Faults in Houston

Maps & Figures

Faults & The City

Over 300 active faults intersect the Earth’s surface in the Houston metropolitan area on the northern edge of the Gulf of Mexico basin. These surface faults have caused damage to:

• Buildings and houses
• Roads and highway structures
• Some pipelines have also been affected

FAULTS IN HOUSTON

Long Point Eureka Height Fault / Piney Point Fault.

Addicks Fault System

Hockley-Conroe Fault System

Origin

• These fault systems, located in nearby parts of Texas are believed to have formed millions of years ago during the formation of the Gulf of Mexico.
• Over 300 active faults intersect the earth's surface in the Houston Metropolitan.
• The various faults are characterized as normal faults, meaning that the downthrown side is in the direction of the dip of the fault plane.
• Salt tectonics and sediment influx have been suggested to be the primary driving factors of these faults.

Description of Fault Types

Introduction

• Longpoint Eureka Height Fault
• Hockley-Conroe Fault System
• Addicks Fault System
• Piney Point Fault

Planning Advice

• Even though faults can’t be controlled there are ways to minimize their damage and predict them ahead of time. This is why mapping plays a large role in city planning. Accurate maps of the Holocene surface faults provide developers with the ability to avoid zones of broken ground along the faults. This also gives insight on regional tectonics regarding the area. These faults have origins in the formation of the Gulf of Mexico.
• Lidar (radar light technology) is used to analyze the topography and elevation of areas to inspect faults and fault activity. There are about 300 surface faults in the Harris County region. Many of them are located within the salt domes of the southeast part of the county. While others are located in the northwest part of the county near highways Texas 6 and I-10, where there is constant sinking of the ground.
• The Long Point Eureka Heights Faults system is the system used to identify all the faults that run throughout the whole city of Houston. This includes areas that run beneath the metropolitan, southwest and northeast regions of the city, most of which are characterized as normal faults. Currently there are 150 surface faults still active in Houston.

As we can see above the Gulf of Mexico, Houston metropolitan area is intersected by many faults lines like indicated by Red dashed lines. These faults are the Hockley, Addicks, Long Point and the Pine Faults System detailed in Figure 2 by lidar Map.

REferences

Engelkemeir, R., & Khan, S. (2008, February 1). Lidar mapping of faults in Houston, Texas, USA. Retrieved December 1, 2015

Description of Fault Types

• To begin with, the Long Point Eureka Heights Fault is one of the more active faults in the Houston area, and is probably the most studied fault in the region, followed by the Addicks Fault System which extends from the Barker Reservoir northeastward toward Bush Intercontinental Airport. It’s also suggested to be an active fault running through northwest corner of the airport.
• Beside Long Point Eureka Heights Fault, and Addicks Fault, The Hockley-Conroe Fault System extends well outside of Harris County as we can see that highly dark red zone. Beneath Long Point Eureka Heights Fault is the Pine Point Fault. It’s the smallest fault system extending to Beltway 8, and around Memorial Forest.

Presented by: Mawier Deng, Jafar Kadir, Melissa Medrano, Thu Ngo, Davis Nnadi, Syed Razzaqi