Abstract
The Precambrian basement and overlying rocks that comprise the Adirondack massif have experienced significant brittle deformation with uplift over time. This has produced an extensive system of faults and fractures, which trends generally North-Northeast (N-NE) throughout the massif. The fault and fracture system is well-exposed at numerous outcrops, which has proven advantageous to characterizing it. In this study, fault density analysis was conducted on 12 well-exposed outcrops within the Piseco Lake shear zone in the southern Adirondacks. A combination of orientation measurements and high-resolution GigaPan panoramic imagery were collected at each outcrop, and together these data were used to generate fault density contour maps of the outcrops. The fault density and orientation data has been integrated into a new Google Earth-based interactive structural field map of the Adirondacks, which can be further built upon by the authors (and others) as additional field campaigns are completed. This study has successfully served as a proof-of-concept for the imaging and contouring method, and has demonstrated its efficacy to geological research. Characterizing the quantity and spatial distribution of bedrock joints and fractures has important implications in geological fields such as hydrogeology, resource exploration, geo-hazard assessment, and geo-engineering.
Recommended Citation
Lee, Rachel J.; Maxwell, Brandon; Valentino, David W.; and Valentino, Joshua D.
(2019)
"Applications of High-Resolution Gigapan Imagery in Mapping Fracture Systems: An Example from the Adirondack Basement Massif, New York,"
Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies: Vol. 23:
No.
1, Article 4.
Available at:
https://digitalworks.union.edu/ajes/vol23/iss1/4
