Structural analysis of rock fracture networks for subsurface investigation purposes in Morocco

In addition to being among the major tiggers behind frequent earthquakes, fractures can allow surface water to infiltrate the permeable rocks, entering both shallow and deep aquifers. Occasionally, water penetrates to great depths, heats up, and becomes geothermal water. Fractures similarly allow hydrothermal fluids to dissolve their chemical elements and form a mineral deposit. Given these important roles of fractures, this paper aims to map faults and fractures across the entire Moroccan territory in the form of lineaments extracted from remotely sensed images, and then analyze their spatial distribution using the fractal dimension (FD) approach, and then generate a fractal map of the entire Morocco as a guide for subsurface investigation purposes. It was found that the areas with high fractal dimension (FD>1), considered potential groundwater recharge areas, essentially the northern Anti Atlas, the southwestern High Atlas, and the Meseta, present spatial conformity with several known mineral deposits, geothermal areas, and the epicenters of many historical earthquakes. This conformity can be a key element in expecting other unexplored mineral deposits, aquifers, or geothermal regions, as well as predicting the areas that may bear earthquake hazards in areas with high FD across the entire Moroccan territory.