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A transform fault or transform boundary, is a fault along a plate boundary where the motion is predominantly
A transform fault or transform boundary, is a fault along a plate boundary where the motion is predominantly horizontal
Horizontal may refer to:
*Horizontal plane, in astronomy, geography, geometry and other sciences and contexts
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. It ends abruptly where it connects to another plate boundary, either another transform, a spreading ridge, or a subduction zone. A transform fault is a special case of a ''strike-slip fault
In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tecton ...
'' that also forms a plate boundary.
Most such faults are found in oceanic crust
Oceanic crust is the uppermost layer of the oceanic portion of the tectonic plates. It is composed of the upper oceanic crust, with pillow lavas and a dike complex, and the lower oceanic crust, composed of troctolite, gabbro and ultramafi ...
, where they accommodate the lateral offset between segments of divergent boundaries, forming a zigzag pattern. This is a result of oblique seafloor spreading where the direction of motion is not perpendicular to the trend of the overall divergent boundary. A smaller number of such faults are found on land, although these are generally better-known, such as the San Andreas Fault
The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly through California. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is right-lateral strike-slip (horizontal) ...
and North Anatolian Fault.
Nomenclature
Transform boundaries are also known as conservative plate boundaries because they involve no addition or loss of lithosphere at the Earth's surface.