Kingman, Arizona has many faults, and this is one of them. Faults are places where pressure has caused the rocks to break and move. The way the rocks break can tell us about that pressure. Was this fault caused by pressures pushing the rocks together or pulling them apart?
Answer:
It is easier to see this one if you have a piece of cardboard, a pen, and some scissors. Draw a few lines on the cardboard, to represent the layers of rock. Cut the cardboard diagonally, just as the fault runs in the photo. Lay the two pieces on a smooth, flat surface. Push the two pieces towards each other, and let them slide along the cut, just as the rocks would slide along the fault. By pushing them together, you get the opposite result from what we see in the picture.
If the pressure had been pushing the rocks together, the block on the left side would have been pushed upwards. Instead, the two blocks were pulled apart, causing the left hand block to move downwards in relation to the right block. This is called a normal or gravity fault.
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