What do fault lines do?

Question

WTF DO THEY DO!!!!!???

Answer 1

Fault lines are where continental plates meet.   When the plates meet, rub together and shift it creates earthquakes.  I should know, I live in Southern California where we have a lot of quakes.

Answer 2

In geology a fault, or fault line, is a planar rock fracture which shows evidence of relative movement. Large faults within the Earth's crust are the result of differential or shear motion and active fault zones are the causal locations of most earthquakes. Earthquakes are caused by energy release during rapid slippage along a fault. A fault which runs along the boundary between two tectonic plates is called a transform fault.

Since faults do not usually consist of a single, clean fracture, the term fault zone is used when referring to the zone of complex deformation that is associated with the fault plane. The two sides of a non-vertical fault are called the hanging wall and footwall. By definition, the hanging wall occurs above the fault and the footwall occurs below the fault. This terminology comes from mining. When working a tabular ore body the miner stood with the footwall under his feet and with the hanging wall hanging above him.

Answer 3

San Andreas Fault is a transform fault, where the Pacific and North Americna plate meet.

Answer 4

I will make this simple:

Fault lines are fractures in rock which have showed displacement. That is, where the rock along one side of the fracture has moved quicker or in a different direction than the other side. It does not matter which direction the movement is, it can be in any direction. Also, fault lines DO NOT just occur at plate boundaries, they can occur in any rock mass where there is strain or stress.

Cheers,

Andrew