A fault is a fracture in the earth’s crust due to tension force. It can also occur due tocompression in hard and brittle rocks.
When there is tension the crust ruptures. One block is thrown upwards and the otherdownwards. The upthrown block is called Horst while the downthrown block is calledGraben. The line along which the fault occurs is called strike. This fault is called normal
fault and is most common. In case of a normal fault, new surface is generated in theform of scarp.
When there is compression, in case of hard rocks instead of folding, the faulting occurs.The block with hanging wall is thrown upwards while the one with footwall is throwndownwards. This is called a reverse fault. In case of a reverse fault there is netdestruction of the surface.
When the forces are acting parallel to each other, along the line of fault the blocks movepast each other without being upthrown or downthrown. This is called lateral fault.
The landforms formed due to faulting of land are block mountains, rift valleys, StepMountains, hinge faults, scissors fault etc.