backthrusting

The act or process of thrusting backward, typically in a physical, mechanical, or figurative sense, such as a counteraction or retrograde motion.

Noun

  1. The act or process of thrusting backward, typically in a physical, mechanical, or figurative sense, such as a counteraction or retrograde motion.
    • The backthrusting of tectonic plates can cause reverse faults in geological structures.
    • Folds are overturned toward the east, and the upper blocks of major thrusts moved from west to east, with local sympathetic backthrusting from east to west. - 1951 April, Preston Cloud, Reconnaissance Geology of Guam...
    • The cause of the backthrusting is equivocal. - 1996, P.K. Sims, L.M.H. Carter, editor, Archean and Proterozoic Geology of the Lake Superior Region, U.S.A., 1993 (U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PROFESSIONAL PAPER; 1556), UNITED...

Forms

backthrustings

Verb

  1. present participle of backthrust