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A transform fault or transform boundary, is a fault along a plate boundary where the motion is predominantly horizontal. [1] It ends abruptly where it connects to another plate boundary, either another transform, a spreading ridge, or a subduction zone. [2] A transform fault is a special case of a strike-slip fault that also forms a plate boundary.
The Motagua Fault, which crosses through Guatemala, is a transform boundary between the southern edge of the North American plate and the northern edge of the Caribbean plate. New Zealand's Alpine Fault is another active transform boundary. The Dead Sea Transform (DST) fault which runs through the Jordan River Valley in the Middle East.
The western end of the GSC forms part of the boundary to the clockwise-rotating Galápagos microplate. [3] The eastern section runs for about 600 km from the southern end of the GT to the Inca Transform with a constant trend of N097°E. There are two main segments that overlap with a left-stepping offset with no transform developed at 87° W.
When these are drawn onto the diagram containing the velocity triangle these lines must be able to meet at a single point, for the triple junction to exist stably. These lines necessarily are parallel to the plate boundaries as to remain on the plate boundaries the observer must either move along the plate boundary or remain stationary on it.
Strike-slip tectonics or wrench tectonics is a type of tectonics that is dominated by lateral (horizontal) movements within the Earth's crust (and lithosphere).Where a zone of strike-slip tectonics forms the boundary between two tectonic plates, this is known as a transform or conservative plate boundary.
The San Andreas Fault in California is an example of a transform boundary exhibiting dextral motion. Other plate boundary zones occur where the effects of the interactions are unclear, and the boundaries, usually occurring along a broad belt, are not well defined and may show various types of movements in different episodes.
Some use the term “transform fault" to describe the seismically and tectonically active portion of a fracture zone after John Tuzo Wilson's concepts first developed with respect to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. [2] The term fracture zone has a distinct geological meaning, but it is also used more loosely in the naming of some oceanic features.
Oceanic crust age differences and ridge-ridge transform faulting associated with offset mid-ocean ridge segments lead to the formation of fracture zones. A fracture zone is a linear feature on the ocean floor—often hundreds, even thousands of kilometers long—resulting from the action of offset mid-ocean ridge axis segments.