{"id":519,"date":"2021-09-16T19:29:44","date_gmt":"2021-09-16T19:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/accphysicalgeography\/chapter\/12-3-fracturing-and-faulting-physical-geology-2nd-edition\/"},"modified":"2022-02-06T23:17:00","modified_gmt":"2022-02-06T23:17:00","slug":"12-3-fracturing-and-faulting-physical-geology-2nd-edition","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/accphysicalgeology\/chapter\/12-3-fracturing-and-faulting-physical-geology-2nd-edition\/","title":{"raw":"12.3 Fracturing and Faulting \u2014 Physical Geology \u2013 2nd Edition","rendered":"12.3 Fracturing and Faulting \u2014 Physical Geology \u2013 2nd Edition"},"content":{"raw":"
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12.3 Fracturing and Faulting<\/h1>\r\nA body of rock that is brittle\u2014either because it is cold or because of its composition, or both\u2014 is likely to break rather than fold when subjected to stress, and the result is fracturing or faulting.\r\n

Fracturing<\/h1>\r\nFracturing is common in rocks near the surface, either in volcanic rocks that have shrunk on cooling (Figure 12.1.3a), or in other rocks that have been exposed by erosion and have expanded (Figure 12.3.1).\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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Figure 12.3.1 Granite in the Coquihalla Creek area, B.C. (left) and sandstone at Nanoose, B.C. (right), both showing fracturing that has resulted from expansion due to removal of overlying rock.<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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Figure 12.3.2\u00a0 A depiction of joints developed in the hinge area of folded rocks.\u00a0Note that in this situation some rock types are more likely to fracture than others.<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nA fracture in a rock is also called a joint<\/span><\/strong>.\u00a0There is no side-to-side movement of the rock on either side of a joint.\u00a0Most joints form where a body of rock is expanding because of reduced pressure, as shown by the two examples in Figure 12.3.1, or where the rock itself is contracting but the body of rock remains the same size (the cooling volcanic rock in Figure 12.1.3a).\u00a0In all of these cases, the pressure regime is one of tension<\/em> as opposed to compression<\/em>.\u00a0Joints can also develop where rock is being folded because, while folding typically happens during compression, there may be some parts of the fold that are in tension (Figure 12.3.2).\r\n
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Figure 12.3.3\u00a0 A depiction of joints developed in a rock that is under stress.<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nFinally joints can also develop when rock is under compression as shown on Figure 12.3.3, where there is differential stress on the rock, and joint sets develop at angles to the compression directions.\r\n

Faulting<\/h1>\r\nA fault is a boundary between two bodies of rock along which there has been relative motion (Figure 12.1.3d). As we discussed in Chapter 11, an earthquake involves the sliding of one body of rock past another. Earthquakes don\u2019t necessarily happen on existing faults, but once an earthquake takes place a fault will exist in the rock at that location. Some large faults, like the San Andreas Fault in California or the Tintina Fault, which extends from northern B.C. through central Yukon and into Alaska, show evidence of hundreds of kilometers of motion, while others show less than a millimeter. In order to estimate the amount of motion on a fault, we need to find some geological feature that shows up on both sides and has been offset (Figure 12.3.4).\r\n
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Figure 12.3.4 A fault (white dashed line) in intrusive rocks on Quadra Island, B.C. The pink dyke has been offset by the fault and the extent of the offset is shown by the white arrow (approximately 10 centimeters). Because the far side of the fault has moved to the right, this is a right-lateral fault. If the photo had been taken from the other side, the fault would still appear to have a right-lateral offset.<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nThere are several kinds of faults, as illustrated on Figure 12.3.5, and they develop under different stress conditions.\u00a0The terms hanging wall<\/em> and footwall<\/em> in the diagrams apply to situations where the fault is not vertical.\u00a0The body of rock above the fault is called the hanging wall<\/span><\/strong>, and the body of rock below it is called the footwall<\/span><\/strong>.\u00a0If the fault develops in a situation of compression, then it will be a reverse fault<\/span><\/strong> because the compression causes the hanging wall to be pushed up relative to the footwall.\u00a0If the fault develops in a situation of extension, then it will be a normal fault<\/span><\/strong>, because the extension allows the hanging wall to slide down relative to the footwall in response to gravity.\r\n\r\nThe third situation is where the bodies of rock are sliding sideways with respect to each other, as is the case along a transform fault (see Chapter 10).\u00a0This is known as a strike-slip fault<\/span><\/strong> because the displacement is along the \u201cstrike\u201d or the length of the fault.\u00a0On strike-slip faults the motion is typically only horizontal, or with a very small vertical component, and as discussed above the sense of motion can be right lateral (the far side moves to the right), as in Figures 12.12 and 12.13, or it can be left lateral (the far side moves to the left).\u00a0Transform faults are strike-slip faults.\r\n
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Figure 12.3.5 Depiction of reverse, normal, and strike-slip faults.\u00a0Reverse faults happen during compression while normal faults happen during extension.\u00a0Most strike-slip faults are related to transform boundaries.<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nIn areas that are characterized by extensional tectonics, it is not uncommon for a part of the upper crust to subside with respect to neighboring parts. This is typical along areas of continental rifting, such as the Great Rift Valley of East Africa or in parts of Iceland, but it is also seen elsewhere. In such situations a down-dropped block is known as a graben<\/span><\/strong> (German for ditch), while an adjacent block that doesn\u2019t subside is called a horst<\/span><\/strong> (German for heap) (Figure 12.3.6).\u00a0There are many horsts and grabens in the Basin and Range area of the western United States, especially in Nevada.\u00a0Part of the Fraser Valley region of B.C., in the area around Sumas Prairie is a graben.\r\n
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Figure 12.3.6\u00a0 Depiction of graben and horst structures that form in extensional situations.\u00a0All of the faults are normal faults.<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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Figure 12.3.7 Depiction a thrust fault. Top: prior to faulting. Bottom: after significant fault offset.<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nA special type of reverse fault, with a very low-angle fault plane, is known as a thrust fault<\/span><\/strong>. Thrust faults are relatively common in areas where fold-belt mountains have been created during continent-continent collision. Some represent tens of kilometers of thrusting, where thick sheets of sedimentary rock have been pushed up and over top of other rock (Figure 12.3.7).\r\n\r\nThere are numerous thrust faults in the Rocky Mountains, and a well-known example is the McConnell Thrust, along which a sequence of sedimentary rocks about 800 meters thick has been pushed for about 40 kilometers from west to east (Figure 12.3.8). The thrusted rocks range in age from Cambrian to Cretaceous, so in the area around Mt. Yamnuska Cambrian-aged rock (around 500 Ma) has been thrust over, and now lies on top of Cretaceous-aged rock (around 75 Ma) (Figure 12.3.9).\r\n
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Figure 12.3.8\u00a0 Depiction of the McConnell Thrust in the eastern part of the Rocky Mountains. The rock within the faded area has been eroded<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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Figure 12.3.9 The McConnell Thrust at Mt. Yamnuska near Exshaw, Alberta. Carbonate rocks (limestone) of Cambrian age have been thrust over top of Cretaceous mudstone.<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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\r\n\r\nThe four images are faults that formed in different tectonic settings.\u00a0Identifying the type of fault allows us to determine if the body of rock was under compression or extension at the time of faulting.\u00a0Complete the table below the images,\u00a0identifying the types of faults (normal or reversed) and whether each one\u00a0formed under compression or extension.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Type of Fault and Tectonic Situation<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Top left:<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Bottom left:<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Top right:<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Bottom right:<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\nSee Appendix 3 for Exercise 12.2 answers<\/a>.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Media Attributions<\/h3>\r\n