Houston area fault lines

This report, prepared by the U. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Harris-Galveston Coastal Subsidence District, documents and refines the locations of principal faults mapped in the Houston, Texas, metropolitan area in previous studies. Shuhab Khan, an assistant professor in the GeoSciences Department at the University of Houston, says we might tend to take this nuisance for granted. Therefore, in tens of years, or maybe, five to ten years, walls are gonna be breaking, driveways would have damages, roads would be repaired time and again.

Fault lines occur from the constant movement of these plates. Dr Khan tells how he became interested in the faults of Houston. When I looked at that data, we found amazing features, linear features.

The Addicks subsidence depression is not clearly seen in the residual, and the hillshade shows only drainages, streets, and NE-trending fault scarps. Figure 5. The image in the upper left is the lidar DEM.

The hillshaded image on the lower right shows the location of the scarp. A yellow line segment shows the location of the topographic profile on both images.

The photo is looking updip along the west side of Bunker Hill. Note tilted sidewalk slabs along scarp face. Red lines from the topographic profile lead to corresponding locations on the photo. Figure 6. Comparison of portion of Long Point Fault mapped with lidar and previously published versions. Note that the fault trace from Fisher is inappropriate for a map at this scale Figure 7.

Comparison of orthophoto with lidar for fault detection. Location of map is shown in Figure 4 , A Hillshade of lidar DEM. The fault is clearly visible trending west to east through the pit.

Figure 9. Photograph of a m—long crack in the pavement of a parking lot in Houston. The photo is looking east along the scarp of the Long Point Fault. A slight inclination to the south to the right can be observed on the hanging wall. Francis Street. East-west segment of trace on east side of street runs along the property line between two houses. The kink is due to grading the lot on the south side.

With ongoing fault movement, the house not shown on the south side of the scarp is at risk. Lidar hillshaded image of several branches of the Long Point Fault. Location is shown in Figure 4 , Figure 8. Model for scarp formation after Verbeek and Clanton, In this cut-and-fill process, erosion removes material from the footwall and deposits it on the hanging wall. C Slope aspect map derived from lidar DEM.

The Long Point Fault is hard to identify. Slope aspect shows the dip direction for each DEM pixel. D Slope map derived from lidar DEM. Slope shows the magnitude of dip, with red indicating high slope and green indicating low slope. B The Long Point Fault is not visible in the orthophoto, except for a slight change in tone within a water detention pond pit , built on a site previously occupied by an apartment complex. Sign In or Create an Account. User Tools.

Sign In. Advanced Search. Skip Nav Destination Article Navigation. Research Article February 01, Engelkemeir ; Richard M. Google Scholar. Shuhab D. Khan Shuhab D. Geosphere 4 1 : — Article history received:.

The Geological Society of America, Inc. View large Download slide. B Photograph looking east across St. Volume 4, Number 1.

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Citing articles via Web of Science Email alerts Article activity alert. Early publications alert. New issue alert. Related Articles. Near-surface geophysical studies of Houston faults The Leading Edge. Rapid mapping of ultrafine fault zone topography with structure from motion Geosphere. Figure 8 - A typical change in the level of the road across a Growth Fault. Figure 9 - A camera placed on the roadway on the Footwall of the fault zone.

Photo by Thomas Danner ca. Figure 10 - Another typical dip in the roadway caused by a Growth Fault. Photo by Thomas Danner ; ca. Figure 11 - One can clearly see the effects of the Long Point Fault running underneath this building.

Note the left side of the building that has been down-dropped. Figure 12 - Here the effects of the Long Point Fault are displayed the the twisting of the doors in the door-frame as well as the cracking in the asphalt as the right side of the photo is dropped relative to the left side of the photo.