You are standing on a huge fault. Or near a huge fault. Actually the entire face of the mountain that you see. The west side of the Wasatch front is a giant face of an Earthquake fault.
Below your feet as you head out into the valley are thousands upon thousands of feet of gravel, sand, etc that have filled the valley. By some reports the rock that all of this rock matches is the rock from the top of Mount Timpanogas. So you are looking at 5,000 to 6,000 feet above you, and the stone foundation is 6,000 feet below the surface of the valley.
From where you are you can look to the south and see a few faults in the roadcut that was made for the highway.
The faults here are pulling apart. The portion where the mountains are located Are pulling Eastward and the Valley is moving west. As you can no doublt tell, from the mountains, that they are also rising while the other portion is sinking into the valley as it moves west. (See figure #1)
Then as the fault pulls apart some of the material cracks as it rests on the other fault. Small faults develop from the stress of the ground moving away. (see figure 2).
Then those pieces fall over. Most likely the material from up slope pushes them over. Like a Domino. If there are a number of them exposed you can see that. They are sometimes also referred to as a bookshelf fault. Like when all the books tip sideways. In this instance the remaining faults that are created are ppointing downward to the fault wich causes it. (see figure 3)
The faults themselves can either be thin (a few inches across) or thicker (A few feet or more). Thinner faults are two large pieces of stone that just slide against each other. However often as the two faults move against each other they grind against each other tearing material from each side as they slide. The broken stone, is then cemented back together by pressure, and other minerals carried by water and is known as breccia.
Logging tasks - email me the answers through your profile.
1-Looking southward how many fault lines do you see in the roadcut?
2-Are they similar in angle, or do they vary?
3-Look at the various vaults, are they all the same thickness?
4-Where the faults move together, is it smooth transition, is the breccia makeup the same (sizes, colors, etc)?
Cross section image is from the USGS geological map of the Nebo area (similar in geology and faulting), and associated information.
Image of the faults here were created by my in all my horrible drawing skills.