Refining the extent and depth of the shear zone surrounding the Alpine
Fault using receiver function harmonics
Abstract
Large continental transform faults are thought to cross-cut the crust
and extend into the lithospheric mantle. However, the strain
distribution associated with these faults at mantle depths is not well
understood. At the heart of this question is the rheology of the
lithosphere: when stressed by displacement on a trans-crustal fault,
does the uppermost mantle localize strain in a continuing narrow fault
zone, or is that strain instead distributed in a shear zone that widens
with increasing depth? This study uses harmonic decomposition of
receiver functions to measure the spatial and depth distribution of
seismic anisotropy, a proxy for viscous deformation, around the Alpine
Fault in Aotearoa New Zealand. Anisotropy aligned with the fault is
present in the lithosphere at least 100 km away from the fault trace,
suggesting that the Alpine Fault shear zone widens at depth.