We present an integrative model of the crust and upper mantle of Egypt based on an analysis of gravity, seismic, and geological data. These results are essential for deciphering the link between the dynamic processes in the Earth system and near-surface processes (particularly earthquakes) that influence human habitat. We identified the distinct fragmentation of the lithosphere of Egypt in several blocks. This division is closely related to the seismicity patterns in this region.

We present mechanical models that use the attitude and opening angles of igneous sills to constrain stress axes, the stress ratio, and relative magma pressure during dilation. The models can be applied to any set of dilated structures, including dikes, sills, or veins. Comparison with paleostress analysis for coeval faults and deformation bands indicates that sills can be used to characterise the paleostress state in areas where other brittle deformation structures (e.g. faults) are not present.

The olivine carbonation reaction is volume increasing and could prevent further reaction by clogging the fluid pathways. This contradicts the observed fully carbonated outcrops in nature, but the mechanism behind this self-sustainability is poorly understood. Our study reveals that the stretching-induced fracturing and the dissolution channelization are mechanisms that could contribute to the sustainability of carbonation reactions. This study provides new insights on the olivine carbonation.

We first investigated the recent activity of a major active fault system, probably responsible for the 1511 earthquake, one of the most destructive seismic events of the eastern Alps and of continental Europe over the past millennium.

We dated the formation of large faults in order to constrain the tectonic and exhumation history of the Barents Sea and northern Norway. Some of the dated faults formed apprx. 1 Ga and are much older than expected. However, most dated faults were active during two periods of extension: 375–325 and 315–265 Ma. The study of minerals along these cracks shows that exposed rocks in Finnmark were exhumed from deep (> 10 km) to shallow depth (< 3.5 km) during the two periods of extension.

This study focuses on the assessment of the geothermal potential of two extensive upper Devonian aquifer systems within the Alberta Basin (Canada). Our work provides a first database on geothermal rock properties combined with detailed facies analysis (outcrop and core samples), enabling the identification of preferred zones in the reservoir and thus allowing for a more reliable reservoir prediction. This approach forms the basis for upcoming reservoir studies with a focus on 3-D modelling.

Using rock deformation experiments we study how rocks deform at mid-crustal levels within mountain belts and along plate boundaries. For the studied material, fluid-assisted mass transport and grain sliding are the dominant deformation mechanisms when small amounts of water are present. Our results provide new data on the mechanical response of the earth's crust, and the wide range of presented microstructures will help to correlate observations from experiments and nature.

A major mountain building event, called the Lufilian orogeny, deformed the rocks that host copper and cobalt ore in the world-class Central African Copperbelt. Key field evidence in this study shows that a single pulse of deformation caused a set of complexly interacting folds and faults. The specific composition and layering in the rock package has a major influence on how the rock sequence was folded.

See abstract.

Fault patterns formed in response to a single tectonic event often display significant variation in their orientations. This variation could be noise on underlying conjugate (or bimodal) fault patterns or it could be intrinsic signal from an underlying polymodal (e.g. quadrimodal) pattern. We present new statistical tests and open source R code to calculate the probability of a fault pattern having two (bimodal, or conjugate) or four (quadrimodal) clusters based on their orientations.