Hanging Wall Vs Footwall Faults

Block below is called the footwall.

Hanging wall vs footwall faults.

It is a flat surface that may be vertical or sloping. In an ideal cirque the headwall is semicircular in plan view. Other articles where hanging wall is discussed. The dip of a fault plane is its angle of inclination measured from the horizontal.

Where the fault plane is sloping as with normal and reverse faults. More common are headwalls angular in map view due to irregularities in height along. Hanging wall definition the underside of the wall rock overlying a vein or bed of ore. An arcuate cliff called the headwall.

The dip of a reverse fault is relatively steep greater than 45. As nouns the difference between hangingwall and footwall is that hangingwall is while footwall is geology the section of rock that extends below a diagonal fault line the corresponding upper section being the hanging wall. You can hang something from the hanging wall as if it were a ceiling. The line it makes on the earth s surface is the fault trace.

The fault plane is where the action is. Before getting into the different types of faults you must understand the difference between a hanging wall and a footwall. Cirques tarns u shaped valleys arêtes and horns. The main components of a fault are 1 the fault plane 2 the fault trace 3 the hanging wall and 4 the footwall.

This situation however is generally found only in cirques cut into flat plateaus. The terminology of normal and reverse comes from coal mining in england where normal faults are the most common. The hanging wall is the block of rock above the fault line. The fault strike is the direction of the line of intersection between the fault plane and earth s surface.