HelTec - Laboratory for experimental tectonics at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences

Experimental tectonics is the branch of geosciences that uses so-called "analogue models" scaled down from nature to the laboratory to study tectonic processes in situ. Thanks to new materials, testing methods and monitoring techniques, which have been developed in the past two decades, anologue modelling nowadays provides quantitative tectonic oberservations across all relevant spatial and temporal scales. Please find an introductory texts to our lab and methods here and here.

Our experimental tectonics lab facility consists of three basic modules:

1) Material testing featuring a series of material test devices for characterizing rock analogue materials’ properties including friction, elasticity, viscosity etc.

2) Analogue modelling featuring a suite of custom-made deformation devices for simulating (seismo)tectonic and other geological processes

3) Laboratory monitoring providing the means of quantifying deformation in analogue models using various sensors and image correlation methods