The development of stylolites, from small-scale heterogeneities to multi-scale roughness

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In this project we aim to obtain an understanding of the reasons for the development of stylolites and their roughness. The goal is to characterize the roughness of stylolites and use this information to extract conditions at stylolite formation, namely the amount of compaction of the host-rock, the stress at stylolite formation and compaction rates. Stylolites are very common in nature and are of considerable economic interest but little is known about the growth of their surface roughness. The results of this study can enhance the usefulness of styolites for tectonic- and basin analysis. Our approach is threefold: 1) to study the scaling properties of natural stylolites across the whole range of shapes, 2) to study the grain distribution (EBSD) and chemical variation of the stylolite host-rock and 3) to perform numerical simulations of stylolite roughening using data from EBSD and chemical analysis and compare the statistics of the numerical with the natural patterns. This will lead to a more thorough understanding of the development of stylolites and we plan to use this information to develop stylolites as a new tool in microtectonic analysis.