Footwall And Hanging Wall Normal Fault

They bound many of the mountain ranges of the world and many of the rift valleys found along spreading margins.

Footwall and hanging wall normal fault.

Normal fault geology. The rift basin at the bottom of the north. A type of fault in which the hanging wall moves down relative to the footwall and the fault surface dips steeply commonly from 50o to 90o. Low angle normal faults with regional tectonic significance may be designated detachment faults.

If you imagine undoing the motion of a normal fault you will undo the stretching and thus shorten the horizontal distance between two points on either side of the fault. This sliding downward of normal faults creates rifts valleys and mountains. Normal fault s are common. A downthrown block between two normal faults dipping towards each other is a graben.

If the hanging wall drops relative to the footwall you have a normal fault. Normal faults occur in areas undergoing extension stretching. Normal dip slip faults are produced by vertical compression as earth s crust lengthens. The hanging wall is to the left of the fault and the footwall to the right.

An upthrown block between two normal faults dipping away from each other is a horst.