How are folds and faults created?

When the Earth's crust is pushed together via compression forces, it can experience geological processes called folding and faulting. Folding occurs when the Earth's crust bends away from a flat surface. Faulting happens when the Earth's crust completely breaks and slides past each other.

a)Folding occurs when tectonic processes put stress on a rock, and the rock bends, instead of breaking. This can create a variety of landforms as the surfaces of the folded rocks are eroded.

b)A fault is formed in the Earth's crust as a brittle response to stress. Generally, the movement of the tectonic plates provides the stress, and rocks at the surface break in response to this. Faults have no particular length scale.