Alpine Fault

The Alpine Fault (English Alpine Fault) is a geological fault in the type of a right-handed strike-slip fault, which almost crosses the South Island (South Iceland ) New Zealand the entire length. She is a transform fault and forms the boundary between the Pacific Plate and the Indo -Australian plate. At her often earthquakes occur, and the movements of the warp are the reason for the formation of the Southern Alps. The uplift of the Southern Alps is due to the fact that the movement of the tectonic plates not here runs exactly parallel to the Alpine Fault, but at a slight angle, so that it comes to defer the eastern side.

Course

The Alpine Fault is generated in the Macquarie Fault Zone in the Puysegur trench in front of the south-western end of the South Island. From there it runs on the western end of the Southern Alps along before north of Arthur 's Pass is divided into a number of smaller right- slip faults, as the Marlborough Fault Zone ( Marlborough Fault System) is known. This zone consists of individual dislocations, including the Wairau fault, the Hope fault, the Awatere fault and the Clarence fault, and transmits the fault offset between the Alpine Fault and the Hikurangi Trench, a subduction zone north of New Zealand. As the main continuation of the Alpine Fault, the Hope fault is considered.

The mean rates of movement in the central portion of the fault are about 30 mm per year, and are very high by world standards. The movements on the Alpine Fault have led to Zealandia, the New Zealand micro- continent surrounding, was cut so that both halves were offset by about 500 km.

Historical earthquakes

Some larger earthquakes on the Alpine Fault and its northern continuations occurred in historical times:

Large fracture movements

The movements on the Alpine Fault and its southern as northward continuation lead to ever- smaller fractions play movements, and large fractures are also not rare.

In the last thousand years, four more fracture movements have occurred on the Alpine Fault, the earthquake with a magnitude generated above 8. They occurred after paleoseismic investigations at a distance of about 100 to 350 years, namely in 1100, 1450, 1620 and 1717 AD The last of these movements break in 1717 seems to have affected about 400 km of the Alpine Fault. Because since that event have passed almost three hundred years, to such an event could happen again at any time.