Computing the Intersections Between Pairs of Planes

RockWorks | Utilities | Planes | Beta Pairs

This program is used to read the bearing and dip of pairs of planes and calculate the lineations resulting from their intersections. The bearing and plunge of these lineations are stored in new columns in the datasheet.

How does this differ from the Beta Intersections tool? Beta Intersections reads a listing of individual planar bearing and dip measurements from the data sheet and calculates the lineations that result from the intersection of each plane with each other plane in the data set. This can result in a tremendous number of computed lineations! Beta Pairs, on the other hand, reads strike and dip measurements for pairs of planes, and for each pair computes the single resulting lineation.

Menu Options
Step-by-Step Summary

Menu Options

• Input Columns: The prompts along the left side of the window tell RockWorks which columns in the input datasheet contain what data.
  Click on an existing name to select a different name from the drop-down list.
  • Direction 1: Select the name of the column that contains the bearing measurements (either strike bearing or dip direction, which you'll specify below) of one of the planes in the pair.
  • Dip 1: Select the name of the column that contains the dip angle measurements for this plane. Note: Horizontal is considered to be zero, and dipping straight down is entered as 90.  Negative dip angles are not supported.
  • Direction 2: Select the name of the column that contains the bearing measurements for the second plane.
  • Dip 2: Select the name of the column that contains the dip angle measurements for this plane.
• Output Columns: Select from the drop-down list boxes the names of the columns in the data sheet into which the intersection lineation bearing and plunge will be recorded.
• Input Format: In the pane to the right, select the format in which your source data is listed by clicking in the appropriate radio button.
  • Right Hand Rule:  Choose this if your planar data are entered as strike bearing and dip angle, with the dip direction being 90 degrees clockwise from the strike azimuth bearing.
  • Dip Direction:  Choose this if your measurements represent dip direction and dip angle.
  
  

Step-by-Step Summary

1. Access the Utilities program tab.
2. Create a new datasheet and enter/import your beta pairs data into the datasheet.
   Or, open one of the sample files and replace that data with your own. (In the Samples folder, an example file = "\RockWorks17 Data\ Samples\Beta_Pairs_01.rwDat".)
3. Select the Utilities | Planes | Beta Pairs menu command. 
4. Enter the requested menu options, as listed above.
5. Click the Process button when you are ready to continue.

The program will read the source data and compute the intersection lineation for each pair of planes, storing the bearing and plunge in the specified data sheet columns. Each pair of planes will result in a single intersection lineation. 

See also: Computing the Intersection of Planes

  Back to Planes Menu Summary

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