What type of fault moves when the hanging wall rises relative to the footwall?

A reverse fault is a fault on which the hanging wall rises relative to the footwall.

The movement results from compression, meaning the rocks are pushed together. Reverse faults may form at convergent plate boundaries, where tectonic plates collide. A low-angle reverse fault is called a thrust fault, and large thrust faults beneath subduction zones can generate powerful megathrust earthquakes.

The terms hanging wall and footwall come from the position of the fault plane. If a person could stand in a tunnel cut along the fault, the block above the inclined plane would be the hanging wall, while the block below it would be the footwall.

Reverse faults differ from normal faults, where the hanging wall moves downward under extension. Strike-slip faults instead involve mainly horizontal movement, so the direction of motion is the key classification feature.