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Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms pp 1–12Cite as

Strike-Slip Faults

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Definition

Faults with a displacement parallel to the strike of fault plane.

Category

A type of “fault”

Synonyms

Lateral fault; Transcurrent fault; Wrench fault

Description

High angle dipping faults where the displacement vector is parallel to the fault strike and, hence, to the planetary surface (e.g., Sylvester 1988; Fossen 2010). Recognizable at the surface by means of the related horizontal offsets, the linkage of their original constitutive Riedel-, P- and T-type fractures, their fault terminations (horse-tail, wing cracks, branch faults etc.) and specific structural features at their step and bends (positive and negative flower structures, restraining or realising bends or step-overs) (Figs. 1 and 2). A variant of strike-slip faults are transpressive and transtensive faults where an important component of the slip vector parallel to the fault strike is coupled to a component of dip slip movement (either compressional or extensional).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Strike-slip structures and morphologies...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Geoscienze and CISAS, Università degli Studi di Padova, Padua, Italy

    Matteo Massironi

  2. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Pukyong National University, 45, Yongso-Ro, Daeyeon 3-Dong, Nam-Gu, 608-737, Busan, South Korea

    Young-Seog Kim

Authors
  1. Matteo Massironi
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  2. Young-Seog Kim
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Correspondence to Matteo Massironi .

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Massironi, M., Kim, YS. (2014). Strike-Slip Faults. In: Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9213-9_548-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9213-9_548-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-9213-9

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