Hikurangi Trench
The Hikurangi Trench, also called the Hikurangi Trough, is an
Tonga trenches represent the parts of the subduction zone where oceanic crust of the Pacific Plate
is subducting beneath oceanic crust of the Indo-Australian Plate.
Although shallower than the trenches north of it, the Hikurangi Trench reaches depths of 3,000 metres as close as 80 kilometres from shore. Its maximum depth is about 3,750 metres (12,300 ft).[1]
At the southern end of the trench, off the coast of the
whales for which the town of Kaikōura
is famous.
The plate boundary continues inland along the
Marlborough Fault System, linking through to the Alpine Fault. Here the plates converge much more obliquely, exhibiting transpression
instead of subduction.
See also
References
- ^ Keith B. Lewis, Jean-Yves Collott and Serge E. Lallemand (1998). The dammed Hikurangi Trough: a channel-fed trench blocked by subducting seamounts and their wake avalanches (New Zealand-France GeodyNZ Project), Basin Research 10, 441-468.
- R. Wally Johnson; Jan Knutson; Stuart Ross Taylor; Australian Academy of Science (1989). Intraplate Volcanism: In Eastern Australia and New Zealand. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-38083-6.
39°44′S 178°38′E / 39.74°S 178.64°E
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