Thrust fault

A thrust fault is a break in the Earth's crust, across

which older rocks are pushed above younger rocks.

Contents
Thrust geometry and nomenclature
Reverse faults Thrust fault in the Qilian Shan, China. The older
Blind thrust faults (left, blue and red) thrust over the younger (right,
Fault-bend folds brown).

Fault-propagation folds
Thrust duplex
Tectonic environment
History
References
External links

Thrust geometry and The Glencoul Thrust at Aird da Loch, Assynt in

Scotland. The irregular grey mass of rock is
nomenclature formed of Archaean or Paleoproterozoic Lewisian
gneisses thrust over well-bedded Cambrian
quartzite, along the top of the younger unit.
Reverse 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] Erosion can remove part of the overlying block,
creating a fenster (or window) – when the underlying block is
exposed only in a relatively small area. When erosion removes most
of the overlying block, leaving island-like remnants resting on the
Small thrust fault in the cliffs at
lower block, the remnants are called klippen (singular klippe).
Lilstock Bay, Somerset, England;
displacement of about two metres
(6.6 ft)
Blind thrust faults

If the fault plane terminates before it reaches the Earth's surface, it is

referred to as a blind thrust fault. Because of the lack of surface evidence, blind thrust faults are difficult to
detect until they rupture. The destructive 1994 quake in Northridge, California, was caused by a previously
undiscovered blind thrust fault.
Because of their low dip, thrusts are also difficult to appreciate in
mapping, where lithological offsets are generally subtle and stratigraphic
repetition is difficult to detect, especially in peneplain areas.

Fault-bend folds

Thrust faults, particularly those involved in thin-skinned style of

deformation, have a so-called ramp-flat geometry. Thrusts mostly Diagram of the evolution of a
propagate along zones of weakness within a sedimentary sequence, such fault-bend fold or 'ramp anticline'
as mudstones or halite layers, these parts of the thrust are called above a thrust ramp, the ramp
decollements. If the effectiveness of the decollement becomes reduced, links decollements at the top of
the thrust will tend to cut up the section to a higher stratigraphic level the green and yellow layers
until it reaches another effective decollement where it can continue as
bedding parallel flat. The part of the thrust linking the two flats is known
as a ramp and typically forms at an angle of about 15°–30° to the bedding.
Continued displacement on a thrust over a ramp produces a characteristic fold
geometry known as a ramp anticline or, more generally, as a fault-bend fold.

Fault-propagation folds

Fault-propagation folds form at the tip of a thrust fault where propagation along
the decollement has ceased but displacement on the thrust behind the fault tip is
Diagram of the evolution
continuing. The continuing displacement is accommodated by formation of an
of a fault propagation
asymmetric anticline-syncline fold pair. As displacement continues the thrust tip fold
starts to propagate along the axis of the syncline. Such structures are also known
as tip-line folds. Eventually the propagating thrust tip may reach another
effective decollement layer and a composite fold structure will develop with
characteristics of both fault-bend and fault-propagation folds.

Thrust duplex

Duplexes occur where there are two decollement levels close to each other
within a sedimentary sequence, such as the top and base of a relatively
Development of thrust duplex
strong sandstone layer bounded by two relatively weak mudstone layers.
by progressive failure of ramp
When a thrust that has propagated along the lower detachment, known as
footwall
the floor thrust, cuts up to the upper detachment, known as the roof thrust, it
forms a ramp within the stronger layer. With continued displacement on the
thrust, higher stresses are developed in the footwall of the ramp due to the
bend on the fault. This may cause renewed propagation along the floor thrust until it again cuts up to join the
roof thrust. Further displacement then takes place via the newly created ramp. This process may repeat many
times, forming a series of fault bounded thrust slices known as imbricates or horses, each with the geometry of
a fault-bend fold of small displacement. The final result is typically a lozenge shaped duplex.

Most duplexes have only small displacements on the bounding faults between the horses and these dip away
from the foreland. Occasionally the displacement on the individual horses is greater, such that each horse lies
more or less vertically above the other, this is known as an antiformal stack or imbricate stack. If the individual
displacements are greater still, then the horses have a foreland dip.

Duplexing is a very efficient mechanism of accommodating shortening of the crust by thickening the section
rather than by folding and deformation.[5]
Tectonic environment
Large overthrust faults occur in areas that have undergone great compressional
forces.

These conditions exist in the orogenic belts that result from either two continental
tectonic collisions or from subduction zone accretion.

The resultant compressional forces produce mountain ranges. The Himalayas, the
Alps, and the Appalachians are prominent examples of compressional orogenies
with numerous overthrust faults.
Antiformal stack of
Thrust faults occur in the foreland basin which occur marginal to orogenic belts.
thrust imbricates
Here, compression does not result in appreciable mountain building, which is
proved by drilling,
mostly accommodated by folding and stacking of thrusts. Instead thrust faults
Brooks Range
generally cause a thickening of the stratigraphic section. When thrusts are Foothills, Alaska
developed in orogens formed in previously rifted margins, inversion of the buried
paleo-rifts can induce the nucleation of thrust ramps.[6]

Foreland basin thrusts also usually observe the ramp-flat

geometry, with thrusts propagating within units at a very
low angle "flats" (at 1–5 degrees) and then moving up-
section in steeper ramps (at 5–20 degrees) where they
offset stratigraphic units. Thrusts have also been detected
in cratonic settings, where "far-foreland" deformation has
advanced into intracontinental areas.[6]

Thrusts and duplexes are also found in accretionary

wedges in the ocean trench margin of subduction zones,
where oceanic sediments are scraped off the subducted
plate and accumulate. Here, the accretionary wedge must
thicken by up to 200% and this is achieved by stacking An example of thin-skinned deformation (thrusting)
thrust fault upon thrust fault in a melange of disrupted in Montana. Note that the white Madison
rock, often with chaotic folding. Here, ramp flat Limestone is repeated, with one example in the
foreground and another at a higher level to the
geometries are not usually observed because the
upper right corner and top of the picture.
compressional force is at a steep angle to the sedimentary
layering.

History
Thrust faults were unrecognised until the work of Arnold Escher von
der Linth, Albert Heim and Marcel Alexandre Bertrand in the Alps
working on the Glarus Thrust; Charles Lapworth, Ben Peach and
John Horne working on parts of the Moine Thrust Scotland; Alfred
Elis Törnebohm in the Scandinavian Caledonides and R. G.
McConnell in the Canadian Rockies.[7][8] The realisation that older
Thrust Fault Outcrop
strata could, via faulting, be found above younger strata, was arrived
at more or less independently by geologists in all these areas during
the 1880s. Geikie in 1884 coined the term thrust-plane to describe this
special set of faults. He wrote:
 By a system of reversed faults, a group of strata is made to cover a great breadth of ground and
actually to overlie higher members of the same series. The most extraordinary dislocations,
however, are those to which for distinction we have given the name of Thrust-planes. They are
strictly reversed faults, but with so low a hade that the rocks on their upthrown side have been, as
it were, pushed horizontally forward.[9][10]

References
1. "dip slip" (https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/glossary/?term=dip%20slip). Earthquake Glossary.
USGS. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
2. "How are reverse faults different than thrust faults? In what way are they similar?" (http://scienc
eline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=2845). UCSB Science Line. University of California, Santa
Barbara. 13 February 2012. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
3. Crosby, G. W. (1967). "High Angle Dips at Erosional Edge of Overthrust Faults" (http://archives.
datapages.com/data/cspg/data/015/015003/0219.htm). Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum
Geology. 15 (3): 219–229.
4. Neuendorf, K. K. E.; Mehl Jr., J. P.; Jackson, J. A. (editors) (2005). Glossary of Geology
(5th ed.). Alexandria, Virginia: American Geological Institute. p. 462.
5. "diagrams of the Brooks Range Thrust" (https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2003/0253/pdf/of03-253.pdf)
(PDF).
6. Martins-Ferreira, Marco Antonio Caçador (April 2019). "Effects of initial rift inversion over fold-
and-thrust development in a cratonic far-foreland setting". Tectonophysics. 757: 88–107.
Bibcode:2019Tectp.757...88M (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019Tectp.757...88M).
doi:10.1016/j.tecto.2019.03.009 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.tecto.2019.03.009).
7. Peach, B. N., Horne, J., Gunn, W., Clough, C. T. & Hinxman, L. W. 1907. The Geological
Structure of the North-west Highlands of Scotland (https://archive.org/details/geologicalstruc00
peacgoog) (Memoirs of the Geological Survey, Scotland). His Majesty's Stationery Office,
Glasgow.
8. McConnell, R. G. (1887) Report on the geological structure of a portion of the Rocky Mountains:
Geol. Surv. Canada Summ. Rept., 2, p. 41.
9. "Thrust Tectonics" (http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/structure/tectonics/thrust_tectonics/).
www.see.leeds.ac.uk.
10. Archibald Geikie (November 13, 1884). "The Crystalline Rocks of the Scottish Highlands" (http
s://doi.org/10.1038%2F031029d0). Nature. 31 (785): 29–31. Bibcode:1884Natur..31...29G (http
s://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1884Natur..31...29G). doi:10.1038/031029d0 (https://doi.org/10.1
038%2F031029d0).

External links
Appalachian folding, thrusting and duplexing (http://csmres.jmu.edu/geollab/vageol/vahist/strup
rimer.html)
Rob Butler's webpage on thrusts (http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/structure/tectonics/thrust_tectonic
s/)

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