Vein arrays as kinematic indicators in kinked anisotropic materials

Vein arrays associated with natural kink bands have been, even recently, used by some workers as kinematic markers to distinguish between the migration and the rotation models of kink band mechanics.In an outcrop of schistose meta-agglomerate, conjugate kinks and synthetic sinistral shears are associated with a component of sinistral slip along the foliation. Discordant scalariform vein arrays form in association with the shears, but not the kinks. Tension gash elements of the arrays form by combined layer-parallel slip and layer-parallel extension along the rotated schistosity. They are only kinematically significant at the scale of the length of the rotated segment anisotropy.Applying this analysis to kink bands elsewhere, it is concluded that discordant vein arrays are not diagnostic of the rotational kink band model, or of high resolved shear stress on kink boundaries.