How To Identify Hanging Wall And Footwall

Dip slip movement occurs when the hanging wall moved predominantly up or down relative to the footwall.

How to identify hanging wall and footwall.

We distinguish between dip slip and strike slip hanging wall movements. Normal faults are common. Cirques tarns u shaped valleys arêtes and horns. The hanging wall slides down relative to the footwall.

Normal dip slip faults are produced by vertical compression as earth s crust lengthens. To determine which is which visualize yourself creating a mine in along the fault. The hanging wall is above the footwall. The hanging wall occurs above the fault plane and the footwall occurs below it.

In a fault plane that dips 45 degrees the overlying rock unit is the hanging wall and the underlying rock unit is the footwall. In an ideal cirque the headwall is semicircular in plan view. Other articles where hanging wall is discussed. The main components of a fault are 1 the fault plane 2 the fault trace 3 the hanging wall and 4 the footwall.

But that is when the foot wall moves down the hanging wall moves up. Hanging wall and footwall. More common are headwalls angular in map view due to irregularities in height along. Then you determine the relative motion between the hanging wall and footwall.

It is a flat surface that may be vertical or sloping. In a strike slip fault they slide past each other the foot wall and hanging wall are not there because it has. This situation however is generally found only in cirques cut into flat plateaus. Other articles where normal fault is discussed.

This terminology comes from mining. They bound many of the mountain ranges of the world and many of the rift valleys found along spreading margins. An arcuate cliff called the headwall. The fault plane is where the action is.

The line it makes on the earth s surface is the fault trace. Hanging wall movement determines the geometric classification of faulting. If the motion was down the fault is called a normal fault if the movement was up the. When working a tabular ore body the miner stood with the footwall under his feet and with the hanging wall above him.

To correctly identify a fault you must first figure out which block is the footwall and which is the hanging wall. Draw a normal and reverse fault label the hanging wall and footwall for each also show how they move for each fault.