This spreadsheet calculates plunge and trend of a line knowing strike and dip of the plane

containing the line, and the rake of the line.

Strike is entered in right-hand-rule (RHR) format: strike azimuth (0-360) is 90° counterclockwise
from dip direction.
Rake is entered in 0-90° format in column D. Column E has RHR format rake: (0-180° measured
from RHR strike), and is entered directly if RHR rake is <90 [examples lines 4 and 5 below],
or is calculated (180-column C)[examples lines 1-3 below].

The data below show tests of the equations. Do not delete the top test line (it has the equations).
S D R RHR-R T P T -raw
strike dip rake RHRrake trend plunge tanR cosD sinD sinR tan(180-R)  180- trend
287 81 17 163 104 17 -0.31 0.16 0.99 0.29 -0.31 3 177 464
030 79 50 130 197 49 -1.19 0.19 0.98 0.77 -1.19 13 167 197
020 30 20 160 183 10 -0.36 0.87 0.50 0.34 -0.36 17 163 183
090 30 40 40 126 19 0.84 0.87 0.50 0.64 -0.84 36 144 126
090 30 60 60 146 26 1.73 0.87 0.50 0.87 -1.73 56 124 146

Equations:
T = S+ = S+(arctan(tanR*cosD))
P = arcsin(sinD*sinR)

Eric Nelson
Colorado School of Mines

Cell equations:
 S D R RHR-R T P T -raw
strikediprake
RHRrake trend plunge tanR cosD sinD sinR tan(180-R)  180- trend
0 ###### 100 102 29 -5.67 0.87 0.50 0.98 5.67 78 102 102