Exhumation and continental strike-slip fault systems: Introduction

Metamorphic rocks adjacent to and within strike-slip faultsystems occur in a wide range of tectonic settings. Detailed studies show that for a number of these locales a significant part of the exhumation occurred during strike-slip fault motion, but the specific processes involved are often cryptic. Although some sites share characteristic features, such as metamorphic rocks exhumed in extensional step-overs within overall transtensional systems, no one common theme emerges from all of the studies. Our understanding of the variables that control continental strike-slip faults' interaction with mid- to lower-crustal structures is still primitive.