Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Earth's lithosphere, the rigid outer shell of the planet including the crust and upper mantle, is fractured into seven or eight major plates (depending on how they are defined) and many minor plates or "platelets". Where the plates meet, their relative motion determines the type of plate boundary (or fault): convergent, divergent, or transform ...
As the plates on either side of an offset mid-ocean ridge move, a transform fault forms at the offset between the two ridges. [2] Fracture zones and the transform faults that form them are separate but related features. Transform faults are plate boundaries, meaning that on either side of the fault is a different plate.
The junction of the Queen Charlotte, Fairweather, and Transition faults is located at the southeastern tip of the Yakutat block, an oceanic plateau and microplate. [8] The southern boundary of the QCF is marked by the complex Pacific–North American–Explorer triple junction off the coast of southern British Columbia. [8]