Informative and succinct text. Beautiful photos. Good animations and diagrams. Low price.
Barely touches on important related subjects.
Folds and Faults HD is a geology app that effectively demonstrates the behavior of rock under stress, from gentle folds to faults capable of earthquakes.
Folds and Faults HD (99 cents) is an iPad geology app that describes—and illustrates, with photos, diagrams, and a series of animations—the behavior of rock under stress. The app is well produced, and the commentary describing the different kinds of faults is clear and concise. The animations demonstrate seven different kinds of folds and faults in action. This app should be worthwhile to anyone studying geology or with an interest in the subject.
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The opening screen is the title screen, with an image showing a dramatic buckling of rock. Tapping the Next arrow located at the screen's lower right corner takes you to the Contents page. From there you can go to general pages on folds and faults, as well as pages for specific kinds of faults (anticlines, synclines, monoclines, and overturned folds) and folds (normal faults, reverse faults, thrust faults, and strike-slip faults).
Knowing Your Faults
The text gives basic yet informative descriptions for the different kinds of folds and faults. In the Folds master entry, it mentions that rock, when great stress is gradually applied to it, can change its shape over time without breaking, and describes folds as "once flat-lying sedimentary rock that has been bent into wavelike forms." For faults, the text notes that when stresses exceed the strength of a rock it can break or fracture, and that faults are fractures in the rock where there is movement—horizontal, vertical, or a combination of both—and it can be on a time scale from very gradual to sudden.
The pages for the different types of folds and faults are nicely illustrated with photos and diagrams that expand to full screen when you click on them. Under Strike-Slip Faults, where the motion is horizontal and parallel to the trend of the fault, the text discusses the San Andreas Fault, and mentions that it's the boundary between two large tectonic plates. Clicking on the image brings up a full-screen photo of a portion of the fault, along with a diagram showing the interaction between the two plates.
The app goes beyond diagrams, though, by including animations of all but one of the varieties of faults and folds, letting users see the rock in motion, something that no geology textbook could accomplish.
Folds and Faults HD was created by Tasa Graphic Arts, the company that also makes the Pangaea app I recently reviewed. Folds and Faults looks more professionally produced than Pangaea, and it takes advantage of the iPad's larger screen. Pangaea was designed for iPhones.
Folds and Faults will appeal primarily to geology students and buffs. It does a good job of explaining (pictorially as well as in text) the different kinds of phenomena. It alludes tobut doesn't give detailed information aboutrelated phenomena such as plate tectonics and earthquakes, but it should inspire those curious about these subjects to do further research on them. (One great resource is another Tasa iPad app, the Editors' Choice Focus on Earthquakes.) To the geologically curious, the exquisite photos of folds and faults, and the animations that show their dynamics in a way that no static image could, are easily worth the app's modest price.