Abstract

The papers in this thematic set arise from a meeting jointly organized by the Tectonic Studies Group and the Stratigraphy Committee of the Geological Society and held at Burlington House on 28 November 1990. About 80 people heard oral presentations of 15 papers of which seven are published in this thematic set. Abstracts of most of the papers presented at the meeting were given in the Geological Society Newsletter for September 1990.

In a recent essay criticizing the way in which scientists apply the term absolute, Wendell Duffield (1990, p. 1774) wrote ‘Still more liberty is taken with the ‘A-word’ [absolute] by people concerned with ages of geologic materials’. In choosing the title for this meeting, the convenor quite purposefully took such liberty in an attempt to attract presentations on dating fault movements using a diversity of absolute, comparative, direct and high-resolution relative age dating techniques. More accurate and more precise dating of fault movements has relevance not only to academic studies of the dynamics and kinematics of fault movements but also engineering seismic hazard assessment, radwaste disposal, the timing of hydrocarbon migration and entrapment, and the economic mineralization of fault zones. This relevance was made apparent at the meeting by an audience which included representatives of a number of sectors of industry, regulatory bodies and academia.

Commencing the meeting with an amusingly titled presentation (‘Doctor-is my fault active?’), R. Muir Wood (Principid Yard Limited) examined the taxing geological and regulatory questions of how to classify faults as seismically ‘active’