Stress, faulting, fracturing and seismicity: the legacy

For as long as geologists have looked at deformed rocks, they have grappled to understand themechan-ical origins of deformation. Natural systems are inherently complex so that, for many, purely geo-metric and kinematic approaches have sufficed. However, we know that stress within the brittle upper crust controls the nucleation, growth and reac-tivation of faults and fractures, induces seismic activity, affects the transport of magma and modu-lates structural permeability, thereby influencing the redistribution of hydrothermal and hydrocarbon fluids. An endeavour of structural geology and seis-motectonics is therefore to reconstruct states of stress and their evolution over geological time from observations of the final products of rock deformation. Experimentalists endeavour to recre-ate structures observed in nature under controlled stress conditions. Earth scientists studying earth-quakes attempt to monitor or deduce stress changes in the Earth as it actively deforms. All are building upon the pioneering researches and con-cepts of Ernest Masson Anderson dating back to the start of the 20th century. His insights, encapsu-lated in a small number of research papers and in the book The Dynamics of Faulting and Dyke For-mation with Applications to Britain, continue to influence investigations in structural geology, seis-mology, rock mechanics, processes of hydrothermal mineralization and physical volcanology. This volume celebrates this legacy