Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-year-2-of-the-earth-sciences-geology-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2023/paper-1/3/b/ii/solution

A reverse fault can create a sharp mountain front by raising its hanging wall beside a lower footwall. Drainages entering the rising block may be deflected along the front or cut narrow gorges across it. In cross-section, draw a dipping fault with the hanging wall displaced up-dip and a surface-height contrast above the trace.
In Attachment A, mark the approximately east–west to west-northwest–east-southeast break between the southwestern mountain block and the central basin. Its approximate image coordinates run from through and to . The abrupt topographic change and diversion of drainage along this front support the reverse faulting interpretation. It is the southern margin of the central basin, not the much straighter oblique valley farther northeast. The original interpretive figure gives a schematic section.

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