Processes of normal fault evolution in a siliciclastic sequence: a case study from Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia

Detailed field observations of normal faults formed at shallow depth in a deltaic sand–clay sequence near Miri, Sarawak are used to study the main structural elements during the early stages of fault development. We studied over 450 segmented faults, many of which contain clay smear, in an excellent outcrop exposing a collapsed crest structure.In agreement with previous studies we find that important elements of fault zone evolution are: (i) clay smear, (ii) telescoping on parallel strands, and (iii) preferred deformation of fault-bounded lenses. We model the consequences of telescoping on parallel strands and conclude that the reliability of juxtaposition diagrams can decrease dramatically in the presence of undetected multiple fault strands. The across fault connectivity can either increase or decrease depending on small variations in many of the input parameters.All the faults studied have a continuous clay smear over the interval studied, except for the places where a sand bed has an offset smaller than its thickness, and therefore has not moved past clay. Although on average the clay content observed correlates well with the average clay content of the faulted section, there are large variations in clay content controlled by local complexity in deformation. Understanding of this local complexity is a prerequisite for further improvement of clay smear in the subsurface.