geology strike and dip

strike and dip

Hello blog readers, geology folks. (sorry have been away for some time now).

Today, I will be talking about geology strike and dip extensively with images.

so we all can relate with it both in field trip and basically in some geophysical interpretation and calculation presented to us.

OK let me dig in... 

what is strike?

from the dictionary. strike simply means a swing.. take a course and go!

if i want to strike someone ... best believe my swing is going to be a straight swing so as to deliver a massive impact. same as geological strike. it follows a particular orientation

lets take another example..." i want to strike the matches" , i will have to strike the side of the matches in a particular direction which is also known as the orientation!

so let say whatever we do... we have a orientation..direction and strike!

so if am to look at roof of a house..the topmost part is the strike.. either eastward or westward is the orientation of the roof

so geologist  went ballistic  and decided to tie the strike with a reference point. now.. let perform an exercise .. close your eyes and think of any point...

yeah.. you see that point? that's your reference point

the reference point has to be relative with strike . and why?

$o as to get the strike angle!

mostly all strike angles are degrees

the geologist and surveyor reference point is mostly the North of the Cartesian(we have the north, south , east and west. remember??)

so back to the examples so i can relate it with the reference which is the North

if the matches is placed on a flat table..automatically the strike will be the parallel and God willingly , the North(which is also the reference point is always pointing up)  .so the angle between the strike which is parallel and the north which is perpendicular to the strike is degrees

thats is easy to understand

now, if the matches was tilted. oh no! we wont be able determine the strike angle anymore🙈🙈

not to worry folks..we make use of the compass to get the tilted strike angle it makes with the reference point.. so easy

so we have a compass to sort everything out for us in both parallel and titled strike angle.. we favoured ladies and gentlemen!

so recap, i have been able to touch on strike, strike angle and also the reference point!... not to forget the use of the compass also

so now... lets get down to the dip!!

where is the rock dipping to?

where the matches is tilting to is called d dip direction

 it can be tilted sideways or towards me or against me!

if the matches is tilted sideways... the dip direction can either be east or west but the dip angle is respective to the horizontal which is mostly and mostly the strike since it is mostly parallel

 so lets recap both strike and dip

d strike is relative to a reference point which is mostly the North of a compass

whereas 

the dip is relative to a horizontal line which is mostly the strike  !

so lets apply this to a rock so we can prove what we having been discussing  ever since... lets rock on!