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| What's the difference between a fault and a breakline? |
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Breaklines occur when there are changes in slope on either side of the line. This might be at the top of a ridge or at the bottom of a river bed. Breaklines have X, Y, and Z values in the BLN file. This is the only time when Z information will be used in a BLN file. When gridding, Surfer can look through the breakline to the other side for data points. The XYZ points of the breakline are also included as data points.
Faults occur when there are differences in Z values on either side of the line. This could be because of a geologic fault or another reason, such as a landslide. Faults only have X and Y values in the BLN file. When gridding, Surfer sees the fault as a stop. It cannot look through the fault to the other side for data. It can go around the fault, but the distance will increase and the data on the other side of the fault will have less of an effect on the grid nodes. If the fault is a polygon, and all data points are on the inside of the fault polygon, then the area outside the polygon in the grid file will be blanked.
Examples of a breakline and fault BLN file are below, and also attached to this issue. In both attached files, the first header row is the same because the number of points in the data file are the same. In addition, the X and Y values are the same. These are in columns A and B. The Z values have been added for the breakline file.
Original contour map without faults or breaklines.
 
The same data set gridded with two
faults and displayed as a contour map. |
The same data set gridded with
two breaklines and displayed
as a contour map. |
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