FaultKin Manual

FaultKin 8.0

For Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux

Richard W. Allmendinger © 2016–2019

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FaultKin 8 Manual © R. W. Allmendinger 2016-19

Table of Contents
Disclaimer 4

Referencing this Program 4

Credits 4

Introduction 4

Program Highlights 6

Data Input and Output 7

Entering new data from scratch ...............................................................................7

Editing Already Entered data ...................................................................................9

Batch Editing of Multiple Selections .......................................................................9

Saving Data to a disk file ..........................................................................................9

Upload Data to StraboSpot.....................................................................................10

Opening files on disk ..............................................................................................10

Choosing which data to plot or analyze 12

Toggle on and Off and Sort by Column .................................................................13

Data>Sort Ascending by… Menu ...........................................................................13

Using the Select Tab ...............................................................................................13

Max Compatible Faults ...........................................................................................14

Calculations and Data Analysis 14

Rotate Data ..............................................................................................................14

2
 Kinematic Tensors & Set Moment Tensor Params ...............................................14

Stress on Plane .......................................................................................................15

Slip Tendency ..........................................................................................................16

Angle between Lines ...............................................................................................17

Plotting your results 17

The Plot Menu ..........................................................................................................17

Customizing your Plot with the Inspector ............................................................19

Analyzing Earthquake Data 20

The Map View 22

Basics .......................................................................................................................22

Interacting with the Map View ................................................................................22

Measure a Distance (Control Key) ....................................................................22

Select a subset of points on the map (Shift Key) ...........................................22

Construct a Swath Profile (Option Key) ...........................................................23

Copying, saving and printing your plot 24

Interactive Features 24

References 25

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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 result-
ing from any defect in this software or this user's manual, even if he has been previous-
ly 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 in-
ducement to buy any other product.

Referencing this Program

The science behind the algorithms in FaultKin can be found in the following ref-
erences:
Marrett, R. A., and Allmendinger, R. W., 1990, Kinematic analysis of fault-slip data:
Journal of Structural Geology, v. 12, p. 973-986.
Allmendinger, R. W., Cardozo, N., and Fisher, D., 2012, 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 8 was written and is copyrighted 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
Néstor Cardozo during the development of this program and for sharing many other
programming adventures.

Introduction
FaultKin 8 enables you to analyze both fault-slip data from the field and earthquake
moment tensor data on Macintosh, Windows, or Linux platforms. The functionality of
the program on all platforms is identical (Fig. 1) except where noted below. The “Kin”
in the name FaultKin is significant in that the program is primarily designed to investi-
gate strain from fault and earthquake populations, not stress. You cannot do so-called
stress inversions with the program. FaultKin is not entirely stress-ignorant, however.

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 Main Window Data pane/list

(shows the plot

or data details
depending on Disclosure triangle
the tabs at the
top)

Inspector

Analysis pane

Data pane

Plot/Data de-
tails pane

Inspector

Analysis pane

Figure 1. The FaultKin 7 interface in the Mac OS X (top) and Windows (bottom).

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For example, you can specify a particular stress orientation and calculate the shear
stress resolved on any fault plane and you can calculate slip tendency in the program
(although that is probably better left to my program, MohrPlotter.

Program Highlights
There are several significant changes in how FaultKin 8 works relative to how older ver-
sions worked.
• All plots that you save from FaultKin are now either PDF or SVG formatted
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. SVG (scalable vector graphics) is actually the best format in
which to save plots and they can be opened by any modern vector graphics
program.
• 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.
• It is also possible to search your data by a large number of different character-
istics.
• You set all plot elements in the Inspector Window. In general, you have great
control over the appearance of your plot.
• FaultKin saves its data files in tab-separated, column formatted text files. Your
data are always easy to extract from this format, unlike proprietary binary
formats..
• In FaultKin, 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.

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 • The Data Pane/List can be hidden using the disclosure triangle or the appro-
priate command in the Windows Menu.

Data Input and Output

FaultKin opens with a blank window. You can make additional blank windows for dif-
ferent data sets by selecting File>New. You populate these windows with data by open-
ing (File>Open) a FaultKin formatted text file or by entering new data from scratch in
the Data Tab on the left side of the window. Text files that FaultKin does not recognize
can still be parsed if they have column structured format. You just have to tell the pro-
gram what each column means.

Entering new data from scratch

You begin to enter a new data set into the program by selecting Data>New Fault
Entry (⇧⌘N). This will open the Data tab of the main window (Fig. 2) 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

Figure 2. The data entry tab in FaultKin where you can both enter and edit your data.

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plunge instead of rake, FaultKin 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, FaultKin 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 don’t want to leave
these decisions in the hands of a computer program which is why I recommend that
you use the rake instead.
Speaking of rake, in addition to specifying the sense of slip using N (normal), T
(thrust), R (right-lateral), or L (left lateral), you can also use the Aki Richards format
popular in seismology (Fig. 3). In this format, the rake is measured counterclockwise from
the right-hand-rule strike so that faults with a thrust component have a positive rake
(slip vector pointing up into the air) and those with a normal component have a nega-
tive rake (slip vector pointing downward).

Aki-Richards Convention
Thrust fault Normal fault
ke (+)
ra
e
rik dip
st

ra k e (–)
dip
e
rik
st

Figure 3. The Aki-Richards format for rakes of striae on planes.

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 can only see the P&T axes after clicking Calculate & Save because they are calculat-
ed 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.

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Editing Already Entered data
To edit data that have already been entered, either from a disk file or that you have en-
tered within the program, select the row of data in the Data pane and then click on the
Data Tab in the main window. The complete information will be displayed for you to
examine (Fig. 2) 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. Remember, however, that FaultKin has no Undo function except to
restore the original content of a single text field while you are still in the the text field!

Batch Editing of Multiple Selections

When you have multiple faults selected in the listbox on the right hand side of the win-
dow and choose the Data Tab, only the entries that are common to all of the selected
faults are shown (e.g., the Geologist or maybe the location). All of the additional text
boxes are left blank. You can batch edit the selected faults by typing in any text field and
then clicking the Calculate and Save button. This is a convenient way of making batch
changes to a group of fault. However, use this carefully: there is no Undo and you could
well overwrite data unique to a single member of the selected group!

Saving Data to a disk file

FaultKin reads and writes plain
text files that can be opened and modi-
fied 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 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. If you choose to do
this, the first line headers much match
exactly those that FaultKin writes. When
you save the file, choose “Tab-delimited
text.”
Figure 4. The interface for uploading to the
StraboSpot database.

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Upload Data to StraboSpot
FaultKin can upload your data at any time to your account at the StraboSpot online
database (https://www.strabospot.org). Simply select File>Upload to StraboSpot; the
resulting dialog box (Fig. 4) will ask for your credentials and, once entered, allow you to
specify an existing project in the popup menu or define a new project. Once you enter a
dataset name, click the Upload Data Set button and your upload will begin. FaultKin
will only upload those faults that are checked in the fault list and they will all be put
into a single data set.
Each fault is uploaded as a single spot which, in addition to fault orientation and sense
of slip will have an associated linear element which holds the striae trend and plunge. If
you have entered bedding, then the bedding orientation will appear as a plane associat-
ed with the fault plane. A tensor element will also be defined for the spot which con-
tains the calculated P and T axes for the entered fault.

Opening files on disk

FaultKin can read plain text files in several different formats. It can, of course,
read the tab-delimited text files that have been saved from within FaultKin, 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:
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 Geologist’s 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 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. 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

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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.
FaultKin can also open directly text files in the .ndk or quakeML XML files. These
formats are common for the CMT and USGS earthquake seismology data.
FaultKin can also attempt to parse any column oriented text file. If you open a
file that it doesn’t recognize, FaultKin will display the file in the “Parse Text File” dialog
box (Fig. 5) where it has separated columns identified by tabs, commas, or spaces and
allows you to use pull down menus to identify the type of information in each column.
As shown in the example, it can recognize four different formats of data, including Aki
Richards format and P & T axes format data that are particularly convenient for seis-
mology data. Note that if you enter P & T data, FaultKin will simply pick one of the two
possible nodal planes as the fault plane. In the tabbed group box, you can specify any of
about 26 different parameters that your data file might contain. Only the information in
the Orientation tab is required. This same Parse Text dialog appears if you have unrec-
ognized text on the Clipboard.

Figure 5. The parse text dialog box. FaultKin will try to recognize columns of data in your text file.

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Choosing which data to plot or analyze
FaultKin will only plot or analyze faults that are checked in the Data 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 “se-
lection halo” (Fig. 6 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 Panel by command clicking
the rows of interest. From the Data Menu, or equivalent popup menu in the Data Panel,
you can toggle on or off faults. By making the choice shown in Figure 6 top, you will get
the plot showing in Figure 6 bottom.

Figure 6 (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.

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Toggle on and Off and Sort by Column
The Toggle On and Off commands in the Data Menu can be very powerful when com-
bined 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 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 se-
lect the range of rows that fits your criteria and Toggle Off the rest of the data set.

Data>Sort Ascending by… Menu

There may be times when you want to sort your data by parameters other than those
shown in the columns of the listbox in the Data Pane. You can do so by selecting the pa-
rameter in the Data>Sort Ascending by submenu (Date-Time, Moment, Elevation/
Depth, Latitude, Longitude). This will sort the entire fault array according to the select-
ed parameter, meaning that your data will no longer be in the order in which they were
entered! You can return your data to their entered order by Sorting by Event/Fault
Number. You might want to do this to identify the biggest earthquakes or the highest
faults in a data set. This type of sorting can break the “same as previous” fault marker
which could screw up a moment tensor calculation. For that reason, data are automati-
cally sorted by Event/Fault Number prior to any moment tensor calculation.

Using the Select Tab

The Select Tab allows you
to make more complicat-
ed selections (Fig. 7).
Check the box next to the
parameters by which you
wish to sort your data set
and enter an upper and
lower bounds (for numer-
ic sorts) and/or strings
that you wish to search
for. Text searches are not
case sensitive. Once you
have defined your search,
click the Select or the Se-
lect Opposite button. All
of the data that match
your criteria will be
checked in the data list
and the remaining non- Figure 7. Defining a search in the Select Tab of the main window.

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matching measurements will be unchecked (Fig. 7).

Max Compatible Faults

By selecting Data>Max Compatible Faults, you can have the program select the maxi-
mum number of faults in a data set that are kinematically compatible. The program
uses P&T dihedra to calculate that maximum number of faults that are kinematically
compatible and turns off those that aren't. There may be more than one equally good
solution to this problem and FaultKin will just give you the first one that it finds. This
routine only works on the subset of faults that are checked in the data list. Note that the
program only uses P-dihedra in this calculation. It is possible that the best T-dihedra
would give a different solution. This routine works best on simple data sets!

Calculations and Data Analysis

Rotate Data
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 di-
alog box (Fig. 8). If you have entered bed-
ding at the site of the observation in the Data
Entry tab, then you can also “Unfold data”
by rotating your observations back to hori-
zontal. This last operation is a counterclock- Figure 8. The Rotate Data dialog box.

wise rotation about a right-hand rule strike by

a magnitude equivalent to the dip. Fault observations lacking bedding data are unaf-
fected 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. Un-
fold/Refold data allows you to carry out a fold test on your fault slip data.

Kinematic Tensors & Set Moment Tensor Params

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
Pane. The Linked Bingham analysis remains in the program mostly for historical rea-
sons. I recommend that you use an unweighted moment tensor sum instead. This op-
tion does not plot the axes to the Plot Window but displays the numerical results in the
Analyses Pane as shown above. The parameters for the Moment Tensor calculation are
entered in the Moment Tensor Parameters window (Fig. 9) which will appear automati-

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 -----Moment Tensor Sum | 11/14/2018 at 11:15 AM-----

Weighted by Seismic moment. Shear modulus used = 32 GPa

Kostrov's Symmetric Moment Tensor:

Axis Eigenvalue Trend Plunge

1. +9.1688e+20 359.7 08.64

2. +3.2219e+20 090.2 03.62

3. -1.2391e+21 202.8 80.63

Equivalent scalar moment: 1.1135e+21 dyne*cm

Isotropic component = 2.6214e+5

% double couple = 48.0

% CVLD = 52.0

Molnar(1983) rotation axis:

Trend & Plunge = 094.2, 08.9; rotation magn (°) = -5.815068e+22

(divide the eigenvalues by (2*volume*Shear modulus) to get strain)

(divide the rotation magnitude by (volume*Shear modulus) to get rotation in degrees)

cally the first time you perform or plot a

moment tensor. Subsequently, if you need to
change the moment tensor parameters, you
can select Calculations>Set Moment Tensor
Params. In general, if you are analyzing
earthquake data, you will probably weight
by seismic moment which accompanies
many earthquake catalogs, including the
CMT and the USGS QuakeML catalogs. For
faults, you will probably want to choose one
of the weighting parameters on the right
hand side, or ”Any”. The default values are
what you would typically use (Marrett and
Allmendinger, 1990) If you have not weight-
ing information, choose “Uniform weight”.

Stress on Plane
“Stress on Plane” is a forward model calcula-
tion where you enter the principal stress ori- Figure 9. The Moment Tensor Parameters dia-
entations, as well as the orientation of the log box.
plane you are interested in, in a dialog box
(Fig. 10) and FaultKin will calculate the traction, normal, and shear stresses on that
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 Plot Menu), the analysis showing when you click Done will be
plotted.

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Slip Tendency
Slip Tendency is an analysis where, given a
stress tensor orientation, pore fluid pressure
and coefficient of friction, you can calculate
how likely a plane is to slip (Morris and Fer-
rill, 2009). In FaultKin, you enter these values
in the slip tendency dialog box (Fig. 11). The
results of the analyses will be shown in the
Analyses Pane. You can also choose to color
the planes according to how likely they are
to slip with red being highly likely and dark
blue being unlikely.

-----Slip Tendency Analysis | 11/14/2018 at 11:36

AM-----

Stress Trend Plunge Magnitude

σ1 165.0, 10.0, 100.0

Figure 10. The Stress on Plane dialog box.

σ2 068.6, 32.4, 50.0

σ3 090.0, -55.7, 20.0

Pore Fluid Pressure = 25 MPa

Static Friction Coeff = 0.85

Ave. mismatch btwn max shear stress & slip =

42.34832 ± 22.93077°

After performing a Slip Tendency analysis,

you can select individual faults and then
choose Calculations>Data for Selected Faults.
This will write the individual results for each
selected fault to the Analyses Pane. If you
hold down the Shift Key the menu option
changes to: “Data to Selected Faults to Clip-
board” which will save a tab delimited, col-
umn formatted text file to the clipboard for
pasting into a spreadsheet program.

Figure 11. The Slip Tendency dialog box.

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Angle between Lines
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 giv-
en the option of pasting the results into
the Analysis drawer (Fig. 12). Figure 12. The Angle between Lines dialog box.

Note that the Analysis Pane 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 Pane are not saved when you exit the program! If you want to capture this in-
formation for further use, you must copy it to the clipboard for pasting into another ap-
plication.

Plotting your results

The Plot Menu
The features that appear in the Plot Tab of the main window are determined by what
menu items are checked in the
23
Plot Menu. Figure 13 is a plot of
12 22 22 26 27 27 25 25 24
everything (except contours) for 8 13 17 24 27 31 35 35 34 32 21 23 19
our sample data set of 58 faults, 10 11 13 22 24 32 37 39 42 41 38 26 21 17 13

which is probably more than 7 12 15 16 27 31 38 43 44 42 42 41 31 26 19 13 12

you want! Which of these op- 9 15 15 23 33 39 44 45 46 44 45 42 34 29 23 16 12

tions you choose to display at 7 10 15 19 25 38 43 47 48 46 49 46 42 37 32 23 20 11 8

7 13 18 22 29 41 46 50 49 49 49 46 43 40 37 28 19 12 11
any one time will depend on the
10 15 18 24 30 42 46 51 49 52 52 48 44 40 37 29 19 14 12
purpose of your analysis, quality 12 15 19 24 31 43 47 53 53 55 51 47 43 40 37 31 18 14 10
of data, etc. 1
10 14 16 21 24 31 41 47 54 53 55 51 47 43 40 34 30 15 12 8 10

The items under “Faults” allow 14 17 21 25 30 38 45 53 54 54 51 48 43 39 35 29 12 8 9

14 17 22 24 28 36 46 50 55 54 50 47 44 38 31 23 12 6 8 3
you to plot the fault planes, stri-
13 17 23 25 25 34 43 48 53 53 50 46 41 36 30 21 12 7 6
ae, and arrows that show the 10 15 22 25 25 33 39 46 49 50 48 43 38 33 28 19 10 8 6
movement of the hanging wall. 13 21 23 25 28 35 43 48 44 44 38 34 27 22 14 9 7

“Movement Planes” are the 12 20 21 26 28 32 39 44 42 39 32 28 25 20 12 9 7

planes that contain the slip vec- 14 21 24 26 28 35 35 34 31 26 27 22 14 10 8

19 21 22 21 26 26 27 23 26 24 16 13 8
tor and the pole to the plane and
21 21 25 26 24 21 23 19 13
2
23

Figure 13. Lots of different things to plot!

-17 -
are thus perpendicular to the fault plane;
they are essentially the plane of plane strain
for an individual fault. 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 et al., 1991).
The “Scatter” submenu is where you will
find commands to plot P and T axes as
points. You can choose to contour the P-axes,
the T-axes or both from the “Contour” sub- Figure 14. Dialog used to specify ad hoc P and T
axes, from which a fault plane solution will be
menu; the contouring parameters are set in plotted.
the Inspector palette described below.
“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.
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 dia-
gram, 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 stere-
onet. The P and T dihedra show up just above
where the trend and plunge at the mouse is dis-
played. P or T-dihedra results can be contoured by
pressing the appropriate radio button in the Inspec-
tor Palette (see below).
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. 14), which allows you to specify an arbi- Figure 15a
trary P and T axis from which the nodal planes will

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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 solu-
tion from your plot, simply select the same menu
option and when the dialog box in Figure 14 ap-
pears, 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.
Figure 15b
Customizing your Plot with the Inspector
You customize your plot via the Inspector Window
(Fig. 15), 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 stereo-
graphic projection, grid spacing and selection as-
pects. 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 pa-
rameters for contour plots (Fig. 15c). You can con-
tour P-axes, T-Axes, or both. Alternatively, if you
select the “P or T dihedra grid” radio button, and
you have Plot>PT Dihedra>P Dihedra or Plot>PT
Dihedra>T Dihedra selected, you will get a contour
plot of the values in the selected grid. You can select
either Kamb contours or 1% area contours as well Figure 15c
as the density of the counting grid on the sphere.
The “smoothed” checkbox applies the Robin and
Jowett (Robin and Jowett, 1986, #31015) weighted smoothing to the contours, which is
especially useful if you have selected a dense counting grid.

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You can choose the colors for the contouring separately for the P-axes and the T-axes.
The fill opacity slider is useful when you have both P- and T-axis contours showing on
the screen at the same time. Contour fill opacity is saved in .svg files but not in .pdf files.
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 repre-
sents 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 ac-
commodate the new stereonet size.

Analyzing Earthquake Data

FaultKin is equally adept at analyzing earthquake moment tensor data as it is with fault
slip data. It understands P&T data and Aki Richards format entry and can plot fault
plane solutions. Furthermore, the program can read and interpret .ndk files from the
GCMT archive as well as
USGS QuakeML .xml
formatted files. With these
data, the program can
perform full seismic mo-
ment tensor summations
and, if one enters the vol-
ume of the region, it can
calculate strain. One can
access the detailed mo-
ment tensor data for indi-
vidual events, if such
components existed in the
original data set, by se-
lecting View>EQ Moment
Tensor Details (Fig. 16).
The tensor can be dis-
played in either a North-
East-Down or the origi-
nal r-t-p (r-θ-φ) coordi-
nate system and units can
be shown in either dyne- Figure 16. Earthquake Moment tensor details and earthquake mo-
ment tensor summation results in FaultKin.

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cm or Newton-m. If errors on individual moment tensor parameters were included in
the original data file, then they will be displayed in the Details dialog box and will be
propagated through the moment tensor calculation. For background on the calculations
done by FaultKin, see Jost and Herrmann (1989).

Figure 17. The Map Tab in FaultKin showing earthquake data visualized by elevation/depth (colors) and
magnitude (size). This plotting is not available on Windows version of the program

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The Map View
Basics
You can see the location of any selected fault/
earthquake that has latitude and longitude co- Sadly, the data overlay is not available in
the Windows version of FaultKin be-
ordinates in the Map Tab of the main window. cause graphic overlays on top of html
Simply click on the points that you want to see windows are not permitted in Windows.
and a Google satellite image will be plotted My apologies but there is nothing I can
(Fig. 17). The type of map can be chosen by do about this… 😟
clicking the box in the lower left corner and the
scale of the map can be changed with the plus
and minus buttons in the lower right. The location of the cursor is shown at the top of
the image. Using the radio buttons at the top left, the data can be displayed using sim-
ple dots at the location of the observation or, if you have selected 100 or fewer faults/
events you can visualize them as fault plane solutions (“beach balls”). You can also col-
or the observations by elevation/depth or vary their size according to magnitude. Note
that, if you drag the satellite image with your mouse, the data overlay will not move
and thus be displayed out of position. To restore things to their proper position, click
the Re-center Map button in the upper right.

Interacting with the Map View

The Map View has a number of interactive features which are very useful for searching
your data. In all cases, the features are activated by holding down a key on your key-
board while moving the mouse but NOT while dragging the mouse. Once you have
performed the interaction, release the key on the keyboard and move the mouse to ter-
minate the action. [It works this way because dragging the mouse actually moves the
map/satellite image.]

Measure a Distance (Control Key)

Holding down the Control Key while moving the mouse will draw a line from the point
where you started pressing the key to the current position of the mouse. The distance
and azimuth of the line are displayed instead of the latitude and longitude.

Select a subset of points on the map (Shift Key)

Holding down the Shift Key while moving the mouse will draw a box around the points
you want to select. Once you release the Shift Key and move the mouse slightly, you
will be taken automatically to the Select Tab where the latitude and longitude range that
you specified on the map will be pasted into the boxes automatically. To complete the
selection, just click the “Select” button.

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 Construct a Swath Profile (Option Key)

Especially when one is studying earthquakes, it is useful to plot the events versus depth
on a swarth profile. I use this feature extensively when trying to identify crustal earth-
quakes above a subduction zone, for example. You can accomplish this from the Map
Tab as shown in Figure 18:

Figure 18. The Swath Profile sheet window with the Map Tab underneath it.

To initiate a swath profile, position the mouse where you want the profile to begin,
press and hold the Option Key, move (not drag) the mouse to the end point, release the
Option Key and then move the mouse a few pixels more. The swath profile sheet win-
dow will appear with a default value of 200 km. You can adjust the width of the swath
or the azimuth in the window and the data will be replotted automatically. Earthquake
data are commonly given with depths as positive numbers so you will want to check
the box “Elevations are depths” to get the appropriate plot. You can also choose to show
error bars if errors on depths/elevations have been entered. Finally, if you check the box
next to the Okay button you will be given the opportunity to save the swath profile as a
text file for plotting in a graphics/plotting program.
As you move the mouse in the swath profile window, the X (distance along the profile)
and Y (depth) coordinates displayed at the bottom of the window. If you click and drag
the mouse in the window, a straight line will be draw with the length and angle (dip)
displayed at the bottom. If you hold down the Shift Key while clicking and dragging, a

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polygon will be drawn and all of the points inside the polygon will be selected in the
data table once you click Okay button.
When you click the Okay button, the window will be dismissed and all of the earth-
quakes that were depicted on the swath profile will be selected in the data list. If your
swath is narrow, the number of selected points will be smaller than those initially
shown in the Map Tab.

Copying, saving and printing your plot

Once you have the plot just as you like it, you can save it as a PDF or SVG file for
import into other programs. The PDF and SVG formats are both vector-based formats
meant to provide publication quality graphics. They should appear identical to, but
higher resolution than, the plot window itself. The size of the graphic is controlled by
the size of the Plot tab in the Main window. Of the two, SVG is for a number of reasons
a superior graphic format, especially if you anticipate subsequent editing.
FaultKin also supports the clipboard. If any text is selected in either the Data or
theAnalysis Pane, that editable text will be copied to the clipboard. Otherwise the
Graphic in the Main Window will be copied as a screen resolution raster object to the
clipboard for pasting into another application.
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 a low resolution raster image.

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 dis-
plays 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 pos-

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 sible using the shift key in the stereonet or the command key in the list
box
• Changes made in the Inspector are instantly reflected in the plot

References
Angelier, J., and Mechler, P., 1977, Sur une methode graphique de recherche des con-
traintes principales egalment utilisable en tectonique et en seismologie: La meth-
ode des diedres droits: Bulletin de Societie Geologique de France Bulletin de So-
cietie Geologique de France, v. 19, p. 1309–1318.
Jost, M.L., and Herrmann, R.B., 1989, A students guide to and review of moment ten-
sors: Seismological Research Letters, v. 60, p. 37–57.
Marrett, R.A., and Allmendinger, R.W., 1990, Kinematic analysis of fault-slip data: Jour-
nal of Structural Geology, v. 12, p. 973–986.
Morris, A.P., and Ferrill, D.A., 2009, The importance of the effective intermediate princi-
pal stress (σ′2) to fault slip patterns: Journal of Structural Geology, v. 31, p. 950–
959, doi:10.1016/j.jsg.2008.03.013.
Twiss, R.J., and Gefell, M.J., 1990, Curved slickenfibers: a new brittle shear sense indica-
tor with application to a sheared serpentine: Journal of Structural Geology, v. 12,
p. 471–482.
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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