ASBOG Practice Exam 2025 – Complete Preparation Guide

The range of dip angles for faults is effectively from 0 degrees to 90 degrees. This is because a fault represents a fracture in the Earth's crust along which there has been displacement. When considering the dip of a fault, it is defined as the angle at which the fault plane inclines from the horizontal.

A dip angle of 0 degrees would signify that the fault plane is completely horizontal, whereas a dip angle of 90 degrees represents a vertical fault. Most faults will fall within this range, as angles greater than 90 degrees would indicate that the fault is effectively just a reverse or other type of fault, rendered as a deformed region rather than a traditional fault.

The range of 1 to 180 degrees would not apply, as angles above 90 degrees would be a re-description of the same fault in the opposite direction, which is unnecessary and redundant. Similarly, a range of 0 to 360 degrees encompasses angles that do not pertain to the traditional definition of fault dip – angles over 180 degrees would suggest non-standard or non-physical orientations for faults in geological terms.

Therefore, the correct answer specifies the realistic and typical range of dip angle values that faults can exhibit, confirming that 0 to 90 degrees is the