A customized database for the analysis of complicated folding structures, an example from Wadi Fatima Area, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

الملخص EN

Documenting structural data in database rather than flat files has been a great stimulation as it permits manipulating data in many forms and aspects that are necessary in the process of structural analysis.

The highly complicated structural features gave rise to several structural elements in the area north of Wadi Fatima, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

This required customizing a database for accommodating those diversified measurements in a relational fashion for the subsequent display, analysis and computation, according to the user’s options using Visual Basic under Windows environment.

Structural elements can be either merged or split into subsets based on station / substation measurements, to delineate domains of structural homogeneity.

Folding analysis on stereoplots with fold girdles and principal axes of folding can be done using simple menus and commands.

Data can be entered through a menu for creating/updating the database files or it can be entered through any text editor according to a given data model.

The database is provided with simple online help and supported with many warning messages to ensure proper use.

The flexibility of the present database structure enables easy remodeling to fit structural data from complicated structural areas.