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Surface rupture caused by normal faulting along the Lost River Fault, during the 1983 Borah Peak earthquake. In seismology, surface rupture (or ground rupture, or ground displacement) is the visible offset of the ground surface when an earthquake rupture along a fault affects the Earth's surface.
Faults may also displace slowly, by aseismic creep. [2] 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.
Types of faulting. Anderson's theory of faulting, devised by Ernest Masson Anderson in 1905, is a way of classifying geological faults by use of principal stress. [1] [2] A fault is a fracture in the surface of the Earth that occurs when rocks break under extreme stress. [3] Movement of rock along the fracture occurs in faults.
fault – (in a geologic sense) a fracture surface upon which there has been sliding; fissure – a fracture with walls that have separated and opened significantly; fracture front – the line separating the rock that has been fractured from the rock that has not; fracture tip – the point at which the fracture trace terminates on the surface
An earthquake is what happens when the seismic energy from plates slipping past each other rattles the planet's surface. Those seismic waves are like ripples on a pond, the USGS said.
Both surface deformation and faulting and shaking-related geological effects (e.g., soil liquefaction, landslides) not only leave permanent imprints in the environment, but also dramatically affect human structures. Moreover, underwater fault ruptures and seismically triggered landslides can generate tsunami waves.
Active faulting is considered to be a geologic hazard – one related to earthquakes as a cause. Effects of movement on an active fault include strong ground motion, surface faulting, tectonic deformation, landslides and rockfalls, liquefaction, tsunamis, and seiches. [2]
In geology, the elastic-rebound theory is an explanation for how energy is released during an earthquake.. As the Earth's crust deforms, the rocks which span the opposing sides of a fault are subjected to shear stress.