Mountain belts formed by continental collision, rifting basins - the repositories of natural resources, active faults and their earthquake hazards, slow-flowing rocks and plate tectonics - all issues for structural geology. But it can be a bewildering as well as exciting subject. There are lots of complicated rock geometries that require a three dimensional picture - well 4D really because we need to think about how geology works through time. In this web resource we build up some basic concepts.
A simple account of the different ways a material might deform.
Notes on the organisation of rocks without tectonics - because if we want to understand deformed rocks we should have an idea of what they looked like before.
The record of distortions in grains
How to record the orientation of structures - using a compass-clinometer
Some notes on building up a geological history.
September 2003