In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic forces, with the largest forming the boundaries between the plates, such as the megathrust faults of subduction zones or transform faults. Energy release associated with rapid movement on active faults is the cause of most earthquakes. Faults may also displace slowly, by aseismic creep. A fault plane is the plane that represents the fracture surface of a fault. A fault trace or fault line is a place where the fault can be seen or mapped on the surface. A fault trace is also the line commonly plotted on geological maps to represent a fault. A fault zone is a cluster of parallel faults. However, the term is also used for the zone of crushed rock along a single fault. Prolonged motion along closely spaced faults can blur the distinction, as the rock between the faults is converted to fault-bound lenses of rock and then progressively crushed.
Mechanisms of faulting Due to friction and the rigidity of the constituent rocks, the two sides of a fault cannot always glide or flow past each other easily, and so occasionally all movement stops. The regions of higher friction along a fault plane, where it becomes locked, are called asperities. Stress builds up when a fault is locked, and when it reaches a level that exceeds the strength threshold, the fault ruptures and the accumulated strain energy is released in part as seismic waves, forming an earthquake. Strain occurs accumulatively or instantaneously, depending on the liquid state of the rock; the ductile lower crust and mantle accumulate deformation gradually via shearing, whereas the brittle upper crust reacts by fracture – instantaneous stress release – resulting in motion along the fault. A fault in ductile rocks can also release instantaneously when the strain rate is too great.
Slip, heave, throw Slip is the relative motion of geological features present on either side of a fault plane, typically quantified in terms of a separation or displacement (a vector quantity). A fault's sense of slip is defined as the relative motion of the rock on each side of the fault concerning the other side. In measuring the vertical and horizontal components, the throw of the fault is the vertical displacement and the heave of the fault is the horizontal component of the separation, as in "throw up and heave out". The vector of slip can be qualitatively assessed by studying any drag folding of strata, which may be visible on either side of the fault. Drag folding is a zone of folding close to a fault that likely arises from frictional resistance to movement on the fault. The direction and magnitude of heave and throw can be measured only by finding common intersection points on either side of the fault (called a piercing point). In practice, it is usually only possible to find the slip direction of faults, and an approximation of the heave and throw vector.
Hanging wall and footwall
The two sides of a non-vertical fault are known as the hanging wall and footwall. The hanging wall occurs above the fault plane and the footwall occurs below it. This terminology comes from mining: when working a tabular ore body, the miner stood with the footwall under his feet and with the hanging wall above him. These terms are important for distinguishing different dip-slip fault types: reverse faults and normal faults. In a reverse fault, the hanging wall displaces upward, while in a normal fault the hanging wall displaces downward. Distinguishing between these two fault types is important for determining the stress regime of the fault movement. The problem of the hanging wall can lead to severe stresses and rock bursts, for example at Frood Mine.
Fault types Faults are mainly classified in terms of the angle that the fault plane makes with the Earth's surface, known as the dip, and the direction of slip along the fault plane. Based on the direction of slip, faults can be categorized as:
strike-slip, where the offset is predominantly horizontal, parallel to the fault trace; dip-slip, offset is predominantly vertical and/or perpendicular to the fault trace; or oblique-slip, combining strike-slip and dip-slip.
Strike-slip faults
In a strike-slip fault (also known as a wrench fault, tear fault or transcurrent fault), the fault surface (plane) is usually near vertical, and the footwall moves laterally either left or right with very little vertical motion. Strike-slip faults with left-lateral motion are also known as sinistral faults and those with right-lateral motion as dextral faults. Each is defined by the direction of movement of the ground as would be seen by an observer on the opposite side of the fault. A special class of strike-slip fault is the transform fault when it forms a plate boundary. This class is related to an offset in a spreading center, such as a mid-ocean ridge, or, less common, within continental lithosphere, such as the Dead Sea Transform in the Middle East or the Alpine Fault in New Zealand. Transform faults are also referred to as "conservative" plate boundaries since the lithosphere is neither created nor destroyed.
Dip-slip faults
Dip-slip faults can be either normal ("extensional") or reverse. The terminology of "normal" and "reverse" comes from coal mining in England, where normal faults are the most common. With the passage of time, a regional reversal between tensional and compressional stresses (or vice-versa) might occur, and faults may be reactivated with their relative block movement inverted in opposite directions to the original movement (fault inversion). In such a way, a normal fault may therefore become a reverse fault and vice versa.
Normal faults
In a normal fault, the hanging wall moves downward, relative to the footwall. The dip of most normal faults is at least 60 degrees but some normal faults dip at less than 45 degrees.
Basin and range topography
A downthrown block between two normal faults dipping towards each other is a graben. A block stranded between two grabens, and therefore two normal faults dipping away from each other, is a horst. A sequence of grabens and horsts on the surface of the Earth produces a characteristic basin and range topography.
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