Fault scarp

The brittle result of a fault that ruptures the ground-surface.

When the upper tip of a seismogenic fault lies just below the ground-surface and if mechanical conditions allow so one of the coseismic effects of seismogenic faulting results in the generation or spatial growth of a scarp that can develop either by displacement and/or by lateral extent. The resulting morphology normally differs depending on the geometry type and sense of fault motion. It is prone to be smoothed by exogenous processes in the short term (i.e. rainfall) and by erosion and sedimentation at large in the medium to long term.