查看文章

The widely cited Sibson‐Scholz conceptual fault zone model suggests that seismically active, upper crustal brittle faults pass downward across a predominantly thermally controlled transition at 10–15 km depth into ductile shear zones in which deformation occurs by aseimic viscous creep. The crustal‐scale Outer Hebrides Fault Zone (OHFZ) in NW Scotland has been described as the type example of such a continental fault zone. It cuts Precambrian basement gneisses and is deeply exhumed, allowing direct study of the deformation products and processes that occur across a wide range of crustal depths. A number of fault rock assemblages are recognized to have formed during a long‐lived displacement history lasting in excess of 1000 Myr. During Caledonian movements that are recognized along much of the 190 km onshore fault trace, brittle, cataclasite‐bearing faults in the west of the OHFZ are unequivocally …