Rationalized fault interpretation

Abstract

The ratio of the horizontal and vertical components of displacement along a fault can be used to determine the character of the faults, and the direction of the Principal Horizontal Stress. The technique is applied to field examples. A classification of faults, based on this ratio and the direction of the principal horizontal stress, is proposed and a new fault symbolism is suggested. The method is applied to fault-plane solutions proposed by Hodgson and tabulated by Scheidegger.