1. Are these interesting questions?
What is structural geology?
Describe the structure
Work out the history of deformation & the rest
Formulate models for the processes involved
What is a model?
Von Neumann’s definition: a mathematical construct, closed, that works; specific or more general
J. B. Thompson, Jr.’s notion (as remembered vaguely): “Petrologists look at rocks, make rocks, and think about rocks.”
Narrative versus model construction & application
What is not a model?
Analog model of a structure (“make a rock”)
Numerical model, as by FEM: simulation based on a model

2. Examples of models It isn’t even wrong! Wolfgang Pauli
Gilbert (1877) Report on the geology of the Henry Mountains
*Anderson (1937) The dynamics of sheet intrusions
*Ode (1957) Mechanical analysis of the dike pattern of the Spanish Peaks area, Colorado 113
Muller & Pollard (1977) Stress state near Spanish Peaks, Colorado determined from a dike pattern 83
Biot (1961) Theory of folding of stratified viscoelastic media and its application to …
Sherwin & Chapple (1968) Wavelengths of single layer folds – a comparison between theory and observation
Reches & Johnson (1977) Development of monoclines: Part II Theoretical analysis of monoclines 174
Pollard & Johnson (1977) Mechanics of growth of some laccolithic intrusions in the Henry Mountains 165
*Chapple (1978) Mechanics of thin-skinned fold and thrust belts
*Platt (1986) Dynamics of orogenic wedges and the uplift of high pressure metamorphic rocks 879
*Platt (1993) Mechanics of oblique convergence
*Fisher & Brantley (1992) Models of quartz overgrowth and vein formation: deformation and episodic fluid flow in an ancient subduction zone