Welcome to Fault Dynamics

Please visit the Department of Earth Science, Royal Holloway University of London for more research information.

The Fault Dynamics Research Group


A multi-disciplinary team carrying out active field and laboratory-based research on crustal fault systems.  We have been undertaking collaborative multidisciplinary research and training projects with the International Petroleum and Mining Industries since 1991.

Directed by Professor Ken McClay the team includes academic staff, postdoctoral researchers and PhD & MSc postgraduate students.  We also host international visiting researchers from collaborating institutions and industry.

We provide classroom and field courses for industry and train both MSc and PhD graduates in modern approaches to fault analysis in sedimentary basins.

Pyrenees DEM

Aims of Fault Dynamics


The Fault Dynamics Research Group undertakes fundamental and collaborative multidisciplinary research on fault systems and fault processes. Using field studies, remote sensing analyses, numerical modelling, 2D & 3D seismic interpretation and scaled analogue modelling in our internationally renowned analogue modelling laboratories we investigate crustal fault systems, their 3D geometries and their 4D kinematic evolution.

Our primary aim is to carry out fundamental research into fault processes and fault geometries and their relationships to the geodynamics of sedimentary basins such that the results can be applied to the exploration and development of hydrocarbon and mineral resources.

Lulworth Cove

Research Programmes


Our research programmes cover the full spectrum of tectonic regimes. They include:

  • Extensional Fault Systems in Rift Basins – Modern and Ancient
  • Extensional Fault Systems on Passive Margins
  • Inversion Tectonics
  • Strike-Slip Tectonics
  • Thrust Tectonics – Terrestrial Fold and Thrust Belts as well as Deepwater Fold Belts on both Active and Passive Margins
  • Delta Tectonics
  • Salt Tectonics
  • Tectonics and Sedimentation in Contractional and Extensional Basins

A particular focus of the Research Group is the development of 4D models for reservoir structures as well as fault-related folding and fracture development in various tectonic settings.