Studies and its significance

Faults
Faults are fractures in rocks along which

appreciable displacement has taken

place.
Sudden movements along faults are the

cause of most earthquakes.

Classified by their relative movement

which can be Horizontal, vertical, or

oblique

Components of faults

Types of Faults
Dip Slip Faults.

Normal Faults.
Reverse Faults.
Horst and Grabben.
Strike Slip Faults.
Oblique Slip Faults.

Dip Slip FaultsMovement is mainly parallel to the

dip
of
the
fault
surface
Normal Fault- Hanging
wall block moves down
relative to the footwall
block.
Accommodate
lengthening or extension
of the crust

Dip Slip Faults

Horst and GrabenHorstandgrabenrefer to
regions that lie
betweennormal faultsand
are either higher or lower
than the area beyond the
faults. A horst represents a
block pushed upward by the
faulting, and a graben is a
block that has dropped due to
the faulting.
Horst and Graben are formed
when normal fault of opposite
dip occur in pair with parallel
strike lines

Dip
Slip Faults
Reverse Faults-Hanging wall
moves up relative to footwall.
Reverse faults have dips
greater than 450 and thrust
faults have dips less then 45 0
If the angle of the fault plane
is low (generally less than 200
degrees from the horizontal)
and the displacement of the
overlying block is large (often
in the kilometer range) the
fault is called anoverthrust
Accommodate shortening of
the crust

Strike Slip Faults

Dominant displacement

is horizontal and parallel

to the strike of the fault.
Types of strike slip fault
Right lateral- as you
face the fault, the block
on the opposite side of
the fault moves to the
right.
Left lateral-as you face
the fault, the block on
the opposite side of the
fault moves to the left.

Oblique Slip Faults

A fault which has a

component of dip-slip and

a component of strike-slip
is termed anoblique-slip
fault
Nearly all faults will

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.

Fault Scarp-It is defined as a tectonic landform

coincident or roughly coincident with a fault plane
that has dislocated the ground surface.
Fault scarps can range from small ephemeral slopes
created by a single increment of displacement to a high
bedrock escarpments that formed during repeated slip.

Fig-Simple scarps related to single increments of slip on a newly propagated fault. Modified from
Hancock 1988

Types of Normal-Faults
Piedmont Scarp-Product of single
Scarps
increment of motion.

Morphology-(After Wallace,1977)
*Steep Free face (>500)
*Moderately incline debris slope (300400)
*Gently incline wash slope (50-100)

Multiple Scarp-Related to
formation of fault splay during a
single faulting event.
Producing multiple scarps.

Composite Scarp-Related to
Renewed slip on a fault coincident
with an older, degraded scarp.
*Repeated displacements along the
same fault.

Splintered Scarp(Cotton
1949)-Formed as a result of fault
displacement being distributed
across overlapping en echelon
segments

Scarps associated with Reverse

Faults
When the near-surface material is
strong, the reverse faulting occurs
on a single slip plane to form a
simple overhanging scarp that
collapse or erodes back.

When the surface material is

weak, internal warping results in
the formation of a topographic
flexure called fold limb scarp

Thrust-Front Scarps
*When escarpment rise above
a sharp break in slope
coincident with the emergent
of a thrust-flat trace, the
escarpment is not a true fault
scarp but rather a margin of a
thrust sheet.
*The leading edge of the trust
sheet has collapsed and been
overridden.
*It is known as trust-front
scarps in order to distinguish
it from thrust-fault scarps.
(Ian S Stewart and Paul L
Hancock, 1990)

Strike-Slip Scarps
Faults associated with
strike-slip faults are mainly
the result of the
juxtapositon of formerly
separate areas of different
height

Fig- Selected geomorphic features associated with the active

strike slip fault
Abbreviations-S-Sag pond; SR-Shutter Ridge; F-Fault Scarp; BBeheaded Channel; O-Offset channel
(Modified from Seih and Wallce (1987,fig 3)

Effect of repeated increments of normal

and
reverse
faults
Bedrock
escarpments
can form which are several hundred
meters of height in active fault zones.

Figure Spanish Fork Peak area of the

Wasatch front, Utah, USA, highlighting
the main morphological characteristics
of tectonically active range fronts in
the Basin and Range province
Abbrevations- transverse spurs (S) and
narrow, V-shaped valleys (V),
triangular facets (T), piedmont (P).
(from Anderson 1977,fig.17)

Effect of repeated increments of normal

and reverse faults
Aegean-type range front
showing both step like (S) and
ramplike (R) morphologies.
Taken from Stewart and
Hancock (1991, fig. 10)
Product of distributed normal
splay faulting.

Geomorphic modification of fault

A-Creation of fresh
scarp
piedmont scarp.
B-Debris falling from a free
face which results in the
rapid retreat of the scarp
face and progressive build
up of debris slope.
C-Free face is completely
buried by the by the debris
slope, the scarp becomes
rounded.(101-102 yrs)
D-The scarp decline results
in the scarp profile being
dominated initially by
debris slope.
E-In the later stage it is
being dominated
wash
*Thus. the change from a fault scarp to a residual
fault scarpby
(scarps
from which the last remnants of the originalslope
tectonic surface has been
removed) in a piedmont setting occurs when the free face becomes
completely buried
* In bedrock fault scarps. the removal by denudation of tectonic
lineations on the fault-scarp surface would be diagnostic of a residual

Fault Scarps degradation

Factors Lithology
Topography- degradation. as scarps crossing ridges

generally are better preserved than scarps on midslopes or

along river channels (Yuming. 1989)
The dip of the ground surface before faulting will greatly
affect the preservation potential of a scarp, because scarps
that slope in the direction of the ground surface before
faulting are generally more degraded than scarps that face
against the preexisting slope.
Microclimatic differences, such as variations in slope aspect,
also have a large effect on degradation rates. For example,
Pierce and Colman 1986) demonstrated that south-facing
scarps in central Idaho, USA. degrade three times as fast as
north-facing scarp.
Disparity in degradation rates became intensified as scarp
height increase

Faults Scarp Degradation

Fault scarps in consolidated

materials are less susceptible to

denudation than those in poorly
consolidated sediments, their
preservation potential is greater.
Thus, they are capable of
describing longer, if more
approximate, records of tectonic
activity (Mayer, 1986)
Wallace (1977, p. 1272)
contented that bedrock scarps
are characterized by slower
rates of change
However degradation of fault
scarps follows a similar
sequence of degradation despite
the variation in lithology as
shown in the fig. viz-gravity
controlled-debris controlledwash-controlled with decreasing
slope angle with time.

Fig-Limits of maximum slope angle

versus age of fault scarp. Fractured
bed rock are more modified slowly
than in fanglomerate. They follow a
similar sequence (Modified from
Wallace 1977,fig 12)

Complications in Fault Scarp

Degradation

It is mainly controlled by structural heterogenity

They do not progress through a systematic and
predictable sequence of morphologic change.
For eg- Pattern of degradation exhibited by normal
faults scarps in carbonate bedrock in the Aegean
region.(Stewart and Hancock 1988)
A newly emergent and
corrugated fault plane cut by
tectonic cavities, such as pluck
holes (P), and fractures and
underlain by alternating layers
of compact breccia (CB) and
incohesive breccia (IB)

Localized breaching of the armored

compact-breccia carapace occurs at sites
of enhanced weathering

Uneven degradation creates a cavitated

scarp.

A residual ragged and embayed fault

scarp forms following the removal of
the uppermost compact breccia sheet.

Conclusions
Fault scarps includes diverse range of tectonic

landforms that need to be distinguished from

one another.
Contrasting tectonic styles and degradational
processes can lead to scarps of similar
appearance, and hence, careful tectonic and
geomorphic investigation is required before
fault-generated landforms can be used to date
faulting events.

Thank You