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Stereonet Help

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
1K views

Stereonet Help

Uploaded by

Omatouk
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 38

Stereonet

Stereonet v. 11
by Richard W. Allmendinger © 2020

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 1
Stereonet

Contents
Disclaimer 4
Privacy Statement 4
Acknowledgments 5
How to Reference This Program 5
Introduction 5
The Window Layout 6
Conventions and Data Formats 8
Coordinate System 8
Planes (and Overturned Planes) 8

Getting Data In and Out of Stereonet 10


Entering New Data within the Program 10
by Typing 10
Lines on Planes (Rake) 10
Using the Mouse 11
Extracting Data from a Published Figure 12
Adding Metadata in the Details Tab 13
Moving Data within the Program 14
New Dataset from Selection 14
Merge With… 14
Use the Clipboard to Move Data 14
Saving Data 15
Stereonet Binary Files 15
Text Files 15
KML File Output 16
Save Data to Your StraboSpot Account 17
Copy Data to the System Clipboard 18
Saving Plots 18
Reading Data stored on your Computer 18
Stereonet Binary Files 18
Stereonet Mobile Files 18
Parsing Text Data with an unknown Format 19

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 2
Stereonet

Data on the System Clipboard 20

Plotting Your Data 21


Selecting the Data to Plot 21
Lasso Select 21
Sort the Data Listbox 21
Toggle On/Toggle Off 21
Search for Data Meeting Specific Criteria 21
The Order in Which Data are Plotted 22
The Grid and the View Direction 22
Annotate the Plot 23
The Plot Menu 23
The 3D View 25
The Map View 26
The Inspector Palette 27
Stereonet Tab 27
Dataset Tab 28
Analyses Tab 28
Contour Tab 30

Calculations 31
Poles & Planes from Poles 31
Rotating Data 31
Statistical Analyses 32
Fisher Vector Distribution 32
Bingham Axial Distribution 32
Von Mises Distribution 32
Convert to Lower Hemisphere 33
Direction Cosines 33
Angle Between… 33
Apparent Dip Calculator 33
Two Planes Calculations 34
Axial Plane Finder 35
Slope Stability 36
References 38

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 3
Stereonet

Disclaimer
Stereonet 11 is distributed on an "as is" basis without any warranty, explicit or implicit.
The author will not be liable for direct, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages
resulting from any defect in this software or this user's manual, even if he has been
previously been made aware of the defect. Furthermore, I make no systematic effort to
inform all users of either bug fixes or upgrades. This program may not be sold or of-
fered as an inducement to buy any other product.

Privacy Statement
Stereonet 11 does not send or receive data automatically from the Internet and it never
sends any of your personal information to the programmer or any advertising entities.
The user can initiate an operation where limited information is sent via the Internet to a
third party. These operations are limited to: (1) uploading information from the users
existing account at the StraboSpot database (https://strabospot.org). (2) If the user
clicks the Get Elevation button in the Details Tab, the latitude and longitude of the cur-
rently selected datum will be sent to the MapQuest elevation server in order to retrieve
the elevation at that coordinate location. No additional data are sent. (3) If the user
opens the Map Tab, the latitude and longitude at the center of the selected data are
sent to Google to request the display of satellite images at that location. In the Mac
version of the program, your selected structural data are drawn in a transparent canvas
overlying the html window. The Windows version of Stereonet does not permit over-
lapping controls so the overlay is only used in the Mac version of the program, and the
Windows version does not show your data plotted above the Google image at all. In all
cases, however, your data are never sent to Google, only a single latitude-longitude
pair.

In all of these cases, the program and programmer have no control over what Strabo-
Spot, MapQuest, or Google do with the information sent to them and once initiated, that
information is subject to their individual privacy policies. In the case of StraboSpot,
personally identifying information must be sent to the site in order for the user to login
to their account. In the cases of MapQuest and Google, Stereonet only sends the sin-
gle latitude-longitude pair and a key that identifies the request as coming from the
Stereonet program. No other information is sent by Stereonet, although I assume that
both websites log IP addresses.

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 4
Stereonet

Acknowledgments
Stereonet has been developed over the last 35 years and many people have unwitting-
ly been beta testers and have taught me things that I needed to know to write this pro-
gram. All have my thanks.

I am grateful to Néstor Cardozo for sharing many programming adventures. Randy


Marrett wrote the initial rotation algorithm which has been rewritten and fined tuned
many times since then. Tom Blenkinsop gave me permission to rewrite his S2K Excel
macros that form the basis for the 3D KML output. Basil Tikoff and Doug Walker en-
couraged me to incorporate StraboSpot functionality into Stereonet and Jason Ash
helped me understand the StraboSpot API.

Any errors are mine but, remember, it is completely up to you to verify that the program
is working and yielding reliable results for your purposes. All computer programs have
bugs in them!

How to Reference This Program


The science behind the algorithms in Stereonet 11 can be found in the following refer-
ences:

Allmendinger, R. W., Cardozo, N., and Fisher, D., 2012, Structural geology algorithms:
Vectors and tensors in structural geology: Cambridge University Press (book to
be published in early 2012).

Cardozo, N., and Allmendinger, R.W., 2013, Spherical projections with OSXStereonet:
Computers & Geosciences, v. 51, p. 193 – 205, doi:10.1016/
j.cageo.2012.07.021.

Please refer to these publications in any study or presentation that result from the use
of this program. If you use the Google Earth 3D symbols that Stereonet can output, you
should also reference:

Blenkinsop, T.G., 2012, Visualizing structural geology: from Excel to Google Earth:
Computers & Geosciences, v. 45, p. 52–56.

Introduction
The term “stereonet” is used by geologists around the world as an informal shorthand
for a family of projections of a sphere onto a flat piece of paper. The term in formal us-

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 5
Stereonet

age, refers to just one type of projection, the equatorial equal-angle projection or Wulff
net. Structural geologists more commonly use a somewhat different projection, the
Schmidt net, which is short for “Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection”. The program
Stereonet can produce both type of projections as well as a third, the polar net.

All of these projections are useful whenever the scientist needs to display and analyze
orientation data. Although the author of the program is a structural geologist, the pro-
gram has been used by other earth scientists such as geophysicists, stratigraphers,
paleontologists, economic geologists, and mineralogists. It has also found users in
archeology, ecology, and astronomy among other disciplines.

The purpose of this manual is to show you how to use the program, not teach you why
you need to use the program. For the latter, you might want to consult the author’s free
structural geology lab manual which will also teach you how to do the same calcula-
tions that Stereonet does:

http://www.geo.cornell.edu/geology/faculty/RWA/structure-lab-manual/

The Window Layout


The basic Stereonet Window is shown in the figure1, below. It consists of four basic
areas:

1. The Plot Area is actually a Tab Panel that displays four different views of your data.
You will spend most of your time in the first or leftmost which shows your spherical
projection. The others, from left to right, are the 3D View where you will find an in-
teractive, three-dimensional view of your data that you can look at from different
angles; the Details Tab where specific details, or metadata, about a selected mea-
surement, or datum, are displayed, and; the Map View where Macintosh users can
see their data plotted on top of a Google satellite image. Unfortunately, for technical
reasons, Windows users only see the satellite image but not the data overlay.

2. The Datasets Listbox shows all of your datasets in a particular file. A dataset is a
collection of individual measurements of a certain type. The four basic types that
Stereonet recognizes are: Lines, Planes, Small Circles, and Arcs. A hybrid type,
line-on-plane is available for those user entering, well, lines on planes using the
rake or pitch. Entry of a new dataset is initiated by selecting the type from the New
Dataset pop-down menu beneath and to the left of the Dataset Listbox. Plotting or-
der is determined by the wording in which the datasets appear in the listbox; you

1 All of the figures in this manual are from the Mac version of Stereonet but the Windows and Linux ver-
sions are functionally identical

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 6
Stereonet

can change the order by dragging a dataset to a different position in the listbox. the
checkboxes in the leftmost column determine whether or not the dataset is plotted
and/or included in various types of analyses. Finally, datasets can be deleted by
clicking the delete button immediately beneath and to the right of the datasets list-
box. You will be asked to confirm deletion.

3. The Data Listbox shows the individual data points within the selected dataset. The
format of the data is controlled by the format defined in the rightmost cell of the
dataset listbox (i.e., the Format column). In addition to the numerical values, you
can enter a brief label for any of the points which can be displayed on the plot. Ad-
ditional metadata about a selected datum (e.g., location, notes, etc.) is shown in
the Details Tab. The checkbox in the Data Listbox determines whether or not the
individual datum is plotted. You add a new datum to a dataset by clicking the New

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 7
Stereonet

Datum button below and to the left of the Data Listbox or by using the menu com-
mand shortcut ⇧⌘N (Shift-Command-N). If you are entering data already, you can
automatically generate a new datum to be filled in by pressing the Return key on
your keyboard (not the Enter Key on the numeric keypad). The selected data in this
listbox can be deleted using the delete button in the lower right or by the menu
command Edit➤Delete2 (⌘⌫). The deletion of individually selected data occurs
immediately!

4. The Analysis Pane is a text area which records the results of various action and
calculations that the program carries out. The text area is editable so that you can
delete parts that you don’t need, write your own explanatory notes, and copy the
content to any program that can receive text on the clipboard. The contents of the
Analysis Pane are saved when you save your data in Stereonet’s binary file format.
They are not exported in any of the text file formats.

Conventions and Data Formats


Coordinate System

Stereonets are, by convention, lower hemisphere projections which means that the app
will do its calculations using a North-East-Down (NED) coordinate system. Thus, vec-
tors that point upward into the upper hemisphere are given negative plunges. Stere-
onet can plot negative plunges in either the upper or the lower hemisphere, depending
on the settings in the Inspector Palette. The 3D View will always show vectors with
negative plunges in the upper hemisphere.

Planes (and Overturned Planes)

Internally, the program always records planes using the American (not British!) right-
hand rule where the strike azimuth is chosen so that the dip azimuth is always to the
right (or clockwise) from the strike. You do not have to enter your data in right-hand rule
if you use the “AD” format, but the program will change the strike value that you enter
to match the right hand rule. If, for example, you enter 030, 45 W, when you finished
entering your values they will appear as 210, 45 W.

We use the value of the plunge of the pole to bedding to indicate whether the bedding
is upright or overturned. In a NED coordinate system, upright bedding has a pole with
positive plunge downward, and overturned bedding poles have negative plunges. To

2 Menu commands are given in this manual using this format: the leftmost word is the name of the menu
(“Edit”) with the word to the right of the arrow the menu selection. Hierarchical menus have more than one
right arrow

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 8
Stereonet

overturn bedding requires a rotation of >90° so, technically, overturned planes should
be specified in the right-hand rule with a dip of >90°. Stereonet will readily accept
these values.

However, the clinometers we use in the field are not good at giving us angles greater
than 90°. Thus, Stereonet gives you the option (in the Dataset Tab of the Inspector) to
allow you to enter overturned beds with a negative dip. If that option is turned on, then
negative dips will immediately be converted to the (correct) value >90° after data entry.

The new 3D View in Stereonet shows you the difference between these two options:
both planes were entered with identical values: 045, –70. In the case of the cyan-col-
ored plane, “negative dips are overturned” was turned on and, as expected, the pole
to the plane is in the upper hemisphere. For the magenta plane, that option was turned
off and so we get an upper hemisphere plane with a pole in the lower hemisphere.
Note that “negative dips are overturned” must be set as you want it to be before any
data entry. Also, every planes dataset can have a different setting. It is, by default,
turned on.

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 9
Stereonet

Getting Data In and Out of Stereonet


New data can easily be entered in the program in a variety of formats and using a cou-
ple of different methods.

Entering New Data within the Program


by Typing

You will probably mostly enter data in the program by typing in your results. The basic
procedure is:

1. Define a new dataset of the type of data that you want to enter with the New
Dataset pop-down menu.

2. Set your preferred format for that dataset with the pop-down menu in the format
column of the Datasets Listbox.

3. Click the New Datum button below the Data Listbox, select Edit➤New Datum Entry
from the menubar, or use the keyboard shortcut ⇧⌘N. A new row will be added to
the Data Listbox with the first cell selected and ready for you to type in your value.

Once you have added the first line, but while still in edit mode in that row, if you type a
Return character on the keyboard, the next row will be added automatically, just as it
would in a spreadsheet program.

Lines on Planes (Rake)

Most data entry is relatively self explana-


tory, however, entering Lines on Planes
using the rake or pitch of the line re-
quires a bit of explanation (Figure,
above). When you select “Lines on
Planes (Rake) from the New Dataset
dropdown menu, two linked datasets are
created, one for the lines and one for the
planes. The entry of the rake/pitch oc-
curs in the Data Listbox when the plane
is selected and the format is set to “RK”.
The Rake is specified as the angle with respect to the given strike, but as shown in the
figure, you have to option of entering a dip quadrant for the plane. In the example
shown, as soon as the cursor leaves the Rake column, the datum will be changed to a

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 10
Stereonet

strike of 225 and a rake of 60 (because Stereonet always uses a right-hand rule for the
strike and dip internally). Every time that you add a new row to the planes dataset, a
new entry will also be made automatically in the Line on Plane dataset. If you delete a
plane from the planes dataset, the corresponding line in the lines dataset will also be
deleted automatically. If you delete either the Line on Plane or the Plane with Rake
dataset, they will become unlinked; if the planes dataset remains, you will not be able
to set the format to “RK” or add rakes to that planes dataset.

Aki-Richards Convention

Thrust fault Normal fault

ke (+)
ra
e
ri k dip

ra k e (–)
st
dip e
rik
st

Stereonet allows you to enter rakes using the Aki-Richards format, which is common in
seismology. You turn this format on for the currently selected planes dataset in the
Dataset Tab of the Inspector Palette. Once turned on, a negative rake will be interpret-
ed as a lower hemisphere line whereas a positive rake will be interpreted as an upper
hemisphere line.

Using the Mouse

Rather than typing, you can use the mouse to enter data by selecting Data➤Enter with
Mouse (⌥⌘M). A reminder will appear in the upper right corner of the Plot Area. To en-
ter a new line, hold down the Shift Key while clicking the mouse; for a plane hold down
the Option/Alt key. The line or plane is set when you release the mouse button. The first
time you shift-click for a line a new data set called “Ad hoc lines” will be created and all
subsequent lines entered with the mouse will be added to this data set. If you change
the name of the dataset to anything else, it will be frozen as is and, the next time you
shift-click, another new ad hoc lines dataset will be created and all subsequent lines
entered with the mouse will be added to that dataset. Likewise for planes, except that
the dataset is called “ad hoc planes”. Data entry with the mouse is particularly conve-
nient if you are trying to create as synthetic dataset for instructional purposes or if you
are digitizing a published figure (next section).

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 11
Stereonet

Extracting Data from a Published Figure

Journal articles commonly have stereonet plots but are not accompanied by the origi-
nal data that created those plots. Or, you may have an old figure somewhere of your
own data but have misplaced the data file. Stereonet can help with this situation by al-
lowing you to read a scan or screen grab of the plot, scale it, and then extract a fac-
simile of the data by clicking on points in the plot. Here’s how:

1. Select File➤Import and then choose the raster file that contains the scan or screen
grab of the figure that you want to digitize. The stereonet grid will be turned off to
allow you to see the data points on the scan better.

2. Once the image appears in the plot area, use Edit➤Drag Image if necessary to
move the image in the Plot area so that you can see most of the surrounding primi-
tive circle (or horizon).

3. Select Edit➤Scale & Position Image and a message will appear (Figure, above) in-
structing you to click three points on the primitive circle. the three points should
ideally by place close to 120° apart, but the exact spacing is unimportant.

4. Once the third point is clicked, the image will be rescaled and positioned to match
the primitive circle of Stereonet. You can now use Data➤Enter with Mouse (⌥⌘M)
to click on the points in the image.

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 12
Stereonet

Using this method, you can capture a reasonable facsimile of the data in the original
figure though, of course, you are not actually capturing the original data itself. The
quality of the final result depends to a large extent on the quality and clarity of the orig-
inal image. In particular, be sure that the scan is not distorted or rotated and the North
is directly up on the image. Stereonet cannot correct for any distortions or rotations so
you may need to repair a distorted image file in an image processing program first.

If you resize the Stereonet window, you may need to repeat step 3, above, in order to
reposition the image. Once you are done with the image, yo will probably want to
choose Edit➤Remove Image and turn back on the stereonet grid.

Adding Metadata in the Details Tab

Chances are, you will want to add more information about many of your individual
measurements. Once you have entered the measurement itself, you can enter the
metadata (“data about data”) by clicking the Details Tab, shown below. Here you will
find places to enter location and date/time information, as well as such things as Stra-
boSpot characteristics using the popup menus. You can put any additional information
that you want into the text box at the bottom of the panel. Entries in the Details Tab are
attached to the datum and recorded immediately in the program memory. If you have
multiple data selected, the changes will apply to all selected data! They are saved
in the Stereonet binary file and the Stereonet Mobile and Table Format text files when
you explicitly save those from the File menu.

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 13
Stereonet

Moving Data within the Program


Stereonet provides several ways of moving data around in the program, including:

New Dataset from Selection

Suppose you have selected a group of data in the Data Listbox that you would like to
have become a separate data set (maybe you want to give them a different color or
symbol). Simple choose Data➤New Dataset from Selection and those selected lines
will be added to a new dataset named “subset of…” (you can, of course, change the
name to anything you want). The data are NOT deleted from the old data set; you will
have to do that by hand if you want.

Merge With…

Alternatively, you may want to combine two datasets. Select the first dataset in the
Dataset Listbox and then choose Data➤Merge With… A small dialog box will appear
where you can selected the dataset from the popup menu that you want to merge with
the first dataset. A new dataset will be created with the contents of both original data
sets; the original datasets are left untouched. You can only merge datasets of the same
type (e.g., lines with lines, etc.).

Use the Clipboard to Move Data

Finally, you can use the system clipboard to move data between datasets or even from
one window to another. Proceed as follows:

1. Select either specific rows of data within the Data Listbox or select an entire
dataset from the Datasets Listbox. if you want to copy an entire data set, be sure
that no rows in the Data Listbox are selected.

2. Choose Edit➤Copy All Data. This will place on the clipboard a table of the selected
data with all of its attributes.

3. In the window where you want to move the data to, (a) select the dataset that you
want to add the data to, or (b) make sure that no dataset is selected. Choose
Edit➤Paste into Dataset. In case (a) the data will be added to the selected dataset;
in case (b) the data will be placed in a brand new dataset. The name of the new
dataset will either be the same as the copied dataset, if you copied the entire thing,
or just “pasted lines” if you only selected a subset.

Of course, your can also use Edit➤Copy All Data to rapidly move a table of your se-
lected data to a spreadsheet or other program for further analysis.

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 14
Stereonet

Saving Data
Stereonet outputs data in a variety of formats which serve different purposes. Note that
the program does NOT have an autosave function!

Stereonet Binary Files

The most comprehensive way of saving your data is to use the Stereonet binary file
format. This format preserves everything necessary to return the program to the exact
state when you saved the file, including colors, symbols, window size, etc. This format,
like the others in this section can be transferred without artifacts between different
computer operating systems so that a file produced in Windows can be read on a Mac,
etc. Stereonet binary files include the Stereonet v. 11 icon (or the v. 10 icon) and you
can double click on them on the desktop to launch Stereonet and load the file.

You use File➤Save As… (⇧⌘S) to save your data to a new file (the Save File dialog
box will appear). Choosing File➤Save (⌘S) will automatically save updates to the file
to its already saved version on disk without showing any dialog boxes.

Text Files

Stereonet can also save data as standard ASCII text files to disk in various formats for
different purposes. The most minimalist is using File➤Export➤Stereonet 6 Format
which will save the selected dataset to a text file with a single line, two letter header
where the header corresponds to the format of the data in the file. The two letters are
the same as those shown in the Format Column of the Datasets Listbox. The subse-
quent rows of the file each contain one datum and none of the metadata about the file.

The Stereonet Table Format (File➤Export➤Table Format) contains a highly readable


column formatted table of the selected dataset which contains all of the important
metadata for the dataset but not the attributes used to plot it in the program (e.g., color,
symbol, line weight, etc). This format is particularly suitable for importing into spread-
sheet programs, etc.

Use the Stereonet Mobile text file format to move Despite the convenience of the
data from your desktop to the Stereonet Mobile binary file format, you should
iOS program. This text format saves every dataset always archive your precious
field data in text format as well.
in the window into a single file rather than having
That way, if and when I stop
just one dataset per file. Additionally, it includes the developing Stereonet, your
color used for each dataset. data will not be stranded in
some unreadable binary file!

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 15
Stereonet

KML File Output

An individual lines or planes dataset with location metadata (latitude and longitude)
can be saved as a KML file for plot-
ting in Google Earth. Your orienta-
tions will be plotted with 3D symbols
(figure, above) thanks to code from
Tom Blenkinsop (2012). When select
this option, you have many potential
options which appear in the config-
uration dialog box (to the right). The
most basic options give you a
choice of four different symbols and
colors, however, you have many
more options if you toggle the small
disclosure triangle at the bottom in
the middle. Those additional options
include more colors and symbols,
the scale of the symbol, and the alti-

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 16
Stereonet

tude relative to the local ground surface. Additionally, you can specify 2D symbols and
just the symbol without the dip or plunge value as text.

Save Data to Your StraboSpot Account

If you use StraboSpot (https://www.strabospot.org) to archive and share your data —


and you should(!) —Stereonet can upload data to your account. Thus, you can collect
data in the field with Stereonet Mobile or GMDE Mobile, analyze it on the desktop with
Stereonet and then upload the data right from within the program. The current version
of the program, however, cannot download data from your StraboSpot account al-
though that is planned for a future version.

You can upload just the selected dataset or all entered datasets to your StraboSpot
account. Select File➤Upload to StraboSpot. A dialog box will appear (shown below)
where you can log it to your account. This only needs to be done once as Stereonet will
remember your user name and password until you quit the program.

Once logged in, the Projects section of the dialog box appears. You can start a new
Project by typing a name to the right of the New Project button (the button will become
active only after you have entered a name). Click the New Project button and Stereonet
will create a new empty project with that name at your StraboSpot account. The Project
will be added to the list of projects in the
popup menu at the bottom of the box.

Starting a new project is optional; in-


stead, you can also just upload the
dataset to an existing project in your
StraboSpot account. Whether new or ex-
isting, make sure that the project you
want to upload to is selected in the pop-
up projects menu at the bottom of the
box. When you’ve named the dataset to
go into the project, click the Upload
Dataset button. It may take several sec-
onds for your data to be sent to Strabo-
Spot but eventually, you will be greeted
with a message saying that your data
were successfully uploaded.

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 17
Stereonet

Copy Data to the System Clipboard

As pointed out above, choosing Edit➤Copy All Data will place on the system clipboard
information about the selected dataset in Table Format. This command is just the same
as File➤Export➤Table Format except that the text is placed on the clipboard rather
than written out as a file.

Saving Plots
Stereonet plots can be saved to your computer as PDF files by selecting File➤Save
Plot as PDF… (⌥⇧⌘S). This will scale the plot to fit on a page of U.S. Letter paper in
portrait orientation. Transparency is not supported in the PDF but otherwise it is identi-
cal to what you see on the screen.

Alternatively, when the Plot Area has the focus (with a blue focus ring around it), you
can simply choose Edit➤Copy. This will place a PDF of the graphic at the current win-
dow size on the system clipboard for pasting into whatever vector graphics or presen-
tation program you prefer to use. Stereonet PDFs are fully editable in modern vector
graphics programs.

Reading Data stored on your Computer


Stereonet Binary Files

To read in a Stereonet binary file, select File➤Open. Binary files will always open in a
new window, leaving any existing window and data untouched. You can also double-
click on the file icon on the desktop (or wherever you saved it initially) and it will cause
Stereonet to launch (if it wasn’t already open) and open the file automatically.

Stereonet Mobile Files

Stereonet Mobile exports its data as a simple text file of planes and/or lines. Like all
text files, you can open these files by selecting File➤Import Text File. Stereonet will
recognize the file as a data file from Stereonet Mobile and will import it automatically.
Note that Stereonet uses the header lines to determine the provenance of a text file so
you should not alter those in any way. Each planes or lines data type will be imported
as a separate dataset in Stereonet with the same color as it had on your iPhone or
iPad. Location and time metadata will be imported automatically and show up in the
Details Tab when an individual datum is selected. The notes field will automatically
have “Stereonet Mobile” added to it so you can easily search for those observations at
a later time.

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 18
Stereonet

Parsing Text Data with an unknown Format

If Stereonet does not recognize a text file, the app will present you with the Parse Text
Data dialog box, shown below. This dialog box allows you to import any text file that
has been organized into rows and columns using consistent delimiter characters (tab,
comma, or space) to define the columns. Thus, one can save data from a spreadsheet
in tab or comma delimited format (.tab or .csv, respectively) and read the data into
Stereonet. The program recognizes the delimiter character automatically. I highly rec-
ommend that you do NOT use a space as the delimiter. Stereonet’s own text files use a
tab character as a delimiter.

The dialog box is shown, above. You must tell Stereonet what data are contained with-
in the file and assign column numbers to each of the app’s recognized attributes. The
“first row with data” entry allows you to have an arbitrary number of header lines. This
dialog is resizable you can drag the edges so that you can see more of the parsed
data table. As you can see, above, you can assign several columns to the Notes field
with a simple comma-separated list.

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Data on the System Clipboard

If you have text data on the system clipboard, Stereonet will attempt to import that
data when you select Edit➤Paste into Dataset. If the text on the clipboard was put
there by the Edit➤Copy All Data command, it will be imported automatically.

If Stereonet does not recognize the format of the data on the clipboard, it will attempt to
parse it into rows and columns and present you with the Parse Text Data dialog de-
scribed in the previous section so that you can help Stereonet recognize the data in
the file.

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Plotting Your Data


Selecting the Data to Plot
The checkboxes at the left of the Dataset Listbox and the Data Listbox fundamentally
control what is plotted: if a dataset or datum is not checked, then it will not be plotted
or included in any of the analyses or calculations that Stereonet does. Although you
can manually check or uncheck an individual datum or dataset, the program offers
several ways to automate this process.

Lasso Select

You can click on a point (i.e., line) in the plot, or shift-click for multiple selections, and it
will be selected in the Data Listbox. For a large number of selections, there is an easier
way: Edit➤Lasso Select➤Inside Lasso (or Outside Lasso). Then, simply draw a loop
around the points you want to (or do not want to) select.

Sort the Data Listbox

The Data Listbox can be sorted by clicking on the heading by which you want to sort. If
you want to select all lines with plunges less than, say, 30°, click on the plunge column
header and the entire listbox will be sorted from the smallest plunge to the largest.
Then you can simply click and drag in the listbox until you have selected all those with
plunges < 30° and use the following toggle on/off commands to check or uncheck
them. Click the header again to sort in reverse order, and click the first (checkbox) col-
umn header to sort by the original order of entry.

Toggle On/Toggle Off

Once you have selected your data you can uncheck or check them en masse using
the Data➤Toggle On and Data➤Toggle Off commands. The data will immediately be
unchecked or checked and the plot will be adjusted accordingly. Use Data➤Toggle
On➤All Data to check the entire dataset again. Note that all of the commands in the
Data Menu are available as a contextual menu when you right click the mouse in either
the Datasets Listbox or the Data Listbox.

Search for Data Meeting Specific Criteria

Commonly, you may want to select a subset of your data that meet a certain set of cri-
teria, including attributes in the datum metadata. This is accomplished by choosing
Data➤Search… and entering the search criteria in the ensuing dialog box shown to the

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 21
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right. Once you set your search


criteria, click either the Select
Button or the Select Opposite
button. All of the data matching
your search criteria will be
checked (and thus plotted)
whereas all of the data that do
not match will be unchecked.
Searching is undeniably powerful
but can introduce significant sub-
jectivity into your analysis!

The Order in Which Data


are Plotted
Your datasets are plotted in the
order in which they appear in the
Datasets Listbox. the dataset at the top is drawn first (i.e., lowest) and the one at the
bottom last (i.e., highest). This can create an unpleasing graphic if the dataset you
want to emphasize is drawn first and thus obscured by subsequent datasets. To have
the plot drawn in the order that you choose, simply drag the row in the dataset that you
want to plot last to the bottom of the rows in the Datasets Listbox. The graphic will then
replot with your preferred data plotted last, on top of everything else.

The Grid and the View Direction


A background grid helps to orient the viewer but it may also detract from the details of
a plot. In addition to no gird at all, Stereonet allows the user to specify an equal area
(or Schmidt net), equal angle (Wulff net), or a polar net (which can be in either equal
angle or equal area projection). You set these in the Stereonet Tab of the Inspector Pal-
ette.

Though one commonly uses a stereonet in its default orientation — primitive circle rep-
resenting a horizontal plane with North at the top — there is no reason why it has to be
that way. One can look into a hemisphere from
any direction. You may, for example, want to plot
your data in the plane of a cross section rather
than in map view. You specify the view orientation
by providing the azimuth and inclination of the
view. For example, if you are drawing a cross

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NORMAL PROJECTION WITH HORIZONTAL PRIMITIVE CIRCLE AND NORTH AT THE TOP ON THE LEFT,
AND THE SAME DATA PLOTTED WITH A VIEW DIRECTION OF 320, 00, ON THE RIGHT.

section in an area where the folds trend 140°, you will probably want to draw the cross
section along an azimuth of 050°. To produce a stereonet in the plane of the section,
select View➤View Direction and fill out the entries as shown (320, 00). The stereonet
will be rotated as if you were looking in that direction.

Annotate the Plot


In addition to labeling individual data, you can
place text annotations anywhere on the diagram
by selecting Edit➤Annotate Plot. The cursor will
change to an I-beam style. Click on the diagram
where you want the text to appear and a small di-
alog box (to the right) will appear where you enter
the text and set the size and color. After placing, the text can be dragged anywhere
you like on the diagram. Right- (or Control-) clicking on the text will show a contextual
menu allowing you to edit the text or delete it. You can remove all Annotations by se-
lecting Edit➤Delete All Annotations.

The Plot Menu


The options in the Plot Menu control the drawing of plot. The top four choices deter-
mine whether or not the basic graphics elements — lines, planes, small circles, and

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arcs — appear in their native format: lines


as points, planes as great circles, small
circles as, well, small circles, and arcs as
segments of great circles. The colors,
symbols, line thicknesses and styles are
determined by the settings in the Dataset
Tab of the Inspector Palette, described in
detail later in this manual. For lines and
planes, you can toggle them on or off on
an individual dataset basis using the hierarchical menu shown to the right. This may be
confusing: “I thought that the dataset checkboxes turned things on or off?!” True! How-
ever, there may be times when you want more granular control, say, to contour a lines
dataset but not show the individual points that represent the lines. If you unchecked the
lines dataset, you couldn’t contour it or plot it. By using the hierarchical menu, you can
easily do both: contour the data but not produce a scatter plot on top of the contours.

Following Plot➤Arcs, the next five choices in the Plot Menu are different types of analy-
sis that you can carry out on lines or planes (Plot➤Rose Diagram), or on lines datasets
(Contour, Cylindrical Best Fit, Conical Best Fit, and Mean Vector). All of these can be
applied, or not, on an individual dataset basis. Their settings are controlled in the
Analysis Tab of the Inspector palette.

Rose diagrams are normally based on either the strikes of planes or the trends of lines.
However, if you use one of the two dip and dip azimuth formats for planes, then the
rose diagram will be based on the dip azimuth rather than the strike azimuth. This can
be useful if, for example, you hav measured cross-beds and want a rose diagram that
reflects paleocurrent direction.

For contour plots of one or more lines datasets, you have the choice of using Kamb or
1% area methods which are set in the Contour Tab of the Inspector Palette. Contouring
can be processor intensive and thus, when you resize a window which has a contour
plot, the contours are not redrawn dynamically but instead are only redrawn once you
have finished resizing the window.

You control the plotting of annotations and labels with the Plot➤Annotations & Labels
menu selection. If you have entered an image to extract data from, you can hide or
show it with Plot➤Image.

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The 3D View
New to Stereonet v. 11 is a three
dimensional view of the lower
hemisphere that the user can rotate
around with a click and drag of the
mouse. The view is accessed by
clicking the 3D View Tab. The initial
view is always looking vertically
down on the lower hemisphere, just
as you would in the 2D plot view. If
the letters at the four quadrants
look a bit strange in this view, it is
because they are 3D objects also
and have been rendered to be
perpendicular to the stereonet. As
the accompanying graphic of paleomagnetic vectors, their uncertainty cones, and a
couple of planes shows, although only the lower hemisphere is rendered in 3D, upper
hemisphere data are plotted correctly in the upper hemisphere. Three dimensional
views can get complicated pretty quickly. Though you can, and the program will, show
100 planes, it is doubtful that you will learn anything insightful from such a 3D plot. The
main purpose for the 3D View is in teaching students how to visualize what the stere-
onet is trying to show.

To manipulate the plot and change the viewing angle, simply click and drag the mouse
in the 3D View Tab. You can zoom in or out by using the mouse scroll wheel; you can
even fly right through the lower hemisphere if you want!

You can simplify the 3D View by using


the Plot➤3D View➤Draw Lines, Fill
Planes, and Fill Cones menu options.
These options show just the intersection
or trace of the lines or planes on the sur-
face of the lower hemisphere, itself. The
example to the right shows two planes
without their transparent fill. Whenever
you change the plotting characteristics,
the model has to be re-rendered and the
view will return to the default, straight
down view.

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Stereonet can depict planes using two


different colors and lines using two dif-
ferent colors. These colors alternate: the
first planes dataset is shown using cyan,
the second magenta and, if you have a
third dataset it will go back to cyan. More
colors, or a unique color for each planes
data set would result in a confusing
mishmash on the screen, but using two
colors can help students understand
things like lines of intersection as shown
in the accompanying graphic.

Although Stereonet can only show two colors, you can choose what those colors are.
Select View➤3D View Settings➤Planes1, Planes2, Lines1 or Lines2 to change the de-
fault color. If one has a student who is color blind, for example, it may help them to
choose a different suite of colors.

The only way to capture an image of the 3D View at the present time is to do a screen
capture using your standard operating system key commands.

The Map View


Geologists like to see their mea-
surements plotted in spatial con-
text on a map or satellite image.
Stereonet facilitates this objective
for Mac users as shown to the
right but, for technical reasons,
not for Windows users.

The Map Tab in Stereonet pro-


vides a portal to Google Static
Maps, the only ones that are free
to third party programmers. With
that limitation, the programmer
cannot send drawing instructions
to Google to include in the re-
turned map. Stereonet partially
circumvents this limitation by

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 26
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overlaying a transparent drawing canvas on top of the .html portal that it uses to get
the map. A privacy benefit of this approach is that Stereonet only sends to Google a
single latitude-longitude pair at the center of the image. Your data are never sent to
Google at all.

This works very well on the Mac OS X operating system but unfortunately does not
work in Windows, which does not like overlapping controls. Thus, Windows user of the
program will see the satellite image of the area of the selected observations, but will
not see the observations, themselves, plotted.

The latitude and longitude are shown interactively at the top of the map and the user
data selected in the Data Listbox are plotted in red. You can use the + and – buttons in
the lower right to zoom in and out and change from satellite to street map with the but-
ton in the lower left. If you pan the map by clicking and dragging, the map will move
but the observations will not. This can cause the map and plotted symbols to become
mis-registered. The solution to this problem is the click the Re-center button in the low-
er left corner. This is also cause the map to zoom out to cover the full geographic ex-
tent of the selected observations.

All users of Stereonet have, of course, other options for displaying their data on a map:
they can upload their data to their StraboSopt account where they can see all of the
info plotted on a map at the StraboSpot website. Alternatively, they can output their ori-
entations as .kml and plot them in 3D in Google Earth.

The Inspector Palette


You control many aspects of your plot’s appearance
with the options in the Inspector Palette, which is
opened from the View Menu: View➤Inspector (⇧⌘I)

Stereonet Tab

The Stereonet Tab contains all of the configuration op-


tions for the basic appearance of the background of the
plot. Any changes you make here (or in any other tab)
are reflected immediately in the plot.

Two projections are available, the equal area and equal


angle projection. By default, the projection is shown
with an equatorial grid but you can choose a polar grid
by checking the polar grid box.

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Because Stereonet lets you copy and paste a PDF graphic directly into the program of
your choice, you should give particular thought to how it will appear on the background
of the receiving program. For example, if you are preparing a presentation with a black
background, you would make very different choices than if you were trying to capture a
graphic for publication.

Dataset Tab

If you have a dataset selected when you open the Inspector, it will go straight to the
Dataset Tab with the elected dataset characteristics filled in. You can, of course, se-
lected a different dataset from the popup menu at the top of the tab.

The two checkboxes immediately below are global set-


tings for all datasets. If “use individual dataset colors
and symbols” is checked, then auxiliary analyses, such
as cylindrical best fit or mean vector, will be plotted us-
ing the data set colors rather than those specified in the
Analyses Tab. If “dynamically adjust point size” is
checked, then when you resize the window, the point
sizes will automatically resize as well. This can be par-
ticularly useful if you are saving PDF files as they are
automatically rescaled to fit a printed page before sav-
ing. If you turn this off, then point sizes will be constant,
regardless of how big or small the window is.

The appearance of the group box below these check-


boxes is dependent on the dataset type selected. Note
that, for lines by default Stereonet uses solid symbols
for lower hemisphere lines and hollow symbols of the
same type for upper hemisphere (i.e., with negative
plunges). If you check the “hollow” checkbox, however,
that will be reversed, with the hollow in the lower hemi-
sphere and solid in the upper hemisphere. This is true
even if you also have “negative plunge in lower hemi-
sphere” checked.

Analyses Tab

You configure the Bingham Axes (cylindrical best fit),


Mean Vector, and Rose Diagram in the Analyses Tab.
Note that if your population of vectors has both positive

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and negative plunges (e.g., paleomagnetic data) you can set the program to calculate
mean vectors separately for those two populations. If you analyze them separately, and
plot the negative mean vector in the lower hemisphere, that is essentially identical to
doing a paleomagnetic reversal test.

The Rose Diagram group box has a number of important settings: you control how big
the petals are by changing the value of the perimeter. Normally, the bins in a rose dia-
gram are start at zero and end at 010° (for 10° bins). however, if you check “center bin
on zero” the first bin would start at 355 and end at 005°. The difference can be surpris-
ing.

Half circle roses (and full circle rose diagrams with


“spokes” that radiate out from the center) can be plot-
ted only if nothing else is plotted on the stereonet. The
graphic on the next page shows the difference in grid
when a rose diagram is the only thing selected versus
when additional elements are also plotted.

Most of the published rose diagrams that one sees in


the literature are scaled so that the length of the rose
petal reflects the percentage of the population in that
bin. There is an argument to be made (Davis, 2002, p.
316) that such diagrams are misleading and that the
petals ought to be scaled by area rather than by length.
Stereonet provides for this option with the “scale by

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 29
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area” checkbox.

Finally, if you want a symmetric rose diagram (because your data axes rather than uni-
directional vectors), select the “treat data as axes” checkbox.

Contour Tab

The Contours Tab is where you configure everything related to contour diagrams, in-
cluding the method used, the size of the contouring grid, etc. You have a choice of two
different contouring methods, Kamb (Kamb, 1959) or %/1% Area. The former uses a
variable area counting circle depending on the number of data points whereas the lat-
ter uses a fixed counting circle at 1% area. Contouring is done on the sphere. Note that
the denser the grid nodes, the more time consuming the contouring process. Also, be
sure to remember that contour fill opacity is not carried over into PDFs but you can al-
ways add it back with in a vector graphics program if that is important to you.

The Terzaghi Correction is a specialized correction for data collected along a single
transect line (Terzaghi, 1965)

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Calculations
Stereonet offers a full suite of orientations-related calculations. In general, these are
found under the Calculations. Several of these calculations can produce new datasets.

Poles & Planes from Poles


Both of these options — Calculations➤Poles (⌘.) and Calculations➤Planes from Poles
— will create a new data set with the result of the calculation. The result is immediate,
with no intervening dialog box. Poles are the normal vector to a plane and as explained
above, by convention, positive poles coincide with
upright bedding whereas negative are overturned.
Thus a pole with a negative plunge will correctly
produce a plane with a dip >90°.

Rotating Data
Stereonet offers two options for rotating data. A
general rotation is initiated by selecting Calcula-
tions➤Rotate Data… which will produce the dialog
box to the right. Unlike paper stereonets which can
only do rotations about horizontal axes, Stereonet
can do a rotation about any axis. The sense of ro-
tation (i.e., sign of the magnitude) is clockwise
positive looking in the direction of the given rota-
tion axis. You have the option of rotating only the
selected data set or all datasets. The rotated data
are always put in new dataset(s), leaving the par-
ent dataset untouched. Rotation can easily move
many vectors into the upper hemisphere, which is
where you want them if they have directional signif-
icance (e.g., paleomagnetic vectors, paleocurrent
directions, etc.). If you really don’t care about di-
rections, you can check “make all vectors lower
hemisphere”.

Geologists commonly want to restore things like


bedding to their initial horizontal state so Stere-
onet offers a second type of rotation: Calcula-
tions➤Unfold Bedding… Of course the real reason

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 31
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to do this is to see what happens to vectors or other features embedded in the bedding
(paleocurrents, igneous dikes) when the bedding itself is restored. The Unfold Bedding
dialog (previous page) allows you to select from the popup menus the dataset to be
unfolded and the dataset that contains the bedding. The unfolded, rotated data will be
placed in a new dataset. If you do this with paleomagnetic data, unfold bedding ac-
complishes what is known as a fold test (i.e., did the measured paleomagnetism hap-
pen before or after folding?).

Statistical Analyses
The next three entries under the Calculations Menu send the results of various types of
statistical analyses to the Analysis Pane of the main window. The result is immediate
and no dialogs appear. Stereonet’s algorithms follow the methods described in Fisher
(1982) and Davis (2002).

Fisher Vector Distribution

Calculations➤Fisher Vector Distribution (⇧⌘M) carries out a mean vector calculation


on all of the lines datasets in your window. Any dataset that has negative plunges will
be analyzed separately as well as giving you the results for the aggregate dataset. The
sizes of the α95 and α99 uncertainty cones will also be reported if there are enough
data. Be sure to take the term “vector” literally: in this type of analysis, a gently east-
plunging line and a gently west-plunging line will nearly cancel each other out and give
a very short resultant vector pointing vertically down!

Bingham Axial Distribution

This is a type of principal components analysis (PCA) where one calculates the vari-
ance-covariance (or correlation) matrix from the direction cosines of all of the lines in a
lines dataset (sometimes known as the “orientation tensor”). This analysis is what is
used in the cylindrical best fit routines for finding a fold axis. When one chooses Calcu-
lations➤Bingham Axial Distribution (⇧⌘B) carries out the Bingham analysis and re-
ports the eigenvalues and eigenvectors in the Analysis Pane. If there are sufficient
number of data, the error ellipse are also reported.

Von Mises Distribution

Calculations➤Von Mises Distribution (⇧⌘Y) carries out an analysis similar to the mean
vector analysis but for two dimensional data. Thus it is the analysis that accompanies
rose diagrams. It uses the settings for rose diagrams in the Analysis Tab of the Inspec-

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 32
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tor Palette to do its calculations. If you are analyzing true vector data, make sure that
you turn off “treat data as axes” and “half circle…” first!

Convert to Lower Hemisphere


If you have a dataset with negative plunges or dips you may, for some reason, want to
convert it to all lower hemisphere values. Select the dataset, then choose Calcula-
tions➤Convert to Lower Hemisphere and a new dataset will be created with only lower
hemisphere values. Note that you actually lose valuable information when you do this
so think twice about throwing out the original dataset with the negative plunges or dips!

Direction Cosines
Stereonet does all of its calculations using direction cosines and there may well be
times which you want to extract direction cosines of orientations for your own calcula-
tions. You first select the data that you want to calculate in the Data Listbox and then
choose Calculations➤Convert to Lower Hemisphere. A tab-separated table of the di-
rection cosines will be pasted into the Analysis Pane for you to copy and paste wher-
ever you wish.

Angle Between…
You can have Stereonet calculate the angle between two selected planes or two se-
lected lines. First select the two line (or planes) in the Data Listbox. Non-contiguous
selections can be made by holding down the Command key (⌘ on the Mac) or Control
key (in Windows). When you choose Calculations➤Angle Between➤Selected Lines (or
Planes) the results will immediately be written to the Analysis area without a dialog box
appearing.

You can also get with angle between any two clicked
points with Calculations➤Angle Between➤Clicked
Points. The floating window to the right will appear
reporting the orientations of the lines clicked (the dia-
log box updates dynamically while you drag the
mouse). You can click multiple times as the box will
only disappear when you click the Okay button.

Apparent Dip Calculator


Calculation involving apparent dips dominate many structural geology lab exercises.
Of course, Stereonet provides a solution via Calculations➤Apparent Dips… The Ap-

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 33
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parent Dip Calculator dialog box has two modes reflecting the two types of apparent
dip problems. Both modes are shown here (below). In the first case (left, below), we

know the orientation of two lines and want to calculate the plane that contains them. In
the second (right, above), we know the orientation of the planes and, given either the
trend or the plunge of the line, want to calculate the full orientation. As the checkbox
implies, on can use selected lines or a selected plane, and you can not only write the
results to the Analysis Pane but create a new dataset with the result or add to an exist-
ing dataset. In the case shown above, right, if you know the plane and put in a value
for the plunge, there will be two possible solutions to the resulting trend; both are saved
when added to a dataset.

Two Planes Calculations


In calculations involving two planes, we com-
monly want to know the orientation of the line of
intersection and/or the orientation of the plane
which bisects either the acute or obtuse angle
between the planes. If you want to analyze two
planes that have already been entered, select
them first. Choose Calculations➤Two Planes
Calculations… If you have selected two planes
ahead of time, they will appear in the dialog au-
tomatically, but you can also type in whatever
values you want. Use the tab panel below the

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 34
Stereonet

planes to see the type of information you are looking for. when you choose “write to plot
record” all of the information in both tabs is written to the Analysis Pane. To add both
types to the plot toggle on the checkbox in both tabs.

(a) (b)

fold fold
axis axis

ne
p la
a xi a l p l a n e

a xi a l

Axial Plane Finder


If your cylindrical folds have relatively planar limbs and well defined hinge zones, you
can use the pattern of bedding poles, not only to find the fold axis but also define the
orientation of the axial plane (figure, above). To use this tool, calculate and display the
bedding poles first. Contouring the poles may help identify to two maxima that corre-
spond to each limb of the fold. Select Calculations➤Axial Plane Finder… and Stereonet
will automatically calculate and display the cylindrical best fit fold axis and profile plane
(Figure, below). While the floating window is open, click on the two concentrations of
points where they are crossed by the profile plane. If either corresponds to an over-
turned limb, check the appropriate checkbox as in the case, above, for Limb 2. Stere-
onet will calculate and display the axial plane; you can add it to the plot with the “add
to plot” checkbox. Note that, for overturned limbs, the axial plane does not bisect the
acute angle between the two point concentrations but rather the obtuse angle.

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Slope Stability
Slope stability is a specialized field of geotechnical engineering that requires consider-
able expertise to practice in real world situations. Stereonet’s slope stability calcula-
tions should be used for teaching purposes only. It is completely the user's re-
sponsibility to ensure that the calculations and plots are done correctly and are
appropriate to their situation.

The calculations are based on the relation-


ship between the steepness of the slope, the
orientation of the fracture planes in the
bedrock, and the friction. Fracture planes that
fall within a critical angle relative to the slope
are likely to fail. Another type of potential
slope failure is known as wedge failure where
the lines of intersection between different
fracture planes form wedge of rock that can
slide if oriented appropriately.

To initiate a slope stability analysis, choose


Calculations➤Slope Stability… and the dialog

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 36
Stereonet

box to the right will appear. Provide the requested data on slope orientation and steep-
ness and friction angle (or coefficient of friction) and the program will add several new
datasets corresponding to the friction angle envelopes, the slope and a feature known
as the daylight window which contains the poles of all fractures that dip less steeply
than the slope. The daylight window only appears for the planes data set named "Slope
Face". If you change the name of that data set to anything else, the daylight envelope
will disappear. Likewise, if you choose Calculations➤Slope Stability… and then press
cancel in the dialog box, the daylight envelope will also disappear. For wedge failure
analysis, you will want to plot the fracture intersection lines which can be calculated
with Calculations➤All Planes Intersections. This is an N2 process so that 20 fractures
will generate 400 intersections. Stereonet will warn you if the number is going to be
large.

Below is a Stereonet graphic annotated in a graphics program of a simulated slope


analysis suggesting that several fracture planes (red great circles) in the slope that
plots in the shaded pink critical zones can experience considerable instability, espe-
cially given the concentration of plane intersections, which have been contoured.

R. W. Allmendinger © 2020 37
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References
Aki, K., and Richards, P.G., 1980, Quantitative seismology: Theory and methods: San
Francisco: Freeman, 1980.

Allmendinger, R. W., Cardozo, N., and Fisher, D., 2012, Structural geology algorithms:
Vectors and tensors in structural geology: Cambridge University Press (book to
be published in early 2012).

Blenkinsop, T.G., 2012, Visualizing structural geology: from Excel to Google Earth:
Computers & Geosciences, v. 45, p. 52–56.

Davis, J.C., 2002, Statistics and data analysis in geology: Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley 638
p.

Cardozo, N., and Allmendinger, R.W., 2013, Spherical projections with OSXStereonet:
Computers & Geosciences, v. 51, p. 193 – 205, doi:10.1016/
j.cageo.2012.07.021.

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