The purpose of this exercise is to interpret the structural make-up of the Block Diagram given its 3-D representation. The underlying assumption is that this will improve your skills in identifying geologic structures in the field. For this exercise you will need either a friend to create random Block Diagrams or a set of Block Diagram documents saved on your disk. If they come from your disk, change the names if they give away the structures used to produce the block.
1) Open a "mystery" document from the disk or have your friend create a "mystery" block.
2) Hide the structure dialog(s) and history window from view by either dragging them off the bottom of the screen or covering them with another window (like this one).
3) Analyze what structure or structures produced the Block Diagram that you see. Write your interpretations down or tell your friend.
4) Compare your interpretations to the actual parameters. If you guessed wrong, what led you to this guess? Could another structure or combination of structures produce the same result?
5) Vary the parameters or structure and try again.
• As you get better at this, try to interpret the structural history of a more complex Block Diagram, i.e. one which is composed of two or three separate structures. Is it always possible to deduce the order in which the geologic events occurred? Analyze the structural components of the Block Diagram with and without knowledge of their chronology.
