Thank you for submitting a revised version of your manuscript and your detailed response. Both reviewers question the mixing of opening-mode fractures and faults in your datasets. In your response you acknowledge that your Group three fractures contain both, but I don't see the concern addressed that you combine two fundamentally types of brittle structures in your datasets. I also don't see an explicit response to the question of both reviewers how length of fractures was determined. Given that all faults and fractures are segmented, the concern is that the determination of fracture length becomes observation-scale dependent. You say that you added some discussion to this but this probably should be in the methods part. In any case, I am not sure where you addressed this. Can you please address both questions in a short response letter and in the manuscript at the appropriate location in the manuscript, with the relevant line numbers in the response letter.
Thanks,
Peter Eichhubl, Special Issue Editor

Line 225: Hill, not Hills. The interplay of opening-mode and shear fractures is well established besides Hill meshes through the concept of tail/wing fractures and their effects on fluid flow. Numerous papers on that topic.

Line 228 and 233: By "geologically realistic" and "geologically valid", do you mean practical? The distinction of opening-mode fracture versus shear or sheared fracture is certainly valid based on fundamental principles and geological practice--there are numerous papers that successfully made that distinction and that derived testable hypotheses based on these interpretations. Yes, reactivation of opening-mode fractures in shear, and of sheared fractures by later opening-mode, is possible and can be documented through detailed analysis. But I think your statement on line 233 goes too far in questioning the validity of the basic concept. I agree that it may not be practical to make that distinction in all cases depending on the technique of observation (e.g. remote-sensed observations).

Dear Authors,
Based on the Topical Editor's report and overall assessment of the review process, your revised manuscript can be accepted for publication in Solid Earth pending the corrections as requested by the Topical Editor.

Many thanks for choosing Solid Earth.

Sincerely,
Federico Rossetti