INTRODUCTION TO FOLDS,

FAULTS & UNCONFORMITY

SHUBHABRATA PAUL
Things to remember
 What is a fold?
 Types of fold
 What is a fault?
 Types of fault
 Unconformity and it’s types
Deformation
 The process by which the shape of a rock
changes because of stress.
 There are three types of stress that occur in

rocks:
 Compression

 Tension

 Shear
 Compression
 Compression occurs when rock is squeezed.

 Compression happens when two plates collide at a

convergent boundary.

 Compression occurs and forms large mountain

ranges.
 Compression/ Mountain Building
 The Himalayas, for example, were raised by the
compression that accompanied collision of the Indian
plate with the Eurasian plate. Another example is
Europe's Alps and Jura mountains which were also formed
by horizontal compression, generated in their case by
collision with the African plate and the Eurasian plate.
 Tension
 Tension occurs when an object is stretched.

 Tension occurs when plates move away from

each other at plate boundaries.

 At the Mid-Atlantic ridge the seafloor is spreading at a

rate of about 3cm per year. The frequency of
earthquakes at a mid-ocean ridge will depend on how
much tension is happening at that point. The more
tension means the more seafloor spreading, resulting in
a higher frequency of earthquakes at a particular mid-
ocean ridge.
 Folding
 Folding is the bending of rock layers due to stress in
the Earth’s crust.

 Depending on how rock layers deform, different

types of folds occur:
 Anticline

 Syncline
 Anticline
 An anticline is an upward-arching fold.
 An anticline is formed when there is horizontal stress on
rock layers.
 Fold mountains are formed when the crust is pushed up
as tectonic plates collide, like the newly formed Rocky
Mountains in Western Canada and the United States
 Syncline
 Synclines are downward folds.
 They are also caused by horizontal stress.
 The lowest part of the syncline is known as the trough.
 Tight fold

 A tight fold is a sharp

peaked anticline or
syncline.
 It is just a regular
anticline or syncline, but
was compressed with a
greater force causing
the angle to be much
smaller.
 Overfold
 An overfold takes place when folding rock
becomes bent or warped.
 Sometimes the folds can become so disfigured
that they may even overlap each other.
 Recumbent Fold

 This type of fold is

compressed so much
that it is no longer
vertical.
 There is a large extent
of overlapping and it
can take the form of an
“s”.
 Faults
 Some rock layers break when stress is applied to
them.
 The surface along which rocks break is called a
fault.
 The blocks of crust on each side of the fault are
called fault blocks.
 Three types of fault:
 Normal fault
 Reverse fault
 Strike-slip fault
 Footwall

Footwall

You could walk up this face of the fault, on foot, hence the
name footwall.
 Hanging wall

Hanging
wall

You could hang from this wall.

 Normal fault
 Rocks are pulled apart because of tension.
 When the rocks move apart, the side with the
less stable tectonic plate drops below the side
with the more stable plate.
 Reverse fault
 Reverse faults are the opposite of normal
faults. Rocks are compressed such that one
plate moves up while the other descends below
it.
 Strike-slip fault
 occurs when two tectonic plates slide in a lateral
motion past each other.
 This type of fault causes the most severe earthquakes
because they grind against each other.
Three types of fault
 Unconformity
 It is one of the most common geological
feature found in rocks or in succession.

 It is different then all other geological

structures viz. the fold, joints and faults

 Unconformities are resulted due to tectonic

activity in form of uplift or subsidence of land

 It is referred to a period of non-deposition

 Forming an unconformity
 The process of forming an
unconformity
 Deposition bgan 12 myr ago,
 Continues till 8 myr
 For next 1 myr, erosion occurred
and removed 2myr of rocks
 and giving rise to a 3 million
year hiatus
 The last column
 Is the actual stratigraphic
record
 With an unconfomity
 Non-conformity
 When the underlying rocks are Igneous or
Metamorphic (i.e. unstratified) and the overlying
younger rocks are sedimentary (stratified) = Non-
conformity
 Disconformity
 When the underlying (older) and overlying
(younger) sedimentary rock strata are parallel and
the contact plane is an erosional surface =
Disconformity
 Angular unconformity
 When the underlying (older) rocks and overlying
(younger) rock strata show some angle w.r.t one
another=Angular unconformity
 Types of Unconformities

 Unconformities of regional extent may change from

one type to another
 They may not represent the same amount of geologic
time everywhere