Phys.org  December 12, 2024 An international team of researchers (USA – UC River Side, Japan, New Zealand) observed and further exhumed curved slickenlines on fault planes associated with paleo-surface rupture of the Alpine Fault in New Zealand’s continental transform plate boundary. Rupture modeling indicated that the geometry of such curvature provided a record of past earthquake rupture directions. They studied three sites that spanned a region known to variably halt or allow passage of past earthquakes to contribute rupture direction constraints to the fault’s paleoseismic record. In two sites they observed both convex-up and convex-down curved slickenlines on and adjacent […]