Thrusts are reverse faults and commonly dominate the structure of collision mountain belts. Some thrusts have moved a long way - many mountain belts have thrusts that have moved many tens of kilometres. The photograph above shows one such structure from the Alps - which carries basement of the Mont Blanc massif onto Jurassic sediments. Many thrusts can be shown to follow so-called staircase trajectories - you can find out about this by clicking here. Otherwise, explore the nature of thrust systems by selecting from the icons. The material introduces concepts used in the Leeds first year structure course but some aspects are suited to higher level studies.

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