Transform fault
Transform fault
Geology
Introduction
Where tectonic plates slip horizontally past one another, lithosphere is neither created nor destroyed. Instead, blocks of crust are
torn apart in a broad zone of shearing between the two plates. Such boundaries are called transform plate boundaries because
they connect other plate boundaries in various combinations, transforming the site of plate motion. The grinding action between
the plates at a transform plate boundary results in shallow earthquakes, large lateral displacement of rock, and a broad zone of
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crustal deformation.
Perhaps nowhere on Earth is such a landscape more dramatically displayed than along the San Andreas Fault in western
California. The landscapes of Channel Islands National Park, Pinnacles National Park, Point Reyes National Seashore and many
other NPS sites in California are products of such a broad zone of deformation, where the Pacific Plate moves north-
northwestward past the rest of North America. Virgin Islands National Park in the U. S. Virgin Islands is located on another
transform plate boundary, where the Caribbean Plate is sliding past the oceanic part of the North American Plate.
Point Reyes National Seashore, California. Tomales Bay is the surface expression of the San Andreas Fault, seen in the photo
below. The granite rocks in the foreground are similar to those found in Yosemite National Park in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
They have been transported about 300 miles (500 kilometers) in a north-northwestward direction along the transform plate
boundary. The sedimentary and metamorphic rocks across the fault line are similar to those found in Redwood National and State
Parks on the North Coast of California. They were lifted out of the ocean as part of the accretionary wedge of an ancient
subduction zone.
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Shaded relief map of United States, highlighting National Park Service sites at Transform Plate Boundaries. Letters are abbreviations for NPS sites
listed in the table below.
Modified from “Parks and Plates: The Geology of our National Parks, Monuments and Seashores,” by Robert J. Lillie, New York, W. W. Norton and Company, 298
pp., 2005, www.amazon.com/dp/0134905172.
Caribbean [2 parks]
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The Pacific Plate slides north-northwestward past the North American Plate along the San Andreas Transform Plate Boundary. The San Andreas Fault is responsible for
most of the movement in western California, causing a sliver of the state to slide past the rest of the continent. In Mexico, a combinatiion of divergent and transform plate
boundary motion is opening the Gulf of California, causing the Baja Peninsula to separate from the rest of Mexico. Letters in ovals are abbreviations for NPS sites listed
above.
Modified from “Earth: Portrait of a Planet, by S. Marshak, 2001, W. W. Norton & Comp., New York.
Point Reyes National Seashore, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and Pinnacles National Park present landscapes
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affected by the main line of movement, the San Andreas Fault. Channel Islands National Park, Santa Monica Mountains National
Recreation Area and Joshua Tree National Park are within the Transverse Ranges, a block of crust that rotated as a result of the
shearing motion. Cabrillo National Monument south of San Diego also lies within the broad zone of deformation between the two
plates.
The transform plate boundary between the Pacific and North American Plates in western California formed fairly recently. About
200 million years ago, a large tectonic plate (called the Farallon Plate) started to subduct beneath the western edge of North
America. This resulted in a line of volcanoes stretching all the way from what is now Alaska to Central America. Beginning about
30 million years ago, so much of the Farallon Plate was consumed by subduction that the Pacific and North American plates were
in contact, forming the San Andreas transform plate boundary in western California. Over time, the San Andreas transform plate
boundary has grown longer as the Farallon Plate split into two separate plates—the Juan de Fuca Plate on the north, and the
Cocos Plate on the south. Remnants of the ancient volcanic mountain chain remain. In central and southern California, for
example, the volcanoes have largely eroded away and massive areas of granite from the cooled magma chambers form portions
of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, including Yosemite National Park.
As the mid-ocean ridge separating the Farallon and Pacific Plates entered the subduction zone, the Farallon Plate separated into
the Juan de Fuca and Cocos Plates. A transform plate boundary developed where the Pacific Plate was in contact with the North
American Plate and the volcanism ceased in central California. Farther east, the continent began to rift apart in the Basin and
Range Province.
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Today
The San Andreas Fault is just one of several faults that accommodate the transform motion between the Pacific and North
American plates. The plate boundary is a broad zone of deformation with a width of about 60 miles (100 kilometers). Along much
of the boundary, the bulk of the motion occurs along the San Andreas Fault. Point Reyes National Seashore and Golden Gate
National Recreation Area are the only two NPS sites that are right on the San Andreas Fault. Other parks in the region, namely
Pinnacles, Channel Islands and Joshua Tree national parks, Cabrillo National Monument and Santa Monica Mountains National
Recreation Area, reveal evidence of the shearing, rotation, and uplift that occurs within the broad zone of deformation between
the two plates.
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San Andreas Card Trick
Deformation along the transform plate boundary in California can be visualized by placing a deck of cards between your hands in
a praying position. Imagine that your left hand is the undeformed Pacific Plate, your right hand the intact North American Plate.
Notice what happens as you move your left hand away and slide your right hand toward you. The cards slip along their faces,
forming a broad zone of shearing between your unaffected hands. For western California, each slipping card face would be a
fault surface. The broad zone of transform motion between the Pacific and North American plates formed numerous slivers of
mountain ranges with narrow valleys in between. The valleys are commonly due to erosion along individual fault lines.
Sometimes the valleys are partially filled with water, as at Point Reyes National Seashore, where Tomales Bay and Olema Valley
follow the main trace of the San Andreas Fault.
For western California, your left As you slide your hands laterally Eventually the weakest card face
hand represents the rigid Pacific past one another, a broad zone of (the San Andreas Fault) dominates
Plate, while your right hand is like shearing develops as several card within the broad transform plate
the unaffected part of the North faces slip. boundary.
American Plate.
Shear Zones
Modified from “Beauty from the Beast: Plate Tectonics and the Landscapes of
the Pacific Northwest,” by Robert J. Lillie, Wells Creek Publishers, 92 pp., 2015,
www.amazon.com/dp/1512211893.
The San Andreas Fault is just one of many active earthquake faults in a broad zone of shearing along the transform plate
boundary in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault can greatly upset cities along its length, including the San Diego, Los Angeles, and San
Francisco/Oakland areas. But it’s interesting to note that this region is so heavily populated because of the same tectonic forces
that sometimes shake it up with such violent consequences during earthquakes. These forces also create a sheared-up
landscape that includes spectacularly beautiful coastlines and economically important harbors. Thousands of earthquakes over
millions of years have built this landscape not only along the major fault line—the San Andreas Fault—but also on other faults
within the broad zone of shearing between the Pacific and North American plates.
The cumulative movement within the broad San Andreas transform plate boundary has had dramatic effects on a landscape that
initially developed as part of an ocean/continent subduction zone. For example, rocks found today in Point Reyes National
Seashore north of San Francisco were originally part of the line of granite rocks formed beneath ancient subduction zone
volcanoes. The plate motion has plucked the rocks from their original position and moved them more than 300 miles north-
northwestward to their current position at Point Reyes. Other rocks in the San Francisco Bay Area were originally part of an
accretionary wedge, similar to rocks found today in the coastal ranges of the Cascadia Subduction Zone in northern California,
Oregon, and Washington.
The transform plate boundary is a broad zone forming as the Pacific Plate slides northwestward past the North American Plate. It
includes many lesser faults in addition to the San Andreas Fault.
Parks near the coast, including Point Reyes National Seashore, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and Pinnacles National
Park, contain volcanic and plutonic rocks that were plucked from the edge of the North American Plate and transported tens to
hundreds of miles northwestward as part of the Pacific Plate.
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The San Andreas Fault is part of a transform plate boundary that disrupts
the topography of an ancient subduction zone. Letters in ovals are
abbreviations for NPS.
Modified from “Earth: Portrait of a Planet, by S. Marshak, 2001, W. W. Norton &
Comp., New York.
National Park Service sites along the transform plate boundary in California contain rocks formed during the earlier subduction
that occurred in western North America. Like modern subduction zones, the region had an accretionary wedge (Coast Range), a
forearc basin (Great Valley), and a volcanic arc (Sierra Nevada). The accretionary wedge rocks are found in Channel Islands
National Park, Golden Gate and Santa Monica Mountains national recreation areas and Cabrillo National Monument. Point Reyes
National Seashore and Joshua Tree National Park have granitic magma-chamber rocks of the eroded arc, and Pinnacles
National Park preserves volcanic rocks. Rocks have been disrupted by shearing and other forces associated with the transform
plate motion and, in some instances, transported northward a long distance from where they originally formed.
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NPS sites in California reveal that ancient subduction zone rocks were disrupted and have moved long distances along the San Andreas Fault.
Modified from “Beauty from the Beast: Plate Tectonics and the Landscapes of the Pacific Northwest,” by Robert J. Lillie, Wells Creek Publishers, 92 pp., 2015,
www.amazon.com/dp/1512211893.
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Rocks found today along the San Andreas transform plate boundary originally formed in a subduction zone, when the ancient Farallon Plate dove
beneath the edge of North America.
Modified from “Beauty from the Beast: Plate Tectonics and the Landscapes of the Pacific Northwest,” by Robert J. Lillie, Wells Creek Publishers, 92 pp., 2015,
www.amazon.com/dp/1512211893.
The magnitude 7.8 San Francisco Earthquake struck the morning of April 18, 1906. It caused extensive damage to the city,
including fires that lasted for several days, and killed an estimated 3,000 people. The earthquake ruptured a large portion of the
San Andreas Fault, including land that is now Point Reyes National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The
Earthquake Trail at Point Reyes weaves back and forth across the fault line. Exhibits along the trail include the reconstruction of a
fence that was offset 16 feet (5 meters) during the 1906 earthquake. Doing some quick math, one can appreciate how
dramatically plate-tectonic forces can affect the landscape, even in our lifetimes. The average movement of the Pacific Plate past
the North American Plate in California is about 2 inches (5 centimeters) per year. If a segment of the San Andreas Fault is
“locked” for a century, then a large earthquake might result in 200 inches (2 inches/year x 100 years) of movement along the fault
in less than a minute. The 16 feet (about 200 inches, or 5 meters) of offset along the fence line thus carries a powerful message.
Every century or so a large earthquake is necessary to release stress accumulated along large segments of the San Andreas
Fault that lock rather than slip smoothly. This type of knowledge helps us better design and site infrastructure, and develop
disaster preparedness plans so that our families and communities are less at risk when earthquakes do strike.
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The granite rocks are similar to those found in Yosemite National Park. They formed beneath ancient subduction zone volcanoes, were plucked from
the edge of the North American Plate, and transported more than 300 miles northwestward along the San Andreas Fault.
USGS photo.
An offset fence line reveals the 16 feet (5 meters) of lateral ground breakage that occured as the San Andreas Fault suddenly let
loose during the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.
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Long ridges and valleys around San Francisco Bay are in the zone of shearing along the transform plate boundary.
Photo courtesy of Robert J. Lillie.
Layers of ocean sediment were squeezed and contorted as they were caught in the vise of the converging plates at the ancient
subduction zone.
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Parks in western California contain blocks of crust that have moved great distances north-northwestward along the San Andreas
Fault. Volcanic rocks at Pinnacles National Park were displaced about 190 miles (305 kilometers), while granitic rocks of Point
Reyes National Seashore have moved about 310 miles (500 kilometers).
The pinnacles are the eroded remnants of hardened volcanic breccia—slurries of mud and rock from explosive eruptions.
Photo by Robert J. Lillie.
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The Transverse Ranges north and east of Los Angeles are so named because they trend in an east-west direction, contrary to
the northwest-southeast orientation typical of other ranges along the San Andreas transform plate boundary. They form due to
north-south compression where the San Andreas Fault bends to an east-west orientation. The compressed and uplifted region
includes the Santa Monica Mountains north of Los Angeles as well as the Channel Islands south of Santa Barbara.
National Park Service sites in the Transverse Ranges include Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and part of
Joshua Tree National Park. Channel Islands National Park includes five islands that are the tops of a mostly-submerged portion
of the Transverse Ranges. The islands contain sedimentary layers and pillow lavas that formed on the ocean floor. Like many of
the rocks that are caught up in the zone of transform motion between the Pacific and North American plates, the rocks at Channel
Islands National Park were deformed as part of the accretionary wedge during earlier subduction of the Farallon Plate.
The San Andreas Fault Zone is not the only active transform plate boundary with U. S. National Park Service sites. Southeast of
Florida, the Caribbean Plate is sliding east-northeast about 0.8 inches (2 centimeters) per year relative to the North American
Plate. Both plates are capped by oceanic crust. On the east, the North American Plate is subducting westward, forming
volcanoes of the Lesser Antilles Island Arc. Transform boundaries occur on the north and south sides of the Caribbean Plate. The
motion on the north is not pure transform; there is some convergence that contributes to uplift of the topography. The long
mountain ridges and narrow bays in the region surrounding U. S. Virgin Islands National Park are a product of compression due
to the convergence, in addition to lateral motion due to shearing along the transform plate boundary.
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Carribean Tectonic Map
The Virgin Islands are in a broad zone where the landscape is
being sheared up as the Carribean Plate slides eastward past
the oceanic part of the North American Plate. Active volcanoes
of the Lesser Antilles Island Arc form as the North American
Plate subducts beneath the Caribbean Plate.
Seafloor topography map source: “Global sea floor topography from satellite and
Virgin Islands National Park is a sheared-up landscape forming as the Carribean Plate slides eastward past the oceanic part of the North American
Plate.
Photo courtesy of the National Parks Conservation Association.
Figures Used
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PHOTO GALLERY
Related Links
NPS—Geoscience Concepts (https://www.nps.gov/subjects/geology/geology-concepts.htm)
NPS—Be Geohazard Aware (https://www.nps.gov/subjects/geohazards/index.htm)
Text and Illustrations by Robert J. Lillie, Emeritus Professor of Geosciences, Oregon State University [E-mail
(https://www.nps.gov/common/utilities/sendmail/sendemail.cfm?
o=798AD9BE8FC7E1909DB71FA6FC37A4BF439A49814FA28D8B5A51AB830B&r=/subjects/geology/plate-tectonics-
transform-plate-boundaries.htm)]
Produced under a Cooperative Agreement for earth science education between the National Park Service's Geologic
Resources Division and the American Geosciences Institute (https://www.americangeosciences.org/).
Yes
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No
Experience More
SUBJECTS PARKS ORGANIZATIONS
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