Fault scarp

Fault scarp

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Fault scarp

This fault scarp was created by the 1959 Hebgen Lake, Montana, earthquake. Photo taken August 19, 1959.

A fault scarp is the topographic expression of faulting attributed to the displacement of the land surface by movement along the fault. It can be caused by differential erosion along an old inactive geologic fault (a sort of old rupture) with hard & weak rock, or by a movement on an active fault. In many cases, bluffs form from the upthrown block and can be very steep. The height of the scarp formation is equal to the vertical displacement along the fault. Active scarps are usually formed by tectonic displacement, e.g. when an earthquake changes the elevation of the ground, and can be caused by any type of fault, including strike-slip faults, whose motion is primarily horizontal. This movement is usually episodic, with the height of the bluffs being the result of multiple movements over time. Displacement of around 5 to 10 meters per tectonic event is common.

Due to the dramatic uplift along the fault, the fault scarp is very prone to erosion, especially if the material being uplifted consists of unconsolidated sediment. Weathering, mass wasting and water runoff can soon wear down these bluffs. Fault scarps may be only a few centimeters or many meters high. Fault-line scarps are coincident with faults, but are most typically formed by the erosion of weaker rocks that have been brought alongside more resistant ones by the movement along the fault. In the case of old eroded fault scarps, active erosion may have moved the physical cliff back away from the actual fault location which may be buried beneath a talus, alluvial fan or the valley fill.

Notable characteristics

The rapid erosion of these bluffs can create defined V-shaped valleys along runoff channels. Adjacent V-shaped valley formations give the remaining fault spurs a very triangular shape. This formation is known as a triangular facet; however, this landform is not limited to fault scarps.

Examples

New Zealand's Maruia Falls after a storm

The Teton Range in Wyoming is an example of an active fault scarp. The dramatic topoography of the Tetons is due to the geologically recent activity on the Teton fault. The Hurricane Cliffs, west of Zion National Park in Utah is a prominent example of a fault scarp along an old essentially inactive fault. Other examples include the scarps bounding the East African Rift Valley and the Rio Grande Rift in New Mexico.

In other parts of the world, many fault scarps exist in the Eastern and Western Alps. In New Zealand a large scarp can be seen at Maruia Falls on the Shenandoah Highway, South Island. The 1929 Murchison Earthquake raised the upstream side by about four metres thereby creating a fault scarp and as a result also, a waterfall.