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The geology of New Zealand is noted for its volcanic activity, earthquakes and geothermal areas because of its position on the boundary of the Australian Plate and Pacific Plates. New Zealand is part of Zealandia, a microcontinent nearly half the size of Australia that broke away from the Gondwanan supercontinent about 83 million years ago. [1]
The Kermadec–Tonga subduction zone is a convergent plate boundary that stretches from the North Island of New Zealand northward. The formation of the Kermadec and Tonga plates started about 4–5 million years ago. Today, the eastern boundary of the Tonga plate is one of the fastest subduction zones, with a rate up to 24 cm/year (9.4 in/year ...
Map of the northern end of the Alpine Fault and Marlborough Fault System. The Pacific plate and Indo-Australian plate boundary forms the Macquarie Fault Zone in the Puysegur Trench off the southwestern corner of the South Island and comes onshore as the Alpine Fault just north of Milford Sound.
Major active fault zones of New Zealand showing variation in displacement vector of Pacific plate relative to Australian plate along the boundary. The Marlborough fault system (also known as Marlborough tectonic domain [2]) is a set of four large dextral strike-slip faults and other related structures in the northern part of the South Island, New Zealand, which transfer displacement between ...
This recent activity is primarily due to the country's position on the boundary between the Indo-Australian and Pacific Plates, a part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, and particularly the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the Indo-Australian Plate. New Zealand's rocks record examples of almost every kind of volcanism observed on Earth ...
The Hikurangi Subduction Zone is an active subduction zone extending off the east coast of New Zealand's North Island, where the Pacific and Australian plates collide. [2] [3] The subduction zone where the Pacific Plate goes under the Kermadec Plate offshore of Gisborne accommodates approximately 6 cm/year (2.4 in/year) of plate movement while off the Wairarapa shore this decreases to perhaps ...
The resulting displacement by approximately 500 km (310 mi) along the Alpine Fault is evident in geological maps. [1] Movement along this plate boundary also has offset the New Caledonia Basin from its previous continuation through the Bounty Trough. [citation needed]
An annotated relief map. New Zealand is located in the South Pacific Ocean at , near the centre of the water hemisphere. [4] It is a long and narrow country, extending 1,600 kilometres (990 mi) along its north-north-east axis with a maximum width of 400 kilometres (250 mi). [5]