New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics abstracts

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Rate of co-seismic strain release in the northern South Island, New Zealand

CHRIS PEARSON

Geology Department
University of Otago
P.O. Box 56
Dunedin, New Zealand*

*Present address: Lamont Doherty Geological Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, U.S.A.

Abstract Rates of co-seismic strain release over the last 150 years calculated from the moment tensors of large (M > 7) historic earthquakes, and strain rates calculated from models of relative plate motions, are generally consistent in the northern South Island, with the rate of seismic activity accommodating about 70% of the relative plate motions. There is some evidence that the distribution of seismicity within the region during the historical period is atypical, because 85% of the co-seismic strain release occurs west of the plate boundary, whereas geological data suggest that 60% of the relative plate movements are accommodated on the Marlborough faults, which are located on or east of the plate boundary.

Keywords Marlborough; seismotectonics; moment tensor summation

Received 24 July 1991; published 25 June 1993
New Zealand Journal of Geology & Geophysics, 1991, Vol. 36: 161—166
0028Ð8306/06/3602—0161 ©The Royal Society of New Zealand 1991

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (1295K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process). Digitisation of this article from the printed journal was kindly facilitated by the Geological Society of New Zealand

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