Alpine Fault

E612005

The Alpine Fault is a major geological fault in New Zealand that marks the boundary between the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates and is responsible for much of the uplift of the Southern Alps.

All labels observed (1)

Label Occurrences
Alpine Fault canonical 4

How this entity was disambiguated

Statements (48)

Predicate Object
instanceOf geological fault
plate boundary
transform fault
age Cenozoic
associatedProcess oblique convergence of Pacific and Australian plates
associatedRange Southern Alps
connectsTo Marlborough Fault System
Puysegur Trench region
continent Zealandia
country New Zealand
displacementSinceFormation hundreds of kilometres of lateral offset
earthquakeRecurrenceInterval about 200–400 years
exposes high-grade metamorphic rocks
mylonites
formedDuring Miocene
hazardLevel major seismic hazard for South Island
lastMajorRupture around 1717 CE
length about 600 km
locatedIn South Island
maximumHistoricalMagnitude about magnitude 8
monitoredBy GPS networks
seismographs
movementType dextral strike-slip
reverse faulting component
nearbyCity Greymouth
Queenstown
Wanaka
orientation southwest–northeast
orogeny Southern Alps orogeny
overlainBy Quaternary sediments in many places
partOf plate boundary between Pacific and Australian plates around New Zealand
passesNear Fox Glacier
Franz Josef Glacier
Hokitika
Milford Sound
region West Coast of the South Island
responsibleFor uplift of the Southern Alps
runsAlong western edge of the Southern Alps
separates Australian Plate
Pacific Plate
slipRate about 20–30 mm per year
studiedBy GNS Science
University of Otago
Victoria University of Wellington
tectonicSetting convergent plate boundary
terminusNear Fiordland
Marlborough Fault System
verticalUpliftRate about 5–10 mm per year

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (4)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.