Faults

FAULT CLASSIFICATION AND TERMINALOGY
Faults: Are fractures that have appreciable movement

parallel to their plane. They produced usually be
seismic activity.
Understanding faults is useful in design for long-term
stability of dams, bridges, buildings and power
plants. The study of fault helps understand
mountain building.
Faults may be hundred of meters or a few centimeters
in length. Their outcrop may have as knife-sharp
edges or fault shear zone. Fault shear zones may
consist of a serious of interleaving anastomosing
brittle faults and crushed rock or of ductile shear
zones composed of mylonitic rocks
Parts of the Fault
 Fault plane: Surface that the movement has taken
place within the fault.On this surface the dip and
strike of the fault is measured.
 Hanging wall: The rock mass resting on the fault
plane.
 Footwall: The rock mass beneath the fault plane.
 Slip: Describes the movement parallel to the fault
plane.
 Dip slip: Describes the up and down movement
parallel to the dip direction of the fault.
 Strike slip: Applies where movement is parallel to
strike of the fault plane.
 Oblique slip: Is a combination of strike slip and
dip slip.
 Net slip (true displacement): Is the total amount of
motion measured parallel to the direction of
motion
 Separation: The amount op apparent offset of a
faulted surface, measured in specified direction.
There are strike separation, dip separation, and
net separation.
 Heave: The horizontal component of dip
separation measured perpendicular to strike of the
fault.
 Throw: The vertical component measured in
vertical plane containing the dip.
ANDERSON FAULTS CLASSIFICATION
Anderson (1942) defined three types of

faults:
 Normal Faults
 Thrust Faults
 Wrench Faults (strike slip)
Normal Fault
Normal Fault: The hanging wall has moved down relative to the
footwall.
Graben: consists of a block that has dropped down between two
subparllel normal faults that dip towards each other.
Horst : consists of two subparallel normal faults that dip away from
each other so that the block between the two faults remains high.
Listric: are normal faults that frequently exhibit (concave-up)
geometry so that they exhibit steep dip near surface and flatten with
depth.
Normal Faults
Thrust Fault
Thrust Faults: In the thrust faults the hanging wall
has moved up relative to the footwall (dip angle
30º or less)
Reverse Faults: Are similar to the thrust faults
regarding the sense of motion but the dip angle
of the fault plane is 45º or more
Thrust faults usually formed in areas of
comperssional regime
Thrust Faults
Strike-Slip Fault
Strike-slip Faults: Are faults that have
movement along strikes.
There are two types of strike slip faults:
A] Right lateral strike-slip fault (dextral):
Where the side opposite the observer
moves to the right.
B] Left lateral strike-slip fault (sinistral):
Where the side opposite the observer
moves to the left.
Note that the same sense of movement will
also be observed from the other side of the
fault.
Transform Faults
Transform Faults: Are a type of strike-
slip fault (defined by Wilson 1965).
They form due to the differences in
motion between lithospheric plates.
They are basically occur where type
of plate boundary is transformed
into another.
Main types of transform faults are:
 Ridge-Ridge
 Ridge-Arc
 Arc-Arc
FRACTURE
FRACTURE: is defined by Twiss and Moores (1992)
as “..surfaces along which rocks or minerals have
broken; they are therefore surfaces across which
the material has lost cohesion”
Characteristics of fractures according to Pollard and
Aydin (1988)
 fractures have two parallel surfaces that meet at the
fracture front
 these surfaces are approximately planar
 the relative displacement of originally adjacent points
across the fractures is small compared to the fracture
length..
Fracture, Joint
The term fracture encompasses both joints and faults.
JOINTS: are fractures along which there has been no appreciable
displacement parallel to the fracture and only slight movement normal to
the fracture plane.
Joints are most common of all structures present in all settings in all kind of
rocks as well as consolidated and unconsolidated sediment
Types of Fractures
Extensional Fracture
In extensional fractures the Fracture plane is oriented parallel to σ1 and σ 2
and perpendicular to σ 3.
Three types of fractures have been identified:
 Mode I fractures (joints) it is the extensional fractures and formed by
opening with no displacement parallel to the fracture surface (see above
figure).
 Mode II and Mode III are shear fractures. These are faults like fractures
one of them is strike -slip and the other is dip-slip
Same fracture can exhibit both mode II and mode III in different parts of the region.
Importance of studying joints and shear
fractures
 To understand the nature and sequence of deformation in
an area.
 To find out relationship between joints and faults and or
folds.
 Help to find out the brittle deformation in an area of
construction (dams, bridges, and power plants.
 In mineral exploration to find out the trend and type of
fractures and joints that host mineralization which will
help in exploration.

Faults

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FAULT CLASSIFICATION AND TERMINALOGY

Faults: Are fractures that have appreciable movement

Anderson (1942) defined three types of

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