FAULTS
AND
FOLDS
Essential Question
How does Elastic Potential Energy cause
the Earth’s crust to fracture, fault, and
fold?
What is a fault?
Faults are breaks in rocks which result when they
rub against each other or push each other out when
tectonic plates move and separate. When those
rocks break due to stress, earthquakes occur.
Many faults occur along plate boundaries.
Faults can also occur anywhere in the crust where
rocks are bent (folded) until they break.
Faults occur as a result of various types of stress.
Most Faults Have a Hanging Wall & Foot Wall
The Hanging Wall is the one with the slope on
which you could hang.
The Foot Wall is the one with the slope on
which you could walk.
The type of fault is determined by the motion of
the Hanging Wall.
The fault line would also be
called the fault plane.
The area around it would be
called the fault zone.
Is this the Hanging Wall or Foot Wall?
The FOOT WALL is The HANGING WALL
the one with the slope is the one with the
you would put your slope you would hang
feet on. from.
Types of Faults
There are several different kinds of faults. These
faults are named according to the type of stress
that acts on the rock and by the nature of the
movement of the rock blocks either side of the
fault plane.
Stresses can be compressional (push), tensional
(pull) or shear (slide past each other).
The type of stress determines how the Hanging
Wall moves and therefore the type of fault.
Active and Inactive Faults
A fault is considered active if there is evidence
that it has moved one or more times in the last
10000 years and may move again in the future.
An inactive fault is a fracture that has not
experienced any geologic activity in the last
10000 years. Some inactive faults may
reactivate. Classifying a fault as inactive does not
mean it will never move again.
Active and Inactive Faults
In the Philippines, segments of the Philippine
Fault Zone, the Valley Fault System, and the
Casiguran Fault are categorized as active while
the Masbate Fault and the Eastern Mindanao
Fault are considered inactive.
3 Types of Faults
Dip-Slip Fault
Strike-Slip Fault
Oblique-Slip Faults
Dip-Slip Fault
The ground moves either up or down
along the slope of the fault.
Dip-Slip Fault
The dip is the angle the fault makes with
respect to the surface,
Dip-Slip Fault
The block above the fault is the hanging
wall, while the block below is the footwall.
Dip-Slip Fault
Dip-slip faults are categorized as normal
or reverse.
Dip-Slip Fault
In normal dip-slip fault, the hanging wall
moves down in relation to the footwall.
Dip-Slip Fault
In reverse dip-slip fault, the hanging wall
moves up in relation to the footwall.
Strike-Slip Fault
The blocks move side to side, sliding past
one another
Strike-Slip Fault
The strike is where the fault cuts across a
horizontal surface.
Strike-Slip Fault
In sinistral strike-slip fault, a block moves
to the left with respect to the opposite
block.
Strike-Slip Fault
In a dextral strike-slip fault, the movement
is to the right.
Oblique-Slip Fault
It exhibits both dip-slip and strike-slip
displacements:either an upward or
downward sliding of the fault block, and a
horizontal movement to the left or to the
right of one fault block with respect to the
opposite block.
Examples of Faults
Folds
Occur when stress is applied to both ends of
a section of rock or rock layers. Some rocks
would break, but a fold occurs when rocks
bend. An anticline looks like a “rainbow”; a
syncline looks like a “smile”.
Examples of Folds
