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Fault

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Natural Hazards

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

Synonyms

Seismic source; Shear

Definitions

Fault – a tectonic fracture in the earth’s crust along which displacement (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal) of one side relative to the other has taken place. The fracture may be either a discrete plane or a zone containing multiple fracture planes. Cumulative displacement may be measurable from millimeters to kilometers.

Slip – distance, measured on the fault plane, between two originally adjacent points situated on opposite sides of the fault. It would be represented by a straight line on the fault plane connecting these two points after displacement.

Introduction

The word fault was derived from a late eighteenth-century mining term used to describe a surface, or plane, across which coal layers were displaced (Twiss and Moores, 1992). Realization that sudden displacement along a fault produces earthquakes evolved from observations of four large events that ruptured the ground surface in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. California Geological Survey, 801 K Street, MS 12-31, Sacramento, CA, 95814, USA

    William A. Bryant (Senior Engineering Geologist)

Authors
  1. William A. Bryant
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to William A. Bryant .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada

    Peter T. Bobrowsky

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© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Bryant, W.A. (2013). Fault. In: Bobrowsky, P.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Natural Hazards. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4399-4_132

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