Topic summary
Thrust faults
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Thrust fault.
Tectonic environment
Thrust faults occur in the foreland basin, marginal to orogenic belts. Here, compression does not result in appreciable mountain building, which is mostly accommodated by folding and stacking of thrusts. Instead, thrust faults generally cause a thickening of the stratigraphic section. When thrusts are developed in orogens formed in previously rifted margins, inversion of the buried paleo-rifts can induce the nucleation of thrust ramps.