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Fault (geology) Satellite image of a fault in the Taklamakan Desert. The two colorful ridges (at bottom left and top right) used to form a single continuous line, but have been split apart by movement along the fault. In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant ...
Fault blocks are very large blocks of rock, sometimes hundreds of kilometres in extent, created by tectonic and localized stresses in Earth's crust. Large areas of bedrock are broken up into blocks by faults. Blocks are characterized by relatively uniform lithology. The largest of these fault blocks are called crustal blocks.
In geology, horst and graben (or range and valley) refers to topography consisting of alternating raised and lowered fault blocks known as horsts and grabens. The features are created by normal faulting and rifting caused by crustal extension. [1] Horst and graben are formed when normal faults of opposite dip occur in pairs with parallel strike ...
Diagram of horsts and grabens. In physical geography and geology, a horst is a raised fault block bounded by normal faults. [1] Horsts are typically found together with grabens. While a horst is lifted or remains stationary, the grabens on either side subside. [2] This is often caused by extensional forces pulling apart the crust.
Tilted block faulting, also called rotational block faulting, is a mode of structural evolution in extensional tectonic events, a result of tectonic plates stretching apart. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] When the upper lithospheric crust experiences extensional pressures, the brittle crust fractures, creating detachment faults . [ 3 ]
Dip is defined as the angle of the fault relative to the surface of the earth, which indicates the plane on which slip will occur. Lastly, in any non-vertical fault, the block above the fault is called the hanging wall, while the blockbelow the fault is called the footwall. [4] Normal and reverse dip-slip faults with labeled hanging wall and ...
Diagram illustrating the structural relationship between grabens and horsts Infrared-enhanced satellite image of a graben in the Afar Depression. In geology, a graben (/ ˈ ɡ r ɑː b ən /) is a depressed block of the crust of a planet or moon, bordered by parallel normal faults.
A thrust fault is a type of reverse fault that has a dip of 45 degrees or less. [1][2] If the angle of the fault plane is lower (often less than 15 degrees from the horizontal [3]) and the displacement of the overlying block is large (often in the kilometer range) the fault is called an overthrust or overthrust fault. [4]