 99%
010 44 1
significance levels. See Table 2 for the presentation of
Dataset B
354 65 1
the results of the tests. This statistical correlation
307 79 1 between the number of solutions and the number of
157 84 1 trial tensors is inferred to indicate that the solution
185 87 1 percentage is a stable measure of the inversion results.
146 80 1 As a further improvement to constraining the value of
117 70 1 the solution percentage we suggest that the results from
182 83 1 such an exercise (i.e. varying grid search parameters)
206 85 1 could be subjected to a regression analysis with the slope
221 40 1 of the resulting regression line indicated as a ‘Global’
347 82 1
solution percentage.
a
Columns A, B and C are fault plane dip azimuth, fault plane
dip and fault-slip sense (normal=1, reverse=1).
7. Examples of using DIPSLIP.BAS with published data

The program has been extensively tested with a

variety of synthetic and real data. This section describes
Table 2 the results of two of such experiments that aim to
Results of experiment to analyse effects of varying grid search indicate the validity of the program approach and the
parameters (i.e. number of tested tensors) on solution resulting inversion results using previously published
percentage for two test datasetsa data.
Solutions Tested tensors Solution
percentage 7.1. Example 1
Dataset A
The use of the program is illustrated by analysing the
1179533 7484040 0.157606453
fault input data file CANGEX2.TXT in Table 3,
588010 3742020 0.157137054
12600 61680 0.204280156
6267 30840 0.203210117
495 2450 0.202040816
241 1225 0.196734694 Table 3
Correlation coefficient 0.9999961 Fault slip data presented by Bellier et al. (1989) forming input
Regression slope 0.1573717 file CANGEX2. TXTa

A B C D E
Dataset B
75038 7484040 0.010026403 037 44 037 44 1
49234 3742020 0.013157065 042 40 030 39 1
598 61680 0.009695201 234 50 158 16 1
355 30840 0.011511025 203 70 148 56 1
26 2450 0.010612245 198 64 199 64 1
16 1225 0.013061224 060 48 032 44 1
Correlation coefficient 0.9903395 016 45 035 44 1
Regression slope 0.0104719 208 56 176 52 1
a
194 47 148 36 1
Correlation coefficients (that attempt to indicate level of 242 60 199 52 1
association between number of solutions obtained and number 160 42 162 42 1
of tested tensors) for Table A and B, respectively, are 0.9999961 245 85 160 40 1
and 0.9903395. Best-fit regression lines describing a linear
a
relationship between number of obtained solutions and number Columns A and C are fault plane dip azimuths and lineation
of tested tensors produced slopes of 0.1573717 and 0.0104719 plunge azimuths respectively, B is fault plane dip, C is lineation
for datasets A and B, respectively. See text for further plunge and E is sense of displacement on fault plane (with
discussion. normal faults=1, reverse faults 1).
 T. Orife et al. / Computers & Geosciences 28 (2002) 775–781 779

originally presented in Bellier et al. (1989). Table 3 is a (1993). A comparison (see Table 4) of the INVERS
listing of the original stereographic data presented in results with those of Bellier et al. (1989) (see their Table 3)
their Fig. 11; site 10.3. The data were analysed using the show the stress axes and magnitudes of both analyses to
INVERS stress inversion program of Sperner et al. be very similar.
The data were then analysed using the program
DIPSLIP.BAS (though the program does not utilise any
of the lineation information presented in Table 3).
Table 4
During running of DIPSLIP.BAS, the grid search
Comparison of results of fault slip inversion analysis for input
data file CANGEX2.TXT a
parameter of 51 was used, with increments of 0.2 for
f: These settings determine the thoroughness of the
Stress analysis s1 s2 s3 f search, i.e. the total number of trial stress tensors used.
Bellier et al. 098–64 287–26 195–04 0.46
Of the total 30,840 palaeostress tensors considered, only
(1989) 4645 were found to explain the slip senses of all 12
Program 097–71 277–19 007–00 0.429 faults.
INVERS The results of this analysis are presented in Fig. 3.
a
Fig. 3A and B are the density patterns of compatible s1
Using program INVERS with results obtained for original
and s3 axes, respectively. The respective centres of these
data by Bellier et al. (1989). Bellier et al. (1989) quote stress
density patterns are interpreted to broadly centre about
ratio results as R. Note that f ¼ 1  R: See text for further
discussion. the orientation of the modal or ‘most-likely’ stress axes.
These results indicate that the program correctly
identifies the range of feasible s1 and s3 stress axes
(indicated in the density patterns of Fig. 3A and B)
predicted by both program INVERS and the Bellier et al.
(a) N N (b) (1989) analyses. The f values presented in Fig. 3C for
this analyses are highest at 0.4 (compared with 0.429 and
0.46 indicated by program INVERS and Bellier et al.,

Table 5
σ1 stress axes σ3 stress axes Data from sheared dykes forming input file (DAP. TXT)a

A B C

186 75 1
208 9 1
(c) 127 70 1
970 125 84 1
949
950
947 096 88 1
Frequency 932 932
076 80 1
930
of 053 60 1
compatible 910
solutions
045 52 1
890 885 025 70 1
870
002 74 1
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 354 76 1
Stress Ratio 344 75 1
337 71 1
Fig. 3. Example of results of DIPSLIP.BAS. Palaeostress 335 62 1
tensors determined to be compatible with input data file 330 35 1
CANGEX2.TXT. Stereograms are lower hemisphere, equal- 324 74 1
area projections with arrows indicating location of highest 294 50 1
density contour. Stars indicate orientation of principal stress 289 78 1
axes determined by Bellier et al. (1989). See text for discussion. 297 76 1
(a) s1 principal stress axes. Contours are 3%, 5% and 7% per 304 84 1
1% area. (b) s3 principal stress axes. Contours are 2%, 3% and 314 84 1
4% per 1% area. Obtained solutions give s3 stress axes in wide 333 86 1
variety of orientations, though modal solutions (indicated by
a
the density contours) have near horizontal plunge. (c) Columns A, B and C are fault plane dip azimuth, fault plane
Histogram of stress ratios of stress tensors. dip and fault slip sense (normal=1, reverse=1).
780 T. Orife et al. / Computers & Geosciences 28 (2002) 775–781

(a) N explain the shear senses of all 22 dykes. The principal

stress orientations and f values of these tensors are
σ3 shown in Fig. 4.
Both examples illustrate the fact that sense of slip data
is often unable to identify a single stress tensor, but
instead find a range of compatible stress orientations
and f ratios.
σ2

σ1
8. Conclusion

DIPSLIP.BAS allows the estimation of palaeostresses

from data that would be inadequate for analysis using
the standard methods of fault-slip analysis. Sense of
movement data clearly contains less information than
the data on the directions of fault slip. For this reason,
fault-sense analysis is less efficient at defining the
(b) palaeostress tensor than fault-slip analysis. Nevertheless,
50
44 fault-sense analysis broadens the scope of palaeostress
40 38
Frequency of analysis allowing it to be undertaken in wider sets of
compatible 30 22 circumstances.
solutions 20
10
10
0 Acknowledgements
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
Stress Ratio
Discussions with Norman Fry and Chris MacLeod
are acknowledged. Mark Jessell and an anonymous
Fig. 4. Example of results of DIPSLIP.BAS. Palaeostress reviewer are thanked for their useful comments. Tobore
tensors found to be compatible with data of Davidson and Orife is supported by Amerada Hess Ltd., Shell
Park (1978). (a) Lower hemisphere, equal-area stereogram of
International Exploration and Production (SIEP-RTS)
principal stress axes, (b) Histogram of stress ratios of stress
and the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals
tensors.
of the Universities of the United Kingdom (CVCP)
Overseas Scholarship (ORS) award ORS/98047010. Luis
Arlegui is funded by the Ministerio de Educacion ! y
Cultura [Programa FPI Extranjero].
1989, respectively) though there seems be no clear trend
indicated by the histogram.

7.2. Example 2
Another illustration of the use of the program is an
analysis of data presented by Davidson and Park (1978).
Their data come not from faults but from sheared dykes.
The internal foliation within the intrusions indicate that
margin parallel displacements have occurred, and the
oblique foliation alignment in individual dykes on
vertical outcrop surfaces allows the shear sense to
determined as normal or reverse. The dykes are there-
fore assumed to provide equivalent dynamic informa-
tion to faults of known dip-slip sense. The input file
containing these data (DAP.TXT) is shown in Tables 4
and 5. During running of DIPSLIP.BAS for this
example, the same grid search parameters and incre-
ments as in example 1 were used and of the total 30,840
palaeostress tensors considered, only 114 were found to
References
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Formation, with Applications to Britain. Oliver & Boyd,
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Angelier, J., 1994. Fault slip analysis and palaeostress
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Deformation. Pergamon Press, Oxford, pp. 53–100.
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 T. Orife et al. / Computers & Geosciences 28 (2002) 775–781 781

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method requiring only fault slip sense. Journal of
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