The evolution of minor structures during the growth of major folds and
thrusts, in the Chartreuse district of the French Subalpine thrust be
lt, shows that each thrust evolved through a phase of distributed faul
ting, major thrust propagation and displacement, followed by distribut
ed shear modification of the hanging-wall fold. Microstructural studie
s suggest that the distributed faulting phases, early and late in the
history, were characterized by strain rates limited by diffusive mass
transfer processes (c. 10(-15)-10(-16) s(-1)). Faulting whose rate is
limited by DMT is too slow on its own to accommodate the regional time
-averaged shortening rates for the thrust belt as a whole, implying th
at the slow thrusts operated in tandem with those major, fast thrusts
where deformation was primarily cataclastic. Consequently each thrust
anticline experienced a displacement rate cycle and an array of thrust
anticlines must amplify simultaneously. These interpretations raise i
mportant issues for the dynamics of fault populations, the evolution o
f thrust wedges and the history of fluid migration in thrust belts.