Solid Earth, 6, 839–855, 2015 www.solid-earth.net/6/839/2015/ doi:10.5194/se-6-839-2015 © Author(s) 2015. CC Attribution 3.0 License. Evolution of a highly dilatant fault zone in the grabens of Canyonlands National Park, Utah, USA – integrating fieldwork, ground-penetrating radar and airborne imagery analysis M. Kettermann1, C. Grützner2,a, H. W. van Gent1,b, J. L. Urai1, K. Reicherter2, and J. Mertens1,c 1Structural Geology, Tectonics and Geomechanics Energy and Mineral Resources Group, RWTH Aachen University, Lochnerstraße 4–20, 52056 Aachen, Germany 2Neotectonics and Natural Hazards, RWTH Aachen University, Lochnerstraße 4–20, 52056 Aachen, Germany anow at: COMET; Bullard Laboratories, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK bnow at: Shell Global Solutions International, Rijswijk, the Netherlands cnow at: ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland Correspondence to: M. Kettermann (
[email protected]) Received: 20 February 2015 – Published in Solid Earth Discuss.: 17 March 2015 Revised: 18 June 2015 – Accepted: 22 June 2015 – Published: 21 July 2015 Abstract. The grabens of Canyonlands National Park are 1 Introduction a young and active system of sub-parallel, arcuate grabens, whose evolution is the result of salt movement in the sub- Understanding the structure of dilatant fractures in normal surface and a slight regional tilt of the faulted strata. We fault zones is important for many applications in geoscience. present results of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) surveys Reservoirs for hydrocarbons, geothermal energy and fresh- in combination with field observations and analysis of high- water often contain dilatant fractures (e.g., Ehrenberg and resolution airborne imagery.