Faulting Hanging Wall Foot Wall

Hanging wall and footwall.

Faulting hanging wall foot wall.

The hanging wall occurs above the fault plane and the footwall occurs below it. Normal faults are common. Because the road lies on two pieces of rock it was broken once the strike slip faulting occurred. I always get confused which side is hanging wall and foot wall.

This type of faulting is common in areas of compression when the dip angle is shallow a reverse fault is often described as a thrust fault. When working a tabular ore body the miner stood with the footwall under his feet and with the hanging wall above him. The main components of a fault are 1 the fault plane 2 the fault trace 3 the hanging wall and 4 the footwall. Draw a normal and reverse fault label the hanging wall and footwall for each also show how they move for each fault.

In normal faulting the hanging wall moves downwards in relation to the footwall. There is no hanging wall or foot wall in strike slip faulting. A diagram outlining the basics of faulting. They bound many of the mountain ranges of the world and many of the rift valleys found along spreading margins.

Normal dip slip faults are produced by vertical compression as earth s crust lengthens. The hanging wall slides down relative to the footwall. We distinguish between dip slip and strike slip hanging wall movements. Encyclopaedia britannica universal images group getty images.

Compare the image to the right with the normal fault above. This terminology comes from mining. I know that for normal fault hanging wall goes down whereas a reverse fault hanging wall goes up. Dip slip movement occurs when the hanging wall moved predominantly up or down relative to the footwall.

Occurs when the hanging wall moves down relative to the foot wall reverse fault. In reverse thrust faulting the hanging wall moves upward in relation to the footwall. Other articles where normal fault is discussed. A dip slip fault in which the upper block above the fault plane moves up and over the lower block.

If the motion was down the fault is called a normal fault if the movement was up the. Faults that move the way you would expect gravity to move them normally are called normal faults. If we hold the foot wall stationary gravity will normally want to pull the hanging wall down right.