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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 transform fault of the southern fracture zone displaces the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, coming from the Azores triple junction, to the west over a distance of 120 km (75 mi). At longitude 31.75W a south to north seismically active rift valley with a length of 40 km (25 mi) connects the western end of the southern transform to the eastern end of the ...
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.
At the triple junction each of the three boundaries will be one of three types – a ridge (R), trench (T) or transform fault (F) – and triple junctions can be described according to the types of plate margin that meet at them (e.g. fault–fault–trench, ridge–ridge–ridge, or abbreviated F-F-T, R-R-R).
Globally most fault zones are located on divergent plate boundaries on oceanic crust. This means that they are located around mid-ocean ridges and trend perpendicular to them. The term fracture zone is used almost exclusively for features on oceanic crust; similar structures on continental crust are instead termed transform or strike slip ...
The 800-mile San Andreas Fault is one of the largest fault lines in the world. A meeting of the North American and Pacific tectonic plates, this transform fault (where two tectonic plates move ...
The Blanco fracture zone between the Gorda Ridge and the Juan de Fuca Ridge. The Blanco fracture zone or Blanco transform fault zone (BTFZ) is a right lateral transform fault zone, which runs northwest off the coast of Oregon in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, extending from the Gorda Ridge in the south to the Juan de Fuca Ridge in the north.
A special class of strike-slip fault is the transform fault when it forms a plate boundary. This class is related to an offset in a spreading center, such as a mid-ocean ridge, or, less common, within continental lithosphere, such as the Dead Sea Transform in the Middle East or the Alpine Fault in New Zealand. Transform faults are also referred ...