FabricDescription

The FabricDescription class describes all types of fabrics associated with a CompoundMaterial (ie, tectonic, metamorphic, sedimentary, igneous fabrics or textures). It denotes a pattern, defined by one or more CompoundMaterial constituents, that is present throughout a rock body when considered at some scale. FabricDescription is defined based on the average configuration of many constituents. Penetrative fabric denotes that these constituents are distributed throughout the rock volume at the scale of observation [Passchier and Trouw, 1998], and are repeated at distances that are small relative to the scale of the whole, such that they can be considered to pervade the whole uniformly (Turner and Weiss [1963] p. 21-24; Hobbs and others [1976], p. 73; Jackson [1997]; Passchier and Trouw [1998]). FabricDescription is distinguished from Particle Geometry based on the criteria that Particle Geometry is preserved if a CompoundMaterial is disaggregated, while FabricDescription is not defined if the material is disaggregated. Use gml:description to capture any free text to indicate any specific or peculiar features of the described fabric in the CompoundMaterial.