Earth Science
NAME ______________________________________________
LAB: FAULTS AND FOLDS
OBJECTIVES: The student will:
1. Construct diagrams of normal, reverse and strike-slip faults
2. Construct a diagram of a fold and indicate areas of tension,
compression and shearing
3. Indicate where joints would occur in a fold and
explain how they might affect weathering
Hanging Wall
MATERIALS: Two fault blocks, three layers of foam, colored pencils,
Prentice Hall Science Explorer: Inside Earth textbook
Foot Wall
PROCEDURE:
1. In a normal fault, the “hanging wall”
goes down. Make a normal fault with
your blocks and draw it here. Label
the hanging wall and the foot wall.
2. Does this fault result from tension or compression? _______________________________
3. What type of tectonic boundary does this fault represent? __________________________
4. Which fault wall is showing, the foot wall or hanging wall? __________________________
5. In a reverse fault, the hanging wall goes up/ Make a reverse fault with your blocks and draw it
below. Label the hanging wall and the foot wall.
6. Does this fault result from tension or compression? _________________________________
7. What type of tectonic boundary does this fault represent? __________________________
8. Which fault wall is showing, the foot wall or hanging wall? __________________________
9. In a strike-slip fault, the movement of the ground is horizontal along the fault, side to side.
Make a strike-slip fault with your blocks and draw it using an aerial view (from overhead).
10. Which type of force produces a strike-slip fault? ___________________________________
11. Which fault wall is showing, the foot wall or hanging wall? __________________________
12. Place the three layers of foam, in different colors, on top of each other. Push in equally on both
ends, moving each end in about six inches. Make a drawing of the fold here, and label it as an
“anticline”. Label the areas of the anticline that undergo tension or compression.
13. In what area of the fold would “joints” (cracks) most likely occur, due to stress? Draw them on
your diagram?
14. How would this joint pattern affect the weathering (breaking down) of these rock layers?
15. A “syncline” is a sag, the reverse of an anticline. Draw and label one below.
Reinforcement
1. Explain the miner's method of naming faults. Use a simple diagram showing the shaft, fault
line, hanging wall, and footwall for normal and reverse faults. How did the walls get their
names?
2. Name and describe the types of faults and folds that form in convergent margins. Use a
simple diagram to illustrate your answer.
3. Name and describe the types of faults that form in a rift valley/mid-ocean ridge. Explain
why normal faults form at divergent boundaries. Use simple diagrams to illustrate both
answers.
4. Name and describe the types of faults that form along a transform boundary. Use a simple
diagram to illustrate your answer.
Faults, Plate Boundaries and Relative Motion
Relative Motion of
Layers or Plates
Tension
Compression
Shearing or ho
horizontal slip
Fault Names
Plate Boundary
Description
Divergent (moving
apart, spreading, new
lithosphere is added)
Convergent (collision,
seduction, moving
toward, one plate thrust
on top of another)
Transform (translation,
slide)
Related Tectonic and
Geological Features
Rifts, shallow
earthquake, valley
Folded mountain
ranges, uplift, volcano,
deep ocean trench,
shallow and deep
earthquakes on
subducted slab
Steps between offset
fault segments, oceanic
facture zones, offset of
mid-ocean ride, deep
earthquakes