Structural geology has emerged as an integrative, synthetic science in the past 50 years, focused on deciphering the history preserved in the rock record and determining the processes of rock deformation. Owing to the nature of structural geology, studies focus on historical elements, such as structural inheritance and tectonic history, and increasingly involve theoretical, process-based approaches. The strength of the field is that it uses these historical- and process-based approaches simultaneously in order to determine the three-dimensional architecture, kinematic evolution, and dynamic conditions of lithospheric deformation over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales.

In this contribution we focus...