Duration of the online course: 5 hours and 31 minutes
New
Learn to read rocks like a pro with this free structural geology course—master mapping, stereonets, stress, strain, faults and folds, plus a certificate option.
Structural geology is the toolkit geoscientists use to translate deformed rocks into a clear story about Earth processes. In this free online course, you will build practical skills for describing and analyzing the geometry of lines and planes, connecting field observations to maps, and moving confidently between hand calculations, visual reasoning, and quantitative methods. Whether you are preparing for exams in geography and Earth science, strengthening field and lab competence, or aiming toward careers in environmental work, engineering geology, mining, geotechnical studies, or subsurface energy, you will gain a structured way to think about deformation from outcrop scale to crustal scale.
The course develops your ability to interpret orientation data and convert it into meaningful geologic insight. You will practice using conventions that working geoscientists rely on, tackle common mapping challenges such as thickness and depth, and learn how uncertainty and error propagation affect conclusions drawn from measurements. Step by step, you will connect points, traces, contours, and cross sections into coherent 3D interpretations, including classic problems used to infer planar surfaces and to visualize how layers intersect topography.
You will also learn to use stereonets as a powerful visual calculator for structural problems, strengthening intuition about poles, rotations, and geometric relationships that are hard to grasp from numbers alone. From there, the course links geometry to mechanics, guiding you through the essentials of strain and stress, including how to represent them, how to distinguish continuous from discontinuous deformation, and how Mohr circles clarify what changes under different conditions.
Finally, you will apply this foundation to the structures that shape landscapes and influence hazards and resources: faults and folds. By tying kinematics, stress regimes, and interpretation methods to map and subsurface data, you will practice the reasoning used to infer movement, assess reactivation potential, and recognize fold patterns. With short exercises integrated throughout, you will finish with a stronger, more employable command of structural analysis and geologic interpretation.
Course content
Video class: Lecture 1: Introduction to Structural Geology04m
Exercise: Which three approaches (levels of study) are used in structural geology to analyze deformed rocks?
Video class: Lecture 2: Orientation of lines and planes08m
Exercise: In the right-hand rule convention, what is the relationship between strike and dip direction for a plane?
Video class: Lecture 3: Lines as vectors05m
Exercise: In a right-handed Cartesian coordinate system used in geology, what does right-handed mean?
Video class: Lecture 4: Thickness and depth04m
Exercise: Which statement correctly distinguishes true (stratigraphic) thickness from apparent thickness of a tabular layer?
Video class: Lecture 5: Thickness using linear algebra03m
Exercise: After transforming points into the strike–dip–pole (S–D–P) coordinate system, how is bed thickness computed?
Video class: Lecture 6: Error propagation02m
Exercise: When two independent, random measurements X and Y are used to compute a result Q, which method should be used to combine their uncertainties?
Video class: Lecture 7: The three-point problem06m
Exercise: In the three-point problem, what vector operation is used to calculate a vector normal to the plane defined by three non-colinear points?
Video class: Lecture 8: Outcrop trace of a plane03m
Exercise: How can you determine the outcrop trace of a planar surface on a topographic map?
Video class: Lecture 9: The rule of V's04m
Exercise: According to the rule of V’s, how does a horizontal rock layer appear on a topographic map when crossing a valley?
Video class: Lecture 10: Geologic maps06m
Exercise: Which cross-cutting relationship indicates that the curved contact is an unconformity?
Video class: Lecture 11: Cross sections11m
Exercise: When choosing a line of section to display the true geometry of a mapped horizon from structure contours, which orientation is best?
Video class: Lecture 12: The down-plunge projection03m
Exercise: In a down-plunge projection for a fold, which plot produces the fold profile plane cross-section after transforming coordinates to the fold coordinate system?
Video class: Lecture 13: Seismic reflection data09m
Exercise: In seismic reflection surveys, what is directly measured along the vertical axis before any velocity conversion is applied?
Video class: Lecture 14: Well data04m
Exercise: What is the main purpose of a checkshot survey in a well when tying well data to a seismic section?
Video class: Lecture 15: The stereonet06m
Exercise: What does a plane passing through the center of the sphere plot as on a stereonet?
Video class: Lecture 16: Lines and planes on the stereonet04m
Exercise: When manually plotting a plane on an equal-area stereonet, what is the correct sequence of steps?
Video class: Lecture 17: Poles on the stereonet02m
Exercise: On a stereonet, what is the pole to a plane?
Video class: Lecture 18: Rotations04m
Exercise: On a stereonet, what changes when you rotate a line 40° clockwise about a vertical axis pointing downward?
Video class: Lecture 19: Deformation and strain07m
Exercise: Which statement best describes the difference between continuous and discontinuous strain?
Video class: Lecture 20: The measures of strain05m
Exercise: Which relationship between stretch (S) and elongation (e) is correct for a line that changes length from Li to Lf?
Video class: Lecture 21: The mathematics of strain08m
Exercise: Which statement correctly matches the transformation with what it computes?
Video class: Lecture 22: Infinitesimal and finite strain12m
Video class: Lecture 23: The Mohr Circle for strain06m
Exercise: In a Mohr circle for infinitesimal strain, at what angle to the ε1 direction does maximum shear strain occur?
Video class: Lecture 24: The Mohr Circle for finite strain06m
Exercise: In a finite-strain Mohr circle diagram, where do positive angular shear (and shear strain, ) values plot relative to the horizontal axis?
Video class: Lecture 25: Strain from deformed markers using geometrical methods07m
Exercise: In the Fry method for estimating strain from particles, what feature in the final plot indicates the strain ellipse?
Video class: Lecture 26: Strain from deformed markers using the Mohr Circle07m
Exercise: When constructing a Mohr circle for strain using angular shear (γ′) and λ′ axes, where do lines with positive angular shear plot relative to the horizontal λ′ axis?
Video class: Lecture 27: Stress05m
Exercise: In a symmetric stress tensor at a point, how many independent stress components (tractions) are there?
Video class: Lecture 28: Stress in the subsurface11m
Exercise: In a vertical borehole, borehole breakouts observed on borehole images are most useful for determining which stress information?
Video class: Lecture 29: Derivation of the Mohr Circle for stress05m
Exercise: In Mohr circle for stress (using principal stresses σ1 and σ3), what are the center and radius of the circle?
Video class: Lecture 30: Use of the Mohr Circle for stress10m
Exercise: In a Mohr circle for stress, what is the effect of increasing pore fluid pressure (p) on the circle?
Video class: Lecture 31: Experimental rock deformation12m
Exercise: In a triaxial rock deformation test, what is typically plotted on the y-axis of the stress–strain curve?
Video class: Lecture 32: The failure envelope09m
Exercise: In the Mohr-circle interpretation of failure, why does the shear fracture form at point P2 rather than at P1 (maximum shear stress)?
Video class: Lecture 33: The brittle regime07m
Video class: Lecture 34: The strength of the crust06m
Exercise: In the jelly sandwich model of lithospheric strength, what do the bread slices represent?
Video class: Lecture 35: Introduction to faults05m
Exercise: In a dip-slip fault, what defines a normal fault versus a reverse fault?
Video class: Lecture 36: Faults in subsurface data08m
Exercise: In a vertical well that cuts horizontal strata, which type of fault typically produces a missing stratigraphic section at the fault cut?
Video class: Lecture 37: Faults in structure maps08m
Exercise: On a structure map, which measurement is defined as the horizontal distance traced perpendicular to the structure contours of the fault (i.e., along the fault dip direction)?
Video class: Lecture 38: Fault juxtaposition04m
Exercise: In fault seal analysis, what defines a juxtaposition seal?
Video class: Lecture 39: Fault kinematics12m
Video class: Lecture 40: Fault kinematic indicators06m
Exercise: What do slicken fibers on a fault surface indicate about fault movement?
Video class: Lecture 41: T and P axes04m
Exercise: In a T–P axis diagram for a fault with striations, how are the T and P axes positioned relative to the slip direction on the movement (M) plane?
Video class: Lecture 42: Dynamic classification of faults07m
Exercise: In Anderson's dynamic classification, which principal stress is vertical in a normal fault regime?
Video class: Lecture 43: Faulting and stress magnitudes06m
Exercise: Under frictional equilibrium in the upper crust, which faulting regime generally requires the greatest differential stress (largest Mohr circle) for renewed slip at a given depth?
Video class: Lecture 44: Fault reactivation03m
Exercise: How does decreasing the coefficient of friction on a pre-existing fault affect its likelihood of reactivation?
Video class: Lecture 45: Introduction to folds12m
Exercise: In a cylindrical fold, what pattern do bedding poles form on a stereonet (Pi diagram)?
Video class: Lecture 46: Dip isogons and fold classes04m
Exercise: In Ramsay fold classification, which fold class is defined by parallel dip isogons and is commonly called a similar fold?
Video class: Lecture 47: The mechanics of folding10m
Exercise: Which statement best describes flexural shear folding as a kinematic model for class 1B (parallel) folds?
Video class: Lecture 48: Folds and minor structures09m
Exercise: In the Hansen slip method, where does the transport (slip) direction of a thrust lie relative to populations of Z (dextral) and S (sinistral) minor folds on a stereonet?
