Motion on the Alpine fault is not completely strike-slip. At the Alpine Fault, the two plates are locked, but in a large earthquake they grind past and into each other, pushing up the Southern Alps. English:Map of the Marlborough Fault System, the set of dextral strike-slip faults that accommodates the switch from the Alpine Fault to the Kermadec Trench along the plate boundary through New Zealand. The rocks at the Alpine Fault are under shear stress since the bodies of rock slip horizontally past each other. Water released from the Pacific Plate deep under North Island combines with the hot rock of the Australian Plate at about 100km depth and causes a small amount of that rock to melt. The type of plate boundary at the Alpine Fault is a transform boundary. Active crustal deformation is generally concentrated within plate boundary zones. The most famous example of this is the San Andreas Fault Zone of western North America. Normal Faults. Along the Alpine Fault the plates are not only moving past each other, they are also moving towards each other. It was first suggested by John Tuzo Wilson, a Canadian geophysicist, in 1965. The Alpine Fault crosses the South Island between the Puysegur subduction zone in the south and the Hikurangi subduction zone in the north (Fig. Transform plate boundaries occur where two lithospheric plate slide past each other horizontally along a single or a group of deep nearly vertical steep fault planes. A smaller number of transform faults cut continental lithosphere. Base is a screenshot from NASAWorldWind, from the free … Elsevier. Teachers and educators can turn online educational tests and quizzes into games directly from their browser to be used as review. What a Normal Fault Looks Like. The Alpine Fault runs for over 800km up the spine of the South Island. Students can play FREE, fun and interactive games to help prepare for exams, tests, and quizzes. It occurs between the Pacific Plate... See full answer below. The transform fault is simply a strike-slip fault as the plates move, the crust is fractured and broken. It forms a transform boundary between the Pacific Plate and the Indo-Australian Plate. T The Southern Alps have been uplifted on the fault over the last 12 million years in a series of earthquakes. The Alpine Fault runs for over 600km up the spine of Te Waipounamu, the South Island, along the western side of the Southern Alps. During the late Cenozoic, the fault increasingly became the locus of slip between the Australian and Pacific plates. Different from the periodic recurrence of earthquakes on fast-slipping and geometrically simple strike-slip faults, e.g., the Alpine Fault in New Zealand , we infer aperiodic earthquake behavior on the slow-slipping and the geometrically complex sinistral boundary between the African and Arabian plates. c) transform. It’s the "on-land" boundary of the Pacific and Australian Plates. To the south of New Zealand, and underneath Fiordland, the two plates are also moving toward each other but here the Australian Plate is being subducted under the Pacific Plate. Type. In the plot above the area of the circles correlates with the area percentage of samples occupied by the grain size. Geodetic measurements (Beavan et al., 1999) and offset glacial deposits (Fig. The Alpine Fault marks a transform boundary between the two plates, and further south the Indo-Australian Plate subducts under the Pacific Plate forming the Puysegur Trench. This horizontal movement causes Teachers / Educators: Create FREE classroom games with your questions like the ones on this site. Public domain Photo credit Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=67355. The Alpine Fault also ruptures, which leads to seismic activity as well as considerable horizontal movement, up to 30 m every 1000 years. Which way is the Philippine plate moving? The Alpine Fault is a geological fault, specifically a right-lateral strike-slip fault, that runs almost the entire length of New Zealand’s South Island. 1. d) The part of the Indo-Australian plate that holds Australia is moving away from the part of the plate that carries India. The southern part of Zealandia, which is to the east of this boundary, is the plate's largest block of continental crust. Once you know what type a fault is, you can predict what can happen there during an earthquake. It forms the sharp line separating the snow-covered Southern Alps in the east from the low coastal plain bordering the Tasman Sea in the west. At this location, two plates are sliding past each other slowly over time. Another major strike-slip fault that cuts across land is the Alpine fault in New Zealand that cuts across the south island. It runs as a single structure for over 500 km. The Alpine Fault is a geological right-lateral strike-slip fault. b) convergent. There is some uplift along it, and that has led to the development of the Southern Alps in the south island of New Zealand. Fax +64 3 479 7527 It forms the sharp line separating the snow-covered Southern Alps in the east from the low coastal plain bordering the Tasman Sea in the west. Boundary Type (C=Convergent, D=Divergent, or T=Transform) Year Observed (5, 10, or 20 million years) Geologic Events Observed (earthquakes, faults, ocean formation, mountains, volcanoes, island chains, seafloor spreading) Location One Himalayas 5 Event 1-20 Event 2-Location Two East Africa 5 Event 1-10 Event 2-20 Event 3-Location Three San Andreas fault zone 5 Event 1-10 Event 2-20 Event … Journal Article. b) Large amounts of stress builds up as plates move. This compressional movement is causing the Southern Alps to be uplifted at a rate of approximately 7 millimetres per year forming a high elongate mountain range parallel to the Alpine Fault. To play games using the questions from above, visit ReviewGameZone.com and enter game ID number: 23189 in the upper right hand corner or, Play Games with the Questions above at ReviewGameZone.com. Conversely, in the southwest of South Island where the Australian Plate is being subducted below the Pacific Plate, the deeper earthquakes occur on the southeast edge of the seismic zone where the Benioff zone dips steeply to the southeast. Normal faults are the result of extension when tectonic plates move away from each other. The Southern Alps have been formed over millennia by upthrust from successive earthquakes on the Alpine Fault. The earthquakes form this pattern occur where the Pacific Plate is being subducted under the Australian Plate. New Zealand’s Alpine Fault is a seismically active, “crust-busting” plate boundary fault. Deep earthquakes under North Island form a well defined band (seismic zone) running northeast from Marlborough through White Island. The Alpine Fault is located on the South Island of New Zealand. New Zealand, Tel +64 3 479 7519 Transform Plate Boundaries - Transform Fault. To the northeast of New Zealand, and underneath North Island, the Pacific Plate is moving towards, and being subducted below the Australian Plate. c) Very little stress builds up along the plates. It forms a transform boundary, so yes. Individual fault lines are usually narrower than their length or depth. @article{Langridge2010RevisedSR, title={Revised slip rates for the Alpine fault at Inchbonnie: Implications for plate boundary kinematics of South Island, New Zealand}, author={R. Langridge and P. Villamor and R. Basili and P. Almond and J. Here, the main part of South Island is being thrust over the Australian Plate on a bearing of about 250 degrees. The area of volcanic activity is referred to as the Taupo Volcanic Zone (see map above). a) divergent. a) There is little or no movement of rocks. Introduction. As the Pacific Plate is subducted below North Island, the part of the Australian Plate that makes up the central North Island is stretched and has, over many millions of years, become thinner than normal crust. The Alpine Fault is the dominant structure defining the Australian-Pacific plate boundary in the South Island of New Zealand. Transform Plate Boundaries are locations where two plates slide past one another. The subduction zone in the north is linked to the subduction zone in the south by a series of very large faults that run through Marlborough (Marlborough Fault System) and down the west coast of South Island (Alpine Fault). This fault has ruptured four times in the past 900 years, each time producing an earthquake of about magnitude 8. Langridge said researchers in California and New Zealand have a long history of earthquake science collaboration and are learning from each other about the treatment of active faults and fault segmentation for seismic hazard models. I’ve analyzed quartz grain size data from ~250 rocks spanning 170 km of the fault. At a transform boundary, two tectonic plates slide past each other. The Alpine Fault is considered to be a visible, “on-land” boundary of the two constituent plates, and also marks the transition from a transform to convergent boundary. They move in a series in a small rapid motions each of which is accompanied by one or more earthquakes. Most earthquakes strike less than 50 miles (80 kilometers) below the Earth’s surface. d) Most faults occur in middle of plates. Another example of a transform boundary on land is the Alpine Fault of New Zealand. Publisher. What plate boundary must exist at Alpine Fault? By the end of this activity, students should be able to: understand the movement of plate boundaries in different parts of New Zealand. A transform boundary forms between the Pacific Plate and the Indo-Australian Plate. New Zealand lies at the edge of both the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates. That is, the slip … The Alpine Fault, which runs for about 600km up the spine of the South Island, is one of the world’s major geological features. plate boundaries under the North and South Islands representing the North Island subduction zone and the South Island Alpine Fault. The San Andreas connects a divergent boundary in the Gulf of California with the Cascadia subduction zone. Dunedin 9054 This molten rock rises to the surface through the thinned crust and is either erupted from volcanoes like Ruapehu, Tongariro and Ngaruhoe or sits within the crust and heats it, and the water it contains, up causing geothermal activity around Taupo and Rotorua. The Australian and Pacific Plates generally don't move smoothly past each other. Normal faults, or extensional faults, are a type of dip-slip fault. This means that the fault neither creates nor destroys the lithosphere. Shallow earthquakes tend to occur to the southeast of this seismic zone, while the deeper ones occur towards the northwest. Transform Fault Boundaries is the third type of plate boundaries in which the plates slide past with each other horizontally as shown in the figure 1 below. It runs as a single structure for over 500 km. Date 2009. Earthquakes along the fault, and the associated earth movements, have formed the Southern Alps. They occur when the hanging wall drops down and the footwall drops down. Relative movement across the Marlborough Fault System is dextral or right-lateral. Another example of a transform boundary on land is the Alpine Fault of New Zealand. The fracture region that makes up a transform plate boundary is known as the transform fault. The Alpine Fault is a geological fault that runs almost the entire length of New Zealand's South Island (c. 480 km) and forms the boundary between the Pacific Plate and the Indo-Australian Plate. The Alpine Fault is a geological fault, known as a right-lateral strike-slip fault, that runs almost the entire length of New Zealand's South Island. The San Andreas connects a divergent boundary in the Gulf of California with the Cascadia subduction zone. The Alpine Fault is a major plate boundary structure, which accommodates up to 50-80% of the total plate boundary motion across the South Island of New Zealand. Strike-slip faults have walls that move sideways, not up or down. This pattern of deeper earthquakes towards the northwest of North Island reflects the northwest dip (or slope) of the boundary between the two plates (the Benioff zone). The Alpine Fault cuts through New Zealand. Collections. Understanding the behavior of plate boundary faults and the recurrence of major earthquakes along these faults is critical for understand-ing seismic hazards. The Alpine Fault occurs at a transform boundary. The Alpine Fault is sometimes compared with California's San Andreas Fault, being another fast-moving strike slip fault near a plate boundary. © Department of Geology click "search options" again to close the pull down or refresh the page, d) both convergent and divergent boundaries. The Marlborough Fault System is a series of subparallel strike-slip faults which run northeast-southwest. It’s the part of the active boundary between the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates where they intersect on land. Transform boundaries also form on larger scales on land like the San Andreas fault in Western North America and the Alpine fault in New Zealand. Like all plate boundaries, the movement of crust along transform and strike-slip faults creates earthquakes. Contains online school games for kids. Email geology@otago.ac.nz, Structure, Environment, Reaction, Petrology, Geology along the Otago Central Rail Trail, http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=67355, Find the Otago Students’ Geological Society on. The Alpine Fault is the dominant structure defining the Australian-Pacific plate boundary in the South Island of New Zealand. 8.2a). The Australian plate is sliding horizontally towards the north-east, at the same time as the Pacific plate is pushing up, forming the Southern Alps. Although the New Zealand plate boundary is often described as simply two subduction zones linked by the transpressive Alpine Fault, in actuality the present is merely a snapshot view of an ongoing and complex evolution from convergence to subduction. PO Box 56 Interested in finding out more about the Alpine Fault? The Alpine Fault is called a strike slip or transform fault. Which type of plate boundary is responsible for producing most of the earthquakes in these two belts? 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