Open AccessDrilling, Sampling, and Monitoring the Alpine Fault: Deep Fault Drilling Project—Alpine Fault, New Zealand; Franz Josef, New Zealand, 22–28 March 2009
Author(s) -
Townend John
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1029/2009eo360004
Subject(s) - geology , drilling , seismology , fault (geology) , scientific drilling , sinistral and dextral , fault scarp , strike slip tectonics , mechanical engineering , engineering
Several fundamental geological and geophysical phenomena are associated with the midcrust. These include the transitions from brittle to ductile behavior and from unstable to stable frictional sliding; earthquake nucleation; maximum crustal stresses; and mineralization associated with permeable fractures. However, knowledge of deformation, seismogenesis, and mineralization in the midcrust is based largely on remote geophysical observations of active faults and direct geological observations of fossil faults. The Alpine Fault is a major dextral‐reverse fault that is thought to fail in large earthquakes ( M w ≈ 7.9) every 200–400 years and to have last ruptured in 1717 C.E. Ongoing uplift has rapidly exhumed a crustal section from 20‐to 30‐kilometer depths, yielding a young (<∼1‐million‐year‐old), well‐preserved sample of structures currently active at depth. The Deep Fault Drilling Project (DFDP) proposes to drill, sample, and monitor the Alpine Fault to better understand processes of rock deformation, seismogenesis, and mineralization.