The central theme in Win Mean s research is how fabric in deformed rocks arises and evolves as the rock deforms and recrystallizes. I define fabric as a set of attributes of a volume of rock that are statistical in nature. Fabric is abstracted from a more complete description of a rock in a way that discards all information on the spatial relation of its elements, such as grains.
Examples are distributions in grain size, shape, or lattice orientation for individual minerals.
I define the structure as a description in which the spatial information is retained, but limited to elements over a moderate range in scale. A description of a fold structure consists of the configuration of a set of layers. The configuration of grains in each layer is not included, but the distribution of fabric elements in the layer might. The structure of a polycrystalline rock, at the grain scale, involves not only the configuration of the grain boundaries, but also the lattice orientation and composition of each grain, and might include internal grain structures such as kink bands. One of Win s major insights was that to understand fabric and its evolution, when the elements are grains, structure at the grain scale and the grain-scale processes must both be examined.