What type of plate boundary caused the Christchurch Earthquake 2011?
What type of plate boundary caused the Christchurch Earthquake 2011?
The earthquake’s epicentre was located some 25 miles (40 km) west of Christchurch near the town of Darfield, and the focus was located about 6 miles (10 km) beneath the surface. It was caused by right-lateral movement along a previously unknown regional strike-slip fault in the western section of the Canterbury Plains.
What tectonic plate is Christchurch New Zealand on?
New Zealand sits on top of the boundary between the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates. The two plates slip past each other in the South Island, creating the Alpine Fault. Over time, the motion has built the Southern Alps.
What type of plate boundary causes earthquakes and volcanoes in New Zealand?
Pacific Plate
New Zealand lies along the convergent boundary of the westward-moving Pacific Plate and the northward-moving Australian Plate. The interaction as these plates collide is responsible for much of New Zealand’s geography.
What type of plate boundary is the Alpine Fault?
transform boundary
In the middle, the Alpine Fault is a transform boundary and has both dextral (right-lateral) strike-slip movement and uplift on the southeastern side. The uplift is due to an element of convergence between the plates, meaning that the fault has a significant high-angle reverse oblique component to its displacement.
Is New Zealand on a destructive plate boundary?
The relatively low-density continental crust of the North Island, which sits on the Australian plate, is forcing the dense oceanic crust on the Pacific plate beneath it in a process called subduction. This creates a so-called destructive plate margin that is nibbling away at the Pacific plate.
Is New Zealand on a conservative plate boundary?
More specifically New Zealand straddles the boundary between two tectonic plates – the Pacific and Australian plates. Here the plates rub past each other horizontally. This is most evident to geologists as the Alpine Fault that runs down the western spine of the land mass.
What caused the Christchurch Earthquake 2011?
The earthquake was caused by the rupture of a 15-kilometre-long fault along the southern edge of the city, from Cashmere to the Avon–Heathcote estuary. The fault slopes southward beneath the Port Hills and did not break the surface – scientists used instrument measurements to determine its location and movement.
Why is Christchurch vulnerable to earthquakes?
The city of Christchurch is vulnerable to shaking and liquefaction due to the foundation of alluvial sediment. Underlying these sediments are tectonic faults, only some of which have been identified (e.g., [51], [21]).
What fault line caused the Christchurch earthquake 2011?
Is New Zealand a transform plate boundary?
Transform Boundary – Alpine Fault, South Island, New Zealand The Alpine Fault is a geological fault, specifically a right-lateral strike-slip fault, that runs almost the entire length of New Zealand’s South Island. It forms a transform boundary between the Pacific Plate and the Indo-Australian Plate.
What was the cause of the New Zealand earthquake in 2011?
On the 22nd of February 2011, 12:51 pm a catastrophic earthquake hit Christchurch, New Zealand. The Australian Plate and the Pacific Plate share a convergent plate boundary. The earthquake was caused by the two plates being forced together for a long time.
How big was the earthquake in Christchurch in 2010?
According to GNS Science seismologists, the energy released in Christchurch was equivalent to a magnitude 6.7 earthquake. Although smaller in magnitude than the 2010 earthquake, the February earthquake was more damaging and deadly for a number of reasons.
How is the Alpine Fault related to the Canterbury earthquake?
But these earthquakes were related to the pressure exerted between the two great plates, of which the Alpine Fault is the most explicit sign. Instead of fracturing at the boundary, these recent earthquakes involved fractures within fragments of the Pacific Plate on which Canterbury lies.
What was the name of the fault in Christchurch?
This raised part of the Port Hills and part of southern Christchurch. This type of fault motion is called reverse faulting. The deeper parts of the fault, and the westernmost 5 to 6 kilometres of the fault slipped predominantly horizontally by a few tens of centimetres.
