Folding, Faulting, and Mountains

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 LEARNING COMPETENCIES
• Describe how rocks behave under
different types of stress such as
compression, pulling apart, and
shearing (S11ES-IId-27)

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 Deformation
• Stress pushes and pulls on the Earth’s
crust. As the rocks of the crust undergo
stress, they slowly change shape and
volume. They also move up or down or
sideways. The movement causes the
rocks to break, tilt or fold, This is caused
deformation.
 Stress
• Stress is a force that is capable of
greatly deforming rocks, and may
result in folding or faulting of rock,
and even to the building of
mountains

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 Stress in the Crust
1. An earthquake is the shaking that
results from the movement of
rock beneath Earth's surface.
– This is a super powerful force!!!
– These forces are examples of
stress.
2. Stress is a force that acts on rock
to change its shape or volume.
 Types of Stress
3. There are three different kinds of stress
that occur in the Earth’s crust…
– Shearing
– Tension
– Compression
• All of this stress works over millions of years to
change the shape of rock.
4. So…Any change in the shape of Earth's
crust is called deformation.
 Compression
• Opposing forces directed inward along
a single line
• Compression shortens an object along
the axis of compression, and thickens it
in the directions perpendicular to the
stress direction

Before After 7
 Compression
7. Compression is a stress force that
squeezes rock until it folds or breaks.
• One plate pushing against another plate
can compress rock easily…
 Tension
• Tension is the result of divergence,
pulling an object in opposite directions
along a common axis
• Tension lengthens an object along the
axis of tension, and thins it in the
perpendicular directions

After
Before
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 Tension
6. Tension is a stress that pulls on the crust,
stretching rock so that it becomes thinner in the
middle.
• Tension occurs where two plates are moving apart .
• Think of pulling a Milky Way candy bar apart.
• What ocean feature is this an example of?
 Tensional Cracking
• Tension can produce cracks in the
direction perpendicular to the axis of
tension

Cracking
develops
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 Tension Crack Pictures

• Nisqually Earthquake, 2/28/01, in Washington caused tension cracking.

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 Shear
• Opposing stress is created by two
plates moving in opposite directions

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 Shearing
5. Stress that pushes a mass of rock in two
opposite directions is called shearing.
• Shearing can cause two slabs of rock to slip
past each other like the picture below.
• What feature in California is an example of this?
 Responses to Stress
• There are three responses to stress
 Elastic
 Plastic
 Rupture

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 Elastic Substances
• Behave elastically, stretch without
breaking
• Snap back to their original position, when
stress is removed
• Elastic limit: a limit beyond which
substances cannot be stretched without
breaking
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 Plastic Substances
• Slow deformation
without breaking
• Plastically deformed
substances do not return
to their original shape
when the stress is
removed
Silly George, by Vern Hart
• Rate of deformation is
Time-lapse slumping of important - Stress
silly putty. Notice applied quickly will
movement in upper left corner. cause rupture
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Plastic Deformation
• The rate of plastic
deformation makes a
difference
• Silly putty breaks if
pulled rapidly, stretches
if pulled slowly

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 Rupture
• Elastic substances stretched beyond the
elastic limit, or plastic substances
deformed quickly, will rupture
• Rupture is called brittle failure

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 Deformation
• Rocks subjected to stress may:
 Deform by folding
 Rupture, with subsequent movement
along the plane of rupture - this is
called faulting
 Fold, then rupture

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 Folds
• Occur when stress is applied to both ends of
a section of rock or rock layers. Some rocks
would break, but a fold occurs when rocks
bend. An anticline looks like a “rainbow”; a
syncline looks like a “smile”.
 Folding & Faulting
There are 2 main fold mountains systems in the world:
Old and young fold mountains, based on their
geological age.

A) The old Caledonian fold mountains (formed 400

million years ago)

B) The Circum-Pacific Region surrounding the pacific

ocean (formed within the last 100 million years)
 Folding
• Folds may be described in terms of
two parameters:
 Axial Plane
 Limbs

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 Anticline
• If the fold is convex upward, it is
called an anticline

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 Anticlinal Fold

• Rainbow Gap, Virginia

• Photo: Henry Johnson
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Atlas Mountains Anticline
• One of the best
exposures of a
complexly folded
mountain belt
anywhere occurs in
the Atlas Mountain
system of northwest
Africa

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 Syncline
• If the fold is convex downward, it
is called a syncline

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 Syncline Photo

• Photo: Duncan Heron

• Synclinal fold exposed by roadcut 29
Anticline-Syncline Pair

• Anticline-
Syncline pair in
Devonian Old
Red Sandstone.
SW Wales, UK
• Note the
different fold
shapes
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 Fold Diagram

• Diagram shows the major types of folds

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 Folding & Faulting
Folding
 When Earth’s crust bends, folds occur
 Folding occurs under compression when
forces act towards each other, such as
when plates collide.
A fold is a bend in the rock strata.
Folding: Is a type of earth movement resulting from
the horizontal compression of rock layers by internal
forces of the earth along plate boundaries.
 Joints

• Three joint sets (left photo)

• Joints and dikes, Acadia National Park video
(right)
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 Faults
• A fault is a fracture along which definite
movement has occurred

(Click picture to remove block) 35

 Folding & Faulting
Faulting

Faulting occurs when Earth’s crust

cracks:
1. under tension ( when forces are acting opposite
each other ) causing layers of rocks to stretch &
crack ; a normal fault develops & one block
moves down relative to other block in direction of
fault to form an escarpment
 What is a fault?
• A fault is a fracture or series of fractures in
Earth’s crust that occurs when stress is applied too
quickly or stress is too great.

• Many faults occur along plate boundaries.

• Faults can also occur anywhere in the crust where

rocks are bent (folded) until they break.

• Faults occur as a result of various types of stress.

 Most Faults Have a Hanging Wall & Foot Wall
• The Hanging Wall is the one with the slope on
which you could hang.
• The Foot Wall is the one with the slope on
which you could walk.
• The type of fault is determined by the motion of
the Hanging Wall.

The fault line would also be

called the fault plane.
The area around it would be
called the fault zone.
 Is this the Hanging Wall or Foot
Wall?
• The FOOT WALL is  The HANGING WALL
the one with the slope is the one with the
you would put your slope you would hang
feet on. from.
 Strike-Slip Fault
• Shear causes the parts of the fault to slide
past one another.

This fault is an example of shear.

Strike-slip Direction

• Strike-slip faults are

further described as
"right-lateral" or "left-
lateral" depending if
the block opposite the
viewer moved to the
right or left,
respectively
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 Strike Slip Fault

Photo: Arthur G. Sylvester. 42

San Jacinto fault, Anza, Southern California
Right-Lateral Strike Slip
• Block is displaced to the
right, looking across the
fault

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 Strike Slip Faults
Right Lateral

•Near Coos Bay, Oregon 44

Left-Lateral Strike Slip
• Block is displaced to the
left, looking across the
fault

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Strike Slip Faults - Left Lateral

Near Lillooet, British Columbia

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Dip-slip Faults

• Dip direction is
always
perpendicular to
the strike line

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Fault Terminology
• Foot Wall and
Hanging Wall are
borrowed from
mining terminology
• Ore veins are often
deposited along
faults

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 Normal Fault
• Occurs when tension pulls the fault apart
and the Hanging Wall drops.

The fault is an example of tension

 Normal Fault

• Normal faulting results from tensional forces

• Hanging wall moves down relative to the footwall
(here, to the right)
•Places younger rocks on top of older
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 Reverse Fault
• Occurs when compression pushes the two
parts of the fault together and the Hanging
Wall moves up.

The fault is an example of compression

 Reverse Fault

• Reverse faulting results from compressional forces

• Hanging wall moves up relative to the footwall (here,
to the left)
• Places older rocks on top of younger
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Thrust Fault
• Thrust faults are
low angle reverse
faults
• They sometimes
move large
distances (tens of
kilometers)

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 Explanation of Lewis Overthrust

• Chief Mountain was moved about forty kilometers and isolated

by erosion
• Chief Mountain is much older (Precambrian) than the rock upon
which it rests (Cretaceous)

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 Chief Mountain

Older rock above younger, typical of thrust faults

Glacier National Park, Montana 55
 Oblique Slip

• Oblique-slip is a combination of vertical and

horizontal movement
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San Andreas Fault

• Pacific plate, left

• North America, right

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Fault Diagram Summary

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 Orogenesis
• Tectonic forces often create mountains, a
process called orogenesis
• There are several types of mountains
 Folded
 Faulted
 Upwarped
 Volcanic

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 Orogenesis by Folding
• Plate collisions involving continental plates
can produce high mountains
 Examples:
 Himalayas (India, Tibet, China)
 Alps (Europe)
 Urals (Europe/Asia boundary)
 Appalachians

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 Himalayan Mountains

Mt. Everest High peaks in the

Himalayas
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Owens Valley and the
Sierra Nevada Range

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 Orogenesis by Upwarping

• Formed when a large region of the earth’s

crust is bent into a broad, regional uplift
with little apparent deformation of the
rocks
• Upwarping may be due to local vertical
motion, rather than plate tectonic forces -
often far from plate boundaries
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 Custer State Park,
Black Hills, South Dakota

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Volcanic Mountains

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 Faults
• A fault is a fracture along which definite
movement has occurred

(Click picture to restore block) 66

 ACTIVITY:
• Research areas in the Philippines
where faulting and/or folding is
present.
• Submit a short written report
identifying the kind of deformation and
describing how the deformation has
contributed to the topography of the
area.
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