TRANSFORM FAULT BOUNDARY

By: Group 3
 DEFINITION

• Transform fault
boundary, or simply
transform boundary, is a
zone between two plates
that slide-past one
another horizontally.
 FACTS AND CHARACTERISTICS

• When they occur on the sea floor, they form oceanic fracture zones. While on
land, they produce faults.
• Transform boundaries neither creates nor destroys a crust, hence it is also
called conservative boundary.
• Plates separated by a transform fault do not glide past each other. Friction in
the rocks causes the plates to lock. The strain in the rocks slowly increases
until they fracture. The sudden release of energy is what we feel during an
earthquake.
• The San Andreas Fault is the transform boundary between the North American
Plate and the Pacific Plate. During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake the
northern section of the San Andreas Fault slipped northward along the fault
from San Juan Bautista to Cape Mendocino, a total of 296 miles (477km).
• Most transform faults are found in the ocean where they offset spreading
ridges creating a zigzag pattern between the plates.
 EXAMPLES

• San Andreas Fault - The San

Andreas Fault is the
sliding boundary between the
Pacific Plate and the North
American Plate. It slices
California in two from Cape
Mendocino to the Mexican
border. San Diego, Los
Angeles and Big Sur are on
the Pacific Plate. San
Francisco, Sacramento and
the Sierra Nevada are on the
North American Plate.
 ST. PAUL,
ROMANCHE

• the mid-oceanic
ridge transform zone
is located in Atlantic
Ocean between
South America and
Africa.
 MI D D L E E A S T
DEAD SEA
T R A N S F O R M FA U LT

• The fault system forms

the transform
boundary between
the African Plate to the
west and the Arabian
Plate to the east.
 THE ALPINE
FAULT

• is a geological fault,
specifically a 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.
 NON-
EXAMPLES

• The collision between the

Eurasian Plate and the
Indian Plate that is
forming the Himalayas.
 BOUNDARY
BETWEEN
EURASIAN AND
INDIAN PLATE
 MID AT LANT IC
RI DGE BORDE RS
OF NORT H
AME RI CAN AND
E URASIAN PL AT E