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By looking at the age of rock in the center one can tell whether it is an anticline or a syncline.The older rocks tend to be exposed in the center on an eroded anticline as one would notice if one studied a geological map. The youngest rocks are exposed in the center of an eroded syncline.

Not only are Geological maps educational, as I have just explained, but they are able to show a person the compressional faults (two walls pushing themselves together), hanging walls, footwalls, and tensional faults (the two walls pulling themselves apart. One can see by a geological map that hanging walls tend to move relative to the footwall depending on whether the fault is compressional or tensional.If the fault is compressional the hanging wall tends to move up relative to the footwall. If the fault is tensional the hanging wall tends to move down relative to the footwall.