What can the dihedral angle of conjugate-faults tell us?

•The Canyon Range syncline and the Jebel Bani deformed by cataclastic flow.•Cataclastic flow is assisted by deformation along conjugate-fault sets.•Dihedral angles of conjugate-faults increase with increasing depth of deformation.•Dihedral angles of conjugate-faults increase within the hinge regions of folds.•Unusually large or small dihedral angles may lead to incorrect kinematic analyses.

Deformation within the upper crust (elastico-frictional regime) is largely accommodated by fractures and conjugate faults. The Coulomb fracture criterion leads us to expect that the average dihedral angle of conjugate-fault sets is expected to be ∼60°. Experiments, however, reveal a significant amount of scatter from this 60° average. The confining pressure under which these rocks are deformed is a contributing factor to this scatter.The Canyon Range syncline, Sevier fold-thrust belt (USA) and the Jebel Bani, Anti-Atlas fold-belt (Morocco) both folded under different depths, within the elastico-frictional regime, by cataclastic flow. Conjugate-fault sets assisted deformation by cataclastic flow. The Canyon Range syncline and the Jebel Bani are used here as natural examples to test the relationship between the dihedral angle of conjugate-faults and confining pressure. Variations is confining pressure are modeled by the difference in depth of deformation and position within the folds.Results from this study show that the dihedral angle increases with an increase in depth and within the hinge regions of folds, where space problems commonly occur. Moreover, the shortening directions based on the acute bisectors of conjugate-faults may not be accurately determined if the dihedral angles are unusually large or small, leading to incorrect kinematic analyses.