Fault Hanging Wall Footwall

Where the fault plane is sloping as with normal and reverse faults the upper side is the hanging wall and the lower side is the footwall.

Fault hanging wall footwall.

It is a flat surface that may be vertical or sloping. The terminology of normal and reverse comes from coal mining in england where normal faults are the most common. The underlying block of a fault having an inclined fault plane. The fault strike is the direction of the line of intersection between the fault plane and earth s surface.

In fault fault plane is called the hanging wall or headwall. A reverse fault is the opposite of a normal fault the hanging wall moves up relative to the footwall. When the fault plane is vertical there is no hanging wall or footwall. The line it makes on the earth s surface is the fault trace.

Draw a normal and reverse fault label the hanging wall and footwall for each also show how they move for each fault. The main components of a fault are 1 the fault plane 2 the fault trace 3 the hanging wall and 4 the footwall. The block below is called the footwall. The dip of a reverse fault is relatively steep greater than 45.

American heritage dictionary of the english language fifth edition. The dip of a fault plane is its angle of inclination measured from the horizontal. The fault strike is the direction of the line of intersection between the fault plane and earth s surface. The mass of rock underlying a mineral deposit in a mine.

Most faults broken places are essentially inclined planes like this. When rocks slip past each other in faulting the upper or overlying block along the fault plane is called the hanging wall or headwall. Mainly because the names hanging wall and footwall were named by miners who weren t trying to be cute. The fault plane is where the action is.

Reverse faults indicate compressive shortening of the crust. In a non vertical fault where the fault plane dips the footwall is the section of the fault that lies under the fault while the hanging wall lies over the fault.