The significance of rock fabrics for the geological interpretation of geophysical anisotropies

The main topic of the present paper is a review on the importance of anisotropic rock fabrics for the geological interpretation of geophysical anisotropies. There is a close link between the kinematic information frozen in the rock fabric and its geophysical expression, i. e. the directional dependence of physical properties. Recently, the interpretation of geophysical observations in therms of anisotropy has become a growing interest, because it promises a more refined insight into the composition, structure and physical properties of the Earth's crust and mantle. The central part of this research is the derivation of the anisotropic physical properties of rocks from two complementary methods: calculations based on quantified rock fabric data and those obtained experimentally.