Sandbox Movies

Compiled by Mark Hagemann and Emily Thomas at the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College.

The following movies show sandbox experiments used to visualize structural processes such as faulting and mountain building. We also have additional structural geology visualization collections.


Evolution of Oblique Rifting on the Main Ethiopian Rift (more info) Movie showing a sandbox model of oblique rifting on the Main Ethiopian Rift.

Cadell's Mountain Building Experiments (more info) Videos of sandbox reconstructions of Henry Cadell's mountain building experiments.

Clay smear processes in mechanically layered sequences - Results of water-saturated model experiments (more info) Images and video showing deformation of an underwater sandbox model along fault lines.

Scaled analogue models of normal faulting in brittle lithologies (more info) A series of film clips showing how to fill a deformation sand box, as well as its use to model faulting behavior in brittle lithologies.

Sandbox compression video (MP4 Video 5.9MB Jan25 10) - Movie of sandbox compression (top view) from TecLab at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

Sandbox compression video 2 ( 877kB Jan27 10) - Movie of sandbox compression from TecLab at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.