The aim is examine fault rocks produced in some of the Earth's most famous faults, for example a sample from the EarthScope project that has drilled through the San Andreas fault at some km depth, or samples from some of the most famous so-called "impossible" detachment faults, namely those that appear to form at low-angles over large areas in extensional environments. How can we predict earthquakes if we don't know how the rock in the fault itself is behaving? How can we say that LANFs are impossible if we do not understand the processes that operate within them? Photo adjacent shows the Whipple detachment fault, a low-angle fault that formed when western North America was pulled out from underneath the Colorado Plateau. We want to understand why such a big fault could be so sharp, for example. Is there evidence for sub-critical propagation of fractures? If we can demonstrate this we come closer to understanding one of the most puzzling riddles that has confronted modern Earth Sciences. There is some room to shape this project differently for a geology major as opposed to a physics or geophysics major (e.g. in respect to fieldwork).