Fault Hanging Wall Footwall

The mass of rock underlying a mineral deposit in a mine.

Fault hanging wall footwall.

The dip of a fault plane is its angle of inclination measured from the horizontal. The underlying block of a fault having an inclined fault plane. Mainly because the names hanging wall and footwall were named by miners who weren t trying to be cute. The fault strike is the direction of the line of intersection between the fault plane and earth s surface.

The block below is called the footwall. In fault fault plane is called the hanging wall or headwall. The fault plane is where the action is. It is a flat surface that may be vertical or sloping.

Reverse faults indicate compressive shortening of the crust. The line it makes on the earth s surface is the fault trace. 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. 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 fault strike is the direction of the line of intersection between the fault plane and earth s surface. The dip of a reverse fault is relatively steep greater than 45. American heritage dictionary of the english language fifth edition. The block below is called the footwall.

The main components of a fault are 1 the fault plane 2 the fault trace 3 the hanging wall and 4 the footwall. Most faults broken places are essentially inclined planes like this. 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 terminology of normal and reverse comes from coal mining in england where normal faults are the most common.

When rocks slip past each other in faulting the upper or overlying block along the fault plane is called the hanging wall or headwall. A reverse fault is the opposite of a normal fault the hanging wall moves up relative to the footwall.