Fault Hanging Wall Footwall

The dip of a fault plane is its angle of inclination measured from the horizontal.

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. The fault strike is the direction of the line of intersection between the fault plane and earth s surface. When the fault plane is vertical there is no hanging wall or footwall. The block below is called the footwall.

The line it makes on the earth s surface is the fault trace. Mainly because the names hanging wall and footwall were named by miners who weren t trying to be cute. Draw a normal and reverse fault label the hanging wall and footwall for each also show how they move for each fault. American heritage dictionary of the english language fifth edition.

The dip of a reverse fault is relatively steep greater than 45. The block below is called the footwall. 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. The underlying block of a fault having an inclined fault plane.

The terminology of normal and reverse comes from coal mining in england where normal faults are the most common. The fault plane is where the action is. Most faults broken places are essentially inclined planes like this. Reverse faults indicate compressive shortening of the crust.

It is a flat surface that may be vertical or sloping. The mass of rock underlying a mineral deposit in a mine. A reverse fault is the opposite of a normal fault the hanging wall moves up relative to the footwall. Quite often the ore that a miner wants to get to is sitting right on that inclined plane the ore is in the fault.

The names come about from the. When rocks slip past each other in faulting the upper or overlying block along the fault plane is called the hanging wall or headwall.