Rollover is the folding of hanging-wall fault blocks by bending or collapse in response to slip on nonplanar--commonly listric--normal faults. The shapes of rollover folds are controlled by a number of variables, including (1) the shape of the fault, (2) the total fault slip after a bed is deposited, (3) the direction of relative particle motion in hanging-wall collapse, (4) the history of sedimentation rate relative to fault slip rate, and (5) compaction. The importance and role of each of these variables is illustrated by a two-dimensional balanced structural modeling technique that treats continuously curved faults as though composed of a large number of straight fault segments. In this modeling, an active axial surface, oriented parallel to the direction of relative p rticle motion in hanging-wall collapse, emanates from each fault bend and is the instantaneous locus of folding. The quantitative correctness of this theory of rollover is tested by modeling natural structures from the Gulf of Mexico for which both fault shape and fold shape are known from high-quality seismic and well sections.

The direction of hanging-wall collapse commonly is in the antithetic or synthetic normal-fault or Coulomb-shear orientations, although sliding along weak bedding planes also is an important collapse mechanism in some regions. Collapse is in the antithetic-shear direction for concave fault bends and in the synthetic-shear direction for convex bends. These collapse directions can be observed directly in some high-quality seismic images as axial surfaces emanating from fault bends. The shapes of rollovers within growth strata depend strongly on the sedimentation rate relative to fault slip rate, as well as the total slip after a bed is deposited. The crests of classic Gulf Coast rollovers are growth axial surfaces, along which are abrupt changes in sedimentation rate within the growth st atigraphic interval. These changes are produced by deformation of the sediment-water interface along active axial surfaces. Compaction can substantially modify the relationship between fault shape and rollover shape; however, under certain common conditions, the history of compaction can be neglected if the folding is modeled in the compacted state.