Hand Sample of fault gouge. This sample was collected by Heather Golding who mapped small-scale gouge structures in outcrop and thin section with me at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. Click here to see her thin section photomosaic and map.

Heather divided the gouge zone into two parts: an upper part which deformed homogeneously, and a lower part which contained numerous discrete shear zones. She noted that numerous discrete shear zones in outcrop, and in this sample, terminate into zones of homogeneous deformation. Her map shows that that many of the shear zones themselves look quite homogeneous except that they too contain even smaller shear zones.

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