The new data set along the TRANSALP geophysical transect in the European Alps consists of three types: (i) new apatite and zircon fission data, (ii) a MOVE™ structural-kinematic model for the tectonic evolution along the transect since the Oligocene, and (iii) PECUBE input/output thermo-kinematic model data corresponding to the structural-kinematic MOVE™ model. The fission track data are provided as *.csv data tables formatted to be ideally opened and viewed in RadialPlotter (Vermeesch, 2009) or alternatively in any spreadsheet editor (e.g., Microsoft Excel). The MOVE™ files require the software MOVE™ licensed by Petroleum Experts. The PECUBE input/output files can be opened with any text editor (e.g., Microsoft Visual Code) or data analysis software (e.g., MATLAB™).
This dataset is supplementary to the article of Ritter et al. (2017). In this article, a new experimental device is presented that facilitates precise measurements of boundary forces and surface deformation at high temporal and spatial resolution. This supplementary dataset contains the measurement data from two experiments carried out in this new experimental device: one experiment of an accretionary critical wedge and one of Riedel-type strike-slip deformation. For a detailed description of the set-up and an analysis of the data, please see Ritter et al. (2017).
The data available for either experiment are:
• A video showing deformation in top view together with the evolution of boundary force. This file is in AVI-format.
• A time-series of 2D vector fields describing the surface deformation. These vector fields were obtained from top-view video images of the respective experiment by means of digital image correlation (DIC). Each vector field is contained in a separate file; the files are consecutively numbered. The vector fields are stored in *.mat-files that can be opened using e.g. the software Matlab or the freely available GNU Octave. They take the form of Matlab structure arrays and are compatible to the PIVmat-toolbox by Moisy (2016) that is freely available. The most important fields of the structure are: x and y, that are vectors spanning a coordinate system, and vx and vy, which are arrays containing the actual vector components in x- and y-direction, respectively.
• A file containing the measurements of the boundary force applied to drive deformation. This file is also a *.mat-file, containing a structure F with fields force, velocity and position. These fields are vectors describing the force applied by the indenter, the indenter velocity and the indenter position
This data publication includes animations and figures of eight scaled analogue models that are used to investigate the evolution of a curved mountain belt akin to the Pamir and Hindu Kush orogenic system and adjacent Tadjik basin. Crustal deformation is simulated by means of indentation of two basement blocks into a sedimentary sequence and the formation of a curved fold-and-thrust belt.
The experimental set-up has two adjacent rigid indenters representing the basement blocks moving in parallel with a velocity difference (Figure 1). The slow indenter moves with a relative velocity ranging from 40 to 80% of that of the fast one. A layer of quartz sand in front of the indenters, 1 by 1 meter in size and 1.5 cm thick, represents the sedimentary basin infill. A basal detachment layer is made up of low-friction glass beads or viscous silicone oil representing weak shale or evaporates layers, respectively. The surface evolution by means of topography and strain distribution is derived from 3-D particle image velocimetry (PIV). This allows visualizing and analysing the development of the model surface during the complete model run at high spatio-temporal resolution. All details about the model set-up, modelling results and interpretation can be found in Reiter et al. (2011).
The here provided additional material includes time-lapse movies showing the topographic evolution of the eight models. These visualizations are oblique views played back at 60-fold velocity for the “glass beads experiments” (gb40 to gb80) and 3600-fold velocity for the “silicone experiments” (si60, si-gb60).
In addition to the experiment movies we provide a set of figures. The figures include surface views as well as cross-sections through the finite models highlighting the link between topography and internal structure of the simulated curved fold-and-thrust belts. Additionally, attribute maps of distinct morphometric measures (curvature, slope) and deformation parameters (uplift, horizontal translation) for the experiments with glass beads detachments are given. Finally, the movie “Experimenting.avi” shows in time-lapse the whole workflow of setting up, conducting and documenting an experiment, which originally required three days (for experiment si-gb60).
An overview on the parameters used in the experimental series of the movie sequences is given in the explanatory file (Explanations_Reiter-et-al-2016.pdf). A full list of files is given in “list-of-files-Reiter-et-al-2016.pdf”.