diff --git a/docs/advanced/figures/listric_compare.png b/docs/advanced/figures/listric_compare.png
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..2a3e0dd2
Binary files /dev/null and b/docs/advanced/figures/listric_compare.png differ
diff --git a/docs/advanced/figures/listric_construction.png b/docs/advanced/figures/listric_construction.png
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..37f15751
Binary files /dev/null and b/docs/advanced/figures/listric_construction.png differ
diff --git a/docs/advanced/figures/listric_slip.png b/docs/advanced/figures/listric_slip.png
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..99007c99
Binary files /dev/null and b/docs/advanced/figures/listric_slip.png differ
diff --git a/docs/advanced/index.md b/docs/advanced/index.md
index 6316d432..3ab80737 100644
--- a/docs/advanced/index.md
+++ b/docs/advanced/index.md
@@ -102,6 +102,7 @@ performance
 multigrid-preconditioning
 solver-iteration-callbacks
 complex-rheologies
+listric-fault-extension
 vep-transverse-isotropy-faults
 split-node-faults
 fault-networks
diff --git a/docs/advanced/listric-fault-extension.md b/docs/advanced/listric-fault-extension.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..79088739
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/advanced/listric-fault-extension.md
@@ -0,0 +1,246 @@
+# Listric faults over a common detachment
+
+The classic geometry of a continental rift: listric normal faults — steep
+near the surface, flattening with depth — soling into a **common
+detachment** in weak rock, the hanging-wall blocks stepping down between
+them.
+
+Underworld3 can build this system two ways, and this page builds it both
+ways from the *same traces, the same base mesh and the same drive* so the
+two can be compared directly:
+
+- **finite-width ribbons** ([`place_thin_volume`](conforming-surfaces-and-fault-zones.md))
+  — each fault is a thin band of weak material, of a width you choose;
+- **zero-thickness faults** ([split-node](split-node-faults.md), assembled
+  by [`FaultNetwork`](fault-networks.md)) — each fault is a surface across
+  which the velocity jumps, with no width at all.
+
+Scripts: `~/+Simulations/listric_extension/`.
+
+## The geometry
+
+A listric trace flattening toward the detachment depth $y_d$, then a
+straight tail continuing that dip *through* the detachment:
+
+```python
+DETACH_Y, LAM, SOLE_DIP = 0.4, 0.18, 0.066
+
+def listric_trace(x0, n=30):
+    y = np.linspace(1.0 - TOP_GAP, DETACH_Y + SOLE_DIP, n)
+    x = x0 + LAM * np.log((1.0 - DETACH_Y) / (y - DETACH_Y))
+    ...                                  # straight tail across the sole
+```
+
+Both representations consume this same polyline. Neither reaches the free
+surface: 2-D faults cannot daylight in either formulation yet, so the tips
+stop a little below the top.
+
+The drive is plain instantaneous extension — sides pulled at $\pm 0.5$,
+free-slip base, free top — and the country rock has viscosity 1
+throughout.
+
+## Building it both ways
+
+**Ribbons.** One call places the whole network. The junctions are
+resolved in the CAD stage and become ordinary cells of the union, so the
+fault runs *into* the detachment as continuous weak material:
+
+```python
+from underworld3.utilities.place_surface import place_thin_volume
+
+dm, info = place_thin_volume(mesh0.dm, [sole, f1, f2], width=0.02,
+                             label="Zone", label_value=31)
+```
+
+The width is a **real parameter** — constitutive in this formulation
+($V = 2\dot\varepsilon\,w$) — not something that tracks the mesh. The
+zone's cells carry $\eta = 10^{-3}$, assigned per cell off the label (P0,
+discontinuous: interpolating a nodal viscosity across a sharp interface
+smears exactly what the conforming zone resolves).
+
+**Split nodes.** The split formulation refuses shared vertices at a
+junction, so `FaultNetwork` converts each T abutment to the *offset*
+form — the junior trace is pulled back and a small damage plug bridges
+the gap:
+
+```python
+net = uw.meshing.FaultNetwork(traces(), hierarchy=["Sole", "F1", "F2"])
+net.prepare(h=CELL, ligament=1.0)
+net.mesh = base_mesh().add_fault(net.prepared)   # same base as the ribbons
+...
+stokes.constitutive_model.Parameters.yield_stress = net.damage_yield(v, dial=0.05)
+net.apply_contact(stokes, conds=ETA_F)
+```
+
+The interface law is **matched to the band**: a shear band of viscosity
+$\eta_{\rm band}$ and width $w$ has zero-thickness limit
+$\eta_f = \eta_{\rm band}/w = 10^{-3}/0.02 = 0.05$.
+
+```{figure} figures/listric_construction.png
+:width: 100%
+
+The F1/detachment junction, at the same scale. **Left**: the ribbon union
+is through-going — the fault arrives as weak cells and the detachment
+continues through them. **Right**: the split mesh, with the prepared trace
+(dark) stopping short of where the raw trace would have met the sole (thin
+red), and the damage plug (peach) bridging the gap.
+```
+
+The pull-back is the thing to watch here. It is quoted as a *ligament* in
+multiples of $h$, but that is a clearance measured **across** the senior
+fault, so the retreat **along** the junior trace is $\ell h/\sin\theta$ at
+an intersection angle $\theta$. A listric fault sole is a glancing
+junction by definition — $\theta \approx 20°$ here — so one element of
+clearance costs $0.10$ of trace, three times what the same setting costs
+at an orthogonal crossing. The ribbon union pays nothing, but its
+junction cells are correspondingly slivered (minimum angle $0.9°$; the
+solve is untroubled, and steepening the terminal dip is the lever if a
+stiffer rheology objects).
+
+## What the two give
+
+```{figure} figures/listric_compare.png
+:width: 100%
+
+The same system, both representations. Horizontal velocity (top), vertical
+velocity (middle), strain rate (bottom, log scale).
+```
+
+The **kinematics agree**. Both build the same two hanging-wall blocks with
+the same sharp velocity contrast across each fault, and the vertical
+velocity — the subsidence pattern, the geologically meaningful signal —
+matches in shape and in magnitude ($-0.648$ against $-0.635$ peak).
+
+The **strain rate does not, and cannot**. This is the clearest statement
+of what separates the two formulations: the ribbon spends the
+deformation as strain *inside* a band, so the fault is a bright line in
+$\dot\varepsilon_{II}$; the split mesh spends it as a *jump*, which no
+strain measure can see. The only thing lit up on the split panel is the
+junction glue. Neither picture is more correct — they are different
+currencies, and a comparison has to be made in a quantity both can pay.
+
+```{figure} figures/listric_slip.png
+:width: 100%
+
+Slip on each fault, measured in each representation's own way: the
+velocity difference across the band edges (ribbon) against the contact
+pair jump (split node). The split curves stop short at the detachment —
+that is the ligament.
+```
+
+Peak slip:
+
+| fault | ribbon | split node | ratio |
+|-------|--------|------------|-------|
+| F1    | 0.498  | 0.401      | 0.80  |
+| F2    | 0.417  | 0.390      | 0.93  |
+| Sole  | 0.317  | 0.154      | 0.49  |
+
+On the listric faults the two agree to within 7–20% and the profile
+*shapes* are the same. On the detachment the split model slips half as
+much.
+
+## Chasing the detachment deficit
+
+The obvious suspect is the junction, and it is a large part of the
+answer — but not all of it, and the way that came out is worth showing,
+because the tempting conclusion is the wrong one. Every knob was turned,
+one at a time, reading peak slip on the sole:
+
+| control | sole slip | effect |
+|---------|-----------|--------|
+| ribbon reference | 0.317 | — |
+| split baseline ($h$ = 0.035, ligament 1$h$, dial 0.05) | 0.154 | — |
+| interface law removed ($\eta_f = 0$) | 0.161 | +5% |
+| ligament $1h \to 2h$ | 0.130 | −16% |
+| refine $h$: 0.035 → 0.0233 → 0.0175 | 0.154 → 0.181 → 0.187 | +21%, converging |
+| glue dial 0.05 → 0.01 → 0.002 | 0.181 → 0.204 → 0.210 | +16%, saturating |
+| glue plug made *larger* at fixed strength | 0.181 → 0.167 | −8% |
+| best case (finest $h$, dial at the ceiling) | **0.216** | 68% of the ribbon |
+
+Reading down that table:
+
+- **It is not the law.** Removing the interface condition entirely moves
+  slip by 5%. Both representations are already weak, as intended.
+- **The junction gap is the biggest single lever.** Doubling the ligament
+  costs 16%; refining the mesh — which shrinks the gap, since the
+  ligament is measured in $h$ — buys 21% back. This is the practical
+  rule: buy fidelity with elements, not with physical size.
+- **But closing the gap does not close the difference.** The refinement
+  sequence is converging to ≈0.19, not to the ribbon's 0.317, and the
+  ribbon itself is essentially $h$-independent over the same range
+  (0.3173 → 0.3155) — as it should be, since its width is a physical
+  parameter, which makes it a clean control.
+- **The glue helps, and then stops helping.** Weakening the plug raises
+  transfer to a ceiling near 0.21 — the inviscid-plug limit the network
+  documentation describes. Making the plug *bigger* at the same strength
+  makes things *worse*: a larger weak region lets the corner deform
+  instead of passing slip along the sole. A junction plug is a hinge, not
+  a bridge.
+
+Two explanations we tested and discarded, in case they occur to you too.
+The ribbon's band, being weak and sub-horizontal in horizontal extension,
+might simply be stretching along its own length, with our probe reading
+that as slip — but shrinking $w$ by 4$\times$ at fixed
+$\eta_f = \eta_{\rm band}/w$ moves the sole by only 4.5% (0.317 → 0.303),
+so it is not that. (That the ribbon is nearly $w$-independent at fixed
+$\eta_f$ is a good result on its own: it says $\eta_f$ really is the
+similarity parameter linking the two formulations.) And the plug does
+shrink away under refinement — but as the table shows, a bigger plug
+transmits less, not more.
+
+So a residual of roughly 30% survives every control we have. The best the
+offset form achieves here is 68% of the through-going detachment slip,
+and no single parameter closes the rest.
+
+## What that means for choosing
+
+The two formulations agree on what a fault *is* — the block kinematics,
+the subsidence, the slip on the individual listric faults — and disagree
+on what a *junction* is, in a way that is structural rather than
+mistuned. A through-going weak band and a network of zero-thickness
+contacts joined at offset junctions are not the same mechanical object
+where faults meet, and on this geometry the sole — the one fault that has
+to *receive* slip through two junctions — is where the disagreement
+shows. The listric faults themselves reach 86–97% of the ribbon's slip at
+the glue ceiling; the sole reaches 68%.
+
+- **Ribbons** when the width is physics — a gouge zone with its own
+  rheology, a damage zone another equation has to see — and, on this
+  evidence, when the system is **junction-dominated**: a detachment fed
+  by splays is exactly that, and the union carries the connectivity
+  natively.
+- **Split nodes** when slip on individual faults is the quantity of
+  interest — earthquake cycles, stress transfer, frictional and
+  rate-and-state laws — and when conditioning matters: there is no thin
+  feature and no viscosity contrast for the Schur complement to fight.
+
+```{warning}
+The residual is not explained. If you are modelling a detachment system
+in the offset form, calibrate the transfer rather than assuming it: the
+numbers above are for one geometry at one intersection angle, and the
+glancing junction is the hard case.
+```
+
+## Which to use
+
+- **Ribbons** when the width is physics — a gouge zone with its own
+  rheology, a damage zone that another equation (porous flow, thermal)
+  has to see, or a network whose junctions must be through-going without
+  further thought.
+- **Split nodes** when slip is the quantity of interest — earthquake
+  cycles, stress transfer, frictional and rate-and-state laws — and when
+  conditioning matters: there is no thin feature and no viscosity
+  contrast for the Schur complement to fight.
+
+Junctions are the place to think hardest. The ribbon's are free but
+slivered; the split's are clean but offset, and on a glancing
+intersection that offset is expensive and only partly recoverable.
+
+```{note}
+The split solves here report an inner velocity-block KSP reaching its
+iteration cap. The answers were checked against the direct-LU route
+(`solver._rotated_use_lu`) and agree to 0.2%, and are unchanged by a
+1000x tighter tolerance — the outer Krylov is flexible, so the warning
+reflects preconditioner quality on this mesh, not the solution.
+```