In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust
Satellite image of a fault in the Taklamakan Desert. The two colorful ridges (at bottom left and top right) used to form a single continuous line, but have been split apart by movement along the fault.
Hanging wall and footwall
Cross-section diagram of a listric fault
Cross-section diagram of multiple listric faults in a cliff wall
Clastic rocks are composed of fragments, or clasts, of pre-existing minerals and rock. A clast is a fragment of geological detritus, chunks, and smaller grains of rock broken off other rocks by physic
A thin section of a clast (sand grain), derived from a basalt scoria. Vesicles (air bubbles) can be seen throughout the clast. Plane-polarized light above, cross-polarized light below. Scale box is 0.25 mm.
Breccia. Notice the angular nature of the large clasts