First Stop! New Zealand!

Hello everybody, I just landed on the Southern Island of New Zealand!

Latitude: 27°59′17″ N
Longitude: 86°55′31″E

The weathers about 20 degrees warmer than Seattle so I am very happy and ready to jump into the fun topic of PLATE TECTONICS! I’m visiting the Alpine Fault. 

The Alpine Fault (fracture in rock) runs throughout almost the entire length of New Zealands South Island. It forms a transform boundary between Pacific Plate and the Indo-Australians Plate. 

Transform Plate Boundaries are locations where two plates slide past one another. The fracture zone that forms a transform plate boundary is known as a transform fault. Most transform faults are found in the ocean basin and connect offsets in the mid-ocean ridges. A smaller number connect mid-ocean ridges and subduction zones.

Transform faults are also locations of recurring earthquake activity and faulting. The earthquakes are usually shallow because they occur within and between plates that are not involved in subduction. Volcanic activity is normally not present because the typical magma sources of an upwelling convection current or a melting subducting plate are not present.

Over the last thousand years, there have been four major ruptures along the Alpine Fault causing earthquakes of about magnitude 8.0. You can compare this to the recent earthquake in Japan which was 9.0 and very destructive. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alpine_Fault_SRTM.jpg

 This map, colored by elevation (white being high points), shows how the Alpine Fault affects the topography of the South Island's West Coast.