 In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or
Nearly all
discontinuity in a volume of rock, across which
there has been significant displacement as a
result of rock-mass movement.
 For any inclined fault, the block above the fault
is the hanging wall block, and the block below
the fault is the footwall block
o Dip-Slip Faults
 NORMAL FAULTS: Dip-slip faults
on which the hanging wall
moves down relative to the
footwall
 Place younger rocks on older
rocks
 Form in regions of lateral
extension
 Normal Fault Scarps,
Turkey
 THRUST or REVERSE FAULTS:
Dip-slip faults on which the
hanging wall moves up relative
to the footwall
 Place older rocks on younger
rocks
 Form in regions of lateral
compression
 Thrust Fault in Concrete
from 1964 Quake,
Anchorage, Alaska
o Strike-Slip Faults - In a strike-slip fault
(also known as a wrench fault, tear fault
or transcurrent fault),[7] the fault
surface (plane) is usually near vertical
and the footwall moves laterally either
left or right with very little vertical
motion.
 RIGHT-LATERAL (DEXTRAL)
FAULTS: Strike-slip faults across
which the block moves to the
right
 Right Lateral Slip, Izmit,
Turkey, 1999 Quake
 LEFT-LATERAL (SINISTRAL)
FAULTS: Strike-slip faults across
which the block moves to the
right
 Piqiang Fault, a
northwest trending left-
lateral strike-slip fault
in the Taklamakan
Desert south of the
Tien Shan Mountains,
China (40.3°N, 77.7°E)
o A fault which has a component of dip-
slip and a component of strike-slip is
termed an oblique-slip fault.
faults have some component of both
dip-slip and strike-slip, so defining a
fault as oblique requires both dip and
strike components to be measurable
and significant. Some oblique faults
occur within transtensional and
transpressional regimes, and others
occur where the direction of extension
or shortening changes during the
deformation but the earlier formed
faults remain active.
 A body wave is a seismic wave that moves
through the interior of the earth. can be
measured via seismic refraction
o Compressional or “p” waves are
identical to sound waves – the particle
motion is parallel to the propagation
direction
o Shear or “s” waves are characterized by
particle motion that is perpendicular to
the propagation direction
 surface waves that travel near the earth's
surface
o "Rayleigh" waves are characterized by
elliptical motion perpendicular to the
surface
 In the near surface, this motion
is “retrograde”, meaning that it
is counter-clockwise when the
propagation is left-to-right. At
depth, the motion can reverse
to prograde.
o Particles affected by "Love" waves
vibrate perpendicular to the
propagation direction
 While the particle motion is
similar to that of shear waves,
Love wave amplitude is much
higher and decreases rapidly
with depth. Love waves are the
most destructive waves in
earthquakes because of their
high amplitude and transverse
particle motion.