The Properties of Faults

To make our study of faults easier, let us first discuss some of the terminology used when describing the basic properties of a fault (see figure).

Below are explanations of the terms found on the diagram above.

The fault is the actual fracture or zone of fracture in the crust, along which displacement of some sort occurs. Though the fault depicted above appears as a simple and single planar feature, what we call a fault can, in fact, be a complex set of fractures with a very chaotic geometry. If such a set of fractures is large enough, it is often referred to as a fault zone.