GEOL411: Faults and Faulting

8.1 Introduction

I) Recall:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
(vi)

deformation can be brittle or ductile

brittle deformation (cracks) can be tensile or shear cracks
only mode I (tensile) cracks can propagate any distance
large fractures with no shear displacement are called joints (topic
7)
fractures with shear displacement are called faults, but these are
not simply large shear cracks
movement on faults is by frictional sliding

II) Terminology
Fault = discrete surface on which measurable slip has occurred by brittle
deformation processes
Slip = relative displacement between formerly adjacent points on opposite
sides of a fault, measured in the fault surface
Fault zone = Fault expressed as a zone of numerous small fractures. Small
fractures and faults branching off a larger fault are called splays
Shear zone = distributed zone of shear displacement, with macroscopically
ductile deformation. Includes microscopically ductile deformation
processes, and cataclasis.
Cataclasis is microscopically brittle but macroscopically ductile (zone of
fracturing and crushing, not a discrete surface)

III) Why are faults important?

Control spatial arrangement of rock units (mapping)
Affect topography and landscape (geomorphology)
Affect permeability of rocks and sediments control fluid migration)
Affect distribution of natural resources (ores, fossil fuels, )
Deformation:
long-term, e.g. Wrangellia now spread along W coast of
US
short term, earthquakes!
Already covered a lot in topic 6; here we concentrate on mesoscopic
structures and processes. Will look at tectonics and faulting (macroscopic)
later on.

8.2 Fault geometry and displacement

(I) More terminology

Wall = rock adjacent to a fault surface
Fault block = body of rock that moved as a consequence of slip on the fault
For a non-vertical fault,
Hangingwall = block above the fault plane
Footwall = block below the fault plane
Movement on faults can be a combination of dip-slip and strike-slip.
Pure dip-slip faults can be normal (h/wall down) or reverse (h/wall up)
Pure strike-slip faults can be dextral (right-lateral) or sinistral (left-lateral)
Oblique-slip faults combine dip-slip and strike-slip components.
Net slip = displacement on a fault, measured in the plane of the fault.
For oblique-slip faults we have to consider both the strike-lip and dip-slip
components.
The rake angle is the angle of the slip vector measured down from the
horizontal in the fault plane:

In addition to normal/reverse and sinistral/dextral, we also classify a fault

according to its dip.
0 to 30 = low-angle, 30 to 60 = intermediate angle, 60 to 90 = high angle
Sometimes a fault will change displacement along its length (all faults do
this near their terminations)
Scissors fault = amount of slip changes along strike so that h/wall block
rotates around an axis perpendicular to the fault surface

(II) Map symbols

Note that the ornament is always in the hangingwall block!

Detachment = large low-angle fault system, (can be regionally extensional
or contractional, will often change apparent nature from outcrop to
outcrop)

The hangingwall of a detachment is often referred to as

the allochthon (stuff which has moved) and the footwall as
the autochthon (stuff which is still in its place of origin)
Also note the interpretation of these symbols in cross-section.
e.g. where topography exposes the footwall of a large detachment, this is
called a window. Where topography has removed all but an isolated
remnant of hangingwall, this is called a klippe.

(III) Measuring slip

Net slip vector completely defined by:
(a) distance
(b) orientation (plunge and bearing of offset)
(c) sense of slip
Note that separation refers to the offset between a particular marker
horizon from one side of the fault to another, measured along a specified
line.
This is usually not the same as net slip (imagine looking at a cross-section
of a fault you can only see the dip-slip component of movement)
Animation from CD-ROM at this point?
(IV) Fault bends

Fault bend = sudden change in dip and/or strike of a fault

e.g. Listric faults have concave-up shapes (shallow at depth, steep near the
surface):

e.g. Thrust faults frequently display ramp and flat geometry. Note
distinction between footwall flat and hangingwall flat.

e.g. Strike-slip faults often contain fault bends, which are classified as:
restraining bends
(transpression = combination of strike-slip & compression)
releasing bends
(transtension = combination of strike-slip & extensional movement)

(V) Fault terminations

All faults have to end somewhere
An emergent fault ends at the Earths surface
A blind fault terminates inside the Earth and is not seen at the surface
(Blind faults can be later exposed by erosion not all faults you see in
outcrop necessarily reached the surface when they were active)
The edge of a fault is called the tip line (separates slipped & unslipped
regions):

Faults can die out along their length in a number of ways, e.g.:
(a) as many smaller fault splays, forming a horsetail
(b) in a zone of ductile deformation, becoming more diffuse
away from the fault tip
OH: Fault displacement is related to fault length longer faults usually
have greater displacement. (Fig. 8.14 , b)
8.3 Fault rocks

I) Classification

Fault rocks are classified according to the size of the fragments, and
whether they are cohesive or not.
Fault gouge: Fine-grained (< 1mm) noncohesive fault rock, grain size
reduced by pulverisation, gouge may be sheared to form foliation.
Often altered to clay minerals (in which case gouge or fluid flow?).
If cemented by minerals precipitated from circulating groundwater it
is an indurated gouge.
Fault breccia: Coarse noncohesive fault rock, angular rock fragments >
1mm (can be several m). If breccia blocks are cemented by vein
material, it is a vein-filled breccia (or indurated breccia).
Cataclasite: Cohesive fault rocks composed of broken, crushed and
rolled grains. Does not disintegrate when hammered (c.f. gouge,
breccia).
Pseudotachylyte: Glassy or microcrystalline material formed by melting
due to frictional heating during slip on a fault. Flows between breccia
fragments or nto cracks in fault wall. Usually mm to cm lenses or
sheets. [Can be several m thick at impact sites, e.g. Vredefort dome.]
II) Slickensides and Fibers
Slickensides are fault surfaces polished by frictional sliding, often
containing groove lineations (striations) caused by asperities ploughing
into the opposite wall.
When fault movement was by the crack-seal mechanism (remember topic
6), any space between the two fault planes is filled with fluid. On slipping,
the pressure decreases and minerals may be precipitated. If slip occurs in
many small amounts, these minerals will grow as elongate fibres parallel to
the slip direction. This can often give a sense of slip on the fault:

Remember that multiple slip episodes may have occurred in multiple

orientations. The latest slip may have erased earlier grooves or fibres which
grew in a different orientation.
III) Slip indicators
Grooves and/or fibres can tell us the orientation of slip, but we also want to
know the sense of slip (e.g. normal or reverse for dip-slip, and dextral or
sinistral for strike-slip).
There are several sense of slip indicators for brittle faults and fault zones:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)

offset markers (the easiest, but beware apparent offset!)

en echelon veins / sigmoidal en echelon veins (topic 7)
fault-related folds (asymmetry can tell you the shear sense)
fiber-sheet imbrication
carrot-shaped grooves on slickensides (opposite wall moved from
deep wide end of groove towards narrow shallow end)
(vi) steps on slickensides (very small steps usually feel with hand)
(vii) pinnate fractures (near a fault tip)
IV) Change in character with depth
Physical appearance of a fault depends on magnitude of displacement,
whether slip is on a pre-existing surface or reactivates an older surface, and
the pressure-temperature (PT) conditions of faulting (which obviously vary
with depth.)
Note that the behaviour of rocks is controlled by temperature, composition,
strain rate, confining pressure, fluid pressure, previous deformation, etc.

Because of the composition dependence, a major strike-slip fault may look

different at the same depth, if different rock types are involved.
(i) At the surface, faults may be characterized by at least three types of
topographic feature:
Fault scarp = topographic offset caused by dip-slip motion on the fault
plane. The scarp is the fault plane.
Fault-line scarp = topographic offset caused by differential erosion on
different sides of the fault. The fault plane may not be exposed.
In addition, notches may result from preferential erosion of weak
fault gouge or breccia. Streams often follow the traces of faults (good
for mapping). Rarely, indurated breccia (with lots of mineral
precipitation) may be stronger than rocks on either side, in which
case the fault trace will be expressed as a ridge.
(ii) At shallow depths ( about 5 km), mesoscopic faults can reactivate
bedding planes or joint surfaces (will usually result in slickensides)
or fracture previously intact rock (will result in breccia and/or
gouge). Bigger faults have wider brecciated zones and may have
small fault splays.
(iii) Between about 5 and 10-15 km, rocks become more ductile. Cataclastic
shear zones form here (macro ductile, micro brittle). The brittleplastic transition is at about 10-15 km depth (c. 250 to 350 C). Below
this, ductile crystal-plastic deformation mechanisms dominate, and
mylonite forms (very fine-grained strongly foliated rock). Will cover
this in later topics.

8.4 Faults and folds

We havent covered folding in detail yet, but important to note folds and
faults often associated. Some examples:
(I) Fault-inception fold deformation by folding is overprinted by faulting

(II) Fault-propagation fold e.g. folding above and beyond a thrust fault tip
line

(III) Fault-bend fold forms passively as gravity prohibits void formation

Can be related to thrust or normal fault, called a drape fold when
sedimentary cover passively drapes over a basement-offsetting fault

8.5 Andersons theory of faulting

Recall that faulting occurs in response to shear stress

(presence of a shear stress requires that differential stress, d = 1 3 0).
Now recall that the ratio of shear stress to normal stress is a maximum on
planes oriented at about 30 to 1 and containing 2 (which is why Coulomb
shear fractures initiate at about this angle).
Now recall that the Earths surface is a free surface (cannot transmit shear
stress), therefore it must also be one of the three principal planes of stress.
One principal plane of stress usually remains (sub-) parallel to the Earths
surface at depth, because gravity is a major contributor to stress state.
Andersonss theory of faulting uses these relations to predict basic fault
geometries:
(a) normal faulting
faulting
1 vertical
2 horizontal
3 horizontal

(b) thrust faulting

1 horizontal
2 horizontal
3 vertical

(c) strike-slip
1 horizontal
2 vertical
3 horizontal

Note this does not always work:

Frictional sliding on pre-existing surface is often easier than initiating
new fractures (pre-existing surface may become oblique-slip
fault)
Fault surface may be rotated by deformation to a different orientation
Andersons theory is for isotropic homogeneous crust & stress field

As an example of fault geometry controlled by local stress field, we now

look at:
Listric faults concave-up faults, steep near the surface but shallow at
depth.
In part due to curving stress field, especially curving trajectories
of 1 and 3. (Recall the sliding block from Topic 3). O/H
8.6 Fluids and faulting

Recall indurated gouge, vein-filled breccia, gouge often altered to clay

minerals. Fluids are often associated with fault zones.
Seismic pumping - occurs when movement on a fault creates space (of
course it doesnt really create space, but the pressure within the fault zone
is reduced temporarily). This pressure gradient drives groundwater into
the fault zone.
Fluids affect the shear stress at which faulting occurs in three ways:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)

Alteration - clay minerals are weak, with low shear strength

Hydrolytic weakening of silicate minerals (without
transformation to clays)
Pore pressure (Pfluid) decreases effective normal stress, and
decreases the shear stress at which brittle failure occurs (topic
6).

This last point is very important as it explains how large thrust sheets can
move intact to overcome the friction, large horizontal stresses are required
(large enough that one would expect the thrust sheet to break before it
slides).
[Analogy: try pushing a large piece of carpet at one end and see how it just
wrinkles next to where you push, instead of sliding the whole carpet]

The Hubbert-and-Rubey hypothesis is that if Pfluid in the detachment one is

near to lithostatic pressure, effective normal stress across the contact
approaches zero, and the shear stress required for sliding becomes smaller
than that required for internal deformation of the sheet.
So, what magnitude of stress is required for faulting to occur?
Recall effects of confining pressure, fluid pressure, lithology, strain rate,
temperature, pre-existing fractures
Also depends on type of fault (larger d required for thrust than normal
fault)
Estimates from shear heating (S.u = Ee + Es + Q) where u is amount of
slip, Ee is earthquake energy, Es is energy used making new fractures, and
Q is heat generated. But San Andreas Fault shows little or no heat flow
anomaly
Estimates from stress drop (minimum estimate for S range from 0.1 to 150
MPa (average c. 3 MPa).
Estimates from laboratory studies are around 20 to 100 MPa.

8.7 Fault systems

Faults are manifestation of fundamental way that stress causes deformation

in the upper crust. They do not usually occur in isolation, but rather in fault
systems, also called fault arrays.
Fault systems can be classified according to geometric and tectonic features.
I) Geometric classification:
Groups of faults may be a parallel array, anastomosing array, en echelon
array, relay array, conjugate array, or random array:

Usually most faults in a parallel array will dip in the same direction.
Subsidiary faults parallel to major faults are called synthetic. Sometimes a
fault dips in the opposite direction, in which case it is anantithetic fault:

II) Tectonic classification:

(i)
Normal fault system: these often form in rifts, where the
lithosphere is extending, along passive margins, and along midocean ridges. Usually relay or parallel arrays of listric or planar
faults. Movement on either usually results in rotation / tilting of
overlying fault blocks. Two different styles, (a) horst-and-graben
(planar faults) and (b) half-graben systems (listric faults):

(ii)

Thrust fault system: accommodate regional shortening, e.g.

margins of convergent plate boundaries and collisional orogens.
Usually relay or parallel arrays, often combined with folding,
resulting infold-thrust belts. Flats follow weak horizons,
and ramps cut across rigid beds. Imbricate
fan or duplex structure:

(iii)

Strike-slip fault system: occur at transform plate boundaries,

within plates, and as components of collisional or convergent
orogens. Typically splay into many separate faults near the surface
(flower structure). In a transpressional or transtensional setting,
these are either positive or negative flower structures.

Reactivated fault systems: We know that often a pre-existing fault

surface will be reactivated in preference to initiating a new fracture
plane. There is no reason why an old fault plane should be reactivated
with the same sense of slip as when it first formed, since there may be
hundreds of millions of years in between for the regional stress field to
change.
Fault inversion is the reversal of displacement on a fault during
reactivation
e.g. normal faults formed during rifting of a continental margin may be
reactivated as a thrust fault if that margin is later caught in a continental
collision.
e.g. border faults of a small half-graben basin may be reactivated as
reverse or oblique-slip faults if the region is later subjected to
compression.
III) A final distinction that is often made is between thin-skinned and thickskinned fault systems (but the two are often laterally related):
Thin-skinned fault system: faults occur only at shallow depths in the
sedimentary cover, separated from unfaulted deeper sediments and
basement by a detachment
Thick-skinned fault system: faults involve basement as well as cover.
8.8 Review / summary

(i)

Fault = shear displacement (some movement parallel to plane of

contact)

(ii)

Normal, reverse, strike-slip, oblique

(iii)

Rock types: gouge and breccia, cataclasite, mylonite (plastic)

(iv)

Slip indicators, slickensides, fibres, etc.

(v)

Fault-related folds

(vi)

Andersons theory of faulting (1 and 3 orientation)

(vii)

Fluids and faulting (seismic pumping; how do large thrust sheets

move?)

(viii) Fault systems and fault reactivation

http://ijolite.geology.uiuc.edu/07fallclass/geo411/Faults/T8faults.htm

Free and forced folding

Fault-bend fold and fault-propagation fold are two important styles of forced folding in which the
fold shape is controlled by thrust fault (after John Suppe, Principles of Structural Geology, 1985).

In free folding, rock layers are free to exert their mechanical properties on the
development and shape of the folded stack and thus layer-parallel strain dominantly
takes place. Buckling discussed above typically produces free folds.
In forced folding, the shape and geometric features of the folded stack are forced on
the layers usually by a fault that is the primary structure. In this case, to quote

American geologist George Davis in his textbook Structural Geology (1996), the rock
layers just go along for a ride. Notable examples of forced folding include drape
fold (folding of sediments overlying a high-angle basement fault), faultbend fold
(bending and slip of an anticlinal fold as a thrust block overrides the footwall block
along a ramp), and fault propagation fold (asymmetric bending of rock strata along a
thrust ramp). In these examples, folding depends on faults, and bending is the main
process of folding.
http://www.geoexpro.com/articles/2015/01/folds-and-folding-part-ii