Rapid creation and destruction of sedimentary basins on mature strike-slip faults: an example from the offshore Alpine Fault, New Zealand

Abstract

Seismic reflection profiles and multibeam bathymetric data are integrated to analyse the structure of the 25 km-long strike-slip Dagg Basin associated with the marine section of the Alpine Fault, Fiordland, New Zealand. The basin is developing in almost 3000 m water depth at a releasing bend, whilst contemporaneous transpression results in inversion of its southern end. Fiord-derived glacio-marine sediments flooded the basin during the last glaciation, and provide a stratigraphic framework for structural analysis. Geometrical analysis enables an estimation of 450–1650 m of dextral displacement on the Alpine Fault at the releasing bend since the development of an unconformity estimated to have formed at between 30 and 110 ka. This implies a dextral slip rate ranging from a possible minimum of 4 mm/yr to the maximum of 35 mm/yr constrained by the Pacific–Australian plate motion rate. Despite total dextral displacement of 480 km on the Alpine Fault zone and a growth history spanning 15–20 Myr, this geomorphically well expressed and structurally complex strike-slip basin developed and evolved rapidly during the late Pleistocene, and thus represents only the latest phase in the evolution of the Alpine Fault. Upward splaying structures within the fault zone exhibit a rapid spatial evolution in Pleistocene strata, which may reflect the interactions between high fault slip rate, voluminous sedimentation supply, inherited structural complexities in the basement rocks and deeper cover sequence, and interactions between adjacent faults. The present through-going releasing bend at the northern end of the basin may have evolved from a more complex pull-apart basin that developed between separate segments of the Alpine Fault. The results from Dagg Basin illustrate the rates at which structural complexities and sedimentary basins can develop within highly active, very mature, through-going continental wrench faults. Strike slip basins on the scale of 40–80 km 2 on such faults may be ephemeral features that can be developed and destroyed on a time scale of 10 5–10 6 years.